If you are looking to see a movie in Searcy, one place you might go is Cinema 8. However, those who seek a more classic theater experience, head to the Rialto Theater in the downtown area. Aside from the location, time and price, the one thing that has remained the same for 21 years is the voice over the phone and the face in the box office window.
Victor Weber, owner of the Rialto Theater since 1994, has been in the theater business all of his life. In fact, Weber has had a passion for the theater since he was a child.
“I hadn’t even started to school yet, but my mother and daddy and I would get ready on Saturday to go to the show,” Weber said. “I remember bugging them to get ready around three or four o’clock and it didn’t even start until 7:30 p.m. My dad (would say), ‘You love those theaters so much, you ought to get you one when you grow up!’ Oddly enough, that stuck with me all my life.”
Weber worked at a theater in Cuba, Ark., until getting drafted into the Army during the Korean War. Soon after his return, he purchased his first theater in Kensett, Ark. By 1955, Weber owned theaters in Bald Knob, McCrory, Kensett, Des Arc, Beebe and Lonoke.
Weber took control of the Rialto theater in 1994 when Searcy’s mayor, David Evans, asked Weber if there was anything he could do with the Rialto. At that time, the Rialto had experienced four different owners who each went bankrupt. After much thought, Weber decided he had a plan for the Rialto.
“I said I can’t buck the cinema,” Weber said. “I’d have to play second-run movies. I’m going to play family movies and I’m going to charge a dollar, now two dollars. This smarty pants down at Cinema 8 said ‘I’ll put him out of business in 6 months’. Well, it’s been 21 years, and I’m still here.”
Weber found success in the theater business, at one point selling a theater for $300,000, and at several other points in his career, held the record for the top-grossing drive-in theater and movie showing. However, for Weber, it was never about the money, but pursuing his passion.
“I loved what I was doing, so the work didn’t really bother me,” Weber said, “It’s like what I always told a friend of mine, ‘Choose something you love, something that you would do even if you had all the money in the world, and you won’t have to work a day of your life.’ You really need to be extremely serious about what you want to do and make sure it’s something you love.”
Phillip Pratt, an employee at the Rialto for seven years, said that Weber never takes time off of work. Pratt said that Weber will leave for maybe one or two days, long enough to drive up to Colorado through the mountains, then come back to get back to work.
“He’s not looking for the ultimate profit,” Pratt said. “It’s something he enjoys doing.”
