Canadian Film Weekly (Dec 22, 1948)

Page 17 Christmas Number CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY whet ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO (Continued from Page 15) to a city which did not lack for public entertainment in every known form. Besides the halls already mentioned there were Shaftesbury Hall, King and York; the Music Hall in the Mechanic’s Institute on Church Street, at Adelaide; Halley’s Concerts at King and York; Williams Piano Hall on Yonge; and Temperance Hall, presumably on Temperance Street, which was active from the early 1850s on. To these came touring attractions of all kinds, among them plays, minstrel and variety shows, gymnastic displays, vocal and instrumental recitals, magicians and lecturers. There was plenty of competition for them outside the arts. The public was invited as paying witnesses to balloon ascensions, rifle shoots, matched trotting races for side bets, pigeon-shooting tournaments, single sculling contests, a g0-as-you-please race lasting ten hours each day, etc. Then there was that yearly attraction, the Provincial Exhibition, now the Canadian National Exhibition, and entertainment enterprises came during it to share the money visitors brought to the city. On September 21st, for instance, Taylor’s World Circus opened on Wellington, between York and Bay Streets— the same day as the fair. “No played out menagerie or wagons filled with stuffed birds or figares,” the ads proclaimed. There was also the permanent zoo of Harry L. Piper, last located in the Crystal Palace on the CNE grounds. He eventually disposed of its inhabitants after the municipality had refused the zoo as a gift. Indeed, 1874 was the peak Tovonto theatre year for the period. It was, in fact, quite a year everywhere. Charlie Ross was kidnapped, the WCTU was founded, Boss Tweed went to jail in New York and Disraeli became Prime Minister of England. FeNs Street provided the main background for the city’s social and theatrical life. A look at it in its heyday is interesting, for much of the ornate architecture remains to stir the imagination into recapturing that scene. Here is a description of King Street by an anonymous writer in the Canadian Illustrated News of September 3rd, 1870: “Between the two _ principal ftreets ...is a great gulf... a guif made by the inflexible laws of fashion and society—a gulf as great as separates Broadway from the Bowery .. . or Regent and Rotten Row. The buildings on King Street are greater than their neighbours on Yonge, the shops are larger and dearer; and last, though far from being least; King Street is honoured by the daily presence of the aristocracy, while Yonge is given over to the business man, the middle class and the beggar. Among the upper classes there is a performance that goes on daily, that is known among habitues as ‘doing King.’ It consists principally of marching up and down a certain part of the street at a certain hour— performing, as it were, ko-tow to the goddess of Fashion, and sacrificing to her sister divinity of Society . . . King Street is, in a sort of way, the great social ‘Change, where everybody meets everybody and his wife, where the latest fashions are exhibited, and the last quotations of the matrimonial market exchanged.” All this took place on the south side of the street, from Simcoe to Sherbourne Streets. King Street eventually lost its important place as the city expanded and new residential and business sections arose. For years it languished like a shabby and genteel oldster whose own generation had departed and in whom the new generation had no interest. See steseesesenes® 8 YQ \ SUUtsoonedeccaseresacHoononst, y —Se IT GalCorseGrascatceaeharnauacsicace nN SS — eee on me on SS Now it seems to be recapturing some of its former glory. The Prince George Hotel, opened in 1855 as the Rossin House and in other days one of the continent’s leading hostelries, has been almost completely rebuilt. New buildings have replaced the old and more select shops have been added to those the street has always contained. The street’s theatrical character, once known throughout the amusement world, is still alive. Almost all of Toronto’s early theatres were on the street or just off it, starting with Frank’s in 1820, and the Rossin House and the Shakespeare Inn, which stood at the northeast corner of King and York, were theatrical rendezvous. In 1827 Toronto’s first resident circus operated at Dr. Forest’s hotel, on King near Sherbourne, and in the 1850’s the Terrapin tavern and the Apollo Saloon and Concert Hall offered entertainment and were thus the predecesscrs of Vanity Fair and the Fiesta Room, King Street’s present night clubs. —=—_—.—* Today the street’s theatrical character has returned somewhat to its ancient richness. The Prince George Hotel houses the Variety Club, the social and service club of the local amusement world, and it is the after-hours gathering place of native and visiting players and managers. Across the way is the Winston Grill, the city’s best-known theatre restaurant, where the public mixes with the players when the plays and concerts are over. Drama critics in Toronto can start casting their stones at the actors right after the performance, for two of the city’s three papers are a stone’s throw from the Royal Alexandra Theatre. The Globe and Mail and the Daily Star are on King Street. The Evening Telegram is around the corner from King on Bay. It is the Royal Alexandra Theatre, near Simcoe, which has kept King Street in the theatrical tradition throughout the sickest years of what Kaufman and Hart called “The Fabulous Invalid”— the live drama. Now in its 40th season, the Royal Alexandra was left the sole inheritor of the ancient art when the Princess Theatre, built in 1890 as the Academy of Music and renamed in 1907, was removed in 1930 to make way for a street. The Royal Lyceum was the first building erected for the sole purpose of housing the drama in Toronto. Now, a century later, the Royal Alexandra, a few hundred yards away, still welcomes the public after four decades—the last building put up exclusively for theatre presented in the first person. Attendant of “The Fabulous Invalid” in some of its unhealthy years was the devoted Ernie Rawley, now one of this continent’s outstanding managers in legitimate theatre field as director of the Royal Alexandra. There are many who feel that he is King Street’s No. 1 citizen, now that something old and new is stirring on that storied thoroughfare. Prominent among the Royal Alexandra’s patrons are local film folk. ‘‘We can’t let the Royal go dark,” says Ernie. ‘‘Where would the movie people go?” pas first theatre opened after the Royal Lyceum fire was established by an American manager in a made-over drill shed across the street at 90-94 King Street. Named the Queen’s, it was approached through a passageway. The public was welcomed to it on May 11th, 1874, by Herndon and Shackman for performances of ‘‘Lady Audley’s Secret” and “Stage Struck Tailor’ by the Herndon Opera Company. T. J. Herndon managed the company and played Tom Tape in the sec (Continued on Page 19)