KEY POINTS:
Selwyn Philip Hayward, cinema operator and historian. Died aged 89.
Selwyn Hayward ran Auckland cinemas in their heyday of the 1940s and 50s, when going to "the flicks" was an integral part of community life, before the age of TV.
According to one of his sons, Bruce,
who with his father wrote Cinemas of Auckland 1896 to 1979, by the early 1950s there were some 65 suburban and city cinemas in Greater Auckland.
Saturday nights at the movies had become a weekly institution for New Zealanders.
"Many patrons had permanent bookings at their local cinema, as the programme usually changed each week. They would ring not to book but to cancel, if for some reason they couldn't make it," says Bruce. "Those were the days when people dressed up to go the movies. And many hurried out at halftime to buy the Auckland Star's Saturday 8 O'Clock sports paper.
Much of the cinema development in the three decades starting in the 1930s was under the aegis of two major chains - Amalgamated and Kerridge Odeon.
But Selwyn Hayward was born into the business and from 1948 (following the death of his father Phil) he and his brothers Keith and John were involved in running eight Auckland suburban cinemas.
They were in Remuera (Tudor), Takapuna (Gaiety), Birkenhead (Kiwi), Onehunga (Strand), Avondale (Grosvenor), Northcote (Bridgeway), Pt Chevalier (Ambassador) and Pukekohe (Strand).
This Auckland chain was actually a retrenchment from earlier Hayward enterprises. Selwyn Hayward was the eldest son of Phil Hayward who with his father Henry Hayward and partner John Fuller operated as Fuller-Haywards. In the late 1920s they were running 63 cinemas throughout the country. Then came the hard times of the Depression and financial overcommitment with the unavoidable expense of the introduction of the talkies replacing silent films from 1929, including the necessary sound systems.
By the time Selwyn Hayward took over in Auckland films were in good quality sound and rapidly improving colour. Competition was fierce but Mr Hayward, described by family as a quiet person diffident about public speaking, understood show business. And he had lots of contacts - people he met through his loved tennis, golf and bowls and membership of the Auckland Rotary Club from 1949.
Apart from the usual newspaper advertising, 1950s cinema promotions ran to circulating booklets on films being shown in coming months, often with a movie pass inside. Surprise envelope promotions were also popular, usually featuring a few top prizes plus minor prizes including thousands of free movie passes.
Mr Hayward reckoned that every pass that got a person in free often resulted in another paying ticket. Cinema proprietors also used to drive by their neighbouring opposition judging by the cars parked outside how they were doing with the film they were running.
The introduction of television in the early 1960s had a major and permanent impact on cinemas. In less than a decade the number of admissions and of cinemas both halved.
Today, with the modern multiscreen complexes and their small cinemas, there are said to be about as many screens (65) in Auckland as there were in the 1940s-50s heyday of Selwyn Hayward. But in a region of about 1.3 million there are only about a quarter of the cinema seats that were available in 1951 when the population was about 330,000.
Selwyn Hayward is survived by his wife of 60 years Zoe, two sons and a daughter.
