UA Cinema Center

Rocky's Second Long-Term Home in the L.A., CA suburb of Westwood

The UA Cinema Center in Westwood, CA was the second home of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, moving there on Christmas Day, 1975, after leaving the larger UA Westwood, a few blocks away. The UA Cinema Center was a second-run, 4-screen multiplex on Westwood Blvd (at Wellworth), just south of the main village, and showed The Rocky Horror Picture Show several times a day, including Midnight shows on weekends. Early fans of the movie flocked to the small theater for repeat viewings, until its first run ended in April of 1976. The film next moved to the Holly Theater on Hollywood Blvd, where it had healthy 6-month run as a stand-alone feature. Rocky returned to the UA Cinema Center when Rocky Horror went wide in over a dozen theaters in Los Angeles on October 6, 1976 on a double bill with Phantom of the Paradise at most theaters. At the UA, Rocky Horror was billed in the unlikely combination with a reissue of Nicholas Roeg's 1971 film Walkabout. In 1977, Rocky Horror became a Midnight-only movie at the theater.

The UA Cinema Center's midnight show developed its own regular following and "cast," and ran through 1983, when the place was remodeled and brought back as a 3-plex. Although there is no official data to confirm, there is thought that a combination of narrowing audience attendance coupled with wear-and-tear to the theater contributed to the end of Rocky's run at the UA. Today what once was a historic RHPS destination is a really big CVS drugstore.