Empire Theatre Glasgow

It was a theatre of dreams, an escape from the realities of everyday life for generations of families.

But 50 years ago this week, the curtain came down for good at Glasgow’s Empire Theatre.

Opened in 1897, the Sauchiehall Street favourite played host to every big name before time and the trend of TV entertainment at home caught up on March 31, 1963.

It was where you could easily get a ticket for Old Blue Eyes when disapproving Scots shunned Frank Sinatra over leaving his wife for Ava Gardner.

But hairs on the back of the audience’s neck stood up as a solitary blue spotlight picked out Judy Garland while she sang Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

Not another sound could be heard in the cavernous auditorium and Nat King Cole must have wished for the same.

Badgered by a Glaswegian to sing When I Fall In Love, Nat rashly said: “Perhaps you would like to come up and sing it yourself?”

The man jumped up on stage and started to sing the classic with his arm round Nat saying, “Come on Nat, join in!”

“It really was a magical place that still holds such lovely memories for people,” said Bob Bain, secretary of the Scottish Music Hall and Variety Theatre Society and an Empire regular.

“I know people who went there on their honeymoon and never forgot it.”

Bob Hope was just one of the global comedians who trod the boards with Laurel and Hardy carried shoulder-high into Sauchiehall Street.

But the Empire also had a notorious reputation for being tough, with rotten fruit and more hurled at the acts.

Johnnie Beattie famously summed it up: “If they liked you, they let you live.”

Morecambe and Wise arrived to find neighbouring West Nile Street under renovation and quipped: “They’re digging our graves already.”

And Ken Dodd recalls: “I was terror-stricken when I went on stage at the Empire the first time.”

But Bob says: “Being known as the graveyard of English comics was a bit unfair, although Des O’Connor did famously pretend to faint just to get off.”

Song and dance acts were big, with Tommy Steele recalling popping his head out of his dressing room window to wave to screaming fans.

“I felt a tap on my shoulder and there was the biggest copper I have ever seen in my life.

“He said, ‘If you stick your head out once more, sonny, I’ll knock it off.’”

The final night was a who’s who of Scots talent with Rikki Fulton, Jack Milroy, Andy Stewart, Johnny Beattie and the Alexander Brothers.

“It was a charity show and a really emotional affair,” adds Bob.

“At the end Duncan

Macrae and Albert Finney came on with pickaxes and struck the first blows of the demolition.

“It was so sad to see it go.”

Dino’s restaurant is on the site with traces of the foundations in the basement.