Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 October 1950 — Page 26

years don’t stop

a woman because he finds her,

BE L Sullivan Fight i 3 Stomach Acid Pains?

hors

More Lheoters Are Booking Acts

CAN THE OLD BOY MAKE IT?

“By WENDY and EVERETT MARTIN VAUDEVILLE is back. Is it a case of a lusty youngster, who paused 20 years to catch a breath, now eager to resume a brash, star-spangled march across the stages of America? Or. is this an old trouper, dying of his wounds, determined bravely to read a last few lines before the final curtain? Nobody knows. For a dying man, the invalid is showing remarkable vitality. But for a promising youngster, ' the future looks uncertain. Motion pictures and radio were the boisterous twins that made vaudeville sick almost unto death, Now television has

This is the the first of a three. part series about the attempt to revive vaudeville in America after a disappearance of 15 years, The authors are a wellknown team of magazine and feature writers,

joined forces with them. The trio could accomplish what two of them never did. They might be pallbearers for * gallant phase of show busines Few claim vaudeville really died In 1932, Georgie Price, one of vaudeville’s great stars, an official of the American Guild of Variety Artists, says it didn’t, “Vaudeville” explains Georgle, “kept on going, but in another form, Movies, radio, night clubs absorbed its stars and their act® Now there's television.” » » ~ NOT EVERY ONE agrees with Mr. Price. But most agree vaudeville Is back -— on the STAGE, where it used to be. Sidney Piermont, of the Loew Theater chain, for 25 years its booker of big attractions, gave this team of reporters a list of cities in which vaudeville has been playing during the past years, The list starts with the famous old Palace Theater, in New York. It includes Newark and ‘Atlantic City, N. J., Chicago, Washington, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Davenport, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City, Kansas City, Des Moines, Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus, It goes on to Rochester, Providence, Syracuse, Toledo, Youngstown, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Toronto, Montreal, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Louisville, Richmond, Norfolk and Omaha City. And it takes in Memphis, Jacksonville, Tampa, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Beaumont, Fort Worth and Tulsa.

- OPTIMISTIC vaudeville performers regard this list as proof that vaudeville is here to stay. But pessimists reply: “Look at the years before the decline.” In those days, they point out, such a list would be trifling. Those were days when almost every city over 10,000 population had a vaudeville theater. Large cities had several. It was possible, then, for a performer to play one booking of 104 weeks in the greater New York area alone, Georgie Price did it in 1918, Going straight up Broadway, he played 10 theaters for from one to 15 weeks each. = Few of those theaters play vaudeville today. Bookings are haphazard, the old circuits have been broken up. Nowadays bookings are seldom for more than eight to 10 weeks. Routes are full of gaps between big

A rare old photograph of six of vaudeville's greats in days tows gone: Mitzi Mayfair, Jack Pearl, Helen Morgan, Harry Richman, Ruth Etting and Hal Leroy.

cities, Prior to 1932, a booking |,

contract was good for a loan in any bank, It isn’t any more. Theaters then presented from

eight to 10 acts of vaudeville,

of six to 20 minutes each, Now

there are seldom: more than |

four acts, cut to from six to 10%, minutes, . nw ~

IN VAUDEVILLE'S heyday, the stage show was the thing,

with a movie short thrown in |

as an added attraction. Nowadays, vaudeville is the added attraction to drum up customers for a motion picture, There will never be a return to the old-time advertising “drop” curtains, which were standard in every vaudeville house. They had landscapes painted in their centers. The rest of them were covered with ads for trusses, liver pills, pile

ointments, 5-cent beer, oyster | houses, pool parlors and low- |

cost funerals. Scenery painting thén was a colorful art, called “thunder mug” painting. It got its name from the fact that thrifty

Ask Mrs. Manners—

Women Fuss Too Much Over Masculine Silence

PEAR MRS. MANNERS:

MOST WIVES are unhappy because they're lazy.

They scour their houses but scorn their husbands.

go the men looking for attention.

Then off

Most women dispieased with their husbands wouldn't be happy

* with the best men in the world. They're looking for trouble.

They

don't use the common sense needed to make a workable marriage

work. I practically have a job like| yours, Mrs. Manners, except I work for free. People have always! come to me with their problems. Hardly a day. ml passes now In ah my apartment - that

in and spill over their troubles. I like men. My husband died. I'd Mke to have another one to make as happy as I did my huspand. Some days I loved him to death and cther days, of course, I wondered why I ever closed my typewriter for marriage. On the bad days I remembered I practically sprinted to the altar. (I even pushed him a little to get him there.) We promised if! we argued to do it over a big sause. We stuck to it, up until his death. I think unhappy wives hop out of bed in the morning locking for

woman trades “her ‘charm “for hard labor she does a lot of harm to the marriage she wants to be prefect. 1 really think men like being

| husbands, of course with the

least possible effort. Our dissatisfaction and restlessness, expressed usually because our feclings are hurt, are catching. They dampen a man’s ardor

| and oripple his ambition.

We fuss too much over male silences. A man may be having a fine time quiet over morning coffee. We think he’s bored and start an argument. We talk too much on womanly subjects, too. A man doesn't give a hoot about ruffled curtain talk or the tedious fine points of cooking. He eares only about the results. We don’t want to hear details of his work on the car, do we? All we care about is that it runs. We talk too much generally, I guess. I learned -that once when feverish with flu. I hardly sald a word to a man at dinner. He mentioned that he loved it. And I thought I'd been a drip.

a fight. They plan during the day

what they'll complain about at -

might. . The women who work or have worked seem to have the most trouble, and they shouldn't. They know how to get along with people at the office. Why do they forget at home? One woman visits me on the nights her husband steps out. I

don’t blame him for his blondes.

If his wife would look at her straggling appearance and rolls of fat and listen to her conversation about housework she'd know why she’s alone nights. I've added things you've said to what I tell the unhappy wives.| You and I agree. A man marries

Siirastive. good company and fair,

His expects her to stay that way. YOUR ADMIRER.

i | A isn’t | it?

Mother or have moved within

probably remember old-fash- ~ lonéd corn routines, once a favorite in every vaudeville house in the land. A 1950, adaptation supplied by Billy Glason, goes like this: “Hya, Jemima!” “Hya, Buckwheat!” “What is a botanist?” “I don’t know, what is a bot anist?” “A botanist is somebody whe sews on botans! Yak! Yak!” “Here’s one for you. Did you ever hear my definition of a camel?” “No, what is your definition of a camel?”

That's . what they call the “switch.” Billy Glason, famous vaudeville star of former years, is now top gag man in the business. He is supplying the trade with, among other things, a copyright thin-paper book,

theater managers shopped around for chipped and defective pots; in which their scenic artists could mix paint. Each theater had its own artist. That tribe has vanished. Vaudeville, 1930" /tyle, Is

played in front .of ‘a “stock “ fo Gag-Master Gag File, 2000 That's a cow upside down. arop.” usually & velvet curtain, ,,ges thick, weighing over 10 Don’t let this fool ya, Folks, Beautifully C ihe rope; y i ps = pounds, His business is boom- We're eniy kidding each udder!” Beautifully — CLEANED own. Bookings are too few to Ing of ‘the old devill Is that corn? Of course! And | CLEANED SHED am justify the extravagance. e old vaudeville much of vaudeville is, So is a SPOTTED and ” PRESSED

stars such as Pat Rooney, are ' 8 ® still around. Sg are Joe Laurie A SIGN that vaudeville is Jr. George ce, George Jesawakening is the activity sel, Al Jolson, Ed Wynn, Soamong gag writers, A classic . phie Tucker, Fannie Brice, Edgag, “Who was that lady 1 die Cantor, George Burns and seen you with last night?” Gracie Allen, Fred Allen, Bob “That was no lady, that was Hope, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, my wife,” has been changed. Tom Howard, Billy Glason, Now it's, “Who was that lady Bobby Clarke, Jimmy Savvo, I seen you with last night?” Ethel Barrymore, Belle Baker,

song title like, “She Has So Many Gold Teeth, She Sleeps With Her Head In A Safe.” If you happen to hear a man saying, “I'm a breeder in an eyeglass factory; I breed on ’em and another guy wipes 'em off,” he’s probably an old trouper, rehearsing for his come-back.

(Copyright, 1950, United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

DIANA'S LAR

MEN'S BUSINESS SHIRTS BEEAUT! py ed Lo

Theres A Davis

“That was no lady, that was Ted Lewis, Bert Wheeler, 8 PHON my brother, he always walks Jimmy Durante, Morton TOMORROW: The Vaudeville | gs wo isc EACH 18¢ RL like that! Downey, Bert Lahr, Phil Baker, Corn is Still Green. :

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