1968 Los Angeles, California

Ada Iezza

Born in 1937

Los Angeles, California

Interviewed on September 23, 2019

by Stephanie Bang

The first movie I remember seeing in a theater was Gone With the Wind. I was 31, maybe 32, so it must have been the late 1960’s. By this time, me and my husband were living in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. We’ve been married for a really long time now, since 1958. There were a lot of theaters close by– it is Los Angeles, after all. There was one right off of Sunset and El Dorado, and of course the Chinese theater downtown, but we watched Gone With the Wind at Vista Theater on Sunset and Vermont.

Vista Theater was very nice; the theater was a big room, and the seats were on an incline, so you had the same view of the screen in each and every row. The chairs were pretty comfortable, too. You could sit wherever you wanted, but the theater was always packed completely full of people. Sometimes, you wouldn’t even be able to get a ticket. We had to plan ahead and get there early to make sure we could get in.

Now people always go to the theater they like, maybe because it’s close to their house or because it has reclining chairs or something. But back then, the theaters only showed one movie because they only had one theater hall, so we would go wherever the movie was. It didn’t really matter if we liked one theater more than another, we just went to the theater that showed the movie we wanted to see. It’s not like today where every theater shows ten different movies on any day.

My husband and I watched Gone With the Wind together, and I don’t remember a lot about what happened in the movie, but it was absolutely beautiful. It was a very good story about a wealthy girl from the South, and she loved this man who loved another woman. What was the actress’s name? Ah, yes, Vivien Leigh! And the lead actor, Clark Gable, was incredible in the movie.

Actually, we’ve met all sorts of famous Hollywood stars here in LA. My husband was an electrician. He had his own company and everything, and he fixed Gregory Peck’s refrigerator in Beverly Hills. In the 80’s, we met an Italian film producer, Carlo Ponti; he was Sophia Loren’s husband, actually. We are Italian you know, so that was a very special moment.

Anyways, back to the movie. I especially remember one emotional scene in the movie. Scarlett was pregnant, but after an argument, she got hurt and had a miscarriage. I still remember that clearly because that moment was so sad; I think many people in the theater were crying. I also remember the scenes of war very well, and I think people were able to relate to the story because it was a story of love but also war. When I walked out of the theater, I could hear everyone talking about the movie. Everyone loved it, and they were making a lot of compliments.

There wasn’t anything too fancy at the concessions stand. The options used to be very limited. They only had popcorn, soda, maybe some nuts and some candy. I would get the same thing every time. No food, no candy, just popcorn and coca cola. Now when you go to the movies, they have so many choices– all kinds of candy and drinks. At some theaters they even bring dinner right to your seat!

You know, we used to just have a little black and white tv. That little tv wasn’t really what you would call entertainment. We would always see the advertisements for different movies on the tv and decide to go. Going to the movies was such fun thing to do on the weekends, and they even weren’t that expensive, actually. You would get tickets right at the window, and they were 50 cents to a dollar depending on the movie. Actually, a dollar is even too much; it was never that much. Things used to be so affordable. You used to be able to go to the grocery store and get a week’s worth of food for a family for just ten dollars. Nothing like the way things are now.