Variety (December 1914)

VARIETY 25 BOARDING HOUSES AND By VAN HOVEN (the Dippy, Mad Magician). ENGLAND VAUDEVILLE BOOKING I little thought that some day I would be writing about the boarding- houses I used to stop in, but here goes: I was playing through the west and middle west with medicine shows, one nighters and cheap vaudeville shows. With the medicine shows I generally got $7 a week and board and room. I was often property man, doing bits in my specialty, or my many specialties'. The "hotels" I got to were birds. I never knew one waitress could wait on so many people at one time. But it was show business and, I should worry 1 I finally got into vaudeville. The salary at that time was all the way from $17.50 for a team to $70. And listen—Van Hoven and Held never got $70. And only a few weeks at $17.50. (In most cases we didn't stay all week.) But the idea of the story is hotels! With the Adam Fetzers One-Ring circus I got $7 a week, ate on the lot and slept in hotels. Fetzer allowed 25 cents a night for hotel rooms. Some showt Imagine me getting into a vil- lage at 5.30 a. m., hopping off the band FANNIE USHER Of Claude and Fannie Usher, and Spareribi, in their second season of "THE STRANGE PATH" wagon, getting a cup of coffee at the cook tent, and then going up town to square myself and the gang—some gang—for a room. Sometimes we made it, but mostly—No. So we saved the quarter and flopped in a wagon under- neath a horse blanket, for we always left town about 3 a. m., made two and three-hour jumps, so a room was not much good to us anyway. When I went on the Gus Sun Cir- cuits at $25 a week and could get the best in town for a dollar a day, I was some little actor. I wrote to all my circus friends on the hotel stationery and sat in the lobby nearly all the time. In most of the theatres there were a lot of boarding house ads in all the dressing rooms, near the stage door and around the mail boxes. As a general rule, the ladies who ran t'l'sr boarding-houses were always n.M :c?! Mrs. Smith, or Mrs. Rrown, or i. Clark—nearly always Mrs. smith 1 c ads nearly always read somethi» r'-f» this: "Stop at Mrs. Smith's—home cooking, good beds, lunch after the show," and a lot more things that were impossible to give for $4 and $4.50 a week, but it was in the ad anyway. All around these ads were many little no- tices made in pencil by the different actors, who evidently did not like Mrs. Smith. They read something like this: "Terrible," "Flies in the Soup," "Do Not Stop Here Unless You Have Got Your Mother-in-Law Spending the Week xWith You," "You Get Pork Monday^ahd Every Day Thereafter Until Friday^hen You Get Soup and Fish, Pork Goes on Again Saturday." "Stop Here, She is the Manager's Aunt If You Don't, You Get Canned." Being a nice young fellow, I used to try to lay off these places, and gener- ally went up to the main hotel at a dol- lar a smash, three meals and a room. But when I did that, all the other ac- tors got a little sore at me and thought I was swell-headed. So, rather than make enemies, I sometimes—nearly al- ways—werit\{o Mrs. Smith's. Finally I hopped on the Big Time, and the rooms alone got to coming at $5 a week. All of a sudden I played Keith's, Boston. The only thing left at a place I was sent to by some Big Time friends, was a room and bath at $7 a week. I knew I didn't belong in there, but I was kind of forced into it. I stayed. I got to bathing up every day. Long before the song "This Is the Life" came out, I was thinking it over every minute that week in Bos- ton. But rooms and baths at $7 a week cannot be had in every town. So I got used to the bath, and had to have it. I didn't let $1.50—sometimes not even $2—stand in my way. Well, I went on like this for a couple of seasons and finally I met Annie Kent. We got to liking each other and I got a raise in salary for some weeks. I then told her I could furnish a room and bath every week. So when she came back from the Orpheum Circuit we got married and the first morning when she ordered breakfast in the room, I got kind of dizzy. I thought I could see the poor Mad Magician's fin- ish. I went into a kind of trance and I had a vision. I saw the-band-wagon, the old circus cook tent, and the coffee and the tin cup without the milk, not to speak of cream. Then the waiter rapped at the door. I came to a little. When I got a sip of coffee I regained consciousness. Next morning the same thing hap- pened. I got a little peeved, but I real- ized that if you really love a woman, you must let her have breakfast in the room. I then originated the line I now use in my act. "This cannot go on for- ever." But I got the habit of "break- fasting up" in the room and it kind of stuck to r ' S" m.i*. ; am buying insurance, a lit tit } . m: and a lot of other little ilni'■-:. .- iving my money and fixing i vscl; v so that in case anything ever 'i.i-■!«» ns to Big Time, I will never have • co '• it k to Mrs. Smith's, where they i.iv <>'i all the eggs you want—but •" dr-n't ever want more than one. The managerial end of the vaudeville business in England is handled in of- fices mostly located in London. Until a few months ago when the London Theatres of Varieties moved from Rand- voll House (near Leicester Square) to the Holborn Empire Building, all man- agers' offices were within less than a quarter of a mile of each other. In all but one of the circuits which bookfrom London large staffs arevuaed to assist managers in supplying mate- rial for j the halls. The Variety Con- trolling Co. has probably the smallest staff. In the Moss Empire offices (the largest vaudeville circuit in England) the booking is done by a com- mittee of four men. They re- ceive the agents in a body in the committee room, and the acts have to be passed by the quartet before book- ing is entered. After a turn is booked, the "slip" is handed to another man, whose sole duty is to route the acts over the circuit. The Hippodrome, though belonging to this company, is hooked separately. Also there are two or three halls allied with this circuit, which, while making their London MERRY XMAS TO ALL Clyde Walter HAGER and GOODWIN. The Bally-hoo Boys with songs of their own Hear their new one. "I'm the Man Who Put the Ham in Hamlet. "Speed All the Time" Under personal management FRANK BOHM. Big hit in New York headquarters at the Moss office, book independently in many cases. The Variety Controlling Co. (the op- position to the Moss Empires) also books from London, but its system is quite different from Moss*. One man is in charge. His title is Booking Manager and his word in most cases goes. There are two heads of this cir- cuit, however, who sometimes book at- tractions on it themselves. In addi- tion to the booking manager, another man selects the dates for the acts who have passed him. The agents do their business with the booking manager at his office in Randvoll House. The two big London circuits are in opposition in many of the suburbs of London. The London Theaters of Va- riety is a larger tour than the other, known as The Syndicate. The L. T. V. books 17 halls, while the Syndicate controls 11, exclusive of the new Tivoli, rrow building. The business of the L. T. V. is su- perintended by a managing director, with one head booking manager who has three assistants. The latter four place acts on the circuit but they must be passed by the managing director. This circuit in the past few years has done more of a "Monday next" busi- ness than any of the English circuits. Here also the "turn-system" prevails, and the framing of bills in such a way as to allow the artists to make their time on the different programs is a study in itself. The Syndicate halls are now booked from offices in the Alhambra building. Here the board of directors of three take care of the Oxford and Pavilion bookings, while a booking manager has charge of the outside halls of the cir- cuit. The salaries, however, in all cases have to be passed by the board. The Stoll Circuit since the break with Moss Empires some years ago has been under the personal direction of Oswald Stoll. He employs two book- ing assistants and two district man- agers. Their- duties are to scour the country for material. The Coliseum, London, is booked by Mr. Stoll per- sonally. He confers once weekly with his assistant bookers, as to the pro- grams in all the Stoll houses for the following weeks. The big independent halls fn the West End of London (Alhambra, Em- pire and Palace) are booked in their respective buildings. Since the Empire has been taken over by the Palace company some of the booking is done there. The Alhambra has a managing director who looks after the big revue bookings, while an assistant places the preliminary vaudeville turns. At the Palace building, besides transacting business for that house, the Victoria Palace booking is done, solely by one man. The independent provincial variety managers in most cases receive the London agents in their own theaters, but make frequent trips to London to see new acts. The London independ- ents work much the same way, having certain nights when they are at home to agents for the purpose of booking. ONE LAST CHANCE. Excuse me Mister Dramatic Agent, For coming In here to see 7011; I've got to make the rounds, you know, Because I've nothing else to do. Who am IT Why, I'm an old time actor- Some critics have said I'm no good— But actors have got to live, you know, Tho' some managers don't think we should. Once I was a handsome young leading man, Wore a moustache and had plenty of clothes ; Why I didn't get five hundred a week And become a big star, the Lord only knows. 'Way down on the New England circuit, I've played for years and years; In comedy, melo-drama and tragedy, I've had laughter, applause and cheers. Bouquets—and roasts In the papers, too— Yes, they came from near and far; They were enough to drive a fellow to drink, with his vest up against the bar. But these little set-backs didn't bother me, For years I kept plugging along; Then managers began to turn me down, And things began to go dead wrong. Now, nay, Mr. Agent, can't you put me on, I've got to get Homethlng to do Or I'll be turned out of my boarding house— Sometime I'll do ad much for you. "Sorry, old chap, there's nothing doing. But Just come around every day" ; That's the same old story I've heard for weeks. Can't you find anything elne to nay? • • *. » • • Oh, If I rould only get on the road again, A good character part to piny; T'd tramp and tramp, even on one-night stands, Jimt to have one more salary day 1 David R. Young.