Editor’s Note: As part of our 50th anniversary, we asked writers to reflect on a half-century of Memphis history, but through a specific cultural lens. What follows is Chris McCoy's thoughts on the entertainment scene — whether it was on-screen or on-stage. You can find the entire package in our April 2026 print edition. Not a subscriber? Start one, and we'll send you a copy of the special issue.
DECEMBER 1993
You can’t very well write about the city of Memphis and not devote many, many column inches to arts and entertainment. Over the past 50 years, Memphis Magazine has published stories about the pivotal moments in our city’s cultural goings-on. Here we present a timeline of some of the major events in film, television, and live theater — all of which have appeared in our pages.
Memphis Theater (1976)
From the beginning, Memphis Magazine covered our city’s vibrant live theater scene. In a roundup of 1976 theater, our writers praised Bill Baker’s performance in The Ruling Class at Circuit Playhouse, Once Upon A Mattress at then-new Playhouse on the Square, and said the production of Tartuffe at Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College) “could not be matched.”
Drive-Ins (1977)
In our second year, Memphis Magazine reported on the city’s five(!) drive-in movie theaters, including the historic Southland, which opened on Lamar in 1940 under the less-than-creative name “Drive-In Movie.” Malco Theaters district manager “Dub” McKinney said in that ’77 article, “Business has never been better” at the Summer Twin Drive-In. When that theater closed in 2025, it marked the end of the drive-in era.
No Soap (1977)
In “Programming Memphis,” Ed Weathers reported that WHBQ-TV refused to air the ABC show Soap, a comedy which parodied the daytime TV soap operas of the day. “We thought it went one step beyond anything we’d transmitted before,” said program director Bob Lewis. The series launched the career of Billy Crystal, who played one of the first openly gay characters on American television, and Soap was eventually named one of the 100 best television series ever by Time magazine.
Elvis (1979)
With the death of Elvis Presley still fresh in the minds of the public, ABC-TV produced the first biopic of the King of Rock-and-Roll. Directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell as Elvis, the film became a ratings sensation, and served to cement many of the stories and images of Elvis which still endure to this day. Carpenter, fresh off revolutionizing horror with Halloween, shot mostly in California, with a few exteriors shot here in the Bluff City. He and Russell would go on to collaborate on a series of horror and sci-fi classics including The Thing and Escape From New York.
Circuit Playhouse Expands (1981)
The history of modern Memphis theater began in 1969 when Jackie Nichols founded Circuit Playhouse. In 1975, the year before Memphis Magazine started publishing, the organization expanded with Playhouse on the Square. In 1981, the company gained its first permanent home when it bought the former Ritz-Guild-Evergreen movie house at 1705 Poplar for $65,000.
Jerry Lawler vs. Andy Kaufman (1982)
Memphis’ wrestling king had his first appearance in Memphis Magazine in a 1977 cover story. In the early 1980s, legendary comedian Andy Kaufman was the breakout star of Taxi when he suddenly decided to be a wrestler. His career in the squared circle reached its apex when he wrestled Lawler in the Mid-South Coliseum. After The King showed him how it’s done in the 901, with a head-slam to the canvas, the two master showmen had a final confrontation on Late Night with David Letterman. The question remains: Was their nationally televised fight real, or was it all just kayfabe (wrestling jargon for staged matches)?
I Was a Zombie for the FBI (1982)
The modern era of film production in Memphis began with director Marius Penczner’s bizzaro hybrid of 1950s monster movies and hardboiled film noir. Aliens invaded Pleasantville, hypnotizing the wholesome residents and unleashing a reptilian monster. The creature was created with an innovative stop-motion video technique, and later starred in a ZZ Top music video. By the end of the decade, I Was a Zombie for the FBI had become a cult classic, thanks to late-night cable television. Bob Dylan called it his favorite film of the 1980s.
The Old Forest (1983)
Steve Ross, a Memphis State University film professor, gathered a crew of students and $100,000 to shoot an adaptation of author Peter Taylor’s short story “The Old Forest,” about a fateful car wreck in Overton Park. It was a coming-out party for the university’s film program. “We’ve been doing this for some time,” Richard Ranta, dean of communications and fine arts, told Memphis Magazine. “It’s just that the scale of this one is rather on a cosmic level.” The film would go on to air nationally on PBS.
SEPTEMBER 1984
Cybill Shepherd on Moonlighting (1985–1990)
In the 1970s, the Memphis-born actress had memorable roles in The Last Picture Show and Taxi Driver. In 1985, she was cast as Maddie Hayes, a former model who finds herself running the City of Angels detective agency opposite newcomer Bruce Willis. The show’s mixture of comedy and drama is still influential on television today. Shepherd won two Golden Globe Awards and went on to star in her own sitcom, Cybill.
The Memphian Theater Goes Live (1986)
The Memphian was Elvis Presley’s favorite movie theater. He would frequently rent it out for private showings of films with his friends. In 1986, Circuit Playhouse bought the Memphian and converted it into the new Playhouse on the Square.
Great Balls of Fire (1989)
Dennis Quaid portrayed Jerry Lee Lewis in this biopic, which was shot in and around Memphis in the late 1980s. Director Jim McBride based his film on a memoir by The Killer’s second wife, Myra Gale Brown, who was portrayed by Winona Ryder, fresh off her breakout role in Beetlejuice. Brown would later call the film “phony” for taking liberties with her story.
Mystery Train (1989)
Memphis has never looked cooler than it did through the eyes of director Jim Jarmusch. Inspired by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, it told the story of a pair of Japanese pilgrims visiting the holy city of rock-and-roll. They become entangled with the down-on-their-luck denizens of the Arcade Hotel on South Main, including characters played by Rufus Thomas, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and The Clash frontman Joe Strummer. Today, Mystery Train is considered one of the founding documents of the independent film movement.
DECEMBER 1992
Kathy Bates Wins Academy Award for Misery (1990)
The Memphis-born actress and White Station High School graduate was already well established through her work on the stage and extensive character experience on television. Then she wowed audiences as the crazed fan who kidnaps the author she idolizes in the adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. After winning the Best Actress Oscar for the role, she went on to add two Emmys and two BAFTAs to her awards shelf.
Trespass (1992)
During the 1990s, several big-budget Hollywood productions were filmed in Memphis. Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, the creative team behind Back to the Future, brought director Walter Hill to the Bluff City to film this gritty crime drama co-starring Ice Cube and Ice-T.
NOVEMBER 1992
The Firm (1993) and The Rainmaker (1997)
Several high-profile Hollywood productions came to the Bluff City during the 1990s. Memphis attorney turned author John Grisham was one of the biggest literary sensations of the 1990s. Sydney Pollack directed the film adaptation of his debut novel, The Firm, in 1993, which brought Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Holly Hunter, Hal Holbrook, and David Straithairn to Memphis, and grossed $270 million at the box office. Four years later, The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola followed suit with The Rainmaker, starring Matt Damon and Claire Danes. Coppola’s film is now considered one of the greatest courtroom dramas ever made.
The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
Screenwriting duo Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander penned this story of the Hustler publisher’s feud with the conservative reverend Jerry Falwell, which culminated in a landmark Supreme Court free speech case. Miloš Foreman and Woody Harrelson won Golden Globes for Best Director and Best Actor for the film.
Mike McCarthy Makes Movies (Mid-1990s)
While Hollywood was using Memphis as a setting for mid-budget dramas, Memphians were brewing up a film scene of their own. Tupelo native Mike McCarthy, a graduate of Memphis College of Art, was prominent in the punk rock underground when he took up a camera to film a series of no-budget mini-masterpieces. Teenage Tupelo is steeped in personalized Elvis mythology, while Superstarlet AD uses the ruins of post-industrial Memphis as a stand-in for a dystopian far future.
Indie Memphis Begins (1998)
University of Memphis film student Kelly Chandler gathered a few of her friends in the Edge coffee shop to show their films which could not find an audience elsewhere. The next year, arts nonprofit Delta Axis took over, and the festival evolved into one of the city’s premier cultural institutions.
APRIL 2021
The Poor and Hungry (2000)
As the digital age of filmmaking dawned, Memphis director Craig Brewer used a $20,000 inheritance from his father to make a drama of sin and redemption on the mean streets of Memphis. Eric Tate and Lindsey Roberts star as a car thief and street hustler whose fates become fatally intertwined. Brewer’s win at the Hollywood Film Festival — over films with budgets in the millions — announced the arrival of the digital age.
Cast Away (2000)
Director Robert Zemeckis had filmed his 1990 crime thriller Trespass in Memphis. In 2000, he brought Tom Hanks to the FedEx hub, where he filmed scenes as a pilot later stranded on a remote island when his plane goes down in the Pacific. The rest of the movie, which earned $429 million at the box office, was filmed in Fiji.
Hustle & Flow (2005)
Brewer spent the next few years in Hollywood trying to make his story of a street pimp with a dream. After dozens of rejections, producer John Singleton took Brewer under his wing, and this film caused a bidding war at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Terrence Howard would earn a Best Actor Academy Award nomination, and Memphis rap legends Three 6 Mafia became the first Memphis musical artists to win an Academy Award since Isaac Hayes in 1971.
Hattiloo Theatre Opens (2006)
Playwright and producer Ekundayo Bandele founded the Hattiloo Theatre to fill a major gap in Black representation on the stage in Memphis. In 2014, the company moved to a new $4.3 million facility, added the Hattiloo Technical Theatre Center in a converted school in 2016, and a residential space for artists, HattiHouse, in 2017. The Hattiloo is now the only freestanding Black repertory theater company in five surrounding states.
Tennessee Shakespeare Company (2008)
For almost two decades now, Tennessee Shakespeare Company has brought live theater to Memphians in a variety of styles and venues that would make the Bard swell with pride. Juliet has pined for Romeo from a rooftop(!) at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens. The Tempest has come to stormy life at Shelby Farms. The Taming of the Shrew from a 1940s radio station in New York City? Yep, just last winter, from TSC’s home stage on Trinity Road. Turns out the play is, indeed, the thing.
A New, Improved Playhouse on the Square (2010)
The Circuit Playhouse organization spent much of the decade fundraising for a new, $12.5 million facility at 66 S. Cooper St. The new Playhouse on the Square became the company’s flagship theater, while the former Memphian movie house across the street became Circuit Playhouse. The Poplar theater became TheatreWorks @ The Evergreen.
This Is What Love In Action Looks Like (2011)
Morgan Jon Fox emerged from Midtown’s Digital Co-Op filmmaking collective to become the most decorated director in Indie Memphis history. In the mid 2000s, he documented a series of protests against Love In Action, a gay conversion therapy center in East Memphis, which resulted when a teenager named Zack Stark was committed by his parents against his will. After Stark was released and the protests ended, Fox continued filming, eventually documenting Love In Action’s founder John Smid’s own coming-out story.
DECEMBER 1978
Sun Records (2017)
As Hollywood feature film production in Memphis began to wane in 2010, thanks to changing tax incentive laws, some network TV series stepped into the void. In 2017, the CMT network came to Memphis for a series based on the early days of rock-and-roll. Sam Phillips, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Ike Turner, Dewey Phillips, and Col. Tom Parker became characters in a weekly drama, which lasted one season on the Nashville-based network.
Bluff City Law (2019)
Jimmy Smits gained fame in the late 1980s in LA Law. He came to the Bluff City to get back to those roots. Memphis’ history as the setting for John Grisham legal dramas attracted this series, which ran for one season on NBC.
Theatre Memphis Centennial (2021)
The Little Theatre of Memphis was founded in 1920 and held their first performance in 1921. For 46 years, the company had their productions in an unlikely location, the east wing of the Pink Palace, before moving to their current home at Southern and Perkins Extended in 1975. In 2020, the company completed a major expansion and renovation, but the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the official celebration in 2021.
Young Rock (2021-2023)
Before Dwayne Johnson emerged as one of Hollywood’s biggest box office draws, he was a struggling professional wrestler based out of Memphis. For the third season of the sitcom based on his life, Johnson returned to Memphis to re-create his adventures in the squared circle.
JULY 1993
Elvis (2022)
Australian director Baz Luhrmann had long been obsessed with Elvis when he directed this sweeping biopic, which became one of the first big hits of the post-pandemic era. Austin Butler starred as the King of Rock-and-Roll opposite Tom Hanks as the scheming Col. Tom Parker. The film, which was shot in Australia and held its premiere at Graceland, earned eight Academy Award nominations. During the production, Luhrmann came across never-before-seen performance footage of Elvis which served as the basis for his 2026 documentary EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert.
Stax: Soulsville USA (2024)
Between the opening of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and Robert Gordon’s book and film Respect Yourself, the revival of the Stax Records legacy is one of the great Memphis stories of the twenty-first century. In 2024, HBO went deeper into the story with a six-part docuseries, directed by Jamila Wignot, which traces the origins and ultimate influence of the music that expressed the soul of Memphis.
