Before Women’s History Month comes to a close, let’s remember that Culver City has benefitted from numerous strong women, who have contributed to local history. Looking back, there is documentation of Culver City’s first public theatre on the site of the Culver Hotel. Before the landmark hotel was built, that site hosted a two-story building with a ground floor theatre, real estate offices and the “Sweet Shop,” with second floor office space that included the new city’s municipal offices. The theatre was run by two ladies, Pearl Merrill and Laura Peralta, who had a history together as Vaudeville performers and became active residents and businesswomen in Culver City.
When Harry Culver made the decision to build his landmark hotel, the city offices were relocated to Van Buren Place, (EnjoyEat today), and the two ladies who ran the theatre decided to build their own theatre nearby. The theatre’s name was a combination of their last names, the “Meralta.” It opened in the 1920s featuring Will Rogers as the opening act, followed by a Thomas H. Ince film, “The Galloping Fish.” The Meralta theatre thrived until a fire demolished it in 1943.
With a wartime moratorium on building, the city allowed the use of the second floor auditorium of the 1928 City Hall for a temporary theatre. At the end of World War II, Pearl Merrill and Laura Peralta rebuilt the Meralta on the same site. The featured graphic is from a recent donation to the Culver City Historical Society, a 1945 invitation to the re-opening of the Meralta Theatre. Although the Meralta eventually succumbed to local redevelopment, the block in which the theatre existed is currently the home to the Meralta Plaza in downtown Culver City.
At the end of the war, plans were filed for a new movie theatre in town, the Culver Theatre, which pulled permits in 1945 and opened in 1947. Through the efforts of the (former) Culver City Redevelopment Agency, The Culver Theatre transitioned into a performing arts facility on a long-term lease with the Center Theatre Group, as the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Although our Studio Drive-in is just a memory, movies are still being shown in the Heart of Screenland in Downtown Culver City.
