A Cameo Role

The Lincoln and the flamboyantly designed Carib, a 2200-seat theater built on Lincoln Road in 1950, stole the limelight from the Cameo for years. Allen Malschick went to the Cameo as a young man during winter trips from Atlantic City to visit his father and grandmother, who lived in cottages at Ninth Street and Collins. He later relocated here and worked for Panorama magazine. Among his assignments were gigs photographing Lana Turner, Rip Torn, Milton Berle, and other movie stars who appeared for openings at the larger venues. "When I was shooting world premieres they were always at the Lincoln or at the Carib, or at a big theater in Miami," says Malschick, now 68 years old. "The Cameo was just a small, narrow theater. You couldn't have premieres in there because it wouldn't hold as many people."

But by the end of the Sixties, as television penetrated Americans' hearts and minds, majestic movie houses from South Florida to Seattle began to close. In 1971 philanthropist Maurice Gusman purchased the Olympia and saved it from demolition. Other theaters were lost. Crews tore down the Carib's façade, which featured a large clock above a huge painted map of the Caribbean, and gutted the interior; it became a small shopping complex in 1978. The Cameo closed that same year and continued to deteriorate. But because of its Art Deco architecture, it would be spared a fate similar to the Carib's. In 1979 the Miami Design Preservation League convinced federal officials to list South Beach's Art Deco District on the National Register of Historic Places. Hundreds of buildings, including the Cameo, were saved.

The Cameo remained dark for the next several years. Few could have predicted the raucous roar of its resurrection.

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In the Eighties the Cameo reflected the variety of cultural experiences that transformed South Beach from a retirement community into an internationally known hot spot. It was a decade marked by the influx of low-income Cuban apartment dwellers, the arrival of a robust fashion industry, and the rise of glitzy nightclubs.

An Israeli immigrant named Zori Hayon and his Italian partner bought the boarded-up Cameo and the burned-out Warsaw Ballroom in 1982 from a New York real estate company for about $380,000. Although Art Deco buildings such as the Cameo were supposed to be protected, the city issued a permit to raze the structure, according to historian Paul George. Hayon, who then held only a minor interest in the property, says his partner and developer Samuel Weintraub planned to build condominiums on the site. Officials withdrew the authorization and the plan was dropped.

Hayon, who drove limousines in New York City before moving to Miami Beach, bought out his partner in 1983. Soon he leased the space to José Rafael Aguila, a projectionist at Little Havana's Martí Theatre, and Luis Izquierdo, a boxing promoter who opened a restaurant called Mr. Food in one of the Cameo's storefront areas. Izquierdo and Aguila cleaned and painted the interior. When the theater reopened in December 1984, the pair charged people two dollars each to see a peculiar triple bill: Rhinestone (starring Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton); Paul McCartney's Give My Regards to Broadway, and a video clip of the solo release Dynamite, by Jermaine Jackson (formerly of the Jackson Five). Attendance was sparse, however, in part owing to the public's fear of crime outside the Cameo's fine wooden doors.

As the Cuban population swelled in South Beach, boxing matches became part of the Cameo's eclectic offerings. The summer of 1985 featured a Mike Perkins-Scott Wheaton bout and Pedro Lasa vs. Fernando "Mad Dog" Martinez. Hayon says he parted ways with Izquierdo after a disagreement in which the two displayed handguns but did not shoot.

Soon another form of controlled violence, slightly more lyrical than boxing, was agitating the dank, musty air inside the theater. It was the screaming, drumming, and amplified metallic thrashings of small groups of young men.

The Cameo's first rock concert was organized by Richard Shelter, dubbed by Miami Herald and Miami News music writers as the city's punk-rock impresario. A New York kid who moved to South Florida in 1978, Shelter brought punk and New Wave bands here in the early Eighties. From 1982 to 1985 he booked shows at three clubs: 27 Birds, a Coconut Grove bar located at Big Daddy's (now Flanigan's Loggerhead); a place called Blitz, also in Big Daddy's; and at Flynn's on Miami Beach.

Frank Falestra, a friend and fellow punk enthusiast, recalls the day Shelter cracked a deal with Cameo owner Zori Hayon. "[Shelter] said, 'Hey, we can have shows at this Cameo Theatre. I talked to the owner and for 300 bucks I can go in there and have a show.'"

Shelter's first event, held in July 1985, featured D.O.A., a punk outfit from Vancouver. A month later the promoter put on a more impressive, three-act concert: John Cale, the Meat Puppets, and Psycho Daisies.