Charlie Root, the then city manager of seven movie theatres for the ABC Interstate Theatre Circuit, became a good friend in 1971.  Charlie hated that ABC had turned its back on the Paramount, allowing it to become a musty, worn out theatre.  These single screen theatres were white elephants and could not be retrofitted.  In those few years ABC let its lease lapse. Attendance was abysmal.  “Kung Fu” films had become the norm, drawing a pittance of an “audience” of males who would throw chicken bones at the screen when Bruce Lee was kicking ass and taking names.  Oh, there was a Popeye’s Chicken place cattycorner to the Paramount around 7^th and Congress.  The State was worse featuring black exploitation movies like “Super Fly”.

Wanting to give us a leg up, Charlie did two extremely important things.  First, he convinced Harry Williams at American Bank to lower the lease price from $3,600/month paid by ABC to $1,500/month for our fledgling company.  Even so, none of the three of us could imagine being able to cover the rent.  Second, he called the heirs to the Paramount to ask them to see me.  It was like talking to Mt. Rushmore in drag.  The interviews were flat lined, all except for Nancy and Slick Mathews, who were delightful.  Peg Cocke Nalle lived in the “mansion” bordering Windsor Avenue where Steve and Donna Hicks now live.  The entire time I was with her, she carried her purse right next to her!!! The group was already put out with the fact that they were receiving zero income from the Paramount nor could they sell it.  See below.

I digress for a moment.  The Paramount Theatre was actually sitting in two different trusts at American Bank.  Harry managed those trusts.  “Bobbie” Reed Crenshaw and her two daughters, Roberta and Lucy, were the heirs to one trust.  Sue Cocke Robinson, Peg Cocke Nalle, Nancy Mathews, Terry Jo Tynes and maybe someone else who escapes memory were the heirs in the other trust.  Each trust owned a 50% interest.  Therefore, no one controlled the fate of the Paramount. They couldn’t sell it, tear it down or give it away.  It is illegal for a trust to give an asset away.

The unhappy partnership of these women was made much worse by an earlier event that would put these women at loggerheads with one another for a lifetime.

In about 1934, Roberta “Bobbie” Reed Crenshaw was a young, twenty year old coed at UT.  She had studied ballet but I don’t remember where.  Somehow, she met Malcolm Reed, a wealthy businessman, who was in his sixties.  A romance started up which led to their marriage.  The women in the Reed, Cocke and Nalle family were “perturbed”.  Malcolm made his fortune in the cotton industry, owned downtown property in New York City, farms in Kentucky, banking interests and an ownership of a couple thousand acres of what would become Lake Travis.  It was reported, by more than one person, that Malcolm succumbed in bed one night. His fortune was split up between the various heirs.  She later married a man named Fagan Dickson who became infamous for putting up a billboard on I35 that said, “Bring Lyndon Home”.  I met Bobbie while she was in the divorce process with him.  It was a bad time for her.  Consequently, her visit with me was muted.  She ended the conversation saying, “You seem like a young man with a dream.  Good luck”.

Three years later, she agreed to be on our new board of directors, which had its first meeting in her home in Tarrytown at Reed Manor on Bowman just west of Exposition.  She had also met Ben Crenshaw’s father, Charlie Sr. maybe a couple of years later and they married.  It was a perfect union.  Charlie was the most affable, kind, warm and decent man you could imagine.  I was lucky enough to spend time with them at their home in Bella Vista.  I think that’s what they call the area at the bottom of Scenic Drive before you turn right up a steep hill and then left.  Bobbie and I became good friends over the next thirty years.  A more gracious, classy and generous woman would be hard to find.  She did so much for Austin.  Reed Park on Exposition, the Austin Civic Ballet, the Paramount, The Town Lake hike and bike trail and God know what else. See Roberta’s Biography for more details.

Now the story changes path.  When I was lobbying the Department of Commerce’ Economic Development Administration (“EDA”), we ran headlong in to what seemed an impenetrable wall.  We had to own the building to justify the government putting money in to its restoration.  At that time, we had a one year lease (or maybe a little longer).  How in the hell would we (a) convince the heirs to donate a theatre that (b) could not be given away per trust rules.  Bobbie’s lawyer, Sander Shapiro, concocted a brilliant plan.  Here’s the short hand.  Bobbie owned an office building that was not part of the trust.  She donated that building to the Paramount organization.  We, in turn, swapped it for her interest at the bank.  A swap, if of equal value, was permissible.  The bank received a real asset that could be sold.  I’d like to have seen the financial formula and what value they put on the Paramount for that transaction.  As for the other trust, they agreed to a 40/99 year lease.  Don’t ask me why it was 40/99.  The term of this lease, coupled with owning 50% constituted “ownership”.  Between those two events, we did, in fact, now own the Paramount which opened the way for possible funding from the EDA. As a result of Bobbie’s heart, we cracked open the EDA for $1.85 million in 1978/79. The federal government restored the Paramount, entirely. Not a dime of City of Austin taxpayer money was used.