The Starlight is one of only about 330 drive-ins left in the country, one of only five left in Georgia and the last drive-in in Atlanta - all of which beg the question: What’s kept the Starlight going the past seven decades? providing 70 continuous years of affordable entertainment.” He describes three generations of his family going to the theater. “Starlight was a place he and his family would go to while he was growing up in Atlanta.”įormer manager and current Starlight enthusiast Jim Stacey can relate. “Donald personally chose the Starlight Drive-In as the venue,” a spokesperson for the show said. In addition to the daily grind of putting up movies on three screens every night, as well as an expansive flea market every weekend, the Starlight held the most recent premiere for Atlanta, the FX show produced by and starring hometown hero Donald Glover. This year marks the 70th anniversary of Atlanta’s famous drive-in. For the Starlight, that means close to 2,000 cars and between 5,000 and 8,000 people. “With one of the big blockbusters - Black Panther, Straight Outta Compton - we’ll sell out, especially in the summer,” says night manager Shawn Culver. “We’ll probably get, I dunno, 100 cars here tonight.” On this Friday night, it’s still chilly out, the spring temps not yet making it past sundown. “It all depends on the weather,” says employee Simone Robleto. The Starlight’s employees, fueled by Baja Blast Mountain Dew, jump at the chance to help folks navigate the drive-in’s dark lanes and undulating, concrete humps. Next, a pickup truck with a couple on an anxiety-ridden date, followed by a Jeep with three teenagers who giggle through the ticket-buying process and smell like weed. "It sound morbid but they're tombstones, and they tell tales of the city, and they show the history and made the city what it is today.On a recent Friday night at the Starlight Six Drive-In, a weathered minivan rolls up to the ticketing window with eight kids bouncing in the back seat, one exhausted woman in the front. "It's important to keep landmark iconic places like this," he said. Mr Bulum said he was thrilled to see the sign restored. "It's the only original drive-in sign that is in the original place that those drive-in signs were." "We were approached by the Friends of the Starlight Group, and of course the Heritage Council actually nominated the sign in 2012, fortuitously, because shortly after they nominated, it actually fell over in a windstorm," Planning Minister Mick Gentleman said. The Government stepped in to ensure the sign, which is now the only drive-in sign still standing in Australia, was restored. "So when something like this falls over I think it's a responsibility for us to fix it and pay respect to it and get it back to where it belongs." "A lot of people say that Canberra doesn't have a soul, and it's in these little - or big - monuments, things from a bygone era, that hold fragments of Canberra's soul," Ms Hazilias said. It sounds morbid but they're tombstones, and they tell tales of the city, and they show the history and made the city what it is today.
Together they launched an online petition to have the sign restored. With the sign gone, Canberran Irene Hazilias, along with friends Laurie McDonald and Jay Bergman, created Friends of the Starlight, to push for the sign's return.
"Video killed the drive-in." Online push to restore Starlight sign "Being an independent drive-in theatre, we always got dibs on the new popular movies last," Mr Bulum said.
It operated until 1993, when business dried up, but the theatre's iconic sign remained standing for another 19 years, until a storm tore it down in 2012. "You'd get people getting inventive with their seating, bringing couches, turning utes backwards with their mattresses, picnics, all sorts of crazy stuff." "It was a family run business so I was serving popcorn, doing the tickets at the front from the age of 12, which was exciting for me.
"My family purchased it in '86, and we ran it until the end," he said. The sign brings back fond memories for Nik Bulum, whose family took over the Starlight Theatre in when he was 12. While those days are now long gone, a small piece of the era's history has been restored, with the Starlight's iconic sign re-erected. For thousands of people growing up in the capital, the Starlight drive-in was a fixture of Canberra life.Īlso known as the Starlight Theatre, it opened at Watson on the Federal Highway in 1957 as Canberra's first drive-in, during the medium's halcyon days.
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