From left to right: Frank McBee (Tracor founder), Governor Dolph Briscoe, Janie Briscoe, Carl Burnett (Paramount board president 1978), H.C. Carter (Paramount board president 1981), Betty Wilson (board member) and John Bernardoni. Don’t know who is behind me.
Trying to raise money to save and restore the Paramount in the mid 1970’s was a total bear. We have no experience in raising money for anything much less a philanthropic project to restore an historic theatre. There were very few corporations of size in Austin and they shelled out very little for the arts. The number of private citizens of wealth was not that great and they were what Italians call people who are tight with their money “Genovese”. You could drop a silver dollar in their mouth and a centavo would fall out their ass. Because we were considered a local arts organization we could not get any attention from the giant national foundations like Kellogg and Rockefeller. The Texas Commission on the Arts had very few grant dollars. And, the National Endowment for the Arts gave little grants for programming – none for bricks and mortar. Most of their grant money went to the blue chip arts organization like the Alvin Alley Dance Theatre, large opera programs and a few of the largest regional repertory theatres in the country.
At the conclusion of my tenure in 1985, I could count donations of $10,000 from individuals on the fingers of one hand – in 12 years of raising money. There was only one grant over $100,000 and that was from the City of Austin. They gave us $120,000 in HUD money in 1976 which included badly needed funds to renovate the dressing room area below the stage so we would not get black balled by Actors Equity Association in New York. That issue was prominent at the time the City helped the theatre. More on that story in a coming narrative about the all black cast of the national touring musical, Guys and Dolls. I believe we received one foundation grant of consequence at $25K from the Meadows Foundation in Dallas. George Christian – former press secretary to President Lyndon Baines Johnson – was solely responsible for that grant. The money was used for our first lighting system. In the very early years of the project, The Austin Heritage Society gave us a $20,000 grant along with $15,000 from the Junior League of Austin. It was a big day when we received $1,000 from an individual. None of this was ever going to add up to the $3 million we needed to restore the theatre. It was never going to happen without a big hitter coming forward to knock it out of the park – unlikely in that era in Austin.
By 1976, I had already made a few marketing trips to the National Endowment for the Arts (“NEA”) in Washington, D.C. We were becoming very friendly with the agency populated by some very fine, decent no game playing professionals. One of the NEA execs told me that there was a long shot for possible bricks and mortar funding via the Department of Commerce. That made zero sense. The Department of Commerce had a separate agency within its ranks called the Economic Development Administration (“EDA”). I came to learn that the EDA was about putting people to work. The agency was similar to the old WPA and the Tennessee Valley Authority from the Depression whose job it was to find work for millions of out of work laborers gutted by the Crash of 1929 and the ensuing financial nightmare that was crippling the country. FDR was responsible for these public work projects wherein the government began to build dams, airports, railroads, port authorities, bridges, highways and even sports stadiums to get millions of people off relief. The EDA was different insofar as it would put money in to projects that were labor intensive yet managed by local and state government or private concerns. It still did not compute. However, I had no choice but to try everything and anything no matter how long the odds.
I met with the director of the local EDA office in Austin around early 1977. He was the classic political good old boy but a friendly soul. He was very polite and listened. He then said “no”. The Paramount wouldn’t qualify. FYI – the EDA and the Department of Commerce had never given money to an arts project in the United States if memory serves. I kept coming back to see him. He liked to go to the Driskill Hotel in Austin for a drink after work. I kept him company on occasion. Anything for the cause!
I had come to know Congressman J.J. “Jake” Pickle and his aid Jerry Harris. The Congressman was kind and attentive to me. He defied every stereotype of the corrupt, greedy self-serving politician. I mentioned to the EDA director that Jake Pickle was a supporter of the project. That generated an “Oh?” Jake Pickle was one of the most powerful politicians in Washington. Everybody paid very close attention to his interests. I also had some pretty stout board members – a kind of blue ribbon group of businessmen, prominent lawyers, well known society people, historic preservation leaders and so on.
But it was Jake Pickle that – in my belief – pushed the EDA to pay much closer attention to the Paramount. Lo and behold, it turned out that the Paramount was in a little designated area of downtown Austin called a “PWIP” (Public Works Improvement Project). So, technically, we qualified. At that point the EDA and the Paramount started to dance. The EDA granted the Paramount Theatre restoration project $600,000!! It might as well have been $6 million. To an arts organization in the 1970’s, $600,000 is a mind boggling number. It was a huge leg up but we still had $2 million+ to go.
The EDA director – knowing that we needed a lot more and had no place to get it – mentioned to me that the State of Texas had been receiving money from the EDA for the last few years. However, the money was never used because the State did not pass a resolution to put up matching state funds. I believe the State was supposed to match the EDA 1:5 or $1 dollar of state money for $5 dollars of federal money. So, the EDA money just kept building up in some magical account. The EDA director told me that we might be able to shake that money loose if we could come up with matching monies directed to a state agency wherein it became state funds, legitimately. However, in order to create this concoction, we were going to need political muscle at the state level. Enter Dolph Briscoe – Governor of Texas at that time.
Now, somewhere along this time we had assembled $125,000 in grant money that had not yet been spent. Frankly, I do not remember where this money came from. It was, however, not state money. Some of our influential board members – particularly attorneys who were extremely close to the Governor – started a dialogue about this relatively simple way to free up money that was doing no one any good. I do remember having a lengthy conversation with the Governor’s aid about how this might work. I relayed what I knew about the 1 for 5 matching formula and the fact that the legislature had never created matching dollars. I don’t think it was much longer that we had an incredible meeting with Governor Briscoe. It was a meeting that I will never forget as it was my first time to see behind the scenes power move in an effortless manner. We might as well have been playing gin rummy.
The meeting was attended by a number of prominent lawyers on my board and other businessmen including Jim Wilson, George Christian, and Shannon Ratliff, Gaylord Armstrong, Carl Burnett and others whom I can’t remember. Then there was Governor Briscoe and at least one senior staffer. Now my board members and I had not developed a strategy for who would say what and in what order in the meeting. I think Carl Burnett started the conversation with a 1 minute comment and then said, “John, tell the Governor what you want”. Imagine all the air being sucked out of a room in seconds. When my brain began to function again, I told the Governor exactly what I had been led to believe about the EDA money building up in the State coffers with no State matching funds to release it any time soon. I had already gone over this ground with his aide. And, I’m sure someone in that room from my Board had talked to Governor Briscoe on some level. The Governor was very attentive and relaxed. We were all pals that day sitting around his office while a skinny Italian kid tried to massage the Governor for a big number.
I began by telling the Governor that we had some grant money which we could, legally, give to the Texas Historical Commission which magically became State money. Then I said, “Governor, now given the match required what if we gave the Commission $25,000. Would you allow $100,000 of EDA money to be added to it from this inactive EDA State fund? He looked at me and said, “Yes, I think we could do that”. Eureka. Light banter broke out in the room for five minutes or so. I then said, “Governor Briscoe, hypothetically, what if we could come up with $50,000. Could you allocate $200,000 of those EDA funds to the Paramount? He rocked back in his chair and eyeballed me. He said he thought he might be able to go that far. A little more time passed before I broke in to the conversation. I said, “I know what I’m about to say is going to seem ridiculous, but what if we could come up with $100,000 of our own money. The room erupted in to laughter and the Governor smiled warmly. He said OK. As it turned out, I knew we had $125,000. The Governor ended up approving $500,000 to match it with EDA dollars. Thus, the Paramount was granted $625,000 on top of the first $600,000 Jake Pickle helped us with.
About a year later, it was obvious we were never going to raise enough money to finish the restoration even with the $1.25 million from the EDA and the State of Texas. A few calls were made. We ended up in the office with the original director of the EDA here in Austin where this odyssey began. He awarded us another $600,000. I’m not really sure how that third grant came to be but it seemed to be like fallen fruit. Thus, the Department of Commerce and the Economic Development Administration granted the Paramount Theatre $1.85 million by 1978-1979. I still believe – as of that time in history – we were the first arts organization to ever receive a nickel from the EDA. As time went by, some of my colleagues around the country got wind of what happened and I gave them the primer on how to unlock the EDA piggybank. I believe there were still a few million in the EDA State of Texas account that still remained unmatched but that is a guess.
My memory is that the restoration cost through September of 1980 was $1.85 million. That is when we re-opened for our new season of Broadway shows, dance, concerts and myriad other touring groups. I’m really not sure if that final tally is accurate. Not many people realize that the restoration of the Paramount Theatre was accomplished mostly with $1.85 million of federal government dollars. The City of Austin, in the end, covered about 4% of the total cost with that $120,000 HUD grant in 1976 I mentioned earlier.
Had it not been for that tip from the National Endowment for the Arts I received in 1976, no one on earth would have ever even thought about contacting the Department of Commerce. That said, there would be no restored and revitalized Paramount Theatre today. Thank you Uncle Sam, Joe with the EDA, Jake Pickle and Governor Dolph Briscoe! And a special thank you to the National Endowment for the Arts.
P.S. One of our most prominent attorneys in Texas said the following as we were walking out of Governor Briscoe’s office. “I hope there’s not a paper trail”.
