The loss of Malibu’s only movie theater is still sinking in for many local residents. It also has some longtime locals reminiscing about what they call “the old Malibu”—not just a smaller town, but in some ways a town that no longer exists—when life was more simple, friends and neighbors looked out for one another and going to the movies was a special, more intimate experience than at today’s multiplexes. The Malibu Times caught up with the wife of the original owner and founder of the Malibu Cinema for a bit of nostalgia about days gone by.
Eighty seven-year-old Betty O’Meara—who still lives in Malibu—moved to the city in 1969 with her husband, David. O’Meara described her late husband as an executive for a big company “sitting behind a big mahogany desk telling others what to do.” In the early ’70s, David O’Meara had met some sheriffs at a local watering hole and got to know them. It was then that the local law enforcement told O’Meara they had a problem: The youth in Malibu had nothing to do after school and needed something like a golf course or other activity to keep them busy and keep them out of trouble in the nearby hangout of Santa Monica.
“One day the local sheriff asked my husband, ‘Mr. O’Meara, would you mind opening some kind of business for the young people to stay inside Malibu?’ So my husband just happened to have a little luck in the Malibu shopping center and he opened the cinema,” O’Meara recalled. “It was small. He wasn’t used to running something so small. He was new to being behind the counter, exchanging money with customers. At first some people thought he was not fit to be the cinema owner.”
It may have been a rocky start for the late O’Meara as his widow explained that her husband was a “martinet” about people smoking or being ill mannered in the theater. “My husband was not used to dealing with customers—he was very strict with them,” she described. “Customers would have to behave in the cinema. There was no smoking or drinking allowed. People didn’t like him at all at first.” Other locals complained that opening the theater would cause more traffic on what was then a sleepy Pacific Coast Highway. “Malibu people then didn’t want any big businesses then, either. But the local people in the industry supported Dave when he opened the cinema. They all came,” Betty O’Meara reminisced.
It wasn’t long before Dave O’Meara’s kindnesses brought him success in his new small endeavor. The Malibu Times spoke with many people about wonderful memories at the old Malibu Cinema, including 30-plus year resident DeeAnna Staats.
“There were a few times way back when, when I would show up and we didn’t have our wallets or we didn’t have cash and they would tell us just to go in, enjoy the movie and the next time we came back we could take care of it,” Staats shared. “And they never asked for our name—nothing. They were just sweet. They recognized our faces and it was just really nice.”
Another longtime Malibuite, Nilo Falamaki, remembered the laid-back atmosphere.
“When you entered the theater, the guy who sold the ticket would then run over to the popcorn machine and sell you popcorn and then he’d run and tear up your ticket and then show you to your seat and then you’d go in and all your friends would be inside,” Flamaki said. “It was like a party.”
While Dave O’Meara was often behind the counter, Betty O’Meara worked behind the scenes from home, booking the films to be shown. O’Meara laughingly recalled that same telephone is still hanging on her wall at home today.
“At the beginning, they didn’t want to give me a good movie because it was a small theater and nobody knew of it,” she said. “But then I explained to them that my customers [Academy voters] are the ones voting for this because they were in the industry. So they decided to give me a better picture.”
Betty O’Meara said she recalls seeing many celebrities buy tickets including Flip Wilson, Lee Marvin, Johnny Carson, Barbra Streisand and even the reclusive Bob Dylan. O’Meara claimed her late husband would even drive some kids home, including the children of actor Martin Sheen.
“It was a local cinema just opened and it was very exciting at the time,” she said. “We had a nice community and they helped us a lot.”
David O’Meara ran the Malibu Cinema from 1972 – 1991. It was sold to Hollywood Theaters and then taken over by Regal Cinema until its closure last month.
