An interview with the owner of Des Moines’ landmark Varsity Theater
By Shirley Long
When asked why he’s in the movie business, Bob Fridley answers, “I love movies!” When he graduated from high school in 1935 in the midst of the Depression with no job, Bob Fridley started his career on the “kerosene” or “jack rabbit” circuit. This meant he rented portable film equipment and a panel truck to bring movies to community halls and empty stores in small Iowa towns that had no movie theatres. Gravel roads were considered good roads and Fridley’s business thrived. However, it was not profitable enough to keep him from going broke. We discussed the idea that everyone should go broke at least once in their lifetime. Fridley says it’s a valuable lesson which helps one determine not to let it happen again.
In 1941, he rented a theatre in New Sharon for $35 a month plus $15 a week for the equipment. After four months, he was doing well enough to quit his day job, but a year-and-a-half later he was drafted, so he put his theatre and film skills to work for Uncle Sam. Following the war, he took film courses at USC, married an Iowa farm girl, and started renting, buying and rennovating theatres. Fridley Theatres [as of press time in 1998 showed] movies on in 37 cities on 80 screens. Throughout Bob Fridley’s career, he has tried to give the public an opportunity to expand and raise the level of their tastes beyond “explosions” and “chase scenes” — sometimes with modest success and the rest of the time with limited success.
What big changes has Bob Fridley seen in the movie business? (1) Two years after television went on the air in Ames in 1950, TV began to have a major impact on the movie-going public. (2) Multi-plexes with twenty screens are becoming common, but the actual viewing theatres are becoming smaller. (3) Nowadays small distributors come and go. Distributors also wait to see how a movie opens in New York and L.A. before deciding how many prints to order on the Monday after opening weekend. Sometimes they try to insist that a theatre owner provide a three-week run. (4) Few great musicals are made any more.
Bob Fridley has made two movies himself. One was “The Hazing” (not bad, he says, but a little slow in the middle) and a second one which he refuses to allow in his own video stores. Fridley has a healthy sense of humor about business, including his own movie business.
He and his wife own a home in Palm Springs. Over the years his friends and colleagues have included Frank Capra, Mervyn LeRoy, (who directed “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” and many other films), Irwin Fallberg, Ginger Rogers, Kathryn Grayson, June Haver, Fred MacMurray, Kathleen Freeman (of Donna Reed Festival fame), Virginia Mayo, Ruby Keeler, Margaret O’Brien, Betty Hutton, Joan Leslie, and numerous others. (He didn’t volunteer this list; I pressed him at the end of the interview.)
See you at the movies!