travsd

Digby Bell: The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo

Digby Bell (1849-1917) was a Milwaukee born vocalist, popular in comic opera, musical comedy and vaudeville at the tune of the last century. He is credited with being the performer who introduced the song “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo” to American audiences. He’d studied voice seriously in Europe, and made his concert debit in New York at Chickering Hall in 1878. His Broadway credits include The Begum (1887), The Hoosier Doctor (1898), Mr. Pickwick (1903), The Education of Mr. Pipp (1905), An International Marriage (1909), The Debtors (1909), and Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard and The Sorcerers (both 1915). Time off Broadway was spent on tour, either in vaudeville or with musical productions. He also starred in a motion picture version of his Broadway hit The Education of Mr. Pipp (1914) as well as the film Father and the Boys (1915), which featured Lon Chaney and Harry Davenport in supporting roles.

To learn more about vaudeville please see No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, and for more on silent era film please read Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.

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.