The Ziegfeld Theatre is a deluxe single screen movie theater located at 141 West 54th Street in Manhattan. Named in honour of the original Broadway theater, it opened in 1969 and remains in operation today.

The original Ziegfeld Theatre was a Broadway theater at 1341 Sixth Avenue, corner of 54th Street in Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1927 and, despite public protests, was razed in 1966.

History
The original Ziegfeld Theatre was named for the famed Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, who built it with financial backing from William Randolph Hearst. Designed by Joseph Urban and Thomas W. Lamb, it opened on February 2, 1927 with the musical Rio Rita. The Ziegfeld's second show was also its most famous, Jerome Kern's landmark musical Show Boat which opened on December 27, 1927.

Due to the decline in new Broadway shows during the Great Depression, the theater became the Loew's Ziegfeld in 1933 and operated as a movie theater until showman Billy Rose bought it in 1944.

NBC leased the Ziegfeld for use as a television studio from 1955 to 1963. The Perry Como Show was broadcast from the theater beginning in 1956. It was also used to present the televised Emmy Awards program in 1959 and 1961.

In 1963 the Ziegfeld reopened as a legitimate Broadway theater. This was short-lived however, as Rose began to assemble abutting properties for a new real estate project. The musical Anya (opened November 29, 1965 for 16 performances) was the last musical to play at the theater, which was torn down in 1966 to make way for a skyscraper, the Fisher Bros. Burlington House (later renamed the Alliance Capital, and then Alliance Bernstein building.)

A fragment of the Joseph Urban facade, a female head, can be seen in front of the private home at 52 East 80th Street. The box from the cornerstone and its contents are held by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' Billy Rose Theatre Division.

The present Ziegfeld Theatre
On December 17, 1969, a few hundred feet from the site of the original Ziegfeld Theatre, a new Ziegfeld Theatre opened as a single-screen movie house. Located at 141 West 54th Street, it is one of the last large-scale movie palaces built in the United States. Constructed by Emery Roth & Sons from designs by Irving Gershon and sumptuous red-carpeted interior designs by John J. McNamara, it has 1,131 seats (825 seats in the orchestral section and 306 seats in the tiered rear section). It has been used for 70 mm world premieres and big-event press screenings, such as the November 1977 opening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The theater underwent extensive renovations in the late 1990s. It was a centerpiece site during the 2008 New York Film Festival because of reconstruction work at Lincoln Center that year. During the 2000s, digital projection was installed. The theater is the largest single screen cinema in New York and continues to be the site of film premieres and gala events. Since 2013, the Ziegfeld has been managed by Bow Tie Cinemas, on behalf of Cablevision, which owns the theater (the theater was previously part of the Clearview Cinemas theater chain prior to the chain's sale to Bow Tie; the actual ownership of the Ziegfield building was excluded from the sale).

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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a musical with a book by Joseph Fields and Anita Loos, lyrics by Leo Robin, and music by Jule Styne, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Loos. The story involves an American woman's voyage to Paris to perform in a nightclub.

The musical opened on Broadway in 1949 (running for 740 performances and introducing Carol Channing), a London production was mounted in 1962, and there was a Broadway revival in 1995. An adaptation called Lorelei (also starring Carol Channing) played on Broadway in 1974. It was made into a film of the same name in 1953, starring Marilyn Monroe. The popular songs "Bye, Bye Baby" and "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" were introduced in this musical.

Productions
The musical opened on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre on December 8, 1949 and closed September 15, 1951, after 740 performances. It was produced by Herman Levin and Oliver Smith, directed by John C. Wilson, and choreographed by Agnes de Mille, with vocal direction by Hugh Martin. Financial backers included Harold M. Esty, Jr.

The original cast featured:
Carol Channing as Lorelei Lee
Yvonne Adair as Dorothy Shaw
Rex Evans as Sir Francis Beekman
Anita Alvarez as Gloria Stark
Eric Brotherson as Henry Spofford
Jack McCauley as Gus Esmond
George S. Irving as Josephus Gage
Irving Mitchell as Mr. Esmond, Sr.
Alice Pearce as Mrs. Ella Spofford
Reta Shaw as Lady Phyllis Beekman
June Kirby as Sun Bather
Several well-known blonde actresses, including Betty Hutton, Jayne Mansfield (Carousel Theater, 1964), Mamie Van Doren, Barbara Eden (Florida, January 1999) and Morgan Fairchild, have starred in regional and summer stock productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes over the years.