travsd

On the Other Mike Connors (and Queenie Paul)

We stipulate the other Mike Connors in our headline to differentiate our subject from the star of TV’s Mannix you’re more apt to know and care about; have no fear, we plan to get to him. The one we tip our hat to today lived from 1891 to 1949. He was a New York vaudeville performer who at the age of 27 was hired by Australian impresario Benjamin Fuller to do a six-month tour Down Under, stayed and became a star down there. His reason for remaining in the country wasn’t just a liking for the sunny climate. While performing in a revue in 1917 he met and fell in love with Eveline “Queenie” Paul (1893-1982). Paul had been a chorus girl in musicals and a Principal Boy in pantomimes in her younger years before touring the Australian circuits. The pair married and formed a theatrical team, touring as the Con-Paul Theatre Company. In the ’30s, Connors became a star on Australian radio; Paul continued to tour with a chorus line she called “The Sun-Kissed Girls”. After Connors died in 1949, Paul continued performing live, and made the occasional television appearance.

For more on vaudeville history, please see 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.