The Palace, designed by the firm of George & C.W. Rapp in the French Renaissance style, opened in 1926 as part of the Orpheum chain of vaudeville houses. Movies were introduced in 1931 when RKO purchased the theatre. In 1953, the Palace became a Cinerama theatre; its stage also began hosting Broadway touring companies in the 1950s. The adjacent Bismarck hotel bought the space and converted the auditorium to a banquet hall in the mid-1970s; in 1984, the theatre was renamed the Bismarck and became a concert venue. In 1999, the theatre was restored with the financial assistance of the General Motors Corporation and reopened as a live performance venue in the Fall of that year as the Cadillac Palace.
Photopgraph taken March 7, 2004
Broadway in Chicago (Official)
Cadillac Palace on Cinema Treasures