Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre

Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre

Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre is a striptease club at 895 O'Farrell Street in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. Opened as an X-rated movie theater by Jim and Artie Mitchell on July 4, 1969, the O'Farrell remains one of America's oldest and most notorious adult-entertainment establishments; by 1980, the nightspot had become a major force in popularizing lap dancing that would become the norm in strip clubs nationwide. The late journalist Hunter S. Thompson, a longtime friend of the Mitchells and frequent visitor at the club, claimed to be its night manager in 1985 and called the O'Farrell "the Carnegie Hall of public sex in America" and Playboy magazine praised it as "the place to go in San Francisco!"

Operation

The O'Farrell Theatre is open seven days a week and nearly every day of the year. Customers must pay a comparatively steep admission price ($20-$50, depending on the time of day) and no alcoholic beverages are served, although a snack bar operates on the premises. The O'Farrell's main showroom is New York Live!, a continuous striptease show where one performer dances on stage while the others offer lap dances. Performers insist on substantial tips ($20 is common) and there are several themed rooms, such as the Ultra Room, a peep show-type room where patrons stand in private booths watching women perform with various props or dildos; the Green Door Room (named for the Mitchells' classic film Behind the Green Door and its sequel; it was the principal set of the latter), the darkened 'Copenhagen Lounge' where the customers are given flashlights to watch the performance, and private booths of varying sizes, (although not all dancers make themselves available for private sessions with customers) and onstage lesbian simulated-sex performances.

History

The theater was opened as an adult cinema by the Mitchell brothers on the site of a former two-story Pontiac car dealership. Upstairs they produced and directed the pornographic films they showed downstairs. Later, observing that the Condor Club in North Beach had been a topless bar since 1964 apparently with legal impunity, the Mitchells decided to make their establishment primarily a striptease club by having their carpenter build live showrooms, but hardcore sex movies continue to run at the O'Farrell.

The hit porn film Behind the Green Door premiered at the O'Farrell in 1972, with the Mitchell brothers' parents in the audience. The Mitchells produced and directed (and occasionally made cameo appearances in) many others of varying lengths, with mixed commercial and critical success.

In the 1980s, newly elected Mayor Dianne Feinstein walked into the O'Farrell and said, "I want to check this place out." Jim Mitchell, in the lobby at that moment, reportedly said, "Sure, if you buy a ticket." Feinstein walked out. Soon after, raids occurred, ostensibly to restore safety and health of exotic dancers and resulted in obscenity charges' being filed against the Mitchells. The brothers, apparently not lacking a sense of humor, changed their marquee to read, "For showtimes, call..." and displayed Feinstein's unlisted phone number.

The theater featured sex shows on stage until the courts ordered them to discontinue doing so. As well, the dancers in New York Live! originally were nude as they sat on customers' laps, but a judge instructed the O'Farrell's management to ensure that the girls, when doing lap dances, at least wore brassieres and underpants. Spontaneous onstage lesbian sex acts are still common at the O'Farrell (many of the dancers are gay or bisexual).

The Mitchell brothers supported various cartoon artists, and when the 1984 Democratic National Convention was held in San Francisco, they opened the second floor of the O'Farrell to a group of underground cartoonists covering the convention for the San Francisco Chronicle.

On February 1, 1985, the theater was raided by a dozen police officers during a performance by Marilyn Chambers (the star of Behind the Green Door); the District Attorney declined to press charges. Police later retaliated against a journalist who had suggested that the raid occurred to derail an ordinance that would have stripped police from rights to license adult theaters.

Over the years, the Mitchells had to defend themselves in over 200 court cases involving obscenity or related charges. They were always victorious, represented by aggressive counsel (Michael Kennedy, then Artie Mitchell's wife Meredith and, following her dismissal, the late Tom Steel and his law partner Nanci Clarence).

Hunter S. Thompson claimed in his 2003 book Kingdom of Fear that he had worked for a while as night manager at the club, an assertion repeated by some news articles..

In February 1991, the theater entered the news after the fatal shooting of Artie Mitchell by his brother. Michael Kennedy defended Mitchell and convinced the jury that Jim killed Artie because the latter was psychotic from drugs and had become dangerous (Artie had recently threatened to throw a Molotov cocktail into the O'Farrell; his brother/murderer, in 1996, established the "Artie Fund" to raise money for drug-abuse prevention). Jim Mitchell was sentenced to six years in prison for voluntary manslaughter and released from San Quentin after having served half his sentence, in 1997. Today his daughter Meta, 28, is the O'Farrell's general manager. (See the article on the Mitchell brothers for details.)

Following the fratricide and its legal aftermath, two Bay Area reporters wrote books about the Mitchell brothers and their pornography empire: X-Rated by David McCumber (1994) and Bottom Feeders by John Hubner (1995). In those books they portrayed the O'Farrell Theatre as a mirrored House of Sleaze in which perfumed, bikini-clad predators roamed the aisles to hustle greenbacks from customers too shy or ugly to get girls any other way. Upstairs, the managers' offices were a bastion of inefficiency, with the Mitchells and their friends spending each day taking drugs, drinking beer and playing pool.

During the celebrations for the O'Farrell's 30-year anniversary in 1999, burlesque star Tempest Storm, by then in her 70s, danced on stage. Mayor Willie Brown declared a "Tempest Storm Day" in her honor. Marilyn Chambers returned to performed in the theatre on July 28 1999 in what Willie Brown dubbed "Marilyn Chambers Day."

In 2004, two similar San Francisco clubs (the New Century Theater and the Market Street Cinema) were visited by undercover police officers and some dancers allegedly propositioned them for prostitution. The dancers were cited for prostitution and the managers for operating a brothel. The assistant manager at the Market Street Cinema told the police to investigate the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre. All charges were later dropped; these days, the authorities seem not to mind what transpires between the customers and dancers as long as it remains discreet.

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.

As of 2006, Meta Mitchell continues running the O'Farrell; legal representation is provided by former San Francisco Supervisor and two-term District Attorney Terence Hallinan.

Labor disputes

Originally, the O'Farrell Theatre's management paid their dancers a flat fee per shift; in the 1980s, they replaced that fee with the Federal minimum wage but allowed the women to accept tips. In 1994, the O'Farrell's general manager, the late Vince Stanich (who hired, scheduled and fired the ecdysiasts) created a separate company, Dancers Guild International (DGI), and changed the dancers' status from that of paid employees to unpaid "independent contractors" whom he required to pay DGI "stage fees" of up to $300 per eight-hour shift. Many O'Farrell stripteasers considered this unfair and possibly illegal; two of them, Ellen Vickery and Jennifer Bryce, filed a class-action lawsuit against DGI (the plaintiffs would ultimately number more than 500), arguing that Stanich's reclassification of the dancers as independent contractors was unlawful and that they were owed back wages as well as a refund of the stage fees. The case was settled in 1998; the dancers were awarded $2.85 million. Similar suits challenging independent contractor status have since been filed against numerous other strip clubs, and labor commissions as well as the courts have consistently ruled in favor of dancers and awarded past wages and stage fee reimbursements. To this day, the theater management adamantly opposes all attempts of the dancers to unionize.

After the 1998 case the O'Farrell changed the performers' payment structure again: they posted a "suggested" fee of $20 per lap dances and $40 per private performance and set a "quota" of $360 per woman per night; the women were allowed to keep half the quota plus all tips. Dancers claimed feeling pressured into paying $180 per night even if they had earned less than that, and another 370-plaintiff class-action suit began in 2002. In 2007, a judge ruled in favor of the dancers, declaring the quota system illegal and requiring the O'Farrell to pay any amounts employees could show they paid to fill their quotas, minus any amounts the employer could show the dancers had collected but failed to report. The O'Farrell was also ordered to reimburse dancers for required theme-oriented costumes.

Location and murals

The theatre is located in the northwest part of 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.

Notable Dancers

• John C. Holmes, porn star, performed sex shows in the Ultra Room in the 1970s
• Marilyn Chambers, porn star, performed as headliner in early 1980s and 1999
• Megan Leigh danced as Eve in the mid-1980s; she later became a porn star and committed suicide in June of 1990
• Fallon porn star, danced in mid-1980s
• Blaze Starr famed stripper
• Tempest Storm famed stripper
• Edy Williams adult motion picture and television actress
• Annette Haven porn star
• 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).

External links

• www.ofarrell.com, the O'Farrell Theatre's official web site