Variety (Dec 1905)

VARIETY. • * IN THE OLDEN DAYS Reminiscences ot the Early Days of Variety by the Veteran Manaer and Performer, Nick, Norton. NOTE.—There Is probably no one now engaged in the vaudeville with the ex- ception of Tony Pastor, who possesses as wide a knowledge of the variety business as Nick Norton, who gave up profes- sional work to associate himself with tne managerial end and who for several years has been a valued member of the Hyde & Behman forces. Mr. Norton has kind- ly consented to give some of his recollec- tions for the benefit of Variety. The series will be continued in subsequent issues. NUMBER TWO. "After my experience with the In- dians, when they got drunk and broke up the show and the opera house in Pontiac at the same time (I'm still looking for that $15 per, by the way), I played my next engagement at Sag- inaw, where we put in a few weeks at the Strasburg Hall there. The opera house was on the outskirts of the town. and as the Winter was a severe one, it frequently happened that, in spite of our small company, there were more per- sons on the stage than had paid admis- sion to the auditorium. "In Saginaw I met John Morrissey. now with the Orpheum, in Sari Fran- cisco. He was one of those who made his start in Detroit, and was stranded In the town waiting for a remittance to enable him to get on his way. He is not strapped for stage fares nowa- days. "In those days a variety show in- variably opened with a minstrel first part, in which the entire company took part. After this came the specialties, and then there was a small farce or condensed play in which all hands were called upon. This talk of two shows and three shows that is one of the vexed questions in the continuous per- formance, was not known then. Every- body worked from eight until twelve, and none ever said 'no' when ar man ager said 'yes,' unless he wanted to save himself the trouble of resigning. Whether it was Dutch farce, black face afterpieces, or a tragedy, we all played parts, and no matter how good a per former might be in his specialty, if he was not a useful man in parts he was not wanted. "We did the best we could in Sag- inaw, but there seemed small chance of getting out of a bad hole, and I had my first experience at trying to skip, a ho- tel bill. I had my trunk on the sled when the proprietor came along, and it was taken indoors again. Eventually I got away in a more dignified fashion. and my next engagement was in Grand Rapids. * "This was worse than Saginaw, and after a week the show gave up. John Fielding, Albert Davis and myself fell In with a man who was making profit- able living out of bounty jumping: He had a lot of money and when he said 'Come on to Chicago,' and added the in formation that he would stand the ex- pense, we jumped at the chance. "There was no railroad connecting the two places in those days, and it was a cold drive by stage, but at last we ar- rived in the promised land and Stutty, our bounty jumping friend, put us all up at the City Hotel. "Performers used to steal from each other even in those days, and we three went out one evening shortly after our arrival, to see if we eould get a song Tony Pastor was singing at Chad wick's Varieties. I remember the chorus ran: " 'Her name was Isabella, She carried an umbrella, Her father kept a barber shop In Mil-wau-kee." "The Milwaukee was a 'local gag" be- ing changed to some town adjacent to where the song was sung. "Mr. Pastor was at that time the largest salaried performer in America, and a tremendous favorite everywhere. He was doing two turns a night and never sang less than five songs at each appearance. "It was a late show and jt was after twelve when we turned up at the hotel. The clerk was not cordial, nor did he make any move toward our keys. In- stead he began to talk about the re- quirements of hotels respecting persons without baggage. "'Stutty is paying.' we chorused, looking expectantly toward the key rack. " 'He has paid.' was the unsympa- thetic retort. 'He said you fellows would pay for yourself.' "We went out into the street and at last found a new lodging house where a- trade had not yet been established. After some argument and a conclusive demonstration on our part that we did not have the fifty cents required for two rooms, we were permitted to sleep three in a bed. and we trooped upstairs to turn in. "The room was bitterly cold, and as the carpet had been laid on the floor to stretch before it was tacked down, we pulled the carpet over the bed and slept comfortably. "In the morning eight cents worth of crackers and five cents worth*of bologna constituted our breakfast, and we eat it on the Clark Street Bridge. The ther- mometer was 15 below zero. "After breakfast we separated to go to look for work and by good luck I obtain- ed work for $12 a week in Beller's Con- cert Hall at Kenzie and Clark streets. I stayed there for some time and for weeks the entire salary went to support the trio, the others not having found work. Pat Vickers, father of Mattie Vickers and an old performer himself, cut his rates a dollar a head to help us along. "In Chicago I met and doubled up with (Jus Lee, a blackface performer, who afterward became one of Itanium's fa- mous clowns. "After a time we made a deal to go to Toledo. They ran a show at the Opera House there employing about a dozen specialists, and as t he Trrmst rel first part and the after piece was changed weekly and even twice a week, a performer could get an engagement for from three to six months in the same place. "Circus people, when their show had gone into winter quarters, would go to some town and remain there until the show went out again in the spring. All actors took lodgings and settled down to housekeeping, sending their children to the schools and enjoying much more of a family life than they do to-day. "One of the saloons much patronized by the actors was run by a man by the name of Haverly, and when it was an- nounced that Jack Haverly had pur- chased a half interest in the Opera House there was the usual talk of a man fooling with a line of business with which he was unfamiliar. "He was a quiet, unassuming sort of chap and no one in those days dreamed that in a few years he would have a string of theatres extending clear.across the continent, nor that forty years later the trade-mark of Haverly's Minstrels would still be an asset. "I was at the Opera House for five months, and then left to go out with the first show ever put on the road by a man who later on had difficulty in remember- ing all of his enterprises. It was a small traveling show, and it opened in Adrian, twenty miles away. The next morning the manager piled us aboard cars and took us back to Toledo. The first Hav- ' erly show was a thing of the past, and I was out of a job again. "The business was not as easy then as it is now. Most of those who gained the boards were apprenticed to actors, and they had to know how to act before they could get in. The acts are better to-day and I fancy I should still be get- ting $15 a week did I do the same spe- cialty I did-*hen. "The only points in which the old ac- tors €»xcelled were riding and dancing. An apprentice to a rider had to learn how to be graceful as well as to stick on a horse's back, and the result was far better. Then an apprentice had grace virtually thrashed into him. Now things are very different. "A dance in those days was a display of grace as well as a skillful training of the feet and the buck of to-day is but a poor substitute for the sand jig— which was the original form of the dance. To-day a dancer seeks intricate s.eps and rests content with that. "Apart from these two features I think the business vastly improved by specializing, but in the old days when a man had to act in farce and tragedy, take part in a minstrel first part and do anything else the manager desired they turned out all round actors. "The bill in a variety house consistea of a minstrel opening, some specialties ^and a farce or condensed play, and everybody worked from eight o'clock until twelve. There was no question as to two shows or throe then. Everybody worked, father included, and the system built up actors whose development has made the variety stage what it is to- day. "I recall that Fred Hallen was an ap- prentice to Ad. Weaver, a famous black- face performer, and John Ray got his training from Bill Ray, who was as fa- mous in his day." (To be continued.) Cheridah Simpson will return to vaudeville within a few weeks, having resigned from the principal boy part of Robin Hood in "Babes in the Wood." The Cravers, the champion lariat throwers and rope twirlers, are negoti- ating to have their act booked in the English music halls. This team issued a challenge a short time ago to Will Rogers for a roping contest, which the lalter has accepted, and it is expected the two will come together the first week of January. OSCAR HAMMER8TEIN ON THE FUTURE OF VAUDEVILLE. Note: The picture of Mr. Hammerstein on the cover page is from a photograph by Marceau. Last Monday afternoon, as I walked into the lobby of the Victoria during in- termission, two young women were talk- ing to Oscar Hammerstein. Mr. Ham- merstein beckoned me to come over, and as I walked up, be was saying 'See my son, Willie." The girls, mistaking me for the son, commenced to shower ques- tions. Explaining the error, they still Insist- ed upon speaking, saying, "We want to put on a sister act, and we were referred to Mr. Hammerstein. Now he won't listen to us. Don't you think that's mean? Why^don't he tell us how to put it on? He could just as well as not." The idea of the only Oscar putting on a "sister act" was too ludicrous. The young ladies were informed that the likelihood of Mr. Hammerstein assisting them was quite slim, and they departed on a search for Willie. Mr. Hammerstein dismissed the inci- dent with a shrug as one of the minor tribulations of a famous impresario, and upon being asked as to the future of vaudeville, said: "Jt's a puzzler. You can't give the people what they want. The clamor is for novelty; all novelty. The agent can't supply the demand; you must invent and furnish it yourself. "I really don't know what the end will be. Here in the Victoria I can put on a $4,000 or $4,500 bill and it doesn't cause a ripple. It is a mistake to class this house as a vaudeville theatre. It is al- together outside the pale of variety. Why can't you think up a new name for it?" Mr. Hammerstein suggested that his son be seen for an extended comment as it is a settled fact that William Ham- merstein (familiarly called "Willie") is one of the two or three best informed men on technical vaudeville this side of the pond, but Oscar was told that his person'al opinion at this time was de- sired. ' "It's the hardest kind of work to get up a bill," he continued. "You must un- derstand that this is the Victoria with a clientele of the finer grade. You can pu f . on a whistler or any old kind of an act at Keith's and they shout themselves hoarse over it, but here they know what is what. Big acts are a blessing in dis- guise in one way, but how are you going to keep it up? "When I opened the Victoria for vaudeville I had headaches thinking out how to get 'em in; now they are in, it is causing me the same kind of pain thinking of how to continually please. It's a puzzler; I can't answer it yet." SIME J. SILVERMAN. It is expected that the new Majestic Theatre in Chicago will be ready to open Christmas Day. Two floors in the new building will be given over to the Western Vaudeville Managers' Associa- tion, and they will move in on that day, making it a double event. The new offices will be without exception the finest in the country. A paper announces that Maude White "has engaged Stephen Qrattan as her support in 'Ix>cked Out at 3 A. M.'' Why not? He's her husband.