Known as “Mr. Show Biz,” Richard Klein was the movie mogul of Longmont.
Klein, who died on Feb. 24, just days short of his 96th birthday, “wheeled and dealed” to get first-run movies at all his theaters, said his daughter, Connie Lehman of Longmont.
Klein had been in the movie business since age 10, when he sold popcorn in front of his dad’s theater in Rapid City, S.D.
He later worked in New York City distributing newsreels for Paramount Pictures and managed 16 theaters in South Dakota before moving to Longmont in 1960.
He bought the Fox Theatre on Main Street, a “rundown place” according to a story in the Longmont Times Call. Business was slow at first. When a caller would ask what time the movie started, Klein would answer, “When can you be here?” said Lehman.
Klein remodeled it, renamed it the Trojan and went on to establish a network of 10 theaters in the area, including the Star-Vu Drive-In.
Klein battled to bring in first-run movies that often went to the larger nearby city of Boulder, his daughter said.
He also pushed the movie promoters to get premieres, and when that happened, the stars often came to town, his daughter said.
Ray David, who worked for Klein in South Dakota, remembers Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint coming to Rapid City after they filmed the 1959 film “North by Northwest,” which had several scenes on Mount Rushmore.
Getting first-runs wasn’t cheap. When Klein tried to get “Star Wars” in 1977, he came to Denver to talk with studio representatives. He got nowhere until he plunked a $10,000 check on the desk, said Lehman, who managed the family business, K-Theatres, for several years.
During and after the Depression, theaters offered incentives to lure customers in. Many had “bank nights,” with drawings of ticket stubs. “We gave away everything from lawn chairs to money,” said David, of Dickinson, N.D.
A dapper dresser, Klein “was always a gentlemen and enjoyed life,” said David.
Richard W. Klein was born in New York City on March 3, 1913. He lived in Denver as a child and graduated from high school in Deadwood, S.D.
He majored in history and political science at the University of Colorado but before finishing he returned to South Dakota to help his father, Charlie Klein, run a string of movie theaters that he and others owned in several states. He married Jeannette Waugh on Sept. 6, 1934. She died in 2006.
He is survived by daughters Connie Lehman and Kay Kelly, both of Longmont, and Dana Garel of Sacramento, Calif.; a son, Gary Klein of Boulder; 12 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
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