SAN FRANCISCO — The Mitchell Brothers' O’Farrell Theatre, San Francisco’s legendary adult entertainment venue, has permanently closed due to COVID-19 and its interior has been “gutted,” according to local news site SF Gate.
A SF Gate remembrance piece published Friday and entitled “‘Where All the Lost Souls Came Together': SF's O'Farrell Theatre Strip Club Closes After 50 Years,” by freelance writer Ariana Bindman, only includes a few details about the final closure decision.
“As part of its official closure, its walls have been stripped bare, and its lavish interior has been gutted,” Bindman wrote, adding that “despite just celebrating its 50th anniversary, the club’s amber-colored marquee — which advertised anything from ‘wild girls’ to pornographic feature films — will finally dim its lights due to COVID-19.”
“Now, the O’Farrell Theatre’s DJs and floor managers are unsure where they and their ‘sisters’ will go next," Bindman wrote in a piece that is largely a historical obituary for the venue.
Bindman wrote that although the employees “knew that the club was due to eventually close — they just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.”
“We had known about the end for three years now,” longtime employee Ben “Dewey” Herndon told SF Gate. “COVID was just insult to injury. We were hoping to at least get a couple more years in.”
The Epicenter of San Francisco Sexual Expression
The O’Farrell Theatre was opened in 1969 by brothers James ("Jim") and Artie Mitchell. Although it debuted during the height of '60s counterculture influence — only two years earlier, San Francisco was the epicenter of the media-hyped “Summer of Love” and hippie culture — from its inception, the theatre spent considerable amounts of time and revenue fighting the self-appointed "guardians of morality."
The Mitchells’ commitment to the defense of free speech and freedom of sexual expression helped pave the way for the modern adult industry.
Bindman described the atmosphere of the theatre as “a plush, disorienting palace.”
“Upon entry, the walls are smattered with headshots of dancers and pornographic memorabilia,” she wrote. “The walls are mirrored; the curtains are velvet. For decades, beneath the scintillating glow of disco balls and red rotating lights, the carpeted kingdom has provided anything from nude lap dances to ‘flashlight shows’ for San Francisco’s ‘weirdo’ strip club clientele.”
The saga of the theatre and its colorful owners has been chronicled by David McCumber in the book “X-Rated: The Mitchell Brothers — A True Story of Sex, Money, and Death.”
“Just three weeks after the club opened and started showing pornographic films, then-25-year-old James Mitchell was apprehended by undercover cops for ‘production and exhibition of obscene material,’” Bindman wrote. “Despite multiple arrests, the brothers brazenly continued showing pornographic movies and escaped conviction with the help of lawyer Michael John Kennedy, who successfully challenged the legal definition of obscenity.”
In 1980, Bindman continued, “following the development of the Kopenhagen lounge, the Ultra room, the Green Door room and the New York Live main stage — which is where patrons could experience anything from nude lap dances to lesbian bondage acts — police conducted a raid that led to the arrest of 14 patrons and staff members.”
Then-San Francisco Mayor — and current Calfornia Senator — Dianne Feinstein, a staunch anti-porn crusader, charged the Mitchells with “participating in a house of prostitution.”
“But when the Mitchell brothers successfully fought back in court, a win for them was a win for pornography everywhere,” wrote Bindman.
"What became clear to the prosecutors — the smut smiters — was that as long as this sexually explicit material was not pandered to children or to people unwilling to see it, the public had no problem with it: To each his own. Let them have it," their lawyer explained in 1999. "That became a very important precedent throughout the '70s and '80s for what ultimately became a national approach to pornography, which was to leave it alone."
Triumph and Tragedy
The Mitchell Brothers also produced what is considered to be a masterpiece of the X-rated feature film era, 1972’s "Behind the Green Door,” purportedly the second-highest grossing adult film of all time.
In the mid-to-late 1980s, cult writer Hunter S. Thompson was assigned by Playboy an article about the rise of "couples pornography" and “feminist porn.” Through his research, Thompson began spending much time at the Mitchell brothers’ theatre and became close friends with them. Thompson declared himself the O’Farrell Theatre’s “night manager” (business cards included) and started working the booth, although his research did not lead to a completed book.
In 1991, Jim Mitchell shot and killed his brother Artie in a confusing incident. Their rise, fall and tragedy was turned into a Hollywood biopic in 2000, “Rated X,” starring real-life brothers Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez (who also directed) as Artie and Jim.
The Mitchells’ theatre was put up for sale in 2018 for $10 million or $39,000 per month, amidst the unstoppable gentrification of the Bay Area and changing priorities and business models in adult entertainment.
“The club’s golden gates may be closed, but for some, O'Farrell is eternal,” Bindman concluded in her piece. “Its spirit lives on through the friendships of its staff members, and, like a stubborn, sordid gem, remains forever embedded in San Francisco history.”
Main Image: Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre in 2006 and the Mitchell Brothers. Photo: Wikipedia.
