Variety (October 1914)

VARIETY VARIETY Published Weekly by VARIETY, Inc. J. J. O'Connor, President Timet Square, New York. CHICAGO Majestic Theater Bid*. SAN FRANCISCO .... Pantages Theatre Bldg. LONDON 1* Charing Croat Road PARIS 66 bis, Rue St. Didier ADVERTISEMENTS Advertising copy for current issue must reach New York office by Wednesday midnight. Advertisements (or Europe and New York City only, accepted up to noon time Friday. Advertisements by mail should be accom- panied by remittances. SUBSCRIPTION Annual $4 Foreign 5 Single copies, 10 cents Entered as second-class matter at New York. Vol. XXXVI. No. 9 Alice Gale has opened a dramatic school in Chicago. The Rigoletto Brothers open on the Urpheum Circuit Nov. 2. Ina Claire is due to arrive in New York the end of this week. Abner Greenberg, the attorney (who has also written several songs), is now located at 299 Broadway. Eddie Small is placing the bills for the Mark-Brock houses, in the Loew office. Paul Nicholson and Miss Norton are with "A Pair of Sixes," playing the principal roles. Keeney's, Newark, has its first anni- versary next week. A special bill is being prepared by Harry Shea. The F. F. Proctor theatre, Rich- mond avenue, Port Richmond, Staten Island, is expected to open around Thanksgiving. The Savoy, Fall River, Mass., and the opera house, Newport, R. I., are being booked by the M. R. Sheedy agency. Madame O thick, widely known through the northwest, was married Oct. 14 to Roy P. Madden, a film dis- tributor, in Salk Lake City. The Family, Lebanon, Pa., is liooked by Arthur Blondell in the Fam. Dept. of the U. B. O. Billy Delaney, in the same agency, is now taking care of the Temple, Syracuse. Mr. Tausky, who represents Henry VV. Savage on the other side, also the Wintergarten, Berlin, and Wilner Burg theater, Vienna, arrived in New York this week. The Jack Shea Vaudeville Road Show got under way Thursday with three days booked in Cortland, Geneva, Ithaca, Little Falls, Fulton and Glov- ersville, N. Y. Five acts are carried. Shea is personally managing. Gerta J. Southerland has started suit, through her attorneys, Eppstein & Rosenberg, against Clayton and Drew, for royalty claimed on the sketch "Othello Outdone." The act has been forced to cancel its time on account of the suit. William Woodin, manager of the Majestic, Towanda, N. Y., has leased the Keystone opera house and has sev- ered his connection with the Majestic. Lester C. Gillette, former manager of the Keystone, retires, while A. M. Slo- com succeeds Mr. Woodin. Robert Warwick has signed a con- tract with the World Film Corp., by which he will give that company his services exclusively for two years. He will continue to play on the legitimate stage during this period. Edna May Spooner may not return to stage this season as reported. She is at Lawrence, Mass., with her hus- band, who is leading man with the Malley-Denison stock company there. Her sister, Cecil Spooner, is also rest- ing after engaging in some strenuous picture work. "What Is Love?", the George Scar- borough piece which had short life at the Maxine Elliott theatre, is to be re- vived, according to new plans, and sent on tour through the popular-priced houses. Another piece which may go out within a few weeks is "The Ar- rival of Kitty." Negotiations are on for Robert Millikin to play his old tole. Sade de Waltoff has taken over the former William Fox theatre, at New Haven, and recalling it WaltofFs Grand, opened it Monday with pop vaudeville, six acts booked by Phil Taylor, New York. Arthur Goldsmith works while Mike Bentham polishes up the brass on his yacht. When Vinton and Buster dropped out of the Bushwick bill this week, through Mr. Vinton's illness, Arthur was there with Johnson and Wells as substitute, and when the Mortons could not make Cincinnati, Arthur was there again, with Byal and Early. Now you understand how Mike was able to take that European trip. Harry Swift, manager of the Har- lem opera house, pulled real circus stuff to draw business for his house this week. This is Carnival Week in Harlem and as a counter attraction Swift installed a 19-piece orchestra for lobby concerts in the afternoon. A special stunt is the sending out of three automobiles through the Har- lem and Washington Heights sections with moving cameras to take pictures of pedestrians. These pictures are shown the following day, in addition to a monster carnival vaudeville bill. To Lester Whitlock came a down- and-out actor a day or two ago, and lcquested a "breakfast loan." "I'm IS cents strong myself," counted Whit- lock, "and I've got to lunch yet." Then he had an idea. "Tell you what," he volunteered, "I'll send you to Corona, Long Island, for the day." "Fine!" chirruped the actor. "How much?" "One dollar," said Whitlock. "Can't be done," refused the other. "But this is NET," urged the agent. "Oh, all right, you're on," sighed the actor. Whitlock calls the transaction "Doing a Sheedy/ 1 Gaston Palmer received a letter last week stating another cousin had been killed near Verdun Aug. 9. He left for the front without bidding his folks good-bye. It is the second cousin of Mr. Palmer who has been killed in the war. He has six others with the French and Belgian armies. Mabel Wilbur seems to have set St. Louis by the ears. The prima donna made her debut with the Park Opera Company in that city in "Mile. Mod- iste" and the critics liked her better in the role than Madam Scheff, and in comparing the two in the papers give Miss Wilbur the best of it TOMMY'S TATTLES. By Thomas J. Gray. New Broadway show carries 400 peo- ple—good idea—when business is bad half the cast can go out and sit in the audience. This is the three hundredth birthday of New York, and they are still telling some of the jokes told on its first birth- day. It's really heart-breaking to hear the acts returning from Europe tell about all the time they had to cancel. What the Choosers Say. "Why I've been doing that gag for five years." "A fellow I worked on the bill with gave it to me. He said he owned it." "The manager in Bunktown put that in our act." "Say, we did that at Pastor's 15 years ago and we just put it back in the act." "Your stuff? You didn't copyright the English language, did you?" "I got that out of a newspaper in Yonkers." "How is it the same? You say, 'Me for Nellie,' and we say, 'Me for Jen- »»» me. "We put it in one night by accident and it just seemed to fit" "The fellow who wrote the show put that gag in, not me." I was as happy as could be Until Mose Gumble smiled at me. A little dance, a little gag, A little song, a great big flag. • If you want to cop some dames Have a talk with Walter James. What can be worse, tell the truth, Than laying off, out in Duluth? Think of the days of long ago When imitations got the dough. Now that the musie publishers still insist they are not paying acts and the cabarets have to pay for singing songs, the song writers are liable to get some money. (Notice "liable.") BERNSTEIN'S CREDITORS. "Let nobody in. Tell 'em 1 diea yesterday or the day before and that 1 can't see anybody now' shouted Freeman Bernstein, as he entered his olhce from the fire escape. "I can't stand this much longer," continued Mr. Bernstein, peeking through the' keyhole into the hall. "Those fellows out there who say I owe them money are interfering with my business. My customers can't get through the crowd. 1 never seen such a bunch of guys. All they think 1 do is worry about paying them. "Here's a little inside stuff about how I stand. You know my rep. I can dodge more summonses than any man in the world. Have held the rec- ord for 15 years, and dodged as many as three a day without stopping busi- ness, but it's getting so now 1 can't walk on the main streets. They're everywhere. Did you notice me trip into you yesterday? Had to do it There was a guy right behind you that was looking at me too close. Free- man, says 1, hide that face or another judgment, so 1 tripped. "Oh, that's an old one. I could tell you a hundred stories about little things like that, but 1 never seen a season before like this for debts. I ain't met nobody in a week who didn't have a bill against me. It got so bad in the outside office I says to Sam, 'Sam, you will have to ease up that crowd and cut down the jam. Get some money, hold it in a roll and ask if anyone has a five hundred dollar bill for small change. Maybe they will think we are all right and vamp.' "I felt sorry for Sam afterward. They almost killed him in the rush before finding it was stage money. When we pulled Sam out from under, the floor was an inch thick with state- ments the mob had dropped. "What's a guy to do with them fel- lows? They keep saying I've got to give them something and I keep giv- ing them a stall. If I had money do them guys think I would be here every morning at 8 to get to the mail first? "One day the crowd was so thick I called them all in. 'Gentlemen/ says I, 'times are very bad and I am afraid I must confess that I am involved (I heard a lawyer pull that once). I aint going to let no one lose one dollar by me, and if you say I owe you, that goes, but I don't want you to sue and send good money after bad. If you want your accounts settled that way, I will confess judgment to all of you right away, if you draw up the papers/ "Wasn't that liberal enough? And what do you think the rummies said to me? Come over here and I'll whis- per it. That's a new girl outside. But it kept them away for a day, then they came back and said they would take the judgments, as after looking me up they thought they would be lucky to get anything. By that time though I was sore, so to get even, I worked up a new line of creditors and they are the bunch outside. "As you go out draw your handker- chief across your face and say loud, so they all can hear it, 'Well, they caa talk about Freeman Bernstein, but it's too bad he had to go.' Maybe that will give me a chance to go out for lunch. Phone me if you get it over. BUM.