This article from the Beverly Review is about Jimmy Coston, the owner of Beverly Theater, and whose movie palace we all freguented in our youth. Apparenty Mr. Coston had a more interesting life than we moviegoers knew about.
Movie eyes owner of ‘The Beverly’
by Patrick Thomas
For those who lived on the Far South Side from 1935 to 1976 and took in movies at the local cinema, “The Beverly” was a fixture in their lives.
The Beverly Theatre, formerly located on the southeast corner of 95th Street and Ashland Avenue, was one of the most impressive and revered theaters in an era dominated by grand, opulent movie houses built during the golden age of cinema. It was also the most coveted theater of its owner, the late James “Jimmy” Coston, a movie theater tycoon in the heyday of the industry.
A one-time Beverly resident who spent most of his days in the South Shore neighborhood, Coston lived an extraordinary life for a Greek immigrant with a seventh-grade education trying to make his way on the South Side. Ironically, it’s also a life that’s worthy of the silver screen, according to his great-nephew Nick Coston.
The younger Coston, a Beverly native who now resides in Washington, D.C., is now making a film about his greatuncle and calling it “Meet Jimmy Coston.” Nick said the feature film focuses on the relationship between him and his great-uncle through a series of dreams happening decades after Jimmy’s death in 1967.
“It’s a narrative about a truelife figure using facts and interviews,” said Nick, 52, who aspires to make his first film on a modest budget of $150,000.
“It’s a story of my relationship with my uncle 40 years after he died, how it has influenced me, my family, where we came from and how we came out of his life today and how it affected us, mostly in the good that we do,” said Nick, who sells billboard advertising around the country as a senior account executive for Clear Channel. “We were all brought up well, all polite, all stayed out of trouble, were well spoken, had successful careers and received great educations. We all grew up well. We grew up very rich without being rich.”
They grew up rich partly because of their incredibly successful uncle, who, when he died in 1967, left behind $5 to $6 million, his great-nephew said. Among that empire of wealth were several movie theaters and drive-in theaters across the Midwest. It also left a mountain of personal papers for Nick and his family to comb through. He said his great-uncle’s death was a wake-up call for his family.
“You grow up more spoiled and expect this is the way life is supposed to be with the family business. We thought, ‘We’ll always have a big guy,’ but then when he died we were more like rats jumping off the ship,” said Nick.
Nick never knew his grandfather, Sam Coston, who died of a heart attack at age 44. But he did briefly come to know Jimmy, Sam’s brother, his “substitute grandfather.” Given his success, Jimmy Coston became the patriarch of the tight-knit South Side family and generously looked out for them.
“The patriarch of the family holds everyone together. It certainly held one side together,” Nick said.
But Jimmy’s death caused the family of about 20 to go on their separate ways, Nick said.
“It caused a rift,” he said, “mostly with money and distance.”
Nick said his family never saw a windfall of cash. His father and mother, Sam and Dee Coston, who still reside in Beverly, lived relatively modest lives. His father worked for his uncle’s theaters in Indiana and Michigan, and his mother was a teacher. After Jimmy’s death, Sam helped manage several of the Chicago theaters and eventually sold them and operated a car wash of his uncle’s at 93rd Street and Ashland.
An unusual character
Jimmy Coston never lived a flashy life, but he did have his moments.
“He was a very unusual character. He had this reddish- brown hair, and everyone thought he was an Irishman,” said Dee. “He was a real character. He was erratic, but very interesting.”
He was a player in the industry and in Chicago, but no one would have hardly known it.
“Everyone knows about The Beverly, but nobody has ever heard of Jimmy Coston,” said Krista Reynen, an independent archivist. Nick contracted Reynen to research his greatuncle.
“He was not interested in being flamboyant or money. I think he was interested in being recognized, but he was not the big guy. He was not trying to being recognized,” Reynen said. “I think he could care less. He was known among the people he thought were important— the Catholic Church and charity organizations—and I think he thought that was enough for him. He was well known in his circles and had enough money to be in certain circles, but he was never famous. He didn’t do anything to be famous.”
While Jimmy kept a low profile, many of his friends and colleagues did not. Jimmy is one of the few people to be knighted by both the Pope and the king of Greece. He was a personal friend of Joseph Kennedy, the patriarch of the Kennedy Family (Jimmy’s daughter Betty dated future President John F. Kennedy). He was also a close friend and associate of the Warner Brothers, Harry and Jack, politicians like Richard J. Daley, and leaders like the Rev. John J. Cavanaugh and the Rev. Theodore Martin Hesburgh, former presidents of the University of Notre Dame. Jimmy donated abundantly to the school despite never attending it. He also had ties to infamous Chicago mobsters like Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti, whose operations Jimmy testified against in the trial of mobster William Morris “Willie” Bioff in 1943 over the mafia’s shakedowns of union-operated movie theaters in the 1920s and 1930s.
As accomplished as he was, Jimmy also declined several lucrative opportunities with other entrepreneurs, according to his great-nephew, who likes to think of Jimmy as the “fifth Beatle” for all the opportunities he missed.
Jimmy turned down an offer to go into business with Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds. He insisted his Beverly Drive-In, at 94th and Ashland, was better.
“He blew him off. He told him burgers aren’t going to be big. I’ve got the Beverly Drive- In,” Nick said. “He was a real character. He wasn’t a windbag. He was well-liked, funny and engaging.”
A few years later, he turned down an opportunity to do business with Sumner Redstone, who came out to look at Jimmy’s theaters and discuss investing in cable television. But like he did with Kroc, Jimmy turned down Redstone, who went on to head Viacom and become a multi-billionaire.
After spending the day touring his uncle’s theaters in the Midwest with Redstone, Sam Coston couldn’t convince his uncle to go in with Redstone, but he never would have known what the future held for the man.
“He was a very, very low-key, nice person. Little did I know he would go on to be the person he was,” Sam said of Redstone.
The right place at the right time
Jimmy’s colorful life has now become an interesting family project. The more they look into his life, the bigger the legend grows 42 years after Jimmy died. More importantly, Nick said, the film is bringing the family back together. His relatives Jim Ling, a retired film editor in California, and Matthew Friedberger, of the indie rock band The Fiery Furnaces, are lending their talents.
“The film has reunited us,” Nick said. “Everyone seems to get along well, and with e-mail, it’s so easy to keep up.”
Such technology was not available around the turn of the century when the 13-yearold James Kontonicolao arrived in the United States with two of his brothers. They settled in New Hampshire, changed their name to Coston and eventually moved to Chicago, where Coston took a job around 1912 opening and closing doors on an elevated CTA train, according to his great-nephew. A few years later, he took a job as a janitor and doorman at the Harvard Theatre, at 63rd Street and Harvard Avenue, and worked his way up to become assistant manager and then manager.
A short time later he began managing several theaters, booking films and partnering with Greek businessmen and other investors to buy several theaters in Chicago. By the late 1920s, Jimmy’s group owned about 20 theaters, and he was one of the leading partners.
“After he became the janitor, the rest was history,” Sam said. “He kept moving up because he was at the right place at the right time.”
In the early 1930s when business was really picking up, Warner Brothers purchased all of the group’s theaters.
“We always thought that was the greatest deal,” Nick said. “It netted him well over $1 million.”
In the middle of the Depression, that was no small chunk of change, but the deal only grew sweeter when Warner Brothers hired Jimmy as the Midwest zone manager for its theaters. The company paid him a yearly salary of $250,000, which was believed to be one of the highest incomes of any Chicagoan at the time, his great-nephew said.
The Beverly arrives
Around 1934, Jimmy bought several properties in Beverly around the intersection of 95th and Ashland. He then convinced Warner Brothers to build a luxury theater and let him manage it.
When the anticipated “Beverly” opened on June 4, 1935, a parade of 27 floats came through the neighborhood to celebrate. During a dedication ceremony on opening night, U.S. District Attorney Michael L. Igoe, said The Beverly was for the “clean, fine entertainment of adults, and the crystal laughter of children.”
The opening film was “Go Into Your Dance,” starring Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler. Advertisements in local papers listed the theater as “Chicago’s first completely modern theatre designed and erected especially for your pleasure and comfort.” It was cooled by refrigeration, offered free parking, and tickets were 30 cents for adults and 10 cents for children. The huge theater included nearly 1,300 seats, and was considered a modern marvel, something to celebrate in an economy trying to rebound from the Depression, Clark Rodenbach wrote in a 1935 article in The Chicago Daily News.
“In this day and age, when anybody spends a modest $325,000 in the building of a theater, with any number of operating movie houses wondering whether or not they are going to get their shirts back from the laundry, it comes under the heading of NEWS,” Rodenbach wrote.
Designed in the Art Deco style with a curved screen, The Beverly featured four-track magnetic surround sound and was one of the first to offer “perspecta sound,” which was installed for the screening of Disney’s “Fantasia” in 1940.
The movie theater was known as the “home of the single feature.” At one point in the mid 1960s, it ran “The Sound of Music” for 56 weeks. Adjoining the theater to the west was an ice cream parlor called Le Bon Bon, and to the east was Ed’s Toys.
With a number of extravagant theaters on the South Side and across Chicago, “The Beverly was one of the finest,” said Linda Lamberty, historian for the Ridge Historical Society.
“It was a really stunning building, just a real cool place. Anybody old enough who lived in the community has real good memories of The Beverly.”
By the 1940s, Jimmy branched off from Warner Brothers and bought and operated several theaters on his own. Because of the Sherman Antitrust Act, Warner Brothers and other studios could no longer distribute their own films in their theaters, and Jimmy came into ownership of The Beverly and other South Side theaters, such as The Rhodes, The Jeffrey and The Hamilton. The Beverly was always Jimmy’s favorite, said his great-nephew.
“The Beverly was his pride and joy because he got to design it, build and own it. He made a lot of money from The Beverly,” Nick said.
Along with his partner and close friend Arthur Wirtz, owner of the Chicago Blackhawks and Chicago Stadium, Jimmy started Coston Enterprises and bought five motion picture theaters in Chicago, three indoor and three outdoor theaters in Indiana and Michigan, and 10 indoor and six outdoor drive-ins in Wisconsin under the company Standard Theatres. Among them was the Delavan Theatre in Delavan, Wisc., where Nick worked while studying at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Family business
Jimmy, who was Greek Orthodox, married an Irish girl named Louise O’Connell, and they had two girls, Betty and Audrey. Jimmy converted to Roman Catholicism and frequently hosted priests and family members at his second home in Eagle River, Wisc. He also owned an apartment building that remains today on the 10900 block of South Longwood Drive and a house on the 9900 block of South Longwood Drive. Louise felt the house was too large for them to maintain; so Jimmy sold it, and eventually the family ended up living in the Powhatan, overlooking Lake Michigan in the Kenwood neighborhood. The Powhatan, now a designated Chicago landmark, was created to be the finest South Side high rise.
By coincidence, the Costons’ apartment was recently purchased by lifelong Beverly resident Bob Hamilton and his wife Keiren O’Kelly. The plush apartment is now also an ideal setting for Nick’s film with its 24-hour elevator operators, fine woodwork and buzzers on the dining room floor that Jimmy once used for service calls.
“Out of the blue, Nick sent an inquiry ‘To whom it may concern,’ saying the apartment had been in the family and asked if he could come over and take some pictures,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton, an attorney, found it interesting that he was living in an apartment owned by the man behind the theater he had come to love as a child.
“I still think about it every time I drive by 95th and Ashland,” Hamilton said. “I remember it really fondly. It was a neat place.”
The final days
Coston died in 1967 at St. Luke’s Hospital on the West Side of possible cardiac failure not long after meeting with Redstone. He had sent the family on a trip to Disneyland, and the timing of his death could not have been more difficult for Nick and his brother Jim, who had to interrupt the family vacation and return home to mourn their uncle’s passing.
While other Coston theaters were struggling, The Beverly was still thriving with a fantastic summer of sales in 1976.
A year earlier, it showed “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” when it won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and likewise, a year earlier Sam booked “The Godfather Part II.” Sam had a knack for running films that had already played out at other theaters, picking them up at a cheaper cost and betting they would win awards. He also put together a double feature of “The Godfather” and “Lady Sings the Blues,” and The Beverly sold out night after night in 1972.
The last films to play at The Beverly Theatre were “Mother, Jugs & Speed” with Bill Cosby and “Bingo Long Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings” with James Earl Jones.
In 1976, the National Tea Company, a one-time leading grocery chain in Chicago, inquired to the Costons about buying the property so it could compete with Jewel across the street, land Jimmy had previously owned as well.
“National offered $500,000. That was way more than anyone thought it would be worth,” Nick recalled. “Well, National Foods buys it, sits on it, and a month or two later they went bankrupt and sold it for pennies on the dollar.”
Nick said the family considered buying it back to keep as a theater, but that never materialized. The three-story building was sold to the Third Baptist Church in 1977, and it remains there today. The church has grown over the years with major renovations and additions to the building.
Questions arise
As more long-lost information is turned up on Jimmy, the more questions arise, Nick said.
“There were a lot of things we discovered well after he died that made him a bigger legend,” Nick said.
The questions concern Jimmy’s various finances, what he owned, how he got started, and his involvement with the mob, Nick said.
“He was on the outside. He never went inside in the circle, but he was heavily involved in dealings with the mob,” Nick said. “We want to know where he got all his money to do this. There is a lot of skepticism. He went from 0 to 60 real fast.”
Jimmy and his theaters were often the victim of mob shakedowns. When prohibition ended, Al Capone and his successor Nitti looked for new ways to gain ground. They took control of motion picture unions, threatening that union workers at movie theaters, like projectionists, would strike if the mob was not paid.
“It was tough going for theaters because they really had to pay up for the projectionists because they were labor-owned,” Dee said.
But try as researchers and family might, there is little evidence to pin any wrongdoing on Jimmy.
“He was never sued; they never found anything bad on the guy. He was very clean,” Nick said.
After Jimmy’s testimony in the Bioff trial, Bioff, who was indicted for tax evasion, extortion and racketeering, then testified against his mob companions, including Nitti. Shortly after Bioff’s testimony, Nitti, not wanting to return to jail, committed suicide.
Jimmy somehow worked both sides of the law. He never got into trouble, nor did he put his life in danger with the mafia. He undoubtedly cheated the system, but that was to be expected from a man trying to survive in a new country, Reynen said.
“He was a pretty cool cat. I don’t think he did anything to ruin his reputation,” Reynen said.
But his story is not just about the mafia and movies, or even The Beverly, Reynen said. Jimmy Coston’s story is alluring because he rose from the streets as an underdog to become an American success story of the 20th century.
“He is, in a way, a typical immigrant, but immigrant stories are completely riveting,” she said. “When they arrive here they have no money; they can barely speak the language; and they make it. That’s why I always say give the economic crisis to immigrants because they fix everything.”
This is part of the December 2, 2009 online edition of The Beverly Review.
Pat