Dora Winocour

Dora Winocour (nee Silver, died in 1970 at the age of 73 in Glasgow).

She married Harry Winocour in Milton, Glasgow in 1919. Harry was a proprietor of Cinemas and a theatre.

In 1931 one H Winocour was lodging at 8 Moray Place. This was Harry Winocour, born Hersz Winokur in Poland, and naturalised in 1947. Harry was a very well known independent cinema proprietor. In 1931 he was a co-director of the new Astoria Picture House Paisley, with brother Claude Winocour, and Henry Maitles. It had opened in 1909 as the Astoria Roller-Skating Rink but was reconstructed by the Winocours. The same year he also took over the Coatbridge Theatre Royal, and the following year built Calder Cinema in Calder Street [12]. His firm owned several cinemas in the West of Scotland.

In 1936 he built the Embassy Cinema in Kilmarnock Road, Shawlands, by architect James McKissack. It was opened by special guest Harry Lauder on 3 February, playing Al Jolson’s Cafe de Paree (aka Go Into Your Dance). The cinema was demolished in 1965 to make way for Shawlands Arcade, and the Sir John Stirling Maxwell pub now sits on the site. Harry later moved to 219 Nithsdale Road but died suddenly on holiday in Cannes in 1950. He left £235,000.

See also

• Winocour family
• Dora Winocour Charitable Trust