Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre

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Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre is a popular strip club in San Francisco. It was opened as an adult movie theater by the Mitchell brothers in 1969 and starting in 1980 was a major force in popularizing close-contact lap dancing that would became a norm in strip clubs nationwide.^[1] The journalist Hunter S. Thompson once called it "the Carnegie Hall of public sex in America."

1 Operation
2 History
3 Location and murals
4 Notable Dancers
5 External links
6 References

[edit] Operation

Customers are charged a comparatively steep admission price and can view an ongoing striptease show as well as an adult movie. The club is renowned for featuring attractive strippers, some of whom have gone on to appear in major pornographic magazines and films. Dancers offer lap dances for a tip, and there are several smaller themed rooms where dancers offer different services. These include a peep show-type room where patrons in private booths watch and tip women who perform using various props or dildos, semiprivate showers with a selected model, heavy petting in the “Kissing room” and live onstage mock sex performances. These days, the authorities seem not to mind what happens between dancers and customers at the O'Farrell and other similar theaters in San Francisco as long as it's discreet.^[1]

[edit] History

The theater was opened as an adult movie theater by the Mitchell brothers on July 4, 1969, on the site of an old Pontiac dealership. They showed pornographic films that they themselves had produced. Later they refocused their business as a strip club, but sex movies were (and still are) being shown as well.

Hunter S. Thompson, the Mitchells' longtime friend and frequent visitor of the O'Farrell, was rumored to once having been paid to be the O'Farrell's "night manager".

The hit porn film Behind the Green Door premiered there in 1972, with the Mitchell brothers' parents in the audience.^[2] To this day the theatre has a "Green Door room"; it used to feature lesbian shower shows but the shower has since been removed.

In the 1980s, police raids under the order of then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein were conducted allegedly to restore safety and health of exotic dancers and resulted in obscenity charges being filed against the Mitchell brothers. They welcomed the publicity, and in response, put Feinstein's unlisted phone number on the theater marquee. ^[3] In 1980 the theatre had started to offer lap dances by nude performers following their striptease^[1]; after pressure by Feinstein fully nude lapdances were stopped.

The theater at one point offered live sex shows on stage, but these were shut down by the courts. Lesbian sex acts are still being shown.

On February 1, 1985, the theatre was raided by 12 police officers during a performance by Marilyn Chambers (main actress in Behind the Green Door); the District Attorney declined to press charges. Police later retaliated against a journalist who had suggested that the raid was carried out to derail an ordinance that would have stripped police from rights to license adult theaters.^[4]

Over the years, the Mitchell brothers had to defend some 200 court cases involving obscenity or related charges. They always defended agressively and won every single case.^[5]

In February 1991, the theater was in the news after the sensational killing of Artie Mitchell by his brother Jim. Jim was sentenced to six years in prison for voluntary manslaughter and released from San Quentin after having served three years, in 1997. He resumed his position as the O'Farrell's top man. (See the article on the Mitchell brothers for details.)

In 1994, Ellen Vickery and Jennifer Bryce, two ex-dancers at the O'Farrell Theatre, filed a class-action suit against the theater in the name of more than 500 ex-dancers, arguing that the theater's classification of dancers as independent contractors was incorrect, and that they were therefore owed back wages as well as a return of the stage fees of $200 per shift. The case was settled in 1998 with the dancers receiving $2.85 million.^[6]^[3]^[7] Similar suits have since been filed against numerous other strip clubs, and both labor commissions and the courts have consistently ruled in favor of dancers and awarded past wages and stage fee reimbursements.^[1] To this day, the theater management aggressively opposes all attempts of the dancers to unionize.

During the celebrations for the theatre's 30 year anniversary in 1999, famous burlesque star Tempest Storm, by then already in her seventies, stripped in the club. Mayor Willie Brown declared a "Tempest Storm Day" in her honor.^[8] Marilyn Chambers returned to performed in the theatre on July 28, 1999 in what Willie Brown dubbed "Marilyn Chambers Day".^[3]

When San Francisco's Commission on the Status of Women proposed in 2006 to ban private booths and rooms at adult clubs because of concerns about sexual assaults taking place there, several O'Farrell dancers spoke out against the ban.^[9]

As of 2006, Jim Mitchell's daughter Meta Mitchell serves as manager and former District Attorney Terrence Hallinan represents the club.^[9]

[edit] Location and murals

The theatre is located in the Tenderloin District, at the corner of Polk and O'Farrell street at 37°47′5.8″N, 122°25′9.5″W, on the same block as the Great American Music Hall. The entire exterior west and south faces of the theater are covered with two large murals. The west wall depicts a rainforest scene, and on the south wall is an underwater scene featuring a pod of whales. These murals were painted in 1976 and 1985 by Lou Silva^[10].

[edit] Notable Dancers

Marilyn Chambers porn star, danced in early-1980s
Megan Leigh danced as Eve in early-1980s; she later became a porn star and committed suicide in 1990
Fallon porn star, danced in mid-1980s
Annette Haven erotic actress
Nina Hartley porn star
Erica Boyer porn star, danced as Super Vixen
Lily Burana was involved in the class action suit and wrote about her experiences as dancer at the O'Farrell in her 2001 book Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America (ISBN 0-7868-6790-6).^[11]