travsd

The Extraordinary Journey of Charlie Crafts

A few tantalizing fragments on comedian Charlie Crafts (1895-1974). A Boston native, Crafts first comes onto our radar as Jack Haley’s vaudeville partner around 1923, specializing in songs, dances, and crosstalk. After a mere six months on the small time, they attained the big time circuits and even played the Palace, where they scored a hit. In 1924 they appeared in the Shubert Broadway revue Round the Town with Julius Tannen, Harry Fox, Heywood Broun, et al. Here’s a rare record the pair made at the time, very much in the style of Van and Schenck:

The partnership with Haley proved short-lived. At some point after this, Crafts went into burlesque. You can see him do some of his burley material in the films Strip Strip Hooray (1950), Everybody’s Girl (1950), The Art of Burlesque (1950), French Follies (1951), Ding Dong (1951), and I’ll Sell My Shirt (1953). You can also, believe it or not, see him in the role of “Johnny” in Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda (1953). From 1958 through 1960, Crafts got a good bit of television acting work, appearing on such shows as Bat Masterson, and Highway Patrol. 

I am intrigued by Crafts’ many major career shifts, from vaudeville, to burlesque, to grade z movies, to mainstream television, so let’s call this post a work-in-progress. I’ll add to it as I learn more.

To learn more about vaudeville, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.

Published by travsd

Writer and performer Trav S.D. (www.travsd.com) is best known for his books "No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous" (2005) and "Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube" (2013). He has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications. Trav has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, presenting hundreds of acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Tammy Faye Starlite to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, HERE, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre, the Brick, and 6 separate shows in the NY International Fringe Festival. In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit "I’ll Say She Is", the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival.