{"id":124,"date":"2009-03-13T10:03:38","date_gmt":"2009-03-13T10:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/?p=124"},"modified":"2009-03-13T10:16:43","modified_gmt":"2009-03-13T10:16:43","slug":"mr-show-business-ed-yost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/2009\/03\/13\/mr-show-business-ed-yost\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Show Business: Ed Yost"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mention the name “Yost”, in Orange County, and most will either reference the recently reopened Yost Theatre <\/a>or the venue’s many years as a Spanish language cinema. Sadly, few know of the theatre’s namesake or his former role as Orange County’s “Mr. Show Business”.<\/div>\n
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Born in Pennsylvania, circa 1875, Edward D. Yost\u00a0entered “show business” as a mid life career change. Having\u00a0spent his formative years in Kansas, operating\u00a0a lucrative flour milling and cement business, Yost sold off the family’s interests and set off for California, shortly after his fortieth birthday. Arriving in\u00a0the Santa Ana area, around 1917, Mr. Yost purchased\u00a0Orange’s Colonial House Theater and launched\u00a0a career that\u00a0quickly saw him become the county’s premiere showman.<\/div>\n
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Overseeing a period that saw\u00a0live vaudeville and silent films\u00a0evolve in to the modern Hollywood film industry and “talkies”, Yost was a central figure in the Orange County entertainment scene throughout the 1920’s. Having added\u00a0Santa Ana’s\u00a0Clunes\u00a0(remodeled and renamed the Yost), Temple<\/a>, and West End <\/a>theatres, to his portfolio,\u00a0Mr. Yost had effectively cornered the county vaudeville\u00a0scene and\u00a0become the area’s first true\u00a0cinema mogul. His namesake Yost Theatre was recognized as the vaudeville capital of Orange County, drawing top acts from the Pantages and Orpheum circuits, throughout the decade. The Broadway Theatre<\/a>, which he opened in\u00a01926, premiered Cecil B. Demille’s “King of Kings” and\u00a0later introduced the county to\u00a0“talkies”, screening the first motion picture with sound, “The Jazz Singer”. Yet, by the close of the decade he had come to dominate so, Mr. Yost decided to make\u00a0one more\u00a0career change.<\/div>\n
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Motivated by\u00a0the decline of vaudeville and changing landscape of motion picture exhibition, Ed Yost\u00a0sold off his local theatre\u00a0empire and purchased a collection of apartment complexes in 1929. Far removed from his high profile days, as Orange County’s “Mr. Show Business”, Yost quietly managed\u00a0these real estate holdings\u00a0for another thirty five years;\u00a0reluctantly retiring,\u00a0around the age of 90, due to failing eyesight.<\/div>\n
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While Ed Yost’s achievements as a vaudeville and movie theatre operator have\u00a0faded in to obscurity over the decades, his legacy\u00a0remains intact. Today, one still finds\u00a0“Yost” up in lights, welcoming Orange County theatre goers to the venue that bares his name.\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. Mention the name “Yost”, in Orange County, and most will either reference the recently reopened Yost Theatre or the venue’s many years as a Spanish language cinema. Sadly, few know of the theatre’s namesake or his former role as Orange County’s “Mr. Show Business”. . \u00a0 Born in Pennsylvania, circa 1875, Edward D. Yost\u00a0entered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}