Casino Theatre (Toronto)

The Casino Theatre was a live theatre, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was located at 87 Queen Street West across the street from the current site of Nathan Phillips Square. Its repertoire of acts included vaudeville, music, film and burlesque. The structure was designed by architects Kaplan & Sprachman, who designed 21 other theatres in Toronto, and 48 elsewhere in Canada. The theatre, then known as the Vaudeville Theatre opened in 1936 and was demolished in 1965. It seated almost 1,200 patrons. The theatre hosted well-known performers, such as Johnny Rae, Patti Page, Gene Nelson, Pearl Bailey, Phil Silvers, Abbott and Costello, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Mickey Rooney, Frankie Laine, Sally Rand, Gypsy Rose Lee, Rose La Rose, Cup Cakes Cassidy, the Crewcuts, the Four Lads, Golden Gate Quartet, Billy Daniels and Rosemary Clooney. The strippers, and bawdy comedians who performed at Casino made the Casino particularly subject to commentary and complaints. Doug Taylor, the author of Toronto Theaters and the Golden Age of the Silver Screen wrote that, "Other perhaps than the Victory Theatre on Spadina, there is no entertainment venue that elicited as much praise, raunchy stories, condemnation and press coverage as the infamous Casino Theatre." He described one high school principal staking out the theatre in order to catch students who were playing hookey to catch a show at th

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