Legendary film director Sidney Lumet died April 9 at 86. He directed more than 40 films, including 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon and Fail-Safe. But it’s likely that few, if any, of his obituaries mentioned the boffo performance he staged as a 19-year-old in Florida.
From 1942 to 1945, more than 10,000 men moved through the Southern Signal Corps School in southern Martin County. As many as 6,000 were there at one time, giving the place a larger population than nearby Jupiter.
It is now, of course, Jonathan Dickinson State Park.
The July 2, 1943, edition of the Camp Murphy Message raved about the original comedy On the Ball, co-written and directed by a GI named Sidney Lumet.
Sidney Lumet in 1956 (Associated Press file photo)
Despite only six weeks in preparation and rehearsal, Lumet’s three-act play, with six original songs, “was a distinct hit and brought down the house,’’ the Message said. “About 1,000 GI’s jammed the hall, sitting, standing and hanging from the rafters! It was easily the best thing of its kind ever done by Murphy actors.’’
The strategic training site was named for Col. William Herbert Murphy, a Signal Corps officer and radio pioneer who died in battle Feb. 3, 1942.
When the military had come to Florida looking for land for installations, the Reed family of Jupiter Island turned over 1,000 acres with the provision the land be restored to its natural state when the Army was done with it.
The Army bought about 17 acres from the pioneer DuBois family for $1,000.
In a winding 9-mile path between U.S. 1 and the railroad tracks, the military threw together more than 1,000 buildings.
Camp Murphy was deactivated in October 1944, although the Air Force and NASA operated there into the 1960s. Most of the property was turned over to the state for the park. The theater became a trash dump, the finance center a garage.
In 1947, a concrete water reservoir was converted into offices; later, it became an emergency operations center for a nation fearing nuclear war. It operated from 1953 to 1985. It is now the park office.
Through the years, the camp’s mess hall, chapel, many of the barracks and even the latrines were sold and became cottages, warehouses and other building scattered across the Treasure Coast.
Next week: The Murphy Message returns.
Army troops train at Camp Murphy, which is now Jonathan Dickinson State Park, in 1944. The camp was a training center for the Signal Corps. Sidney Lumet was a GI there in 1943 and entertained his Army buddies with a three-act comedic play titled On the Ball. The base newsletter featured a piece on it, saying it ‘brought down the house.’ (Palm Beach Post file photo courtesy of U.S. Army Signal Corps)
The Camp Murphy Players present “The Army Day by Day” for a bond drive at the Paramount Theatre in Palm Beach. (Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County)
Tags: Camp Murphy, Martin County, theater, World War II
Edgar Winter, Survivor and Bachman-Turner Overdrive performed for the intentionally low-key opening of the Sony Music/Blockbuster Coral Sky Amphitheatre on April 26, 1996. The amphitheater, originally named for the sunset-sky view from the west-facing seats, was later known as the MARS Music and then Sound Advice Amphitheatre, and has been the Cruzan Amphitheatre since 2008. Other opening season acts included Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Doobie Brothers, Ozzy Osbourne, and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Fans spread their blankets on the grass before a concert on Coral Sky Amphitheatre’s opening night in April 1996. (Palm Beach Post staff file photo)
Tags: theater, This Week in History
One of the more colorful characters in southern Palm Beach County was Emmett Campbell Hall (1882-1956).
Georgia-born Hall was the son of Delray Beach’s third mayor, John W. Hall.
“Began writing at age 16, fiction, newspaper features, research and popular-science articles, with sufficient success to make living,” Hall wrote in a 1942 résumé.
He claimed to have written about 600 original stories, producing dozens of books and articles as well as scenarios and scripts in the early days of film.
He produced no fewer than 68 titles between 1910 and 1917 — a staggering one every 5½ weeks.
The films, all silent, had titles such as A Day of Havoc, the politically incorrect That Chink at Golden Gulch, and The House With Closed Shutters.
“Overworked, discontinued this line to engage in — Farming, Florida, 1918 to 1924,” he wrote.
The Halls had moved to Delray Beach in 1919 and bought 1,500 feet of waterway-to-ocean barrier island north of Atlantic Avenue.
“Don’t I wish I had that property now!” daughter Evelyn Hall Ogren — now 81 and living in Boynton Beach — laughed.
Father and son Hall envisioned a “little Venice.” The bust did them in.
But not before they’d built the Delray Theater, at Northeast Fifth Avenue near Atlantic. It opened Christmas Day 1923.
According to Dorothy Patterson, archivist for the Delray Beach Historical Society, the Spanish-style theater had a dance floor on the roof and the town’s first air conditioning: huge blowers and blocks of ice.
“The women frequently complained that they had stiff necks or sore joints as a result of sitting in the draft,” pioneer Lora Sinks Britt wrote in her 1984 memoir, My Gold Coast. “I always liked it. At least I was cool for a while on a hot summer night.”
The big studios elbowed out “indie” theaters, and the Halls lost their theater in 1938. It had various uses before it finally was razed in 1961.
Ogren was born in the Hall family home at 116 N.E. Sixth Ave., on Federal Highway just north of Atlantic Avenue. It was sold in 1941 to the Falcon family, which operated a pharmacy. The house later became the Falcon House restaurant, which still operates.
Photos courtesy of Delray Beach Historical Society
The Delray Theater, built in 1923, opened on Christmas Day that year. Emmett C. Hall was the owner. Before he came to Delray, he had been one of the earliest scenario writers in the brand-new field of motion pictures. The theater had a rooftop dance floor. It was built in a beautiful Spanish style, and this photo shows the large Art Deco-style marquee added later.
For more information: Delray Beach Historical Society: (561) 243-2577. Web page: www.db-hs.org.
Tags: Delray Beach, theater
