100 Years Ago Today: Eddie Cantor and Will Rogers Debut in The Follies

100 years ago today, the 1917 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Why is this worth noting? Because this was the edition during which Eddie Cantor and Will Rogers both joined the show for the first time, and they were both to be regulars for many editions thereafter. The Follies, as it did for so many, made stars of them both. Also in this legendary edition were W.C. Fields, Bert Williams, Fanny Brice, Walter Catlett, Marie Wallace, Lilyan Tashman, Peggy Hopkins, Dorothy Dickson and Carl Hyson, the Fairbanks Twins, et al. Staged by Ned Wayburn, sets by Joseph Urban, costumes by Lady Duff-Gordon, and about a dozen top playwrights and songwriters in the mix as well.  Some considered it the greatest edition of The Follies ever. W.C. Fields did his lawn tennis sketch (one of the few of his sporting routines never to make it film). Rogers did his folksy monologues and rope tricks for a Broadway audience for the first time. Fanny Brice did her “Egyptian” number, and sang and danced a duet with Cantor. Cantor also did sketches with Bert Williams.  Can you imagine such a show?

For more on vaudeville performers like Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers and everyone else on this page, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever vitally informative books are sold

 

Billie Dove: Follies Girl

Silent film star Billie Dove (Bertha Bohnny 1903-1997) was born on this day. Born to Swiss immigrant parents in New York City, the stunningly beautiful teenager began her working life as a model to artists like Charles Dana Gibson and James Montgomery Flagg. She was also said to have worked as an extra on the Mabel Normand picture Joan of Plattsburg (1918), although she is not visible in the finished picture. In 1919, she was hired as a replacement for the Ziegfeld Follies during the infamous strike; she was also cast as a replacement in the Marilyn Miller show Sally, also produced by Ziegfeld.

With Fairbanks in “The Black Pirate” (1926)

She moved to Hollywood right after this, where she was a star for just over a decade. Her first proper role was in the screen adaptation of George M. Cohan’s Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford (1921) starring Sam Hardy. Interestingly, though her time as an actual chorus girl was brief, she would PORTRAY a chorus girl on screen so often that it became a big part of of her Jazz Age image, in movies like At the Stage Door (1921), Polly of the Follies (1922), An Affair of the Follies (1927), The Heart of a Follies Girl (1928), and her very last film Blondie of the Follies (1932). Among her other notable pictures were, The Black Pirate (1926), opposite Douglas Fairbanks, and Kid Boots (1926), Eddie Cantor’s screen debut, an adaptation of his Ziegfeld-produced Broadway show featuring Cantor and Clara Bow. Billie Dove also was known for co-starring in numerous westerns with the likes of Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, and others.

Dove had a three year romance with Howard Hughes, who’d produced several of her films. In 1933 she retired from the screen to marry oil tycoon Robert Alan Kenaston. After a 30 year absence from the screen she stepped before the camera one last time for a cameo in the Charlton Heston vehicle Diamond Head (1963). Singer Billie Holiday is said to have taken the first part of her stage name from Billie Dove’s.

For more on silent film, consult Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube,  released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc. For more on show biz history, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.

The Ups and Downs of Lina Basquette

Lina Basquette (Lena Copeland Baskette) was born on April 19, 1907. Basquette was a star of stage and screen through several different phases, but is perhaps best remembered today for her eight marriages, most notably the first one, to Sam Warner of Warner Brothers, with much ensuing personal drama.

Basquette was the child of an ambitious stage mother. Her life took a sharp turn at the tender age of eight when she was spotted dancing in her father’s drug store by a rep from RCA Victor, who hired her to dance in the company’s exhibit at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915. This led to a film contract with Universal Pictures, and she began starring (at age nine) in a series of films called Lena Baskette Featurettes. Her mother embraced the new life; the father did not. He committed suicide and her mother married choreographer and dance director Ernest Belcher. (Dancer/choreographer Marge Champion is the daughter of Belcher and Gladys Baskette and the half-sister of Lina Basquette).

Film work seemed to dry up an the end of the decade, so her dance skills were put to use on Broadway in a succession of shows. She appeared in John Murray Anderson’s Jack and Jill (1923), Charles Dillingham’s Nifties of 1923, The Ziegfeld Follies of 1924 and 1925, and Rufus LeMaire’s Affairs (1927).

Meanwhile in 1925, she had married movie mogul Sam Warner, who famously died on the eve of the opening of his seminal project The Jazz Singer (1927). There followed a bizarre custody battle between Basquette and the Warner family over her daughter (whom the Warners wanted to raise as one of their own in the Jewish faith, and probably by someone who wasn’t a famous Siren) which lasted many years.

The Godless Girl, 1929

In 1927, Basquette returned to films. In 1928 she was voted one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. The biggest hit of this period (and her career) was Cecil B. DeMille’s semi-talkie The Godless Girl (1929). Her film career lasted until 1943, but her battles with the Warners resulted in a loss of star billing in the talkie era. Her parts got much smaller, sometimes even bit roles, and often in B movies. At the same time, she was making live appearances in night clubs.

In 1943, she was raped and robbed by an off-duty soldier whom she had picked up while hitchhiking. This traumatic event seems to have prompted a major life change for her. She took her savings, bought a farm in Buck’s County, Pennsylvania, and reinvented herself as one of the nation’s top breeders of Great Danes! In addition to raising and breeding purebred dogs, she wrote books on the subject and judged shows with the American Kennel Club, an involvement that lasted until the end of her life.

In 1991, she released her memoir Lina: DeMille’s Godless Girl, and emerged from retirement after 48 years to appear in the film Paradise Park. She passed away in 1994.

To find out more about show business history, 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 early  film please see 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

Albert Carroll: Kind of a Drag

Today’s as good a day as any to tell you about Albert Carroll, an extraordinarily talented and well-known guy in his day to have become so obscure in ours. Carroll was a Broadway actor,  dancer, impressionist, female impersonator, lyricist and choreographer. Sources differ as to his birth. IBDB gives ca. 1895-1956, and a 1900 Chicago census seems to bear this out. IMDB gives march 13, 1898 through 1970, although they might be conflating him with another Albert Carroll, possibly the New Orleans piano player, who was African American. To further confuse matters, our subject sometimes rendered his name as Albert J. Carroll.

I’ve gotten some info about his earliest years from F. Michael Moore’s book Drag! Male and Female Impersonators on Stage, Screen and Television. Moore says that Carroll staged an amateur revue in Chicago when he was 16, and that when he got to New York, he performed during interludes in silent movie screenings. About his private life, or how he came to New York I’ve so far found nothing. Since his earliest credits were all with the Neighborhood Playhouse we can make some deductions about he got his start on the stage. The Neighborhood Playhouse was founded in 1915 and had grown out of youth education programs at Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side, which remains a center of theatrical activity to this day. Carroll’s first couple of shows with the company appear to have opened at the downtown theatre and then moved to the Maxine Elliott Theater on Broadway.  He’s about the right age to have been involved with Henry Street’s theatre programs in his late teens and young adulthood, and gotten involved with the company that way. His first professional credit was a show based around visiting British actress Gertrude Kingston in 1916. The next was a play called 39 East by Rachel Crothers in 1919, in which Carroll appeared with Henry Hull and Alison Skipworth. It was made into a silent film the following year with a much of the same cast, including Carroll.

For the next three decades Carroll was to be a star of Broadway, often with Neighborhood Playhouse productions, in over three dozen shows. He was a notable stand-out as performer, choreographer and lyricist in several editions of the revue called the Grand Street Follies, participating in the inaugural 1922 edition, as well as ones in annual editions from 1924 through 1929. Other revues he appeared in included The ’49ers (1922),  The Garrick Gaieties (1930), The Ziegfeld Follies (1931) and The Seven Lively Arts (1944). In these revues he was famous for impersonating famous actors and dancers, many or most of whom were female.  He did impressions of both John and Ethel Barrymore. He also did Pavlova, Irene Castle, Lynne Fontanne, Bea Lillie, Gertrude Lawrence, Laurette Taylor, Groucho Marx, and NYC Mayor Jimmy Walker.   Some photographs of him in character can be found of him on a blog called the Mouse Art Notebooks. He also contributed humor, poems and stories to the New Yorker between 1927 and 1930. He also acted in straight plays and comedies and even classics. His last known credits are musicals with the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey in 1946 and 1947. After this he appears to have returned to Chicago, where he passed away about a decade later.

Several sources say the great Southern novelist Thomas Wolfe disliked Carroll, whom he met in the 1920s through the Neighborhood Playhouse’s set and costume designer Aline Bernstein, who was Wolfe’s patron and lover. (He is said to have been uncomfortable with Carroll’s flamboyant and foppish personality, i.e. he was homophobic).

Another interesting tidbit: Carroll’s younger brother Eugene “Gene” Carroll had a vaudeville career, and hosted a local television show in Cleveland for decades.

To find out more about vaudeville history, 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  film please see 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

Marie Wallace: From the Follies to the Film Colony

She’s the One in the Middle

A few tidbits on Marie Wallace (1895-1961),whom I came across in Marjorie Farnsworth’s Ziegfeld Follies book. She was born in Massachusetts to parents who’d emigrated from Ireland, though the surname (if it’s her natural one) would indicate Scots-Irish descent. Circa 1912 she married a gent named David Shelley and gave birth to a son, also named David. This was a complicated time for her, given the fact that the same year she made her debut in the chorus of The Passing Show of 1912. If you’ll do the math, you’ll note that she was rather young — 17 — for both events. She also appeared in The Queen of the Movies (1914), Dance and Grow Thin (1917), Honey Girl (1920), and the Ziegfeld Follies of 1917, 1918, 1922, and 1923. Her sister Nancy Wallace was also in the Follies, and died in childbirth in 1919.

The publicity still above, from July 1922, bears the caption: “Heat Drives Follies Girls to Roof for Rehearsals. New York — Pearl Eaton, Marie Wallace and Leonore Baron, members of the Ziegfeld Follies Company, give pedestrians on the streets below a couple of eyes-full while they go through their daily rehearsals on the roof of the New Amsterdam Theater. The extreme heat made it necessary for the girls to be put through their paces in the open.” Pearl Eaton was the sister of (Doris Eaton, the Last Follies Girl), and Mary Eaton, from The Cocoanuts.

At some point during her decade-long theatrical career, Marie was either divorced from Mr. Shelley or he passed away, for in April, 1924 she married the popular songwriter Buddy DeSylva and retired from show business. Wallace is said to have been the inspiration for the song “Somebody Loves Me”, by DeSylva (with George Gershwin and Ballard MacDonald.)

DeSylva of course was a Broadway powerhouse. With the advent of talkies, he also became a Hollywood powerhouse, not just as a songwriter but as a producer and studio executive, and the balance of her life was spent on the west coast. Interestingly she appears in a 1929 Fox film short called Nertz, with Buddy, Paul Whiteman and NYC Mayor Jimmy Walker.

Buddy DeSylva passed away in 1950; Wallace survived him by 11 years. Her son David Shelly was the third husband of actress and big band singer Martha Stewart.  (Shelley’s and Stewart’s son, also named David Shelley, was a successful blues rock musician.)

To find out more about show biz history, 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 early  film please see 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

Tonight! Trav S.D. Speaks at the NYPL on W.C. Fields’ Vaudeville Days

Thursday, December 1, 6:30pm: “W.C. Fields in Vaudeville”

Tonight! Trav S.D. talks about the great comedian’s early years in show business as a juggler in vaudeville and a revue comedian, and the many ways those experiences influenced his later motion pictures. The talk will be illustrated and will draw from the author’s research on the comedian for his blog Travalanche (travsd.wordpress.com) and his popular book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.

At the Mid-Manhattan Branch of NY Public Library, 455 Fifth Ave, Sixth Floor. FREE

W.C. Fields and Broadway

With Kevin Fitzpatick giving his Fields Fest Walking Tour tomorrow, which takes visitors to destinations in the NYC theatre district significant to the life of W.C. Fields, it seemed a good time to post this piece on Fields’ time in the legit theatre.

Fields’ career can roughly be broken down into three phases:

• Nearly 20 years as a juggler in vaudeville (circa 1895-1915) with a couple of forays into book shows in burlesque
• 15 years as a Broadway star (1915-1930), with occasional vaudeville dates and silent films
• 15 years as a star of talking pictures (1930-1945), with radio work supplanting live theatre after 1936

The Broadway period laid crucial groundwork for his Hollywood movies. Fields became a prolific and hilarious comedy sketch writer during his stage years. Nearly all of the sketches he wrote and performed in Broadway revues were incorporated into his films.

The Ziegfeld Follies of  1915 was a crucial turning point in Fields’ career; the dream of every vaudevillian. But it was not (as is sometimes claimed) his first structured stage show, or even his first Broadway show.

In the late 1890s (a time when burlesque was very different), as a juggler he’d taken part in the olio of a show called The Monte Carlo Girls, which played Troy, NY and then moved to Miner’s Bowery Theatre. In 1899, he appeared with Murphy and Gibson’s Minstrels in Atlantic City, and. Irwin’s Burlesquers in Cincinnati. These shows differed from vaudeville in that they consisted of a single, rehearsed company, who did the same show, in the same order from night to night. Fields was still a semi-mute tramp juggler at this stage.

His Broadway debut came in The Ham Tree (1905), a vehicle for the blackface minstrel team of McIntyre and Heath. Fields got to speak his first lines in this show, playing a funny detective named Sherlock Baffles, in addition to his juggling specialty. He was well received in the role. After out of town tryouts the show opened at Klaw and Erlanger’s New York Theatre in 1905 and toured through 1907.

In 1914, Fields got a terrific break (briefly) when he was given a slot in the seminal Broadway show Watch Your Step. This was Irving Berlin’s first Broadway show, and was a showcase for the talents of the dance team of Vernon and Irene Castle. The all-star cast also included Frank Tinney, Harry Kelly, Elizabeth Murray, and Charles King. Unfortunately, Fields was fired after a single performance. Not for cause, just for time. This was extremely common in Broadway shows, especially ones with a variety component. When ya run long, ya gotta cut. Still it must have been a major disappointment when this show went on to be a major hit. Fields’ consolation came the following year, when his Broadway career truly began.

Ziegfeld Follies of 1915

Fields first stint in the Follies was more tentative than his participation in subsequent editions. It was essentially an on-the-job audition. Plenty of performers were tried in the Follies and then let go for a wide variety of reasons. But Fields was a hit, and somehow his contributions fit right into Flo Ziegfeld’s revue format.  In his inaugural year, Fields was able to do his trick pool table routine he’d been developing in vaudeville for years. But, as he was a newbie, the turn was incorporated into a sketch starring Ed Wynn, a Follies veteran. An occurrence during a performance of this sketch one night became a legendary show biz anecdote. As part of the action, Wynn crept under the pool table and started making faces at the audience. For this crime, one night Fields is reputed to have cracked Wynn over the head with a pool cue and knocked him out cold.  Fields proved he was able to hold his own in the 1915 Follies, not only with Wynn, but also the likes of Bert Williams, Leon Errol, Ina Claire, Bernard Granville, Mae Murray, the Oakland Sisters, Olive Thomas, and the dance team of Ann Pennington and George White (the latter of whom would go on to employ Fields in his own revue a few years later). Shorty Blanche was hired to be Fields’ valet this year;  in a few years time he would graduate to performing with Fields in the sketches. Last year I attended a wonderful celebration of the centennial of this landmark of the life of W.C. Fields; read all about it here.

Ziegfeld Follies of 1916

Having proven himself in the previous edition, Fields was given much more to do in 1916. He was in many more comedy sketches, and got to demonstrate a versatility that perhaps even his modern fans would not suspect he was capable of. In comedy sketches, he played Hamlet and Teddy Roosevelt, and did a funny routine with Bert Williams  and Sam Hardy (who later worked with Fields on his film Man on the Flying Trapeze). He was even in a musical number called “Njinsky” with Fanny Brice and others. In what was to become a Fields staple in revues, he did another sports-related comedy sketch, supplanting the pool routine with one about croquet (in later years he would also do ones on golf, tennis and baseball).  Fields’ co-stars in this edition included Ina Claire, Bernard Granville, Marion Davies (with whom he would appear 8 years later in Janice Meredith), Bird Millman, Ann Pennington, and Frances White. 

Ziegfeld Follies of 1917

This is fondly remembered as perhaps the best year of the Follies ever, at least for comedy fans. It was the debut year for both Eddie Cantor and Will Rogers, and Fanny Brice, one of the Follies’ earliest stars, returned. Fields became fast friends with all of them. Cantor was the youngest of the bunch; Fields mentored him and roomed with him went the company went on the road. Also in this edition, Fields appeared in two sketches with Walter Catlett, later to become a beloved Hollywood character actor himself: “A Game of Tennis” and “One of the Six Best Cellars”.  Also in the show were Bert Williams, the Fairbanks Twins, Carl Hyson, and Lilyan Tashman.

Cast of 1918 Follies

Ziegfeld Follies of 1918

This edition of the Follies is famous for being the one in which Fields introduced his routine “A Game of Golf”, which he later incorporated into so many of his movies (“Stand clear, and keep your eye on the ball!”). This is also the edition during which Fields met chorus girl Bessie Poole, who would become his longtime companion for years. Lillian Lorraine, who’d been an early star of the Follies from 1909 through 1912, returned. Also in the show were Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers, Savoy and Brennan, the Fairbanks Twins, Ann Pennington, Joe Frisco, Marilyn Miller, Bee Palmer, Harry Kelly, Martha Mansfield, Billie Ritchie, and, in the chorus, Doris Eaton, later to become famous as the Last Ziegfeld Girl.

Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic (1919)

Fields had planned a foreign tour in 1919 so he didn’t participate in the Follies that year. But then the tour fell through. To full his schedule, he played several of Ziegfeld’s more informal cabaret revues instead. The Midnight Frolic was a sophisticated show staged in the rooftop club atop the New Amsterdam Theatre.  In this production, Fields introduced a sketch called “The Family Ford”, about all the tribulations of a family trying to load the car up for an outing. Also in the show were Fanny Brice, Frances White, Ted Lewis, Doris Eaton, Martha Mansfield, Chic Sale, and Savoy and Brennan.

Ziegfeld Nine O’Clock Revue (1920)

This was a supper show, for which Fields revived his golf and croquet sketches.  Will Rogers and Savoy and Brennan were in the cast.

Ziegfeld Girls of 1920

In this revue, Fields was joined by Fanny Brice, Lillian Lorraine, the Cameron Sisters, and others.

Ziegfeld Follies of 1920

In this edition, Fields brought “The Family Ford” to the big time. Also in the cast were Fanny Brice. Ray Dooley, Jack Donohue, Bernard Granville, Moran and Mack, Van and Schenck, Charles Winninger and both Doris and Mary Eaton.

Ziegfeld Follies of 1921

Fields introduced his sketch “Off to the Country” here; it was all about a family trying to get onto a subway car while loaded down with fishing poles and other recreational gear.  He also appeared in a Camille parody with Fields as John Barrymore, Fanny Brice as Ethel, and Raymond Hitchcock as Lionel.  He also played the referee in a spoof of the Dempsey-Carpentier fight with Fanny Brice and Ray Dooley as the boxers. Brice was the undisputed star of this edition — it’s the one in which she sang “My Man” and “Second Hand Rose”. Also in this one:Van and Schenck, and Doris and Mary Eaton

George White’s Scandals (1922)

Fields jumped ship and went over to the competition this year. he enjoyed much more creative freedom in George White’s revue, as White was also in the show himself and didn’t supervise the other acts as closely as Ziegfeld had.  Fields introduced a baseball routine (it was cut for being a rehash of his tennis routine) a radio sketch, and a sketch mixing his previous automobile and subway routines. Also in the cast: Dolores Costello, Winnie Lightner (and her sister Thea), and the Paul Whiteman Orchestra.

Poppy (1923-1924)

This book musical written by Dorothy Donnelly and starring Madge Kennedy as the titular New England heiress, was a pivotal show for Fields. It was with Poppy that he introduced the florid-tongued, top-hatted 19th century mountebank, Eustace McGargle, the lovable snake oil salesman — the character we would see so often in his later movies. Already a star of vaudeville and revues, Poppy now brought Fields to the attention of serious and important critics like Alexander Woolcott, George Jean Nathan and Robert Sherwood. Walter Winchell had a small part in the ensemble!

The Comic Supplement (1925):

This show of sketches by J.P. McEvoy (with additional material by Fields) provided the OTHER piece of the puzzle we would see in Fields’ movies, that of the irascible, hen-pecked domestic dad. It included a drug store sketch that became the movie short The Pharmacist, as well as a sketch called “The Back Porch” that was incorporated into It’s a Gift., Betty Compson was in this show. Ziegfeld produced this legendary show, but he closed it out of town before it reached New York. But the silver lining was:

Ziegfeld Follies of 1925

Fields brought the best of the Comic Supplement material into the ’25 edition of the Follies and became the hit of the show, which needed the comedy material badly.  Also in this edition were Louise Brooks, with whom Fields would soon co-star in The Old Army Game.  The show also featured Chaz Chase and Vivienne Segal.

Earl Carroll’s Vanities (1928)

When Fields’s second attempt at a silent career went bust he needed stage work.  he was not a fan of the Vanities (a cut-rate and more sensational and sexy version of the Follies and Scandals) but he couldn’t turn down the large amount of money he was offered for appearing.  The upside was that out of this show came some of his best sketches: “The Stolen Bonds”, which became the basis for the film short The Fatal Glass of Beer,  “An Episode at the Dentists” (which became the film short The Dentist) as well as  sketches entitled, “My School Days Are Over”, “The Caledonian Express”, “Fido the Beautiful Dog”.  The legendary “Canary Trial” emerged from this production, when Fields was called into court to stand trial for a murdered bird, allegedly killed during the Dentist Sketch. He gave the proceedings all the seriousness they deserved. Also in this show were Louise Brooks, Joe Frisco, Ray Dooley, Lillian Roth (soon to be featured in films like The Love Parade, Animal Crackers and Madam Satan) and Barto and Mann.

Show Boat (1930)

Fields had been intended for Cap’n Andy in the original Broadway production of this classic, but was unavailable. He as able to have his cake and eat it too by later playing the part regionally for a few weeks, at the St. Louis Municipal Opera.

Ballyhoo (1930)

This show, produced by Arthur Hammerstein, has the dubious distinction of being the only Broadway show W.C. Fields was in that tanked. Not because it was bad, but because it hit the boards at the height of the Great Depression. Fields played a promoter  by the name of Q.Q. Quale, and got to do some juggling. This show marked the end of Fields’ 30+ stage career. For the next 15 years it would be just film and radio — for which we should be glad, since they allow us who weren’t around at the time of his stage career, to experience him!