Variety (Jan 1906)

VARIETY. '.."^v Murphy and Nichols were canceled at Proctor's Troy house for the coming week, as they declined to play New York the Sunday following their closing there. The same day their act "Prom Zaza to Uncle Tom" was booked at the Union Square, where it will play during the same week. .'^' ■'--^ ■''■■ /y.. ■'■■:,■■. Adele Ritchie, after leaving vaude- ville, rehearsed one day for the new pro- duction of the Joe Weber Company. Miss Ritchie says she stopped as she would not wear tights. Mr. Weber disagrees with that statement. Jacobs' dogs, a foreign act, which has not played Blast yet, having gone direct on the Orpheum Circuit, was about to start for home (Vienna), when the sug- gestion was made to Jacobs to look around a bit here first. He is now look- ing. It is said that an act that the Keith people wanted quite badly recently called at the olfices known as "the Associa- tion's" still, and upon looking over the contract, noticed "five per cent." Ob- jection was raised on the ground that as the act was booking direct there would be no "split," and the artist was entitled to the boueflt. Told to wait while it was considered, the artist has the pleasure of seeing the contract returned from the "star chamber" with two and one-half per cent, resting where the objectionable "five" had been. May Ward is ill at the Mt Sinai Hos- pital. AIMIE ANGELES. The Colonial has been selected for the opening date of Aimie Angelc^s' appear- ance in vaudeville on Monday, where she will be seen shortly after leaving "Wonderland." Miss Angeles had some vogue at one time as an imitator of pop- ular actresses, but what her vaudeville offering will consist of is not at present known. — N088E8 MAY COME BACK. The Five Nosses in their musical nov- elty may leave "The Earl and the Girl," where they have scored substantially, for another round of the vaudevilles. LUE8CHER GOT A LAUGH. An article in one of last Sunday's pa- pers, accredited to Mark Luescher, with vaudeville as its subject, caused even the trained animals playing around town to laugh when they heard about it. CHARLES LEONARD FLETCHER IN ACCIDENT. Through an accident on the Santa Fe Railroad near Omaha, Charles Leonard Fletcher is filling a date in a hospital. Mr. Fletcher does not expect to leave Omaha for a month, being obliged by reason of his injuries to postpone the opening of his new sketch, "A Breeze from the West," until February 5, when he will produce it for the first time at the Majestic in Chicago. The railroad company will be called upon to reimburse Mr. Fletcher, both for the physical injuries and loss of time. While confined to his bed Lou Anger, of Dixon and Anger, has been most kind and attentive, attending to his correspondence and seeing that Fletcher's wants are cared for. WENTWORTH IS COMINa Estelle Wentworth, prima donna of the "Happyland" company, will take a flyer into vaudeville when the season of the DeWolf Hopper musical comedy closes. This is her second look-in on the vaudeville game. About a year ago she appeared at Proctor's Fifth Avenue house in a straight singing act. Her ap- l)earance in variety only lasted one week, however. This time she will stay with it much longer, she says. The act will be a straight singing turn, much on the order of that being used by Nella Bergen. ■/;• ' ■••"^-^ ' ■ r-,:-. ^v . THE EX-HEflDyNER ' STUNGI The management of "The Dainty Duchess" burlesque company was stung last week for the first time for the $25 forfeit which is offered for any female catch-as-catch-can expert who can stand up right on the mat with their aggrega- tion of "International Female Wres- tlers." The international ladies first ap- peared in this country at Hammerstein's early this fall, and up until last week got away with the $26 offer. They were at the Trocadero, St. IjOuIs, when a muscular maid took up the of- fer. She gave her name as Julia Dor- flinger, of Chicago, and confessed that she paid her room rent by hurling sink- ers and wheats in a St. Louis quick lunch room. The huskiest of the pro- fessional wrestlers was appointed to grind her face into the canvas mat, but at the end of the appointed time limit of five minutes the quick-lunch giantess was still on her feet and smiling tri- umphantly. She left the theatre with the five-and-twenty in her stock—that is, purse. OLD-TIME MINSTREL DIES. Sam S. Sanford, the creator of the name part in Uncle Tom's Cabin, and a minstrel of note, died at his home iu Brooklyn last Saturday. The body was taken to Philadelphia for Inteiment. He was at one time manager of a theatre in Philadelphia, but of late had lived in Elyn. He was about 84 y ea r s-o£- age. His son, Walter Sanford, at one time a well known melodramatic actor here, is in Australia. Truly Shattuck h?i8 discovered a new and effective prescription for reducing. "Star four months in vaudeville against a background of show girls re- cruited from Broadway. Guaranteed to take off ten pouns of superfuous fiesh in each month." Judging from Miss Shattuck's appear- ance on the Colonial stage this week, the prescription has worked in her case. She never looked as fit, and if her latest vaudeville experience has done nothing else, it has trained her down for her re- entrance into musical comedy, otherwise George Cohan's new piece, "George Washington, Jr." "The Prince of Pilsen Girls with Truly Shattuck" is not the property of Miss Shattuck. but of M. S. Bentham, who stays in New York, while a Mr. Ford assisted by Miss Shattuck (when emergency demands) runs the show on ihe vaudeville circuit. "Emergency" managed to keep Miss Shattuck pretty busy. Those eight girls, two from Weber and Fields' ranks, brought with them to vaudeville all the petty Jeal- ousies and late supper habits peculiar to the Broadway beauty line and not compatible with vaudeville. When Miss Shattuck has not i)een engaged in paci- fying belligerents under her breath dur- ing the act itself, she has been warding off vaudeville Johnnies. In New York, the Johnnies, being rather discriminat- ing, have not besieged the stage doors, but out of town it has been a weekly gamble whether the entire octet would turn up at the depot. Their hunger and tliiriit for the sign*of the electric dragon and other Broadway features have also lent the element of uncertainty to Miss • Shattuck's tour and now she says that with all due deference to the drawing powers of a beauty line, give her the plain flftcen-dollar-a-week variety of chorus girl every time. Still, she has some cause for gratitude. ' She looks wonderfully trim and svelte in that spangled lavender gown. HUBER AN IMPORTER. George H. Hube^", who has a museum on Fourteenth street, and a lot of flats and restaurants up-town, has imported a freak from the other side at a weekly salary of $9,000. (Nine thousand, not ninety.) It is Libberra, a man with two bodies. Owing to the enormous salary, the greatest price ever paid to a freak, liv- ing or dead, Mr. Huber has engaged the Madison Square Garden for February and March so that all may see. No ad- vance in prices. "THE NEW FIRM'S" NEW HOUSE. Myers & Kellier have added the opera house at New Britain to their Connecti- cut chain, which now embraces Stam- ford and Hartford. Julie Ring in her new sketch will be seen at Keith's for the first time In New York next week. The act has been out since early in the season, but this is Its first metropolitan look-in. "You know how it is," concluded the speaker, glancing at Miss Barry. "Don t I," replied the little song and dance artist who is always looking over the audience for a sweetheart. She heaved an eloquent sigh. "Don't I? Why, the other night, every time I sat down or bent over, I heard my new frock go 'plunk' somewhere. With one breath I was making remarks about the dressmaker and her pedigree, and with the other asking Felix questions. He misinterpreted my remarks and the re- sult was a queered turn. Oh, yes, there are times when our hearts and—other things—break, and the audience is none the wiser." Grace Tyson, of McWatters and Tyson, is getting the real estate habit. She has bought some land on Long Is- land as an investment and she wants to acquire more. She has seventeen acres in Deer Park, adjoining a tract owned by Maud Mclntyre, wife of Jim Mcln- tyre, of Mclntyre and Heath fame. Miss Tyson and Mrs. Mclntyre put their heads together during the past week and evolved a perfectly lovely idea. All their land is woodland, so next summer there is to be a woodchopping contest at Deer Park. A lot of chaps who think they saw a lot of wood in vaudeville will be invited to deliver the real article mid- way between Babylon and Jamaica some lovely July day. Overalls, straw hats and axes will be supplied and all their wives and sweethearts will be invited out to share the basket lunch. Miss Tyson admits that it would be cheaper to hire professional ground clearers. but then she argues—"Think of the happy reunion!" Some one was talking before Lydia Barry the other night in very senti- mental fashion about how we poor play- er women often made the audience laugh when our hearts were breaking. Do you know Anna Marble, the busy press agent at the Victoria? If you do not, you want to write her a nice letter and send her a lot of photographs about two weeks before your next booking at Mr. Hammerstein's theatre. I dropped in to see her the other day in search of a photograph of a certain headliner. Miss Marble fell upon my neck and wept —figuratively speaking, of course. "Photographs," she sobbed. "Do vaudeville women ever have photo- graphs taken? Why, there was an act billed here last month, a big act with a pretty woman in it. The papers wanted her pictures—think of it, really wanted 'em! I wrote to her for a lot and what did she answer 'Where are the pictures I let you have last year?' "Honest! And another headliner who had sent me two pictures, said in reply to my request for more—'I don't see what you do with all the pictures I give you. I am sending you four more. Please remember they cost real, not stage, money.' "I got all her pictures in the papers but one and she was tickled to death, but I haven't recovered from her nasty note yet." Girls, it isn't every house that has a peti{coated press agent who will get the best showing possible for ua. Play up to Miss Marble and play up in time. And remember that if you don't get your pic- tures back, they repose in the desk of some Sunday editor, not up Miss Mar- ble's sleeve. She has a pretty, plump arm that does not need padding with photographs. You are always wonder- ing how the Broadway show girls and the musical comedy people get so much space in the paper. They pose for hours before the camera. That's the answer. The Ex-Headliner. DELLA FOX'S SOUVENIRS. Yesterday at Proctor's Fifty eighth Street Theatre souvenirs in the form of ash receivers were distributed to all women occupying orchestra seats, with the compliments of Delia Fox. The receivers were on view in the lobby during the week, and were quite pretty in design. About 500 were given away, and Delia's husband, "Jack" Levy, has stated that the cost was twen- ty-seven cents each. Among the passengers on the Ham- burg-American liner Amerika, which left Dover Thursday, was Charles Born- haupt, head of the international vaude ville agency which bears his name.