Volunteers worked into the night rebuilding the organ to prepare it for installation.ĭuring the theater’s renovation, a major change to the original structure widened the stage, and an orchestra pit had been constructed immediately before the front edge of the stage. Trucks and trailers were leased, and eager volunteers guided all the pieces to the H.P. They had one week to dismantle the organ and move it to Bristol. “Miss Marlene,” as the organ is affectionately named, was originally in the Paramount Theatre in Charlottesville, Virginia. The organ is valued at more than $700,000, but The Piedmont Theatre Organ Society leases it to Paramount Bristol for the sum of $1 per year. In the early 20th century, thousands of these gigantic pipe organs were installed in movie theaters throughout the U.S., Canada, England and Australia to accompany silent movies, according to an article on the Smithsonian Magazine’s website. This was a remarkable find because there are now only about 25 left in the U.S., never to be built new again. The pair received word from the Piedmont Theatre Organ Society that a Mighty Wurlitzer dating from about 1926 had suddenly become available. When the theater was being restored in the late 1980s for its grand reopening, project leader Mary Beth Rainero and the Paramount’s house organist Rex Ward began looking for a new theater organ. Parts of the organ were sent to various places in the Southeast, including the organ’s keyboard, which was donated to King University. The original organ was dismantled in the 1950s, when the theater was remodeled to accommodate updates to the sound system and picture display. Only two organs have ever graced the stage of Paramount Bristol on State Street, since it opened in February 1931.
Pieces of the Past: Historic Mighty Wurlitzer graces theater’s stage*
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