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Excerpted from a conversation with Larry Mullanix
“…we did what we could, but if it wasn’t for Bishop- this town, this community- we would be done for.”
Now there’s a back story with Holly and the theater. This place is Holly’s whole life. I don’t even wanna say life…it is her right arm. If you took the theater away from her, I don’t want to know what would happen. Holly has worked at the theater since she was 15, starting here in high school. The owners back then were a husband and wife- Sheryl and Blair Hilborn- who bought the place in 1977. Well, the husband was buddies with another theater owner from Ridgecrest, and they both jumped in a small airplane to fly back east, but the plane went down and they lost two theater owners right there. Sheryl had two daughters, who were both off at college at the time. Now, Holly kept working here all through high school and then she went off to college. When Holly returned from school, Sheryl was struggling to do it all on her own- an independent woman owning a theater that was never her passion to begin with (always her husband’s). So Holly stepped in to help. Sheryl was around the same age as Holly’s mother, and they just bonded, they got so close. Between those two ladies, they ran this place together for 20 years.
I came to Bishop in 2006 and my niece and I would come and watch movies at the theater all the time. The woman behind the glass really caught my eye. I finally got the nerve to talk to her and we started dating. I worked as a handyman, so I would fix things up around there. I helped to usher or sell tickets or whatever was needed, but it was really just so I could see Holly, you know. She worked two jobs, and I think, “man, The only way I’m never gonna see this lady is if I work at the theater too.”
About 10 years went by or a little less, and the owner went up to Holly and said, hey, I’m thinking about getting rid of this place. Would you be interested if I held the papers and helped you out…so Holly comes to me, and remember now, this is her world, so I couldn’t say no. I’m like, sure, you know, let’s do it together, but I knew this place was gonna kick our butts. We pulled the money together and bought the place in 2015. We wanted to improve the place, but we had to get a loan for everything we had. We got the loan and fully remodeled.
Three months later COVID hit, and they shut us down on March 20, 2020, for 430 days. Man that was something! It was tight, but we stuck together, me and Holly are a good team. We just tried to think outside of the box. We’re not scared to try different things and break the mold to try to make it work. We rented the marquee out there and you’d pay to put on there “I love Sally” or “Happy Birthday Tom” or whatever, and that raised some money, and then we sold popcorn. We threw together a drive-in movie night and made a screen at the fairgrounds. But yeah, It was crazy, and we did what we could, but if it wasn’t for Bishop, this town, this community we would be done for. They really saved our butts…don’t get me wrong, we worked our tails off, but if it wasn’t for them showing up for us, we couldn’t have done it…We made over $1400 in just one day selling popcorn and drinks out of the front of the theater. It was crazy, we had lines of cars out here on Main Street, and I was handing out popcorn through the front door. They really stepped up to support us, and we get that. There was a man who would come up and give Holly a $100 bill and walk away with no popcorn, he wouldn’t say anything, he would just hand her the money and walk away.
I used to work two jobs, but now this is all I do, well I shouldn’t say all, because it keeps me super busy…but Holly keeps working her other jobs to help. And yeah, we just try to keep this place going. I mean the theater has been here since 1924, it’s a part of the history of this town. Hopefully, we’ll get to be around here for a lot longer. The son of the original owner, Howard Holland wrote me. He said that The Great Depression, World War II and Television did not close the theater, and even though Covid closed our doors, they would not be closed forever. He was right, and I thank God and our community for saving us."
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