Alex Theatre

The $25 ticket made you a VIP, allowing access to a pre-event reception catered by Damon’s Steak House. General admission was $10. Either way, the evening was a treat for baby boomers who remember what life was like in a small California community like Modesto in 1962. Fast cars and faster hormones ruled the cruising scene.

Spotted in the crowd were film buffs from Glendale Kiwanis including Jim Dyrness, Joel Zwick, Joe Mandoky, Harriet Trousdale and Jim Patric. Other Glendale residents included Shirley Darling, Mary Rough, Bernadette and Larry Hovland, teenagers Kathleen Sanders, Sarah Sanders and Morgan Campbell, 13-year-old daughter of Damon’s owner Patrick Campbell and granddaughter of Judie Campbell. Margery Parkinson of Canyon Country also joined the Campbell party.

“We wanted the kids to see what we did when we were their age,” Judie Campbell said.

Event organizer from Kiwanis Ron Youra and wife, Rosalie Youra, greeted former Glendale mayors Ara Najarian and Larry Zarian, good friends Monica and Jose Sierra, Debbie Hinckley, and Glendale FastFrame’s Vickie McConnell. Of course, Alex staffers Barry McComb, Elissa Glickman and Karen Smith held down the fort.

Proceeds will benefit Glendale Kiwanis/Ducks for Kids and Glendale Arts among other community charities.

Filmgoers watched a Warner Bros. cartoon of Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird, which were Crittenden favorite animated characters, Alex Film Society President Randy Carter told theater audience members.

Crittenden died June 4 in his childhood Glendale home of a brain tumor, his friends said. He was 80.

“There was nothing in this theatre he did not play a part in,” he said.
“There is nothing to do with film that George wasn’t a part of.”

Crittenden, a lifelong Glendale resident, began working as an usher at the theatre in 1944.

In 1950, he began working as a film projectionist at the Alex and Temple theaters in Glendale and Magnolia Theatre in Burbank.

Crittenden served as the Los Angeles Branch manager of Films Incorporated from 1960 to 1983.

He returned to the Alex Theatre and worked as the chief film projectionist from 1985 to 1991.

Crittenden was a founding member of Alex Film Society and rebuilt the theatre’s projection equipment in 1994.

Sunday’s film of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 musical “State Fair” was one Crittenden had asked the society’s board to be shown at the theatre several times before his death.

“He pitched it year after year, but we were kind of like ‘Nah’,” the Alex Film Society board member Pam Ellis said. “But now we are showing it in George’s tribute.”

Crittenden always had a smile on his face, the theatre’s Event Services Manager Karen Smith said.

“I miss my George,” she said.

He was knowledgeable about films and knew who was dead or alive in each film, the society’s board member Brian Ellis said, adding that Crittenden, who was an only child and never married, was a perfectionist.

“There was a certain way of doing things the right way,” Ellis said.

Crittenden often held summer night film showings for his friends at his home, society board member Linda Harris said.

Her fondest memory of Crittenden was every time she met up with him.

“When he saw me he would say “Linda” very softly with a smile on his face,” Harris said.

“He was good-natured man.”