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Mr. Jolson Acts Up for His Bride
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thing. — Great theater, this Apollo Theater. Beautiful. Ever see the Jolson Theater in New York? Big as a stable and you have to have a team of Eskimo dogs to find it. A fellow bought two seats for it at Tyson’s, and returned them and wanted his money back; said he couldn’t get in ; said they threw him out on his ear. They cross-examined him and discovered he’d tried to get into a secret convention at Carnegie Hall. Now I’m going back on that stage and give an imitation of a comedian trying to make his wife laugh.”
“He’ll work his head off with her out there,” grieves Frank. “You know, deep down in his heart, he’d rather be an opera singer than the greatest comedian in the world. He’s music-mad. And can’t read a note of it, not a note. And composes, too. He said to me at Palm Beach, ‘Here, Frank, you remember this tune while I go in swimming’ ; and he sang it to me. I drew five lines on my cuff and put down dots; and when we got back to town one of his scorers wrote it out right.”
Frank throws a wig onto his own head, climbs into a pair of turkey red pants, and goes right on: “Now I’ll stop writing checks and counting money and do some acting myself. I haven’t got a real part in this show; just a bit where I carry on the bucket and he kicks me off — those big spouting parts are too much for me. Be back soon.”
The Colonel comes in from his post by the dressing room door, and I am rapidly learning to love him when Frank returns, breathless, saying:
“Thirty seconds and my performance is over. Just long enough to be on the Shubert pay roll. He likes to have me on the stage, if only for a minute. On or off, I absorb a lot of his nervousness. I always tell