The Word - Vol 97

The Cave Supper Club

Mitzi Gaynor, singer, dancer, and actress passed away on October 17th at the age of 93. When I heard the news, I couldn’t help but remember the many times she performed at the Cave Theatre Restaurant. As John Mackie wrote in the Vancouver Sun newspaper, “She made her first Vancouver appearance at the Cave on July 4, 1966. She seemed to love Vancouver as much as its audiences loved her. Part of the reason she loved it here was her good friend Hugh Pickett, who promoted her local shows.” Impresario Hugh Pickett was one of her biggest fans and the reason she returned to the Cave for 20 years. Mitzi said, “Vancouver is my favourite city in the whole world.”

The Cave was the king of nightclubs in Vancouver and provided decades of entertainment in an era where headline acts would perform for a week or more, sometimes 3 shows a night!

Anyone who was anyone played the Cave, (a complete list of entertainers can be found here). It’s a very impressive list that includes Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong, Bette Middler, Ike and Tina Turner, Liza Minelli, James Brown, and regulars like the Mills Brothers, Rolf Harris, and of course Mitzi.

It officially opened in 1937 and was unique for its time, known for its crazy interior decor. It was built to resemble the inside of a cave, complete with huge dripping stalactites dropping from the ceiling. These features were made from burlap and paper mache. To see the Cave with all the lights on was not a pretty sight, but at showtime, with the lights down low it created a very unique atmosphere. The club was licensed to hold a few hundred patrons. You got dressed up in those days, a jacket and tie for the men and fancy party dresses for the women so it was a real night out on the town.

The big days for me were in the late '60s and early ’70s. A lot of the big '60s acts like the Righteous Brothers, Tina Turner, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Roy Orbison, and Diana Ross and the Supremes played at the Cave, often building and rehearsing a show to take to Las Vegas. 

The Diana Ross and Supremes show was memorable. Not only did we get to see what was then the top female singing group in the world, but we got to see them up close and personal. It was dinner theatre seating, so you were very likely to either get a table close to, or right at the stage. That’s where we were on a night back in the '60s when a group of us from high school decided to go to the Cave to see the Supremes.

For one of the guys in our group, Ollie, it was a chance to see his major crush, his heartthrob Diana Ross. There were about a dozen of us and the Cave pushed a few tables together with our friend Ollie right at the head of the table, almost touching the stage. When the Supremes came out on stage it looked like Ollie wasn’t going to be able to breathe. Halfway through their set the lyrics of one of the songs went something like, “Who is going to love me?” Without hesitation, Ollie jumped up on his chair, threw his hands in the air, and yelled, “I will, I will!” At which point the show came to a halt. The Supremes stopped singing, the band stopped playing and Diana Ross started laughing. Ollie realized what he had done and slunk down into his chair. Diana gathered herself, threw Ollie a kiss, and continued with the show. It was a real demonstration of how intimate the room was! The same kind of intimate feeling you get when you attend a concert at Blue Frog Studios, up close and personal.

Years later, in 1980,  I was sitting around with a number of radio guys at the Bayshore Inn following a media event, and one of the DJs mentioned that “The Big O,” Roy Orbison was playing at the Cave, and he would give the owner Stan Grozina a call to see if he could find a table for us. It was a yes, and off we went to catch the show. The Big O was amazing, he could still hit the high notes. It was a great night, but the next morning we woke up to the news that Orbison’s guitar had gone missing! I made some hasty phone calls to make sure one of the boys hadn’t, how should I say, “borrowed it?” Thankfully it was none of us, and I do believe the guitar was recovered. That night was a great opportunity to see one of the legends perform in a classic setting. 

Sadly, the days when a nightclub can afford big stars, even for one night much less a one or two-week engagement are long gone, as is The Cave. One year after we saw The Big O, it closed forever and was demolished soon after. 

Take a walk down the block on Hornby Street and you wouldn’t know that the entertainment venue ever existed. In its place is a parking garage and a TD bank. A far cry from the glory days when nightclubs were king.

Till next week…  
Wayne

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