NEWS photo Stuart Davis

IVAN ACKERY reminisces with photos of his friends and the book
about his life on Theatre Row in his West Vancouver apartment,

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PAGE 20

ACKERY RECALLS MONROE, COOPER

HE HAS eaten dinner with Marilyn Monroe, carried Susan
Hayward onto the stage and spent the night drinking with
Gary Cooper. But West Vancouver resident and former
Orpheum manager Ivan Ackery didn’t start out rubbing

elbows with the stars.

Ackery’s show business cureer
got off to an unglamorous start in
May of 192) when he was hired as
a singing usher in Vancouver's
Capitol Theatre. “I'd go'down by
the organist and sing,’’ the 87-
year-old Ackery recalls, breaking
into verse.

“You've got the cutest little
baby face,’’ he chimes. ‘‘I used to
sing that.”

After the Capitol, Ackery ran
the gamut of various Vancouver
and Victoria theatres before
becoming the manager of the city’s
biggest and best venue — the Or-
pheum — in 1934.

There, Ackery played host to
some of the most famous names in
Hollywood. When sex symbol
Marilyn Monroe was filming River
of No Return, Ackery picked her
up at the airport and took her
downtown.

Later, Ackery joined the
blondebombshell for dinner at the
Hotel Vancouver. ‘tAnd | wasn’t
ailowed to pay,”’ he says woefully.

Ackery recalls one particularly
wild party at the Orpheum where

Gary Cooper danced the night
away. ‘‘He danced with all the

the cleaning
with oa
remember

usheretles and even
lady,’ he remembers
chuckle. ‘They all
him."

But after an evening of revelry,
Ackery and Cooper ran into some
trouble — they couldn't find a taxi
to take them home. ‘We went
back home on the waterwagon,”’
Ackery laughs. ‘‘We just hopped
on and rode the way.

“Gary Cooper was a good
friend of mine.”’ he says sadly.

As the manager of Vancouver's
premiere theatre, Hollywood brass

When you

consider all the
effort and time you
put into your skiing,

would frequently call and ask him
to pick up celebrities at the airport.

But one trip yeilded a star not to
popular with Ackery — Jerry
Lewis. ‘Jerry Lewis is one I didn't
like — he was tao snobbish.""

While he was manager of the
Orpheum, Ackery used to fet the
big stars slip out the back way to
avoid screaming fans. Hence
comes the name Ackery’s Alley,
the Orpheum's back alley recently
renamed to honor the long-time
theatre manager.

When the theatre was threatened
by developers, no one was quicker
to rally around her than Ackery.
“Tl went on the radio,’’ he
remembers of his efforts to save
the Orpheum. ‘‘They had the fot-
tery and | boosted that.”’

Ackery sums up his Orpheum
career fondly, “It was a wonderful
time I had there.’"

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