Mike Thevis wanted to fix the Fox. As a side project, he also wanted to rehabilitate his image.
Thevis, who made millions hustling pornographic materials in the 1960s and ‘70s, was ready to buy and renovate Atlanta’s rundown Fox Theater, he said, because he was tired of being “Mr. Goodguy in private” while being vilified in public.
Born in Raleigh, N.C., during the Great Depression, Thevis spent his youth working “when other kids were playing or going out for the team,” he told the AJC in 1979. The high school dropout found himself in Atlanta, where he finished school and attended Georgia Tech, hoping to become a textile engineer. Again, he dropped out of school, going to work at a downtown newsstand.
By the ‘60s, he had his own string of small newsstands, but after noticing that “90 percent of my profits were coming from 10 percent of my inventory — girlie magazines,” Thevis expanded his business to include sales of pornography, “rubber goods” and peep-show machines.
After making his fortune, he began marketing himself.
“I want the country, and especially the people of Atlanta, to know Mike Thevis as he really is and not as some dirty old man cranking out dirty pictures of little girls in his basement,” Thevis said in a Sept. 20, 1974, article by Constitution’s Jeff Nesmith, claiming he’d rehab the midtown Atlanta landmark and use it for concerts and other non-adult themed entertainment events.
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It’s not the only time an Atlanta adult entertainment purveyor claimed he might leave porn in the past. In September, the AJC’s Bill Torpy profiled Tokyo Valentino owner Michael Morrison, who says he’s considering a new business venture – fish farming in South America – because the adult store industry is declining.
Tokyo Valentino’s website lists it as a “lingerie store” dealing in “adult related toys, products, lingerie and smoke shoppe” items. Morrison says adult items are a small portion of the store’s profits.
Whether Morrison has a future in fish remains to be seen. Thevis’ plans for the Fox, however, came to a quick end about two months after his grand gesture.
Credit: AJC Print Archives
Credit: AJC Print Archives
The Fox, which opened Christmas Day 1929, served for decades as a popular movie house, dance hall and venue for live performances. By 1974, as movie theaters multiplied in the growing suburbs, it was in danger of being demolished during the early ‘70s midtown Atlanta office building boom.
“Southern Bell Telephone Co. has signed an option to purchase the historic Peachtree Street theater and had planned to raze the building to make room for construction of offices,” Nesmith wrote. “In an ensuing furor, the company agreed to resell it to any group in the next six months, provided it is preserved.”
The “ensuing furor” — high-profile pleas from legendary celebrities such as Helen Hayes and Liberace, along with petitions from hundreds of Atlantans to save the building — bought the Fox enough time for interested parties to inquire about buying the landmark. Mike Thevis was among those potential purchasers, but only to a point.
“Thevis said he told Mayor Maynard Jackson he was willing to buy the Fox for $3.3 million,” Nesmith reported. “He also said he was asked by city officials if he would be willing to form a corporation to buy the Fox in order to conceal his involvement, but refused.”
Credit: AJC Photo Archives
Credit: AJC Photo Archives
“They can accept this offer from Mike Thevis as he is or they can forget it,” Thevis said. “The thing (the Fox) could rot, for all I care, if they are unwilling to accept this because of what people think about me.”
City officials balked at the offer. Two months later, Thevis lost his battle to stay out of federal prison for interstate trafficking in obscene materials. Ordered to begin serving time in December, he scrapped plans to save the Fox.
“If I had already gone through with (the deal), then fine,” Thevis said in the Nov. 21 Constitution. “But I don’t see how I can be expected to negotiate a deal like that from prison.”
Ultimately, the Fox escaped the wrecking ball, underwent extensive (and expensive) renovations and currently remains one of Atlanta’s most beloved institutions.
Thevis began a five-year prison term Dec. 2, 1974. He died in 2013 at age 81 in Bayport, Minnesota.
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