Variety (January 1914)

VARIETY V\KIETY Published Weekly by VARIETY PUBLISHING CO. Time* Square. New York. 8IME SILYUMAN Proprietor CHICAGO Majeatlo Theatre Bldg. JOHN J. O'CONNOB SAN FRANCISCO Pan tag e« Theatre Bldg. HABBT BONNBLL LONDON 18 Charing Cross Road JB88B FBBBMAN PABU •« bis. Rue Saint Dldler EDWARD O. KENDBEW BRRUN It Btromstrasse B. A. LEVY ADVERTISEMENTS Advertising copy for current Issue must reach New York office by Wednesday evening. Advertisements by mall should be accom- panied by remittance. SUBSCRIPTION Annual M Foreign I Single copies, 10 cents Entered as second-class matter at New York. Vol. XXXIII. January 16, 1914. No. 7 Billy Burke has everything set for a midwinter trip to London. Trixie Friganza has a company of five people for her vaudeville number. James J. Corbett commences playing for the Amalgamated Agency Feb. 2, placed by Freeman Bernstein. Shirley Gilmore has formed a "two act" with Jane Cameron—not with Harry Beresford. Billy Bernard, agent, is now affiliat- ed with the sales department of the Lasky Picture Co. The Nat Fields had a New Year's Day baby, a girl. Mr. Fields is with the "All Aboard" show. Carolyn Lawrence, after a three months' illness, returned to her dra- matic agency Tuesday. Arthur Dunn will play Dingbat in the Leffler-Bratton production of "The Dingbats." George H. Brennan is organizing a road company to produce a new play he recently accepted for production. The Theatre Francaise, Montreal, on the Mark-Brock small time circuit, is now playing three shows daily. The Darling theatre, at Gloversville, New York, is playing a split week, four icts, Looked by Harry A. Shea. Elsie La Bergere and posing dogs have been booked for the Locw Cir- cuit, opening Monday at the Ameri- can, New York. Mrs. John Drew, wife of the Froli- inan star, recently suffered a mild paralytic stroke. She is tip and around once more, apparently as well as ever. William V. Mong contemplates re- turning to vaudeville with a production of "The Clay Baker." Elmer Redmond, of the Leila Davis Players, is ill with tonsilitis, and his role has been assumed by James Dun- can. The Belle Adair Trio has split. Miss Adair returned to Chicago. Kathryn Jamison, contralto, remains in New York. The United Booking Offices and Or- pheum Circuit will move this week or rarly next to the Palace. P. Shea, the Worcester showman, was in town Wednesday organizing a stock company for one of his New England theatres. Queenie (Soulsby) Dunedin, the live- ly girl who has been with the Dunedin Troupe for 14 years, is leaving the turn this week. Mrs. Alfred Barnes became the moth- er of a boy Dec. 30, while the act her husband is with (Barnes and King) was at the Wintergarten, Berlin. Lopoukowa on the New York Roof next week will dance a Chopin circle, including the Waltz Minuet and the Prelude. Severin Dedeyn, recovering slowly from a paralytic stroke, received word last week of the death of his father in Kansas City. Efforts were made Wednesday to locate Charles Brooks, who has out the eastern "Girl of the Underworld," as his father was crit'cally ill in Potts- toww, Pa. The Friars held a song contest in the clubrooms last Sunday night. Mike Simon was chairman of the committee and ran the performance. All the pub- lishing firms were represented. "A Night in a Park" was enmeshed in the law at Lowell, where Frank Bohm appealed to the Massachusetts law to help him collect back commis- sions. La Titcomb (Mrs. Nat Wills) had one floor of her home on West 79th street completely burned out last Fri- day. An insurance of $35,000 is car- ried on the furnishings. Inez, a violiniste, billed to play at Hammerstein's this week for her first New York appearance^ "walked out" Monday through the position assigned her not suiting. Martin Herman returned to New York Tuesday morning. Mrs. A. H. Woods, his sister-in-law, left the same evening on the Lusitania. It just hap- pened so. M. R. Sheedy installed a pop show, eight acts and pictures, in Rand's Opera House, Troy, N. Y.. Thursday, playing two shows daily on a per- centage basis. Roland Pray, with the Aborn Bros, attractions for several years, is recov- ering from an operation performed last week upon his tongue. A diseased tooth was the cause. Mayme Gehrue is making ready for a re-appearance in vaudeville as a sin- gle. Included in her routine will be a song entitled "My Husband's Wife," the tag line of each verse being "I don't care." New acts arc springing up despite the lack of bookings for the hundreds now daily besieging the offices. Seven- teen tryouts were at the Columbia, Brooklyn, Tuesday. Of these seven were told not to report for the night shows. Mr. and Mrs. Louis Bernstein and Harry Carroll returned to New York last Sunday, after exactly one month of travelling. The Pacific Coast was visited and the party spent New Year's eve with the Gaby Deslys show, en route to Los Angeles from San Fran- cisco. Joseph Shagren, who has been man- aging the Feiber & Shea house at Youngstown, O., has been transferred to the management of the Opera House (Feiber & Shea's), New Brunswick, N. J., taking charge Monday. William Grover, who has had the New Bruns- wick house, has been shifted to Feiber & Shea's house in Akron, O. The Square Table Club, a social or- ganization composed of many well- known Broadwayites, will hold a beef- steak in the Rathskeller under the Lyric theatre, Forty-third street, Sun- day night. The Club leans toward fun and frolic. George Jones (Sylvester and Jones) is chairman of arrange- ments for Sunday night. THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH By DARL MacBOTLB. (It's been done before but not tbe way I do It.) Before his moving picture show The village smithy stands. He's now an Imprcesarlo And Illy white his bands. The biz from "holm" to Materllnck, He thinks he understands. From ticket booth to alley door He has installed his clan. Upon a par with Washington, They rate him as a man. Oft just to show them that he'B there. Some luckless act he'll can. Week In, week out. from morn' till night He'll bear his shiny pate And con the soubrettes on the blll And try to make a date. But alas, the message of his heart Is tbe one that came too late. The children coming home from school Count out their pennies ten. They want to nee the heroine Saved from the vllllan's don, And, with an a la Bunny smile, He rakes the shekels In. He thinks of putting on an act. II Ih dormant visions soar. Twill be from farce to tragedy. From giggle unto gore, And Just to make It difficult. There will be songs galore. Most every morn be comes around To exercise his voice, And when lw hits u "'barber shop" It makes his heart rejoice. The pianist, for a plunk an hour, Kndures the awful noise. Planning, panning, canning, Onward through life he goes. On Monday morning he will sit, His glasses on his nose. And "flgeer out," ns they rehears-, The proper act to Hose. Punk, punk, thou art. my Ku-ty i:i' ml. Your numb'T I- a naimht. Wlmn you forsook 111 • ■ flaminK fori:«- And "slriKle wonim" sohkM. You uiadi' a bull l>»M art hath *•: 111 • < 1 Vour destiny Is wrought. TOMMY'S TATTLES By THOMAS J. GRAY. Manager says, "Musical comedy's success to-day depends upon foreign composers." We substitute the words "Vaudeville Artists" for "Foreign Com- posers." As it is the fashion to use the titles of plays for popular songs, we submit the following to help out the down- trodden lyric writers: "Oh You Ben Hur Horse Trot." "After Ten Nights in a Bar Room I Can't Love You." "The Two Orphans Glide." "I'm Coming Back to East Lynn." "My Potash and Purlmutter Baby." "There May Be Seven Keys to Bald- pate, But There's Only One Key to My Room." "If You'll Be My David Harum I'll Be Your Charley's Aunt." "I'd Like the Girl From Rector's if She'd Eat in Childs'." "The Old Homestead Doesn't Seem the Same Since Father Saw 'The Lure'." "Everywoman Can't Be Bought and Paid For or You're Not Within the Law." Just when the waiters are all going back to their regular jobs on account of the Rathskeller craze doing a Bro- die, the department stores are running short of help through the craze for dancing acts. It is a sad sight to stand by the stage door of a theatre that's housing a musical comedy and see the chorus girls riding away in their private cars. Why don't the actors learn to save their money or go in the chorus. If Shakespeare had only placed a couple of Tango dancers in "Hamlet" the show might have been a hit. We hadn't any more than about a two years' acquaintance with "Pas- tor's," but if all the acts "knocked them off the seats" down there who claimed they did, the audience must have spent most of their time picking themselves up. Maude Ryan, while sitting in the White Rats' Cafe ordered a ham sand- wich; after waiting a while she said to the waiter, "How about that ham sandwich?" The waiter answered, "We're working on it now," which shows the waiter must have been a Ten Percenter. They will not serve wine at any of the White House Social functions— that table scene stuff is old, anyhow. Acrobats are to Germany what sham- rocks arc to Ireland its leading flower. They may have ;\>mcn police to watch the New Yoik dance halls. If your partner don't -limv up you can dance w»th a cop.