THE former White Elephant cinema in Shawlands, Glasgow, where fire broke out in Tuesday evening, was opened in 1927 by the celebrated Glasgow showman, A.E. Pickard.

When it opened its doors it was the subject of a characteristically zany stunt by the flamboyant Yorkshireman.

According to author Judith Bowers, he advertised dinner and a fur coat, free with the one-shilling admission, to the first 2,000 people to enter the new cinema.

"Women flocked to the building in their thousands, queuing almost back to the city centre, desperate to win dinner and a fur coat.

Shawlands fire: Crews battle blaze in derelict White Elephant cinema

"How disappointed they must have been when they finally got to the front of the queue to discover A.E. Pickard and the cinema manager standing at the front door handing out rabbits".

Bowers mentions the story in her book, Glasgow's Lost Theatre, about the Panopticon on the Trongate. Pickard took over the Britannia Music Hall and in May 1906 reopened it as the Panopticon. Among its many claims to fame, it was the theatre that gave a teenager named Arthur Stanley Jefferson his first break - he went on to find global fame as  Stan Laurel, of Laurel and Hardy.

Another author, Bruce Peter, says in his book, 100 Years of Amazing Glasgow Cinemas, that Pickard had staged a contest to name his new cinema in Kilmarnock Road, Shawlands.

It ended up being called the White Elephant and Pickard had a large model elephant mounted over the entrance.

Adds Peter: "The name was quite appropriate to this cumbersome building with its unusual, 'back-to-front' auditorium entered from below the proscenium".

The Herald: A.E. Pickard, at the opening of another of his Glasgow cinemasA.E. Pickard, at the opening of another of his Glasgow cinemas (Image: Newsquest)

Pickard also installed what he referred to as "lovers' neuks" - double seats without a central armrest. According to Peter, Pickard told reporters at the opening: "I didn't like to see young couples doin' their courtin' in closes and I thought it would be better to 'ave them courtin' in my cinema".

In 1934 Pickard sold the cinema to A.B. King, who speediy dropped the 'White' from the name and scrapped the neuks.

The venue closed in 1960, one of many cinemas that fell victim to rival attractions such as television.

Pickard himself stood as an Independent Millionaire candidate for Glasgow Maryhill at the electon in 1951, but lost his deposit.

Colourful anecdotes abounded. He once offered a £100 note to pay a traffic fine, and sent a £1,000 cheque to a young woman who wanted to marry a man awaiting execution in prison.

He owned more than 400 houses, a waxworks, several cinemas and a monkey house, and died in 1964. He left an estate of £212,381.