Showman (1937)

Page scan 000140 from Showman

Record Details:

Title:
Showman
Date:
1937
Publisher:
New York : E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.
Volume:
Showman
Leaf #:
000140
Language:
English
Subjects:
Motion Pictures, Motion pictures--Biography
Collection:
Books
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Date Added:
May 15, 2025
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SHOWMAN was a matinee-idol too. That racket finally went out when the movies arrived to install the Wallace Reids and the Rudolph Valentinos and the Dustin Farnums in that spot. But it certainly came in handy for "Gentleman Jim." It all began when I was a kid on the Bowery, with the appearance of a young actor named Henry J. Montague at Wallack's Theater. Hundreds of women used to collect at the stage-door every day just to watch Harry, as he was universally called, come out and get into his carriage— the kind of mob-adoration which has since been transferred to screen-idols, and on an even bigger scale. The word matinee-idol— the matinee being the big time for female attendance— was coined to suit his case. Small-time satirists had a fine time kidding the idea. We Bowery boys used to hang round Wallack's about the time the show broke and outrage Mr. Montague's admirers with the following song, sung at the top of our lungs: "My name is Hilde brand Montrose Some folks they call me Cholly; In my buttonhole I wear a rose— My word! ain't that jolly? By golly!" I was giving tongue to that effusion one afternoon at the theater when an elderly lady— Montague's fans were all ages, if only one sex— whaled me across the ear with 130