With no seniority, Johnson was among the first to be axed in 1960. Suddenly on his own, he found he wasn't interested in being another disposable cog in someone else's machine and talked his brother into starting a printing business. "Johnson Printers, which is still there in Downers Grove. We started out in 1961 as a letter press. Then we got into offset. And then in '67 we bought a company called Deluxe and got into display materials."

For a time Johnson lived the suburban dream. He married, bought a house, started to raise a family. But he always felt vaguely dissatisfied. He divorced in the early 70s and moved into furnished rooms in the Tivoli Hotel. The Tivoli Hotel, part of a block-size building that also included a restaurant, bowling alley, a few storefronts, and the Tivoli Theatre, built in 1928.

Johnson bought the whole block in 1976 "as an investment and because I liked the building." He and his second wife, Shirley, took over the management of the hotel and leased out the commercial spaces, including the theater. "This was all on the side. I was still working full-time at Johnson Printers," he says.

The theater was being run by larger-than-life entrepreneur Oscar Brotman, who co-owned the small Chicago theater chain, Brotman and Sherman. Roger Ebert credited him with having coined Brotman's Law: If nothing has happened by the end of the first reel, nothing is going to happen. Some also say he introduced popcorn machines to Chicago theaters. In the 60s and early 70s he was notorious for his (very lucrative) screenings of Russ Meyer films at the Loop Theater on Randolph.

"Oscar ran the Tivoli pretty successfully," Johnson says. "Then General Cinemas built the Yorktown nearby, and suddenly Oscar couldn't get any movies. He couldn't bring himself to turn the Tivoli into a discount house, and finally one day my wife and I woke up to find Closed for Remodeling on the marquee."

A little later that day Johnson got a call from the theater manager telling him he should come by. "He said to me," Johnson recalls, "'Things are not what they're supposed to be.'" When Johnson arrived, he found a truck in front of the theater and workers loading it up with theater fixtures. "He was taking out lobby furniture. He was taking the ticket machine. The ropes. The poles. Projection equipment. Lights. I think he even hand rolled up the carpet." There was only one problem: Brotman didn't own the fixtures. Johnson did.

"Oscar Brotman," Johnson laughs, "was, ah..." He pauses. "A showman. Oscar Brotman was a showman." Then he laughs. "We got a court order, and that ended that."

Or, rather, that began that: suddenly Johnson had a big, empty theater on his hands. "We advertised for prospective leasees, interviewed a couple of them, and was not happy with them." Then the Tivoli's former manager approached the Johnsons with a proposal: If they would reopen the theater, he would do the film booking and tickets. The Johnsons would buy the insurance and pay the bills.

The place opened again, unremodeled, in August of 1978 as a first-run theater. Their first flick was the Disney movie, Hot Lead and Cold Feet, starring Jim Dale and Don Knotts. "It was a disaster," Johnson says. "No one went to see it." He lost so much money that after only two weeks he was forced to turn the Tivoli into a bargain house. With tickets at a dollar and quarter, he had an easier time filling the space.

The story first appeared in the September 14, 2001, Reader's Guide. Reprinted with permission of Jack Helbig. Copyright 2001 Jack Helbig.

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