Content area
Full Text
For six months in 1926, Gaylord Carter watched MGM's "Ben Hur" almost every night as he played the silent film's musical score on the Million Dollar Theater's house organ.
Wednesday night at the Orpheum (another relic from the Downtown movie district), the 88-year-old organist will again get the chance to see what he describes as one of his favorite films-and he won't even have to work the show.
Carter, along with ticket holders for the Los Angeles Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats series, will watch a restored print of the film and hear the praise of fellow film buffs, who are planning a tribute to Carter, once Southern California's pre-eminent silent-film organist. The series, in which classic films are shown in downtown L.A. movie palaces, takes place each Wednesday in June.
"What do you do when people say they want to say some nice things about you?" the semi-retired Carter asks rhetorically. "They said a friend of...