One of L.A.’s iconic sports venues, nearly 100 years old but unused as originally intended during the last several decades, sits hidden in plain view these days.
The Grand Olympic Auditorium, built as L.A.’s answer to New York’s Madison Square Garden, may never get up off the canvas after its historic run doing business as a facilitator for boxing, wrestling and roller derby, as well as a coveted site for film and TV shows.
But anyone stuck in downtown traffic can peer south from the Interstate 10 Freeway and make out the framework of the distinctive Italian Renaissance design that has since been converted into the Glory Church of Jesus Christ, a Korean evangelical place of worship since 2005.
The business of restoring the Grand Olympic Auditorium’s multicultural ties of the city and its historic relevance has been worth a large investment of time, finances and resources for L.A. native Steve DeBro. The Covid-delayed launch of his documentary, “18th & Grand: The Olympic Auditorium Story,” is riding a wave of interest and bringing attention back to the former sports palace to see what the future may hold for it.
“The Olympic was a celebration in a way of, I think, the best side of Los Angeles in some ways,” said DeBro. “It was where Jewish and Filipino and Mexican-American boxers from all over the world came together. Yeah, it was violent and gritty and maybe scary, but it was also a place of communal gathering. Today’s sports stadiums, sure, people of all kinds come, but there was a certain energy about the Olympic, sort of barely controlled with little security and a free for all.”
Overruns and foreclosure
If not for Los Angeles voters repealing a law in 1924 that banned professional boxing for more than a decade, the Grand Olympic Auditorium might not even come into being.
At a time when the city’s population had doubled to reach about 1 million inhabitants, local L.A. oil men and real estate moguls bankrolled it for $350,000. It opened just eight months later but was significantly over budget and into foreclosure almost immediately.
The Los Angeles Athletic Club set up a land-lease agreement to take it over, led by J.M. Danzinger, the site’s original builder and also an attorney and partner with the famous oil tycoon Edward Doheny (who drilled L.A.’s first successful oil field in 1892). LAAC eventually took over the building and owned it up until the 1980s.
The city still seized on it to incorporate the Grand Olympic as part of its sales pitch to host a turn-key 1932 Summer Olympics amidst the Depression and help L.A. become a global city. It showcased boxing, weightlifting and Greco-Roman wrestling, right down the road from Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Still, the venue was losing money in the early 1940s when LAAC president Frank Garbutt appointed his private secretary, Aileen LeBell, who had a background in marketing and business, to investigate. She pored over the problematic bookkeeping and recommended the hiring of Cal Eaton, a boxing commissioner inspector, as the site’s new promoter.
Six years later, the two had married, and then Aileen Eaton learned the business, taking over management chores for the next 40 years with the help of some of boxing’s monumental matchmakers and legendary talent.
In 1980, the LACC sold the six-acre parcel – the 15,000-plus seat arena, adjacent parking lot and a gym – to real estate investor Jack Needleman for some $3 million. He vowed never to tear it down as it somehow survived in a downtrodden neighborhood dotted with graffitied warehouses, a homeless outreach facility for many of its local inhabitants and would eventually have a Metro Rail Blue Line stop for students accessing L.A. Trade Tech.
After his death, the Needleman family sold it to the Korean church in 2005 for a reported $25 million.
Legendary athletes
DeBro’s “18th & Grand” film project captures the essence of a bloodthirsty place that equally accommodated local blue-collar workers drinking and smoking along with the likes of mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen and entertainers from Rudolph Valentino to Mae West, Frank Sinatra to Jack Nicholson.
They saw Cassius Clay before he became Muhammad Ali, and years later got to sit up close as Oscar de la Hoya from East Los Angeles continued the lineage of local stars given a spotlight to compete.
But the storyline that ties it all together is obvious: Aileen Eaton’s strong-willed business acumen, coming out of World War II with the advent of local television – and searing the phone number Richmond 9-5171 into Angelinos’ memory – and keeping the place alive with accessible ticket prices and a variety of entertainment.
Eaton had died in 1987. When DeBro took a leap of faith to launch a $60,000 crowdfunding campaign eight years ago, he was driven to capture as many personal stories and recollections from those who thrived in this space before they were lost for eternity.
The Kickstarter.com response also revealed the local community was willing to donate their money as well as their own memories.
Guided by executive producer Willard Ford,
DeBro weaved it all into a raucous, quick-hit tapestry fueled by pulsating local music that became an acclaimed documentary film.
Its official release was last year. Initially, though, its debut was planned for what would have been a packed theater at the renowned Cinerama Dome in March of 2020, but the Covid pandemic shut everything down.
In the time since then, movie distribution platforms have changed with audience habits, DeBro and his GenPop Productions company pivoted to more of a direct-to-consumer model.
But it has grander plans.
A robust website (18thandGrand.com) and social media campaign have been the launching pad for merchandise as well as a means to purchase the film on Blu-ray, which has hours of extended features that couldn’t be included in the doc’s one hour and 23 minutes presentation. That dovetailed into a media deal to air the documentary locally on Spectrum’s SportsNetLA and Spectrum News, and that could lead to recognition with a local Emmy Award nomination.
Syncing it up
That all synchs up with DeBro and historian/partner Gene Aguilera curating an exhibition of Olympic Auditorium artifacts that will open in August at the La Plaza de Cultura y Artes Mexican-American museum and cultural arts center. The exhibit is committed to last through May 2024.
“It’s figuring out a business strategy that forces us to keep thinking on our feet,” said DeBro, former marketing executive for Atlantic Records. “Despite the kind of nonoptimal rollout, the film is landing, it’s quite alive, very exciting and fun; 2023 looks like the year where it’ll all come together where we at first hoped it would be in 2020. I see it all keep building up as the year goes on.”
DeBro describes GenPop as a “cheeky metaphor” more commonly used to describe where inmates might hang out in a prison yard, but his idea is “far less about isolation. The philosophy is to make this an experiential media company. It’s a two-way street, using the documentary as a blueprint for an information-dense kind of presentation that builds recognition. From there, we can make things happen with music, speaker series, exhibits, tours … whatever connects the dots between the neighborhood and the city, as well as bridging history and a younger generation. That’s the goal.”
Gaining attention
Jim Tosney, the founder of L.A.-based Fuel Up Entertainment, which specializes in sales, distribution, and content development, saw DeBro’s potential for success when they connected to strategize on how the film could attract attention despite limited marketing dollars.
“Steve knew and was passionate about the fact that there was an audience for his film, but exhibitor platforms are very wary to take risks and it’s safer for them to go with content they either already own or content that is similar or brought to them by established producers they already have licensed from,” said Tosney. “Knowing that the film is strong with lots of entry points for a diverse audience, we knew we had to build word of mouth by making the film available while also driving revenue.”
With one-off screenings and potential video-on-demand starting on a regional exhibition approach, the direction is pointed toward national and international distribution.
DeBro admits Eaton’s methods of doing business has stayed with in him: Sweat the details, respect your audience and give them value for their money.
“She was a late-bloomer in this business who saw an opportunity and did the work,” said DeBro, 57, who grew up in North Hollywood and got a political science degree at UCLA. “I have a team of people at my company, and I know I don’t need to do everything, but I need to know how it’s done and done correctly. I find myself as a facilitator of sorts of other people’s experiences – come with an open mind and learn not to be perfect but to get the story done.”
