Jack Loeks

Who was Jack Loeks?

John "Jack" Loeks was an American movie theatre pioneer, born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jack, who had tried many other previous business ventures in his life, opened the single screen Midtown Theatre in downtown Grand Rapids, in 1944.

Not only did Jack open Studio 28, the first 12 screen and first 20 screen theatres in the world, but also opened some of the first drive-ins in West Michigan, and also opened a number of other cinemas across Michigan. Jack also participated in a lawsuit against Hollywood which opened the way for privately owned theatres to show first-run Hollywood movies.

Jack had two sons, Jim and John Jr. Jim broke off from the Jack Loeks Theatres company and started his own movie theater, Star Theatre. John Loeks, Jr. has since become the owner and CEO of Loeks Theatres, Inc., which is now known as Celebration! Cinema.

During the mid and late 1980s, Jack Loeks maintained a vacation home on Mackinac Island, Michigan. The island had no dedicated movie theater and traveling to the mainland for shows wasn't convenient for the island's residents, so Jack partnered with a local hotel whose approximately 500 seat auditorium, complete with balcony, was used for weekly summer screenings. Loeks would ship the movies from one of his Grand Rapids, Michigan area theaters to the island each week by small aircraft, and the weekly movies were a favorite event among the island's summer residents and visiting tourists. Before each movie, Jack would personally walk down the aisle to the front of the auditorium to introduce the week's picture and talk about the next week's show, always to thunderous applause and raucous cheers from appreciative island movie fans.