Most Haunted Places in America: The Paramount Theater

The building that was once called the Paramount Theater (now called the Paramount Arts Center) was opened in 1931, during the silent film boom. One of the great ironies of the structure is that, even being built for the express purpose of showing silent movies, it never showed one. In fact, the theater organ that would have provided the music was never even installed. After forty years of performances, the Paramount Theater closed in 1971, only to be reopened the next year by the Greater Ashland Foundation as the Paramount Arts Center, a true performing arts theater.

The building has undergone many renovations since 1972, including the addition of a new stagehouse. New dressing rooms, rehearsal space and a banquet facility were added in a nearby building, which was then connected to the main theater building. The Paramount now exists as a nonprofit organization which coordinates symphonies, ballet, and stage plays. Most of the world has seen the interior of the Paramount Arts Center without even realizing it: the music video for the song “Achy Breaky Heart” by Kentucky native Billy Ray Cyrus was filmed there.

In addition to the horrid spectre of Billy Ray Cyrus’s glorious mullet, the Paramount Theater is home to a well-known ghost that has been dubbed “Paramount Joe”. The story goes that Joe was one of four workers for the Boyd Theater Company from Cincinnati, who were contracted to do some renovations in the early 1940s. All of the men, with the exception of Joe, went out to lunch one day, and when the men returned from their break they found Joe hanging from the curtain rigging, dead.

For the most part, Paramount Joe seems to be a pretty benign spirit. Small objects will disappear and be returned to odd locations in a playful manner, the sounds of whispers and knocking can sometimes be heard, cold spots spontaneously appear, and a few people have even reported seeing the full-bodies apparition of a man.

One example of paramount Joe’s helpful nature can be seen in the story of two new employees who were to visit the basement of the theater to seek out some old props. The stairway which leads to the basement has one interesting feature – it is lit by stages, with a light switch every few feet that will just light that particular section. The same switch that turns the light on has to be used to turn it back off. With that in mind, the marketing director was leading the rookies down the stairs, when he was called away to the phone. The new employees didn’t hear him say to stay put, so they continued down into the darkness.

After a few steps they called up to the manager that was no longer there to turn on the next set of lights. They came on, and the manager met the employees as they were coming back up the stairs, when they thanked him for turning on the lights, even though they couldn’t get them to turn back off. The manager explained that he didn’t turn on the lights, in fact he couldn’t have even if he wanted to since he was at the top of the stairs. When the three went back downstairs the lights had mysteriously gone off again.

When he was in the theater filming his music video, reports are that Billy Ray Cyrus became fascinated by Paramount Joe, even going so far as to talk to him in between takes. At the conclusion of the shoot, Cyrus autographed 8X10 photographs for all the female employees of the theater, as well as one personalized to Paramount Joe. Most of the pictures were hung in the offices of the employees, and Joe’s was placed in the box office with all of the other signed pictures collected through the years. Everything became too cluttered after a while, so the manager asked for some of the pictures of Billy Ray to be removed, since there were so many of them.

In the process, the picture signed to Paramount Joe was taken down. When people came to work the next morning, they found that every other picture hanging on the wall was now lying on the floor, many with their frames shattered. Now Paramount Joe’s picture hangs in a prominent space in the Marquee Room, which is now the home of “Paramount Joe’s Rising Star Café”.

Another story concerning Joe comes from marketing director Tyson Compton. He was leading a tour of the theater for some local high school students when he started to tell the story of Joe’s haunting of the theater. During the tour, to keep the students’ attention he called out “Joe, are you here? Is it OK that I tell your story?” He could have sworn that he heard one of the theater’s seats squeak in response, and he thought that was the end of the tale.

The very next day Compton received a phone call out of the blue from one of Kentucky’s most well-known psychic sensitives. She asked him if there was a recent death in his family, to which he replied in the negative. She told him that she had received a message from the “other side”, saying that she was supposed to tell him that “Joe said he is here”.

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