By Parker Anderson

The Elks Opera House, or rather, the Elks’ Theatre as it was universally being called in the 1920s, was predominantly a movie theater, although manager Charles Born did let local civic organizations use it to hold fund-raising events from time to time.

Actor Mitchell Ingraham was a major figure in the history of the Elks Opera House at that time and Prescott area entertainment in general. He is largely forgotten today, even by local historians. Born in Illinois in 1872, few details of his early life are known, except that he became a stock player on stage in Illinois and possibly other locations.

He arrived in Prescott in the early 1920s with his foster son, Lawrence (who would later become a clerk to the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors). While in Prescott, he found stage opportunities to be rare, so he went about creating some for himself. He saw his opportunity to perform by organizing benefits at the Elks’ Theatre.

He made his first known appearance at the Elks on June 7, 1923 in a version of Booth Tarkington’s play, "Clarence," which Ingraham organized as a benefit for the Ernest A. Love Post of the American Legion. He followed this up with two more plays to benefit the American Legion and soon he was called on to organize fund-raisers for other organizations. Mitchell Ingraham became a familiar face at the Elks’ Theatre and other places around Prescott. His son, Lawrence, often appeared in his father’s productions and also separately in others.

In Prescott, Ingraham utilized local talent for his shows, including Helen Born. He always directed his own shows and cast himself in prominent roles. Actors directing themselves on stage has always been controversial, both at professional and non-professional levels, although it does happen. Even today, there are a number of local theater people who frown on the practice, but such concerns never bothered Mitchell Ingraham in his day.

Always on the lookout for greener pastures, Ingraham occasionally left Prescott to accept stage roles elsewhere and, circa 1926, he appeared in several shows in San Francisco, including Avery Hopwood’s, "The Best People." He was apparently impressed with this play and, upon his return to Prescott, he put together a production of that same show in the Elks’ Theatre on June 27, 1927 in which he cast Pauline Rosenblatt, Dora Rosenblatt, and Harriet Fay Southworth (later to become the mother-in-law of Tex Ritter).

More appearances at the Elks followed, including an evening of one-act plays on August 10, 1929 which included Grace Chapman in the cast. On October 26 of that same year, Ingraham produced a show called, "Fifty Years from Now," which humorously depicted life in Prescott in 1979! The author of the locally written show is not known, but it was probably Mitchell Ingraham himself. No scripts are known to have survived; otherwise it would be interesting and fun to see how close their predictions were!

Ingraham’s final appearance at the Elks was in 1932, in a play called, "The Candidate," by George Ade. After that, he moved to Los Angeles where he tried to break into the movies. How successful he was depends on your point of view. The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) lists 45 movie credits for him, but always in bit parts and usually without screen credit. Even if a performer had a couple of lines from time to time, bit players did not always receive screen credit as they do today. Ingraham was seen in such films as "Black Fury" (1935) with Paul Muni; a bit part as a wedding minister in "Stella Dallas" (1937) with Barbara Stanwyck; "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" (1939) with Jimmy Stewart; and most notably, Orson Welles’ "Citizen Kane" (1941), in which he played a ‘politician in Madison Square Garden.’ Did any of his Prescott friends ever recognize him in these brief bits when they went to the movies?

Mitchell Ingraham died in Los Angeles on September 23, 1944 at the age of 72 shortly after filming a bit part for the Hedy Lamarr movie, "Experiment Perilous," in which he played a bellboy. He was survived by his foster son, Lawrence, and wife Grace, but it has not been ascertained whether she was married to him during his Prescott years.

(Parker Anderson is Official Historian of the Elks Opera House)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Courtesy of author, Photo by Stroupe & Fay, San Francisco, 1926) Reuse only by permission.

Mitchell Ingraham would occasionally accept stage roles in California during his Prescott years and is shown here in a play in San Francisco in 1926 with Florence Roberts (NOT the actress by the same name who performed in Prescott in 1905) and Dale Winter.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Courtesy of author) Reuse only bypermission.

Elks’ Theatre playbill, 1927.