Bill Murray tells Jimmy Kimmel New Bedford's restored Zeiterion is 'this beautiful theater'

NEW BEDFORD Bill Murray told Jimmy Kimmel that New Bedford is "really happening" and called the restored Zeiterion "this beautiful theater" in an interview the late-night show posted Tuesday, Nov. 10.

Murray was on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" to talk about his new Paramount+ series with Tom Coyne, "A Course Called Ireland." Before Coyne joined him, Kimmel brought up the summer screening of "What About Bob?" in New Bedford, where Murray had shown up at the end of the movie, and Murray answered with a few warm words for the city. "The town's really happening, really happening," he said. "Once it was a famous whaling town," he went on, and now it is having "a great rebirth."

Then he turned to the old theater on Purchase Street. Murray told Kimmel that the people behind it were "trying to save this old movie theater" and that "they've done a nice job," adding, "what's cool is they've made this beautiful theater."

The Zeiterion reopened in January after a $37 million restoration and renovation, according to the theater. The 1923 playhouse Murray was talking about had been at risk of demolition in the early 1980s, before John Bullard, Sarah Delano and others saved it.

A summer Monday in August

The visit Kimmel asked about came Monday, Aug. 3, on the opening night of the Zeiterion's Bill Murray Movie Marathon Monday series. More than 300 people had come to see "What About Bob?" and after the film, as President and CEO Rosemary Gill thanked the crowd, staff carried a cardboard cutout of Murray onto the stage and the real Murray strolled out behind it, WBSM reported. He stayed about 12 minutes, the station reported, taking questions and telling stories.

That night, in a video the Zeiterion posted, Murray told the crowd, "I'm so happy people are going to the movies again," Boston.com reported.

Back on Kimmel's show, Murray said he figured he would be "125 miles away" and could make it, and that "it was just kind of fun to walk out at the end of the movie." He joked that the theater had a stand-in ready "in case I didn't show up," and that he stepped out from behind it because the welcome was about to run "like a seven-minute speech," and "I just didn't have that kind of time."

A palace for the people

The theater Murray praised opened April 2, 1923, the last new theater built in downtown New Bedford, in a city that was already home to two dozen of them, according to the Zeiterion's own history. Barney Zeitz and his brothers wanted "a palace for the people" for live vaudeville, and they filled it with marble-columned walls, silk tapestry, a frieze of gold leaf Grecian dancing muses, a sunset scene in a large oval on the ceiling and a $7,000 cut glass Czechoslovakian chandelier.

Vaudeville did not take hold right away, and by the end of September 1923 the building had reopened as The State, a silent movie house that went on to show talkies and the occasional live act for decades. Five world premieres played there, the history says, and the most famous was the 1956 opening of "Moby Dick," with Gregory Peck in attendance.

In 1971 the theater was modernized, and the update covered the marble walls in wood paneling and painted over the ivory and old rose color scheme in black. When an economic downturn hit New Bedford a decade later, the building was at risk of being torn down, and the residents who saved it went to work, the history says. On Dec. 31, 1981, the Penler Brothers of Paragon Travel donated the theater portion of the building to the Waterfront Historic Area League, which put $200,000 toward the first phase of restoration.

The original Mighty Wurlitzer organ turned up in a private home and was brought back, the friezes were repaired so the muses could dance around the ceiling again, and the Zeiterion held its reopening gala Sept. 25, 1982, with Shirley Jones on its stage.

A $37 million restoration

What began in 2018 as an idea to improve the experience for theatergoers grew into the $37 million project, the theater says. Crews broke ground in June 2024, took out the entire third floor and had bulldozers inside the theater during 18 months of construction, and on Jan. 16 the Zeiterion unveiled new seats, upgraded sound and an expanded lobby.

The chandelier the Zeitz family hung for opening night came down for the first time since 1923 and went to Grand Light in Connecticut, where all 25,066 crystal pieces were cleaned with high-frequency sound waves. The theater's signature ceiling mural was recreated on canvas in its original 1923 colors, and a new central elevator now reaches all four floors for the first time in the building's history. The City of New Bedford owns the building, and the nonprofit Zeiterion manages it.

Tours of the theater

Anyone who wants the view Murray described can walk through it. The Zeiterion lists guided tours at 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, at 11 a.m. Dec. 5 and at 6 p.m. Dec. 15, each limited to 25 visitors and priced pay-what-you-can at $0, $5, $15 or $25. The tour covers all four floors, from the new Speakeasy in the basement to the movement studio on the third floor, and signups are on the theater's website. The box office is at 684 Purchase St., 508-994-2900.

When the next tour group steps inside, it will walk through the same theater where Gregory Peck came for the 1956 premiere of "Moby Dick" and where, on a summer Monday this year, Bill Murray stepped out from behind his own cardboard cutout to say hello to New Bedford.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.