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Varsity Theatre fire, 1966

Posted on June 18, 2009 by Staff

With the Varsity Theatre being in the news lately, I couldn’t help but recall another time of crisis for the Franklin Street landmark. In the wee hours of Nov. 16, 1966, the sight of an angry red sky out my Henderson Street apartment window jolted me awake. Grabbing my Rolleicord and Braun strobe unit, I ran out into the 29-degree night to find the Varsity Theatre fully engulfed in flames. My best shot was of the Varsity’s owner, the late Andy Gutierrez, emerging wet and shivering from the front of his theater around 4 a.m. while firefighters still doused the flames inside. This photo ran in the Chapel Hill Weekly beside reporter Joel Bulkley’s account describing the narrow escape of UNC grad student Randall Dosher, who lived upstairs over the Varsity. Wearing only the clothes on his back, Dosher grabbed his most precious possession as went he out the door — his dissertation paper. Readers of “a certain age,” all-too familiar with typewritten revisions in the pre-computer era, will appreciate how miraculous was Dosher’s save. In my mind’s eye, I can see him clutching that document to his chest. Now that would have been the picture!

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