does anyone remember what year dirk bogard was at the essoldo. i was only little and used to sell the echo outside. i think it was around 1958. i thought for years that it was humphrey bogart.i remember seeing him through the crowd.
I never saw Dirk Bogarde at the Ritz, but I bet it was a really big local event. I think the cinema hosted lots of stars in its heyday. It would be interesting to hear what people remember about other celebrities who came to Birkenhead. The one I remember best was Frankie Vaughan, who visited the Shaftesbury Boys Club around 1962-63. There was a massive crowd spilling out from Jackson Street on to the Haymarket, but my mate and I managed to push our way to the front to see him. What struck me most of all was girls screaming - something we later became used to with the Beatles.
was there at Shafts - remember thinking how tanned he looked but thought it was in the latish 50s somewhere on wiki is a film of Gregory Peck and other big stars visiting the Ritz
Think the Essoldo might have still been the Ritz then.
This is the poster for the show when Billy Fury was discovered in 1958 which shows both. Could be that the name had just changed to the Essoldo and Ritz was put in brackets for those who hadn't heard?
Apparently, the Ritz was privately owned until about 1954, when it was sold to the Essoldo cinema chain. From the mid-1950s (when we kids would flock there for the Saturday morning matinees) until the late 1960s (when it was in decline) I never remember it being called anything but the Ritz. When the film programme for the following week was displayed on the screen, it used to say: 'This Essoldo cinema presents ..' However, I doubt if any of the older people in Birkenhead called it the Essoldo - it was always the Ritz. Anyone interested in the subject should read an excellent book called The Silver Screens of Wirral: A History of Cinemas in Birkenhead and Bebington, by P.A. Carson.
it was definately called the essoldo. i used to go in the 50s. i also used to sell the echo outside. there are pictures with the essoldo sign where the ritz sign was.
