Bill Field, who played a vintage Wurlitzer organ nearly every weekend for 52 years at Old Town Music Hall, the L.A. area’s longest running film revival house, has died at age 80.
Field, who had suffered from strokes and prostrate cancer, died June 28 of what was described as natural causes. Although his performing pace had slowed in recent months, he was still playing host for each program at the venue until it was forced to close due to the pandemic in March.
Old Town Music Hall was — and in Field’s absence, may continue to be — a sort of out-of-body experience for lovers of early 20th century film and music in southern California, offering a portal into another world from behind an unassuming facade in sleepy downtown El Segundo. What Field created was an experience you couldn’t really have anywhere else in the nation, much less elsewhere in greater Los Angeles.
Field, who had suffered from strokes and prostrate cancer, died June 28 of what was described as natural causes. Although his performing pace had slowed in recent months, he was still playing host for each program at the venue until it was forced to close due to the pandemic in March.
Old Town Music Hall was — and in Field’s absence, may continue to be — a sort of out-of-body experience for lovers of early 20th century film and music in southern California, offering a portal into another world from behind an unassuming facade in sleepy downtown El Segundo. What Field created was an experience you couldn’t really have anywhere else in the nation, much less elsewhere in greater Los Angeles.
- 7/5/2020
- by Chris Willman
- Variety Film + TV
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