Bye, Boo!

Sad news for Bijou fans: Boo, the enormous, ever-present theater cat, died this weekend. “She would have been 23 on the 17th,” says Joe Lewis, whose exact job I am unsure of but who, as far as I can tell, is the Bijou’s general does-everything-what-needs-doing kind of guy (the R-G last referred to him as the “administrative assistant,” but that sounds less fun). “She’d had kidney disease for several years, and it got better and got worse, but it was progressing.” They took her to the vet on Sunday night, when, Lewis says, she was ready to go after having a hard time the last few weeks.

Lewis says Boo had been at the Bijou for 11 years. Last year, there was talk about finding her a new home, as she was disturbing the building’s other tenants when the theater was closed, but she stayed with the Bijou until the end. As for whether or not the theater will get another cat, he says, “I’d rather take a little bit of a break,” and notes that Boo’s lack of interest in escape probably kept her around, and safe, longer than most cats. “A lot of cats have wanderlust. She was kind of one in a million.”

That’s the truth. Bye, Boo! I’ll miss your cranky yowls when I’d walk in for noon screenings, and the rumbling purr that even the smallest of ear-skritches could conjure up. I’n not looking forward to the first time I go to the Bijou and there’s no complaining â€” but sweet â€” kitty on her own particular chair.

Image provided by the Bijou.

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