Variety (March 1909)

VARIETY EVA TANQUAY ON " IMITATORS " Editor Variety : Authors of books are protected; why not an originator of his or her line of work? Fifteen years it has taken to obtain my present position in my profession. Night and day I plan and worry and pay out most of what I earn only to have it stolen by imitator: It is the material they want, for not in any other way could they use my songs or costumes. There is no protection against an imi- tator and they know it, so they pick out the artistes who have the best material, steal it, then call their act an imitation. It is impossible to imitate me, for my work depends upon my mood. I could not imitate myself, for I do not know my points, and always working naturally, I leave all to my condition. Each song costs me from fifty to one hundred dollars. It takes hours of thought to design a costume, and to plan six or seven means brain work. The expense attached to them only myself would be- lieve. There are twenty imitators of me to- day on the stage—men as well as women, which means there are that many trying to push me out of work. A manager will engage an imitator in preference to' the original. Why T He gets it cheaper. I read in a Pittsburg paper, not long ago: "Miss V of the Bur- lesque Go. is doing an imitation of Eva Tanguay, and so perfect was she that Eva Tanguay herself complimented her and said Miss V was the best imitator of her to-day." X have never seen the young woman and I quote the above to show how far imi- tators will go without permission. I make this whole statement to the public because only the public can pro- tect an originator, and that would be by hissing the imitator. Eva Tanguay. ADMITS "COPPING AN ACT." A very large sign outside of the Man- hattan Theatre says that Billee Seaton is imitating Eva Tanguay. That no passer- by shall mistake that it is Miss Tanguay Billie imitates, the "Eva Tanguay" is just a trifle larger on the oil cloth than Miss Seaton's name. Either may be seen a couple of miles away if no buildings obstruct. It would require a canvass of the audi- ence to ascertain whether they expected to see Miss Tanguay upon paying their ten cents apiece for admission, but the ingenuity of the sign painter might cause a casual observer to rest under the im- pression there are two "big acts" in the theatre after looking at the announce- ment—Eva Tanguay and Billee Seaton. Billee is a brunettish-looking young woman, bearing a slight resemblance to the only Tanguay in the contour of her facial features, but on the stage Billee apes Misp Tanguay as far as possible, and is aide< , ' e *'newhat in the effect aimed for days by having copied as well two of Miss Tan- guay's costumes without having bothered to secure expensive material for either. Billee also sings two of Miss Tanguay's songs, ."That Would Never Make a Hit With Me" and "Don't Bother Me." Owing to the legarthic condition of the audience when Billee finished her second Tanguay number, the copyist did not find herself called upon to imitate Miss Tanguay's encore speech. Billee opens her act with a "whistle" song, but the only time the gallery re- sponded with a whistle was when the lyrics said "if you want me, whistle." A couple of "college boys" in the top loft let out a faint chirp, and Billee seemed pleased. She is a nice girl is Billee in her own way, and quite frank for a young woman trying to make her way in this cruel world through trading upon the name and ma- terial of another. In her dressing room the other evening, just before Billee was about to appear for her fourth and last show of the day, she bared her innermost artistic soul to a Variety representative, who asked her if she didn't know that instead of "imita- ting," she was "copping an act." "Oh, I know I am 'copping an act' all right," replied Billee. "But that ain't nothing. Don't they all do it? I have seen fifty with acts of others. I don't like it, just the same, and I hear Miss Tanguay doesn't like my doing it, but I hope' Miss Tanguay isn't sore. I would like to meet her and be good friends. "I don't want to do this, but the man- agers want me to. This week there have been people here from every big agency, and they told me to go ahead and do the whole thing. One agent said Miss Tan- guay is going to London to play, and if she makes good over there, he will send me over to^follow her." It was suggested to Miss Seaton that if the managers thought so well of her imitation of Miss Tanguay it might be an advisable scheme to have her appear in London first to obtain a possible line on Miss Tanguay's foreign reception. "What!" flared up Billee. "Me take a chance for her? I guess not." Asked what previous experience she had had in vaudeville and how imitations sug- gested themselves to her, Billee made an- swer: "I was a chorus girl with Anna Held's show, and I was always lively this way. Then I joined the Sharp Brothers and their 'Dusky Belles/ and one day while we were in the cafe at our boarding house I was monkeying around imitating and so on, and Jimmy Lee (you know him) said: 'Kid, you're too good for that act you're in. Why don't you frame up a single act?' and so I did, and I have played all around, but never in a town where Miss Tanguay had appeared, ex- cepting Boston. I played the Howard there, and I was a riot. I just imitated Miss Tanguay and Anna Held. "Then I got this job, and they made me imitate nothing but Tanguay. I'll tell you what I'm going to do, though. Of course, I was broke when I went to work, and Jimmy Lee gave me a note to Chris Brown. Mr. Brown said if I would get some wardrobe he would place me for a week or two, and I did, but when I save Cliv up some money, I'm going to duck this Tanguay thing and strike out for myself and show I can do something. I don't want to be known as 'copping* anybody's act, but I'm up against it now and can't help myself. Next week I'm going to sing 'The Second Eva Tanguay,' written for me by a newspaper man. PRICES GOING UP. "You're not going to pan me, are you? Please don't pan me. I was never roasted in my life, and I would feel horribly." As the Variety man left the dressing room Billee called over the stairway to the colored maid for the theatre: "Annie, Annie! Hurry up and dress me. I have got to go on after this reel." (The "reel" was a moving picture of "With Taft in Panama.") (The Manhattan gives vaude- ville and pictures for a uniform admission of ten cents.) "Oh, say, you Variety feller," added Billee, "my name is on the level. It's Billee Seaton." William J. Ganc, manager of the Man- hattan, said he had engaged Miss Seaton as a business proposition. "Everybody is imitating everybody else," remarked Mr. Gane. "I can not afford to engage Miss Tanguay at our prices of admission, so I have signed Billee Seaton for a run. She pleases my audiences immensely, and has proven a drawing card. "I think the girl is a great mimic, so I bought her costumes like those Tanguay wears." In some press matter sent out by the Manhattan this week, the following ap- pears regarding Billee Seaton: "Every slight detail of Miss Tanguay's work has been copied by Miss Seaton, even to the costumes, which are the exact duplicates of the ones worn by the original." Mr. Gane is almost as charmingly hon- est in his statements as Miss Seaton. Neither he nor Billee seemed to have the There was an upward movement in the fluctuating market price of vaudeville acts this week. On Monday but little trading was done in the offices, and the situation seemed firm. Three or four acts, when solicited for next season, unsettled the conditions by placing a figure on their services for the future which caused a sharp rise in the price of patent medicines to sooth booking representatives subject to nervous prostration. The brokers and sellers were of the opinion the sharp competition at present, coming from a triangular source, was the cause of the decided advance. The information obtainable indicates that there is great activity in the engage- ment of vaudeville numbers for next sea- son in a coupU of sections, while in other quarters great figuring is going on with no results accomplished. Our financial editor says that the early bird is catching the nicest food, and it looks as though the laggards would catch something else. Among the market quotations during the week for next season were Howard and North, $600; Rooney and Bent, $600 ("two-act"), and Smith and Campbell, $100 increase. least inkling of a suspicion that their billing and copying of Miss Tanguay's act could harm that vaudeville star in any way. Miss Seaton had to say on this score: "I can't hurt her (Tanguay), and if they make a fuss about this, it will advertise me anyhow, won't it?" Down at Keeney's Third Avenue there is another imitator of Miss Tanguay billed for next week. Her name is Gertrude Lynch. Photographs in the lobby show her in duplicates of the cyclonic comedi- enne's costumes.