THE COOPER THEATER

The Cooper Theater opened on August 8, 1962 at 5755 Wayzata Blvd. The $1 million facility was built on 32 acres. It had tiered, plush (mohair?) seating for 800 people, and the lot held 400 cars. Hubert Humphrey and his wife were present at the grand opening.

The theater was one of the first in the country to be specially outfitted for Cinerama, which used three film projectors synchronized to make a panoramic image. It had a 135 foot wide screen [35 x 105], and the auditorium was described by the Star Tribune as a “perfect circle without a quivering piece of hardware.” One wag said it was haunted by a workman who died building it. 

A list of all of the movies that played the Cooper, the Cooper Cameo and Cooper 1 and 2 was compiled by three projectionists that worked the Cooper: Francis May, Joseph T. Lewis and Michael J. Varani. Fran May and Joe Lewis worked the Cooper from day one as part of the original Cinerama crew. Mike was hired when Fran May retired in 1980. Joe Lewis worked with Mike part time up until his retirement in 1987. Mike compiled all of the movies and brief equipment and ownership changes from 1980 to the 1991closing. Fran and Joe are responsible for the content from 1962 to September of 1980. The following are some milestones in the history of the theater, taken with permission from the database.

The first movie shown was the "Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm," on August 9, 1962. The ad in the Minneapolis paper had a list of places in outlying cities where one could buy tickets, and a coupon one could send in to buy tickets in advance.  When the Cooper played Cinerama, it was “hard ticket” meaning a patron bought a ticket for a specific seat.

On December 25, 1975, the Cameo Theater opened.  This smaller theater was built onto the existing structure – the big screen was never divided.

A Dolby CP 100 Unit was installed in December 1978.

On November 19, 1979, the theater was acquired by Plitt North Central Theatres.

In April 1982, a new screen and a Dolby CP 50 stereo unit were installed.

On November 12, 1982, the Cameo name was dropped and the theaters were known as the Cooper 1 and 2.

On November 7, 1985, the St. Louis Park Cooper Theater was the scene of the premiere of “That Was Then, This is Now, a movie based on a book by S.E. Hinton and co-starring Emilio Estevez. EE did not attend.

On November 22, 1985, Cineplex Odeon acquired Plitt North Central Theatres.

On June 22 and 23, 1987, Screen 1 closed to install Xenon and Platter.



But the market for Cinerama was limited and new and better technology came along. The theater fell into disrepair as receipts could not keep up with maintenance costs. The owners could no longer afford to operate it, and the death knell rang. There was a concerted but failed effort by many, including architect Gail S. Anderson, to save it as a National or State historic landmark, but the structure was not yet 50 years old. St. Louis Park did not have any similar ordinances, so the theater was done.

The last two movies, “Dances With Wolves” on the Big Screen and "Godfather III" on the small screen, were shown there on January 31, 1991. A correspondent who attended "Godfather III," which got out after "Dances With Wolves," was over said that when walking out, they were already removing chandeliers and other decorations.

The property, now just 2.2 acres, was razed in September 1992, at the time to make room for an Olive Garden restaurant owned by General Mills. Olive Garden went in elsewhere, though, and the site is now Stahl Construction.

There were two similar theaters built around the same time: The Indian Hills Theater in Omaha, Nebraska was closed in October 2000, over the protests of movie stars and other film people, and demolished for a parking lot in August 2001. The other such theater was in Denver, also built by the Cooper Foundation and opened in March 1961. It too was demolished in the early 1990s.

Fun fact:  from about 1950 until years later, the SW corner of 100 and 12, including the area of the Cooper Theater, had been owned by the New York Giants, who had planned to build a Big League stadium there. Bloomington was picked instead.

For a web site with pictures, see www.cinematreasures.org/theater/930

"How the West Was Won" was shown in 1963-64.

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This information comes from a variety of sources: newspapers, books, yearbooks, phone directories, interviews, etc. Given the varied sources, we cannot guarantee that all of this information is correct, and welcome any additions and corrections. Please contact us with your contributions and comments.