Robert J. O'Donnell (1891–1959) was an American businessman and philanthropist who, with partner Karl Hoblitzelle, managed the Interstate Theater chain as vice president and general manager from 1925 until his death from lung cancer in 1959. O'Donnell is best known for helping facilitate the growth of the "Majestic" chain of theaters during the "classical Hollywood narrative" and later for his philanthropic work both with the Variety Club Children's Charity and the Robert J. O'Donnell Film Series Endowment Fund for the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts.
American comedian and actor Bob Hope credits O'Donnell as the person who gave him his "big break into show business" in Hope's autobiography Have Tux, Will Travel. O'Donnell was also instrumental in beginning the acting career of Audie Murphy. While working as a theater usher at the age of twelve in his hometown of Chicago, O'Donnell survived the infamous Iroquois Theatre fire, the deadliest theater fire and the deadliest single-building fire in United States history; it killed 605 people.
Early life
R.J. O'Donnell was born in Chicago Ward 25, Cook County, Illinois on October 6, 1891 to Robert Emmett O'Donnell and Emma Megler O'Donnell, themselves children of Irish immigrants from County Donegal, Ireland. O'Donnell was the second born of five children. His siblings were Margaurette (b. July 1889), Maria (b. January 1894), Gerald (b. May 1896) and William (b. October 1898). As a child, O'Donnell attended the Fuller School on 41st Street in Chicago. However, at age twelve he began his career in show business as an usher at both the Old Chicago Opera House and the Iroquois Theatre.
The act headlining on the day of the tragic Iroquois Theater fire on December 30, 1903, was Eddie Foy and the Seven Little Foys, the First Family of American Vaudeville Theater. Future Warner Bros. producer Bryan Foy became one of O'Donnell's closest friends during his time at the Interstate Theater Circuit.
The death of his father in 1910 pushed R.J. into seeking greater roles of responsibility. As a result of the immediate financial strain, his family began taking on boarders from Pennsylvania to help with expenses. It was his Chicago theater contacts that would secure him a position on Broadway in New York City.
Career
New York City
Through a trusted Chicago contact, Lew Wiswell, O'Donnell secured a position as assistant treasurer of the Orpheum Theater on Broadway, in New York in 1911. He later stated that it was during this period that he perfected both his money management skills and showmanship. At this position, O'Donnell was earning enough to be able to put money away into savings as well as send cash home to his family's household in Chicago. After two years, O'Donnell decided that he wanted to open his own theater. He took his savings and pooled it with that of a local friend, Al Malone, and started an open-air theater in Newberg, New York. It failed. In a later interview in 1941, he recalls "the citizens of Newberg were not at all stupefied at such a venture and in fact, were so unimpressed that they managed to stay away in large numbers".
Interstate Theaters
O'Donnell went back to Broadway to work as a booking agent for several more years, establishing contacts and learning the business side of show business. In 1924, O'Donnell was introduced to Karl Hoblitzelle of Dallas, Texas, the owner of Interstate Amusements, a Missouri company that Hoblitzelle started with $1500 in 1905. Hoblitzelle offered O'Donnell a job as the manager of the fledgling Majestic Theater in Fort Worth, Texas.
In 1925, Hoblitzelle appointed O'Donnell as general operating manager for all of the Majestic Theaters in Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth. By 1933, O'Donnell had set up his permanent offices in the Majestic Theater in Downtown, Dallas Texas.
