Frank H. Ricketson Jr.

Early life and career Ricketson was born in Leavenworth, Kansas, on October 22, 1895. He worked his way through law school as a sportswriter, reporting for The Denver Express and then The Denver Post, where he wrote a column titled "Rick's Rackets" and succeeded Gene Fowler as sports editor in 1920. Later that year, he married Maizie Donnegan, the society editor of The Denver Post. Dickson and Ricketson also ran a film-delivery business known as D&R, and Ricketson built a theater of his own in Montrose in 1925. By 1929 the roughly 30 movie houses he operated had joined the Fox national chain.

Fox Intermountain Ricketson returned to Denver from Los Angeles in 1932 to take over divisional-manager duties for Fox Film in the Rocky Mountain region. Later that year he was appointed to head a newly created Rocky Mountain division spanning the Montana and Rocky Mountain zones, with district offices in Denver and Butte, Montana. Ricketson became president of Fox Intermountain Theatres in 1934, and remained as such until 1956. By 1943 he held dual wartime posts as president of Fox Intermountain and head of the United War Chest, and that June he publicly denied rumors that he would give them up for an executive position with Twentieth Century-Fox. In 1953 Ricketson presented the Clayton Long Trophy (the highest award in the Fox Intermountain organization) to Helen Jean Spiller, manager of the Esquire Theatre.

Bank Night Bank Night was a Depression-era theater promotion built around a weekly cash-prize drawing. It was designed to draw audiences back to the movies during a slump in the early 1930s. Variety referred to it as "Yaeger-Ricketson's Bank Night" and credited both as originators. In 1956 he commissioned the opera The Ballad of Baby Doe, which had its world premiere at Central City. The Ricketson Theatre at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts was named for him, though in 2018 the center announced that it would be renamed the Singleton Theatre in recognition of a gift from former Denver Post publisher and owner William Dean Singleton.

In his will, Ricketson left $7 million to the University of Denver's law school. The bequest was divided into two funds: one supporting law-school programs, and another invested for later use. The second grew to about $12 million and, with proceeds from the sale of the former Park Hill law campus, helped finance a $63.5 million law building.

Death Ricketson died of a heart attack on June 18, 1987, at St. Joseph Hospital in Denver, at the age of 91. A Roman Catholic, he was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery.