Show World (August 1909)

NELLIE REVELL; HER GABALOGUE VETERAN SHOWMAN TO RETIRE FROM BUSINESS William Foster of Des Moines Says He Will Leave the Amuse¬ ment Field to Younger Men IOWA FALLS, Iowa, Aug. 2.— William Foster, the veteran theatrical magnate, states that he will retire from the show business on Sept. 1, 1911, the date of the expiration of his contract with Klaw & Erlanger. Al¬ though Mr. Foster has the privilege of a five years’ renewal of his contract for attractions with the theatrical syn¬ dicate, he says that he will retire from the amusement field. Coincident with this statement Mr. Foster said that he would either give a ground lease on the site now occupied by Foster’s opera house at the time of his retire¬ ment or that he would erect a big office building of the skyscraper va¬ riety. “You may say positively that I shall not erect a new theater when I retire,” said Mr. Foster, “I will be content to let others enter the field and take the business up where I have left off. I shall spend a good deal of my time fishing in Florida; you know that is a favorite oastime of mine. I will leave managerial worries to younger men.” Mr. Foster did not state what dis¬ position he will make of the opera house. For several years : been used as a popular priced j It is thought possible that Mr. will sell it outright as the house has always been a financial success and in the heart of the new theatrical rialto now that the Princess is being erected immediately across the street There has been some talk in theatrical circles that Ed Millaird, long asso¬ ciated with Mr. Foster as busines- manager, will take over the house ail use it for playing Klaw & Erlang:- attractions. It may be that a net theater will be erected for playine this class of shows and the Grand cos tinued under its present policy. Bot- Mr. Foster and Mr. Millaird have bee: many years in virtual command of tin Des Moines field of legitimate attrac tions and both are widely known t: the theatrical public. With Mr. Fos ter’s withdrawal it is considered na¬ tural that Mr. Millaird should becont ths Knaw & Erlanger representative —FOSTER. NEW YORK, Aug. 4. Dear Bunch : Sound the yewgag and let the eagle scream! Turn in a riot call and call out the mili¬ tia! Do any old thing you can ex¬ cept disturb the tariff bunch at Washington and the Wright Brothers, who are the flyest things in that part of the country. The puzzle picture is, who are the fly¬ est things, the Wright Brothers or the tariff bunch? With intentions that should have entitled me to a halo and a front row seat in the heavenly choir, and with the laudable desire to arbitrate the strained relations between Japan and Ireland, caused by Casey’s valet pur¬ chasing Pat a pair of green socks that were said to be on Pat’s “Fidus Achates,” M. H. McNulty, unwisely, but with me “Miss Innocence” (with apologies to Anna Held), I wrote the epitaph dedicated to the memory of said socks and thought with the pub¬ lishing of the obituary that the said socks would lie quietly at rest, but from Celtic association these socks had acquired Hibernianisma and wanted to be waked with becoming regularity. Whether the wraith per¬ sonality of these socks is hovering over the vaudeville situation is too deep for my occult powers. All I know is that these socks or the spirit of the socks has hovered around un¬ til now, the vaudeville situation which was becoming as clear as Mississippi River water at St. Louis is now as dense as the draperies worn by Ger¬ trude Hoffman in the Mendelssohn’s Spring Song dance. My only desire was to unwind the entangled web and settle for all time: “Who were the socks on, McNulty or Casey, or Casey or McNulty?” I know Casey was on to the socks and the socks were on to Casey and I also know that the socks were on to Casey for an unlimited run. For do what he would, he could not stop the run of the socks, and he had no idea when he would reach “The Climax.” The history of the socks was explained to me by Mr. McNulty. History of the Socks. It seems that on the opening night of the American Roof Garden, ac¬ companied by Martin Beck, Felix Is- man, William Morris and others of the cognescenti, they visited the roof with the intention of deciding the tex¬ ture and the weave of the material In Miss Grace La Rue’s dress used in the pantomime. After much discus¬ sion pro and con (more con than pro) McNulty bet Casey a box of socks that it was made of cigarette smoke, but Martin Beck gallantly came to the rescue and brought the pilgrims out of the slough of despond in which they were struggling, by explaining that the material used by Miss La Rue was “banshee cloth” and was wo¬ ven by the “good people” or Pixies, who dwell in the heart of Gut-Na-Morra, a mountain in the middle of the Shan¬ non river in the County Wicklow, Ire¬ land, and was not as McNulty con¬ tended, made of cigarette smoke, and had nothing to do with the dopey feel¬ ing Mr. McNulty acknowledged. At any rate, it was decided that McNulty owed Casey a box of socks, and Mc¬ Nulty said that since one pair of green socks was worth a box of any other color, that he would only buy one pair of socks and let them be green. A Japanese valet was sent to buy the green socks, and a meeting of the Orpheum circuit was to be called to settle who the socks were on. Silk Worm Amendment. McNulty offered an amendment, and said that before they would have any socks on him he would write to Fall River to A1 Haines, and have Haines exhaust the possibilties of New England in order to secure the silk worms of the necessary green color for the before mentioned socks. McNulty, who is an old seafaring man; who gets seasick taking a bath, was very happy until he heard from Haines, that anything in the world could be procured in Fall River but socks, Jerry Simpson having been there a few days since. Hence, the panic in socks. Felix Isman now got into the discussion, and informed Casey and McNulty that for years they had been laboring under a delu¬ sion that the Irish color was blue and the language Celtic. As a matter of fact, their morning greeting for years should have been “Wie gaets, lands¬ men” instead of “How are you?” Mr. Isman explained that the Irish color was blue, but as you would never get a blue Irishman, and once in a while you could find a green one (on the police force), custom had made the color green and the language Celtic, while, as a matter of fact, the lan¬ guage should be Urs. Both Casey and McNulty glared at Mr. Isman and wanted to know if the architect of their fortunes didn’t know his busi¬ ness. This silenced Mr. Isman, and he went back to Philadelphia to con¬ sult Mabel-Hite Donlin, his new man¬ ager and outfielder, who is another Scandinavian and greatly versed in the folk lore of that nation. Now the question the Orpheum directors have to decide is this: Are the socks on Casey, on Mc¬ Nulty, or, as Mack says, “The socks that Casey has on are on him, the socks that Casey has on are on me.” Now, the question arises, “Who are the socks on?” It’s up to the Or¬ pheum directors; I did my best. The Retort Courteous. Laura Bennett helped me through one of those terrible days by telling me of an occurrence that happened during the rehearsal of “Fifty Miles from Boston.” It was a dress re¬ hearsal, and Laura had forgotten the lines of her song. Turning to George M. Cohan, she asked, “George, have you any suggestions to offer as to how I should sing that song?” “Learn it,” was the laconic reply. “Well,” she said, “I know that song perfectly when I’m at home.” “All right,” said George, “invite . the au¬ dience home with you and sing it to them.” A letter from Irwin Connelly tells me that his wife recently added to their excess baggage by buying a new electric iron; weight, seven pounds; both doing well. Ethel Robinson gave me as her ex¬ cuse for not writing more frequently that she was almost too busy to say her prayers. I sent her a telegram asking her why she did not resign from a position that kept her so oc¬ cupied. She wired back, saying “I haven’t time to write out a resigna- R. Cecil Smith tells me that he is getting baldheaded, but he can’t quite make up his mind as to whether he looks like Mike (Twin) Sullivan or the baldheaded Wright boy, who gets so airshippy once in a while, but he says he knows that if he were three feet shorter that Consul would call him brother. The Hardworking Agents. Of course, I don’t know how true this is, and far be it from me to talk about anybody, but they do say these press agents are working overtime “innovating.” Once. when I labored under the paranoiac hallucination that I was a press agent, I contracted to send a cow up in a balloon, hence the expression, “In a horn, you will,” and expected my boss to get me out of the scrape. But never, in my wildest flight of fancy, did I ever hire anybody to jump in a tank, in a fountain in a park, and then having the Keller- manized mentality confined in Kings Park with the dancing chicken or the forget ward at Bellevue, or any of those funny stunts haying. apes turned into citizens. Eddie Pidgeon took Consul down to the Crimini Court building yesterday to take ot: his first papers, in order to vote fo: McClellan for governor. Easy to SB that he’s making a monkey of him self. Well, anyhow, these pres agents around here have monkeyec with everything but the Diety. S There was a good joke told in im office the other day, and if it is no! true then some of the journalists ii New York are sadly maligning ‘flor est John” Pollock, the unerring pres: agent of Oscar Hammerstein's musi hall, for ’tis said that through flve: zealous, if not inadvisable, advertis ing for the attractions he represents A week ago he gave a poor girl five dollars to throw herself into the font; tain in Madison square, and pretend she was Annette Kellerman, the div¬ ing Venus. She cavorted to such a: extent in a crepe de chene suit, whic'o being porous, clung to her form and extenuated her unclassic outlines » vividly that an unfeeling policemai insisted upon calling an ambulanc- and the young woman was taken to the Bellevue hospital and placed # the psycopathic ward for ohserva tion. She was kept there on the mil and bread diet for two days, at was fined in the police court Th genial Oscar Hammerstein was vet much upset, and he reprimande “Honest John” Pollock. “Hones John” said he had been called dor for the bathing story in the park, an that he was afraid to venture beyot his depth. Will sarcastically replies “Nothing ventured, nothing won,” s “Honest John” took a look at Salom who used to be called a cootc dancer years ago, and noticed tin Gertrude Hoffman, who impersonate Oscar Wilde’s ideal of the daugbti of Herodias,. was not wearing eve abbreviated tights, he got two polio men to come on the stage on Sattr day with the full intent of simp! having Miss Hoffman reprima^B the captain of the precinct, but tt unfeeling captain insisted upon ® resting Miss Hoffman, and, accor panied by her husband, Baron Hoffman, who used to be a leader t the orchestra in the Olympic, taken before Judge Barbow and nei in $1,000 bond to appear for W Tuesday for indecent exposure. W® Miss Hoffman appeared in court . w should stand behind her but Author Comstock, and he was heard to n mark: “If the police don’t P ui charges against these indecent o hibitors, I will.” Never mind, Jo® I’ve had many a good one go astrs myself, but I’ve still got three fen' NELLIE. MANAGER BUSBY TALKS ON TH EATR ICAL WAR Waterloo Man Says Western Managers Have Cut Entirely Away From K. & E. and Will Be Independent pursued in the future. He says that a number of bookings had already been made with the theatrical syndi¬ cate, controlled by Klaw & Erlanger, but up to the present time the con¬ tracts have not been received, and the intimation given out is that if the independent attractions are admitted to the theaters of the circuit the syn¬ dicate attractions will remain away. The stand taken by the. directors of the circuit, under the circumstances, means that there will necessarily be some legal complications. IOWA FALLS, la., July 30.—Man¬ ager A. J. Busby, of Waterloo, is home after a visit to the east, and says that the western managers have signed the declaration of independ¬ ence, and that allegiance to the the¬ atrical trust has been foresworn. The interesting information he brings back with him is the fact that the circuit has cut away from the trust, and in connection with some 200 other theaters in the middle west, lo¬ cated in cities of the size of Water¬ loo, the open door policy is to be NELLIE REVELL.