These are the Reasons You Should Like Shirley Temple

Today is the 85th birthday of Mrs. Shirley Temple Black, the most popular child star in history, and one of the few who didn’t disintegrate or self-distruct. Her life is both well-known and well-chronicled elsewhere. I just wanted to take a minute to point out a few aspects of her career that I find interesting and may interest our readers:

* The earliest phase of her career, from 1932 through 1934, was spent making comedy shorts at Educational Pictures, the Poverty Row studio that also employed Buster Keaton, Andy Clyde, Harry Langdon, and many other comedians. Shirley (all of 3 and 4 years old) starred in two series for the studio. Baby Burlesks were funny parodies of popular films of the day (e.g., a western, a Tarzan picture), starring all-baby casts. The effect was kind of like Hal Roach’s Our Gang, and kind of like those shorts series starring animals. The kids are cute, and barely know what they’re saying. The other series Frolics of Youth was essentially a domestic situation comedy about a family; Shirley was a pesky little sister named Mary Lou. These series are both pretty delightful; I used to watch them with my kids when they were younger. (Although, sometimes the love scenes in the Baby Burlesks cross a line most reputable producers would stay away from today.)

* Stand Up and Cheer (1934), her first feature for Fox is chock full of vaudevillians: Sylvia Froos, Tess Gardella, Mitchell and Durant, and Stepin Fetchit.

* Bright Eyes (1934) is the film with Temple’s iconic song and dance number “Good Ship Lollipop”. The number is a classic not only because of Temple’s adorable (perhaps too adorable) performance, but because it’s brilliantly staged…I just love the stop and start tracking shot following Shirley up the airplane aisle, capturing all the amused faces of the passengers. If you’ve not seen the film, it may surprise you to learn that it’s kind of a weepie downer, dealing as it deals with DEATH.

* Temple’s co-star in several pictures is the great dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, who appears in The Little Colonel (1935), The Littlest Rebel (1935), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), and Just Around the Corner (1938). These parts were both groundbreaking and problematic. These were among the first starring turns for an African American in Hollywood films, but they were also “Uncle Tom” roles. Robinson would take a lot of heat about it from some quarters.

* Temple, who had been a box office gold mine throughout the Depression years, began to lose her lustre for audiences around 1940 (aged 12). She soldiered gamely on for another decade; as she reached the other side of adolesence she found new appeal as a very attractive young woman. Notable pictures from this phase included the screwball comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer with Cary Grant (1947), and the western Fort Apache (1948), directed by John Ford who had earlier directed her in Wee Willie Winkie (1937). Fort Apache allowed Temple to star opposite her then husband John Agar, whose chief virtue in the film is making his wife appear a Duse in comparison. The reality was, though she was attractive and energetic, she really couldn’t act. After 1949′s A Kiss for Corliss she dropped being in movies for awhile.

* In 1950 she married millionaire Charles Alden Black and had two children. From 1958 through 1961 she came out of retirement to produce, host and occasionally act in her own television show Shirley Temple’s Storybook. See my review of that show and her version of The House of the Seven Gables here.

* Her last acting gig seems to have been a performance in a pilot for a sit-com called Go Fight City Hall in 1965. It wasn’t picked up, but she decided to fight city hall herself by going into politics as a Republican. She ran for congress unsuccessfully in 1967, and later served as Ambassador to Ghana, Ambassador to Czechoslavakia, and Chief of Protocol of the United States.

Here she is doing the famous “stair dance” with Bill Robinson in The Little Colonel:

To find out about  the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.

For more on silent and slapstick comedy please check out my new book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc

Nellie Keeler, a.k.a Little Queen Mab

Today is the birthday of Nellie Keeler (1875-1903). Born onto a Kokomo, Indiana farm, she weighed only eleven ounces at the time of her birth. At age three, when she was hired by P.T. Barnum, she was up to eleven pounds, standing a little over two feet. Billed as “The Indiana Midget”,  and “Little Queen Mab”, she was often exhibited next to the Middlebush Giant for contrast. At age 12, a growth spurt began (eventually she grew to five feet) and she retired from the circus. By age 16, she was an invalid. At 28, she contracted consumption and passed away. She was buried in a burglar proof vault to prevent any curiosity seekers from making off with her bones.

To learn more about the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.

And don’t miss my new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc

Stars of Vaudeville # 603: Will Fyffe

American vaudeville’s second favorite Scotsman (after Sir Harry Lauder) was Will Fyffe (1885-1947).

Fyffe was a second generation actor in stock companies who began acting with his dad at age 6. He broke into English music hall around 1916, and made numerous appearances at New York’s Palace Theatre in the late 1920s. His patented routine would be to start a song, then break off and deliver an in-character monologue. His most popular number was the self-penned “I Belong to Glasgow”.

Fyffe’s last live appearance in the States was in Earl Carroll’s Vanities in 1932 (the last edition). He appeared in numerous talkies from 1930 until his death (reportedly by falling out a window) in 1947.

Today is his birthday.

And now…

To find out more about the variety arts past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t miss Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, to be released by Bear Manor Media in 2013.

Stars of Vaudeville # 599: Eddie Bracken

Today is the birthday of Eddie Bracken (1915-2002), best known today for his tour de force turns in two Preston Sturges films The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero (1944).

Bracken started out in kiddie acts in vaudeville at the age of 9. He was also one of the stars of the “Kiddie Troupers” series of comedy film shorts, which were intended to be competition to Our Gang/ the Little Rascals.

In 1933, he began to get parts in Broadway shows; his performance in 1939′s Too Many Girls put him over the top. He was cast in the film version the following year and became a familiar face on movie screens until 1953, when he left movies to return to the stage (although he continued to do lots of television). His last role was on an episode of Ed in 2000.

Here he is in his hilarious turn as the fall guy in The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, with William Demarest and Betty Hutton:

To find out more about the variety arts past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t miss Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, to be released by Bear Manor Media in 2013.

Stars of Vaudeville # 595: Jane and Katherine Lee

Today is the birthday of Katherine Lee (1909-1968). She and her sister Jane (1912-1957)  were a kiddie sister act who starred in silent movies and vaudeville from the mid teens through the mid 1930s. Some theorize that the two may not have been blood sisters, just an act concocted by an ambitious stage mother composed of her own kid plus an adopted one. They first gained notice in Annette Kellerman’s film Neptune’s Daugher in 1914 (although they’d been acting in films since the year before). The pair began to get their own starring vehicles, appearing in these and other films over the next ten years.

From 1920 through 1933 they were also big time vaudeville stars, appearing in a succession of specially devised turns that gave them the opportunity to act, sing and dance. They got to do their act one last time for 1936′s Vitaphone Billboard, after which the young ladies retired.

To find out more about the variety arts past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t miss Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, to be released by Bear Manor Media in 2013.

Baby Jane Tonight on TCM!

Tonight at 8pm Eastern on TCM, that heartwarming family classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? The part of the film that seems to stick uppermost in our mind is the situation of two old sisters, the one (Bette Davis) terrorizing and abusing her invalid sister (Joan Crawford).

Ah but there is a vaudeville angle! For Davis’s character is the fictional former vaud child star Baby Jane Hudson, a cloying, irritating spoiled brat of a thing. If memory serves, the vaudeville scenes in the movie’s prologue are wildly inaccurate, neither the theatre itself, nor the nature of Baby Jane’s act nor the music played or the amount or type of merchandising of Baby Jane products in the lobby bear any relationship to reality. However, according to my personal experience, the scene where one sibling serves another a dead rat for luncheon was not only true to life, but tastefully realized for the screen.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a clip of that, but there’s always this horrifying scene:

To find out more about the variety arts past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t miss Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, to be released by Bear Manor Media in 2013.

Stars of Vaudeville # 557: Eddie Tamblyn

Photo from the American Vaudeville Museum

Today is the birthday of Eddie Tamblyn (1907-1957), father of Russ and Larry, grandfather of Amber. Never a star per se, he worked in vaudeville, Broadway and Hollywood (which is better than some) and certainly sired stars, whom it must be acknowledged are chips off the old block.

A Yonkers native, he got his start in vaudeville at 14 in a Gus Edwards act. Because of his small size, young face, and athletic dancing prowess, he would continue to play teenage boys and college-age men for the remainder of his career. The rest of the twenties were spent alternating in small roles, understudy gigs and chrous parts in Broadway shows and touring companies…and small time vaudeville and supper club gigs with his dance act, billed variously as the Vernon Revue, the Vernon Trio and the Vernon Four. As stage work dried up in the 30s he moved his growing family to Hollywood, where he got small roles, walk-ons and extra bits. Discouraged (his last part was in 1937), he took a job in an aircraft plant during the Second World War.

Luckily, by his teen years, Eddie’s son Russ was appearing in films, where he would soon be renowned for his atheletic, acrobatic dancing abilities as well as his acting (he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Peyton Place). Fortunately, Eddie lived long enough to see Russ reach the top; sadly he wasn’t around for his many later successes. Eddie’s son Larry, who is about ten years younger than Russ, is a composer, most famous for being the keyboard player of the seminal garage band The Standells.

To find out more about the variety arts past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t miss Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, to be released by Bear Manor Media in 2013.

Stars of Slapstick #40: “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison

This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Manor Media in February 2013.

Today is the birthday of Ernie “Ernest” Morrison (1912-1989). He was drafted into the film business at the age of three when there was an emergency need on a film set for a sweet-natured child. (Thus his nickname “Sunshine Sammy”). In 1919 he started out playing roles in Hal Roach comedies, supportingHarold Lloyd and Snub Pollard in dozens of comedy shorts. His popularity in these was the genesis for Hal Roach’s launching the Our Gang series in 1921 (which later morphed into The Little Rascals).

In 1924, Morrison left the series to tour vaudeville for several years. In 1940 he returned to the big screen to be part of the East Side Kids  with Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, etc (which later morphed into the Bowery Boys). In 1944, he left the series to perform with the Four Step Brothers. He served briefly in the army (drafted), after which he retired from show business. Morrison was the first African American actor signed to a long-term movie contract, one of the first to star in an integrated cast.

To find out more about the variety arts past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t miss Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, to be released by Bear Manor Media in 2013.

The Elliotts: A Family of Trick Cyclists

Four of the Six Elliott Kids

“Professor” James Elliott’s act consisted of himself and children Kate, Polly, Annie, Maggie, Thomas, and Mattie performing a “Parisian Quadrille” on bicycles and unicycles. They were given out to be from Portugal, though that hardly seems to be in accord with their names. On the other hand, it’s easy enough to make up a fake name, so it’s likely that, through whatever odd set of circumstances, they were from Portugal.

They performed with P.T. Barnum shows in 1883 and 1884, and Barnum, Elliott and others were busted by overzealous agents of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. They subsequently gave a private performance to a panel of doctors and other luminaries and beat the rap. The Elliotts also traveled with the circus of. W.C. Coup (a circus innovator and former associate of Barnum’s) in 1887. This is the same year Coup suffered a near-ruinous train wreck, which causes me to fear the worst about what happened to the family. I find no reference to them after that date, and would certainly be glad to hear otherwise!

To find out more about the variety arts past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t miss Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, to be released by Bear Manor Media in 2013.

Stars of Vaudeville #545: Wee Georgie Wood

Like Charles Hawtry, Wee Georgie Wood’s (1895-1975) Q factor is mainly elevated today by the fact that John Lennon uttered his name when fooling around during the Let it Be sessions. (I’d always heard it as “Whee, George, he would” until it was put right for me this morning.)

Born  George Bramlett (today is his birthday) Wood was a performing midget (standing four foot nine) in English music halls and panto. He typically played babies and little boys in comedy sketches. Starting on stage at the age of 6, in addition to the English halls, he was also to tour Australian/N.Z., South Africa, and the U.S. (the first time in 1915, and 34 weeks for Keith in 1924). He was a familiar figure in British popular culture for over half a century.

To find out more about the variety arts past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t miss Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, to be released by Bear Manor Media in 2013.