Frederick Freeman Proctor

Frederick Freeman Proctor
Proctor circa 1909
Born	(1851-03-17)March 17, 1851 Dexter, Maine
Died	September 4, 1929(1929-09-04) (aged 78) Larchmont, New York
Known for	Vaudeville
Parent(s)	Alpheus Proctor Lucy Ann Tufts
Relatives	John William Merrow, nephew

Frederick Freeman Proctor (March 17, 1851 – September 4, 1929), aka F.F. Proctor, was a vaudeville impresario who pioneered the method of continuous vaudeville. He opened the Twenty-third Street Theatre in New York City.

Frederick Freeman Proctor was born to Alpheus Proctor and Lucy Ann Tufts in Dexter, Maine, where his father was a physician.

Warren G. Harris writes:

Proctor's [at 116 Market Street] in downtown Newark was one of the rare 'double decker' theatres. Designed by architect John William Merrow, the eight-story complex had a large 2,300-seat theatre at ground level and a smaller theatre of about 900 seats occupying the top four floors beneath the roof. This fairly narrow building contained only the lobby of the larger theatre, which had its auditorium behind it. Very little has been reported about the operation of the upstairs theatre, which was apparently seldom used until the early 1960s, when it was renovated for the presentation of "foreign" films as the Penthouse Cinema. But the main theatre, with its cavernous two balconies, was always one of Newark's leaders, first with vaudeville only and eventually taken over by movies exclusively. When all of F.F. Proctor's theatres were acquired by Radio-Keith-Orpheum, it became known as RKO Proctor's. The theatre eventually fell victim to the urban decline of Newark and to RKO's merger with Stanley-Warner, which operated the nearby and larger Branford. The new management decided to close Proctor's, and it has been standing more or less derelict ever since.

Proctor opened his first theater in Schenectady, New York in 1912, near the Erie Canal. On April 14, 1925, ground was broken for the "new" Proctor's Theatre in Schenectady, New York at its present site. Designed by famed theater architect Thomas W. Lamb, the theater cost $1.5 million to build and had a seating capacity of 2,700. On December 27, 1926, Proctor's Theatre opened with a showing of Stranded in Paris, a silent film starring Bebe Daniels.