Astor Cinema

The Astor Theatre is located at 659 Beaufort Street, Mount Lawley, Western Australia. It comprises a single, two and three-storey masonry Inter-war Art Deco style theatre and retail building.

The building was originally known as the Lyceum Theatre and was designed by David McClure, and built by Simon Alexander, whose family owned the premises. The Alexander family also owned the Alexander Building on the South-West (opposie) corner of Beaufort and Walcott Streets. It was constructed in 1914/1915 in a Federation Free Classical style and was designed for a mixture of vaudeville and lantern slide shows.

By 1922, the Lyceum Theatre was advertising "motion pictures and popular orchestra". In the mid-1920s, with the development and popularity of silent movies, the Lyceum was converted to a cinema, and the name was changed from the Lyceum to the State Theatre.

In 1939 the theatre was redesigned in an Art Deco style by William Leighton, and reconstructed by Simon Alexander's son John. In the late 1930s Leighton secured a reputation as a leading cinema designer for his work on several Perth cinemas, including the Piccadilly Theatre and Arcade, the Windsor Theatre in Nedlands, and the Cygnet Cinema in South Perth. He was also behind the refurbishment of the Royal Theatre and Grand Theatre. The remodelling of the State Theatre left it structurally intact but altered its appearance, "dispensing with the arches and pediments and imposing a simple restrained facade". The alterations included the entrance to the picture garden, and made provision for a grocery store on the corner, a millinery shop, and refreshments in the cinema vestibule. Leighton's Art Deco design introduced the Mayan flower to the Theatre. The Art Deco theme runs from the Main Auditorium through the external facades to Beaufort and Walcott Streets. The remodelled State Theatre opened on 12 May 1939.

The Astor Theatre received its current name in 1941 when an Act of Parliament decreed it an offence for a private business to use the name "State". Mr John Alexander’s wife, Mavis, renamed the theatre The Astor in memory of a theatre of the same name in New Farm, Brisbane that was the first cinema they went to after their marriage.

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