Starlite Drive In Theater: RIP Richard Beasley

Richard Beasley, owner and builder of The Starlite Drive-In Theater in Christiansburg, VA, passed away on July 26th this year. Mr. Beasley helped me with a lot of the information and documentation for a short video I made about his theater. He was older but still had his wits about him when we spoke. It’d be my guess that there aren’t many original drive-in theater owners left around. Here’s his obituary from the NRV news.

The drive-in theater pretty much died off in the 1980s or earlier. Here in Roanoke we had six drive-in theaters as late as 1978. Even that seems incredible now. Six drive-in theaters? From the names of the drive-ins listed below it also seems to have been a common practice to name the theater after the street upon which it was located.

Mr. Beasly was a really friendly and helpful man. Below the graphic of Roanoke drive-ins is the video I made with his help. Many thank Mr. Beasley.