[4] The Pantages opened with MGM's The Floradora Girl starring Marion Davies on screen and Franchon & Marco's The Rose Garden Idea on the stage.

[4] However, while the theater originally programmed first-run movies and vaudeville acts, it was forced to economize due to effects of the Great Depression.

From 1949 to 1959, the theater hosted the Academy Awards, in 1965 it was purchased by Pacific Theatres, and it continued to be a major venue for roadshow movies into the 1970s,[1][4][5] with notable screenings during this period including the west coast premieres of Spartacus and Cleopatra, which ran for 61 and 72 weeks, respectively.

[1][4] In December 2007, plans were revealed to complete the building's original design, which consisted of two stories dedicated to theater and ten additional floors of office space, but it was never realized.

[10] Now operated by a subsidiary of the Nederlander Organization, the Pantages is one of Los Angeles's highest-grossing venues for live stage and Broadway-style productions.

[3] The theater's forecourt features a lavish ceiling with gold, silver, and bronze-colored starbursts that radiate in multiple geometric patterns.

[1] Inside, the lobby is a 110-feet wide by 60-feet deep poly-chromatic fan vault, decorated in a zigzag geometric design with gold and henna shades.

Designed by Anthony B. Heinsbergen, the ceiling features a series of fretwork sunray effects that converge from the center, from which a large frosted glass and bronze chandelier is hung.

The Academy Award scenes in The Bodyguard were shot in The Pantages, and the theater's interior was used for the Ritz Gotham Hotel in Batman Forever.