Cinema manager and chairman:
Derek Cameron, who died this week, was not simply an astute businessman who ensured that Scotland’s last independent, family-run cinema survived and prospered when others did not. For generations of Edinburgh’s film lovers, he was literally the public face of the Dominion cinema itself, personally welcoming patrons in the foyer.
The Dominion was the third cinema in Edinburgh built by Mr Cameron’s entrepreneurial father, Captain William Gerard Cameron. Overlooking prosperous Morningside, the cinema was erected in 1938 at a cost of £25,000 and originally could hold an audience of 1,300 people. One of Mr Cameron’s earliest memories was from opening night, when — just four years old — he nervously spilled a cup of orange juice on the cinema’s newly laid Linoleum floor.
When Captain Cameron died, just 10 years later, his widow, Jenny, decided to take on the running of the Dominion cinema herself. Years later, Mr Cameron would describe his mother as a ‘remarkable woman’ who had set the course that Mr Cameron himself would follow to great success, not least by resisting the many film distributors at the time that wanted her to screen the crowd-pulling X-rated movies then coming into fashion.
Following his father’s death, the teenage Mr Cameron learned his trade by doing odd jobs around the cinema and later qualified as a projectionist. By the time he completed his National Service, age 22, he felt he was ready to take the helm, though his mother remained actively involved in the business for many years.
An astute and confident businessman, he was always willing to take on the competition, whether it came from other cinemas or the rise of television and then video rental. It was he who ensured that the Dominion’s advertising in the 1950s emphasized the Technicolor and Hollywood stars that mere black and white television couldn’t provide. After the Regal cinema on the capital’s Lothian Road re-opened as the tripled-screened ABC in 1969, Mr Cameron took the brave decision to follow suit. The two-screen Dominion opened its doors to great success in 1972, at a time when numerous other suburban cinemas across the capital were closing their doors, facing either demolition or a lingering half-life as bingo halls.
Cinema 3 followed in 1980, creating a small Edinburgh tradition in the process by running the film Gregory’s Girl for more than three years. The popular Spool Room Restaurant opened in 1984, bringing a new degree of sophistication to the food available in the city’s cinemas. Before Mr Cameron handed over the day-to-day running of the company to his children — Mike, Al and Lesley — he had set in motion the creation of a fourth screen which opened in 1998.
As with any cinema, the Dominion’s ultimate success or failure has always depended on the films it has shown. Following his mother’s example, Mr Cameron never screened anything with which he wasn’t personally happy. As a result, the Dominion found a successful niche as the much-trusted — and, at times, the only — source of wholesome family film entertainment available in the capital. Numerous generations of children from all across Edinburgh enjoyed many of their earliest cinema experiences — including classic Disney cartoons like Bambi and The Jungle Book — at “the Dom”, thanks to Mr Cameron.
Mr Cameron was awarded an MBE in 1999 for services to the entertainment industry. He is survived by his three children.
First published by The Herald, 9 August 2011.
