Final curtain for historic Astor Theatre as closure announced for next year

MELBOURNE’S historic Astor Theatre will close its doors next year after a long-running feud between the proprietor and building owner.

Photo: Janine Eastgate The famous art deco Astor Theatre, is being relaunched. Picture of trades people who have been involved in the theatre refurbishment project.

MELBOURNE’S historic Astor Theatre will close its doors next year after a long-running feud between the proprietor and building owner.

Fans are “mourning” after it announced it will close next year.

The St Kilda theatre, opened in 1936, will show its last film on April 5 after the building owner Ralph Taranto and proprietor George Florence failed to reach a lease agreement.

Mr Florence, who has run the Astor Theatre since 1982, said he was “devastated” by the closure.

“It is a great tragedy and a great personal loss,” he said.

“What we have created here is quite unique and the scale of what we do is not matched anywhere else.

“You can clearly see the emotional attachment people have to the theatre.”

Mr Florence was offered a 10-year lease but rejected it because he was “unhappy with some of the clauses”.

The pair went to mediation and the Small Business Commission but were unable to agree on a new lease.

Northcote man Andrew Rujah has seen up to 20 movies a year at the Astor since 1995.

He waited on the steps of the theatre for it to open last night.

“I was a teenager in the 1970s and 80s and I’m a big fan of the old movies,” he said.

“I was too young to see them on the big screen then so I see them now.

“The theatre has taken up a lot of my weekends and brought me a lot of joy.

“It’s not like we are losing a McDonald’s or Myer, we are losing something that is never going to be around again”.

Assistant projectionist Jock Blakey said closing the theatre would be a huge hit to Melbourne’s cinema culture.

“It will leave a hole for Melbourne cinema-goers,” he said.

“From a purely personal perspective, I work here because I love the place.”

The building, on the corner of Chapel Street and the Dandenong Road, is heritage listed and cannot be demolished.

Friends of the Astor secretary David Kube said the group hoped a single-screen cinema would still run from the building after April.

The St Kilda theatre confirmed on Twitter this morning that it would shut, saying it was “humbled and overwhelmed” by people’s support after news of its closure broke.

“It is beyond difficult to deliver news that we will close our doors in 2015. We hope you will help us celebrate what the Astor is until then,” the tweet said.

The building will have to be returned to its original state, including removing the projector, fittings and air-conditioning, before the lease expires in mid-May.

The theatre is a heritage-listed building and cannot be demolished.

The Herald Sun contacted Mr Taranto for comment.

Astor Theatre, Windsor foyer, in 1999.