Curran Theatre

Theatre treasurer Hewlett G. Tarr was shot during a box office robbery in 1933, two days before Thanksgiving and days before his wedding. His fiancée arrived for their date minutes after he died. Patrons have been seeing him in the lobby mirrors ever since, dressed in 1930s clothes, still waiting.

Hewlett G. Tarr was two days out from Thanksgiving and a few days out from his wedding when the Curran Theatre's box office was robbed. He was 25, the theatre's treasurer, and he was counting the night's take at 7:30 pm on November 28, 1933. The gunman was Eddie Anderson, also 25. Anderson later swore the gun went off by accident. That didn't help Tarr. It didn't help his 23-year-old fiancée Dorothy Reade either, who walked up to meet him for their date minutes after he died.

Anderson was caught three weeks later after a shootout with police outside a Bank of America. He confessed to killing Tarr, and at 10:04 am on February 15, 1935, he dropped through the San Quentin gallows. Clean case. Fast justice. But apparently not closure, because people have been seeing Hewlett Tarr in the Curran's mirrors ever since.

The sightings are specific. A handsome young man in 1930s clothes, appearing in the oversized mirror near the lobby entrance, dressed like he's heading somewhere important. A wedding, maybe. Staff and patrons have reported him for decades, usually as a reflection that shouldn't be there, a second face behind theirs in the glass. No cold drama, no warning. Just a man in a suit who used to work here.

The Curran opened in 1922, built by theatrical producer Homer Curran as San Francisco's premier legitimate playhouse. The building is French Renaissance Revival, 1,600 seats, ornate plasterwork, and a painted ceiling that still stops first-time visitors mid-step. Over the past century it's hosted pre-Broadway tryouts, Carol Channing, the San Francisco run of "Hamilton." It also had a meticulous restoration in 2015 that brought the gilt back to the ceiling and cleaned a century of grime off the mirrors. The ghost, according to staff, kept showing up anyway.

Tarr isn't alone in the reports. Older accounts mention a stagehand who fell from the fly system, the catwalk area above the stage where scenery is rigged and flown in. He's spotted in the flies most often, occasionally in the dressing rooms below. There's also a thinner story about a little girl who was killed somewhere across the street and somehow ended up attached to the theatre. Less detail on her, fewer sightings, and honestly it reads like the kind of secondary legend that accretes around a place once the main ghost is established.

The main ghost is the one with the paper trail. Tarr's murder was front-page news in 1933 San Francisco, and the Curran's own history pages have quietly carried the story forward. That's part of what makes the haunting work as a story, whether you believe in it or not. It's not just "an old theatre has a ghost." It's a specific man, killed at a specific time, in a specific spot in the building, with a grieving fiancée walking in on the aftermath. The kind of thing that leaves a mark on a room.

The best time to catch him, if you're so inclined, is during quiet hours in the lobby. Not during intermission. Not during the post-show rush. Stand in front of the big mirror near the entrance while the house is emptying out, and look at the reflection longer than feels natural. If there's a second man in the glass, in a suit that's 90 years out of style, he probably isn't there for the show.