Actorviews (1923)

70 Actorviews Courville’s “Pins and Needles” revue, where their success was instant and enormous. That’s a story too; but so much of that sort of thing and so few kings and sons of kings come to me in my narrow life, that I fain would pass it by in favor of the fish — which is to say of royalty. They’ve finished now the story of their electrical engagement at the London Gaiety — we’ve gone right down to the yellow jacket of the perfect melon. Theater; there’s been nothing but theater when the headwaiter himself bears us the silver dish whereon lie six game fishes done to a noble, if not indeed a royal, bronze. “A dish fit for a king !” says Rosetta — who is the comic one, we’ll now remember; who is the one that in “Tip-Top” bumps the base of her spine to achieve a skinned knee. Rosetta’s appraisal of the fish explodes the pent Vivien and then herself. “King!” says Vivien with the grand rising inflection— “we met the King of Spain !” “And,” caps Rosetta (you should have heard her enrichment of that simple word), “the Prince of Wales !” “Both well, I hope,” I try to say — but it chokes and I am speechless while Rosetta runs on : “Why, we danced with the Prince every night — and how he can dance ! Everywhere he’d be asked out he’d say to his hostess, or get the word there, ‘You must have the Duncan Sisters!’ ” “But we must,” cries Vivien, “tell Mr. Stevens how we met the King of Spain !” And Rosetta tries to : “Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt called up from her London house that she was giving a reception to the King of Spain and that we must come — and — and meet the Prince of Wales. You see ”