Nightclub on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California

How to Get There

Overview

The Roxy Theatre (often just the Roxy) is a nightclub on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California, owned by Lou Adler and his son, Nic.

History

The Roxy was opened on September 23, 1973, by Elmer Valentine and Lou Adler, along with original partners David Geffen, Elliot Roberts and Peter Asher. They took over the building previously occupied by a strip club owned by Chuck Landis called the Largo. (Adler was also responsible for bringing the stage play The Rocky Horror Show to the United States, and it opened its first American run at The Roxy Theatre in 1974, before it was made into the movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show the next year.)

Justin Higuchi from Los Angeles, CA, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons ; Image Size Adjusted

Neil Young and the Santa Monica Flyers (billed as Crazy Horse, a related ensemble) played the Roxy for the first three days it was open. Only three months later, the Genesis lineup with Peter Gabriel played several consecutive days at the Roxy, a run that some band members and many fans consider to be amongst their finest performances (due in part, to the intimate atmosphere and good acoustics of the venue).

Paul Reubens, then a struggling comedian, introduced his Pee-wee Herman character in a raunchy revue here in 1981 that included such aspiring comics as Phil Hartman and Elayne Boosler.

Tom Eyen's hit comedy Women Behind Bars enjoyed a long extended run with such stars as Lu Leonard, Adrienne Barbeau, Sally Kellerman, and Linda Blair, and was the site of the very first AIDS benefit ever held in Los Angeles on July 27, 1983.

The small On the Rox bar above the club has hosted a wide variety of debauchery in its history. The bar was a regular hangout for John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Alice Cooper and Keith Moon during Lennon's "lost weekend" in 1973-74 and hosted parties arranged by Heidi Fleiss in the 1980s.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Roxy Theatre (West Hollywood)", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0