Andy Williams and the Moon River Theatre
Near Branson, Missouri
For decades Branson was a country-and-comedy town, until a crooner in a cardigan changed its reputation. In June of nineteen ninety-one, the pop singer Andy Williams was invited to Branson by his brother, took in a show, and was urged by others to open a theater of his own. He decided to gamble.
Construction began that year, and Williams built a state-of-the-art theater said to cost around twelve million dollars in this small rural town. It opened in nineteen ninety-two. He named it the Moon River Theatre, after the song he had made famous from the film Breakfast at Tiffany's.
He had sung it at the nineteen sixty-two Academy Awards, where it won Best Original Song, and the theater seated two thousand fifty-four people. It became the first Branson theater ever featured in Architectural Digest. More importantly, Andy Williams was the first major non-country star to bet on Branson, and his success signaled to the wider entertainment world that this Ozark town was more than a hillbilly novelty.
The Moon River Theatre ran for decades, and Williams himself passed away there in Branson in twenty twelve. Williams was known as Mister Christmas, having recorded eight Christmas albums, and his television variety show ran from nineteen sixty-two to nineteen seventy-one and won three Emmy Awards.
