Variety (May 1926)

Houses Closing st ha* been set to doss the Novelty, Topeka's only vaudeville ton*. When reopening Labor Day it will have double Its present seat- ing capacity of 700. The Crescent, Perth Amboy, N. j., has dispensed with its vaude for glimmer, and Is operating with pic- tures. Stock will supplant vaudovllle at Proctor's, Troy. N. Y., next week. The opening bill will be "Flaming youth." A bugler sounding "taps" on the it&ge of the Crelghton-Orpheum, Omaha, brought to a close the final performance In that theatre. Proctor's. Troy; Proctor's, Al- bany; Rlalto, Amsterdam; Clov#. Gloversvllle, N. Y., have closed for the summer. Avon, Watertown, and Temple, Syracuse, N. Y., close May 10. Calvin, Northampton, Mass., eloses week May 24; Capitol. New Britain, Conn., closes May 24; Hip- podrome, Pottsville, Pa., closes for three weeks week of May 3; Oar- rick, Norrlstown; Wm. Penn, Philadelphia and Edgemont, Ches- ter, Pa., close week May 3. Empire, Lawrence, Mass., and Bi- jou, Woonsocket, R, I., closes week of May 3; Orphcum, Germantown, closes week of May 10. Lyceum, Canton, O., closed May 1; Victoria, Wheeling, W. Va., May IS; Capitol, New Castle, Pa., May 8; Harris, Hippodrome, McKeea- port Pa, May 31; Strand, Greens- burg, Pa., May 31; Colonial, Blue- field, W Va., May 3; Fairmont, Fairmont, W. Va^ May 31; Park, Meadville, Pa., Ma: 3; Strand, East Liverpool, O., April 26; Hippo- drome, Youngs town. May 10. VAUDEVILLE VARIETY Fattest Act In Vaudeville WEN TALBERT and kla V*w Headlining PuUcn Circuit BAND DANCERS SINGKR8 INSIDE STUFF OR VAUDEVILLE Since the Induction of most of the jazz bands playing In vaudeville cither as individual turns or with flash arts into the musicians' union, bookers of non-union Independent vaudeville houses are finding it a problem to book flashes into their bills. The union angle did not dawn upon the bookers until lately when several acts were not permitted to do their stuff because of the stage musicians being union and the theatre pit men non-union. Representatives of the union have been watching houses In and near New York especially that are on the union s "unfair list" through re- fusing to employ union men in their orchestras and are pulling out any union combination:; that attempt to show at tbese theatres. With the low figures these hand flashes have boon g"ttlns from the Independent* tho union scale Is prohibitive for the average producer. The controversy sets in however when a regulation flash is playing a break in and spotted in the non-union houses. Charles G. Anderson, formerly a booker In the Keith headquarters. New York, Is now in charge of the social activities at the Y. M. C. A.. East Side Branch. 153 East 86th street. New York. Mr. Anderson re- tired from vaudeville following the reported sale by him of Keith stock for $600,000 to Lee Shubert. The stock had been bequeathed to Mra. Anderson by the late E. N. Robinson, who had received it as a bequest under the will of the late A. Paul Keith. Lee Shubert was reported recently as having placed a valuation of $1,000,000 upon his Kci'h holdings. Shubert purchased the stock before he engaged upon the Shubert Vaudeville project that failed. It was Lee's purpose in buying the Anderson holdings to secure direct informa- tion as to the earning powers of the vaudeville properties Included In the stock held by him. Through financial statements received from the Keith corporations as a stockholder (the stock probably held in the name of a 'dummy'), the Shuberts got the data desired. It Is believed that the Shubert possession of this stock, In addition to controversies between the Shuberts and Keith-Albee, contributed con- siderably toward the recently revived deep afTection between Lee Shubert and E. F. Albee, after a period of years during which each had called the other everything he could think of. Tevis Huhn, champion athlete and society man. Is the same Tevis Huhn who was banjo soloist at the Mark-Strand, New York picture house, as a presentation act, and later went into the Montmartre's London Pierrots' revue at the night club. Huhn joined "The Bunk of 1926" last week as a strengthened He is a grandson of the George A. Huhn (&. Son) brokerage firm, and an alumnus of Princeton and Oxford, England, as well as prominent clubman, including the Racquet Club. Huhn is the son of Mr. and Mrs. William H. Tevis Huhn. He waa on the Olympic team representing America in 1920. Huhn holds the high and low hurdles records at Oxford. Max Berman, "the singing tailor" who has figured in the dailies with his ill-fated concert, attempts and forced back to tailoring as a means for support, opened as a try-out this week in vaudeville. The "singing tailor" came to attention and tried Aeolian, finding himself out several hundred dollars through the concert flop. That the agency business of the agents doing business with the as- sociation (Orpheum circuit), Chicago, is in bad shape at present Is best told by the "hold up" of the association for the agents to take a page each at $75 in the N. V. A. program for the benefit to the club at the Auditorium, in Chicago, The agents remonstrated against the imposition, making their protest more emphatic than many of the actors similarly held up east and west have done. The agents also had been held up for $50 worth of N. V. A. tickets. Upon their plaint they had no money to pay for the program ad- vertising (of no value at all to the agents any more than it is to the actors) the 'Association" informed the agents it would advance any of them $75 for the ad and take their notes for the amounts «,honM h f F l lll8lanc / °l ': Thc ^ lrlt " »»y the managers. Markle Ileiman should feel proud of his Chicago organization when he sends that Auditorium program next door. If he doesn't get a kiss for It the least should be a pat on the shoulder, that shoulder pat that has cost actors thousands upon thousands in salaries, after getting it. Negotiations were reported on the inside between Loew's and Frank Keeney for the Keeney Brooklyn theatres. It is also reported that the negotiations were dropped when Keeney bv , his r,nal selling price considered much too high by Loew's. Next Monday (May 10) Loew's new theatre opens «t Norfolk Va l» W 'l? ^ have °P™ eJ tl, ls Monday (May 3) and the house was readv" ine Ku Klux Klan had settled upon the week of May 3 for a celebra- tion and requested the management of the new theatre to postpone its opening one week, although the theatre represents nearly $1,000 000 Marcus Loew consented to the change of date and Jake Wells loaned his Norfolk theatre to the K. K s. to hold part of the celebration in. Mr. Wells is a Catholic. A minister of K. K. K. leanings is said to have publicly drawn atten- tion In Norfolk to the fact that a Jew had postponed the opening of his theatre and a Catholic had loaned another theatre to assist th« Ku Klux Klan. *uur members of the N. V. A. are said to have recently walked Into the office of the club's secretary and asked to be shown how the money of the N. V. A. Is being spent. The secretary displayed to the quartet a mass of vouchers of payments and disbursements in the cause of charity, apparently convincing the investigators. It's quite commonly known the N. V. A. takes care of a number of people and spends some of its funds for charitable purposes. What the committee probably wanted to inquire about was the disposition of the surplus of the organization; where its millions are invested and how. As a matter of fact the N. V. A. officers will take much delight at any time over bringing out the old vouchers that no one disputes, but they are not as frank on the subject of how much is in the surplus and where the surplus is or who handles it. That appears to be a deep secret, known to but three men at the utmost and none of those three an active N. V. A. member. For all the information obtained by the committee that anyone Is concerned in they might as well have looked over the books In the club's library. Show business still retains its hold on Harry Cranshaw, old colored minstrel man. After 1$ years in the blackface seml-clrcle and with the decline of xnistrelry, Cranshaw, known as J. W. Tldwell when he an- swered as Interlocutor, obtained a Job as doorman at the Morosco, local stock house. That was over 10 years ago. Today he Is still opening cab doors and bowing ladles out of their limousines. In his faded uniform and cap, Cranshaw reminisces about the old days in the wait between first and last curtain. He started out with the original Georgia Minstrels in 1899. he says. Right after that, he joined the Third Georgia Regiment for the Spanish American War, returning to sign with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, and later going with the Black Pattle troupe. Following this, he claims the distinction of being the first negro clown appearing with the old Sells Brothers Circus. Cranshaw says that he took second place in the buck and wing con- THEY SAID IT COULDN'T BE DONE! BUT THE WEST IS JUST AS GOOD AS THE EAST, NORTH AND SOUTH FOR THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY ATTRACTION PLAYING VAUDEVILLE America^ moSfc popuLsor — RAdh Aitist- HMwr 7—MN0 OF TMfe IVOrVlr^-- from station WQS. — assl$' J*WlTU* vmtnincj (bvtamu'* from Stmt Sf^on/ 11 s: Playi Rolls RADIO-STAGE Represented by WM. JACOBS 307 Woods Theatre Building Chicago. I1L KEITH-ORPHEUM CIRCUITS HARRY M. SNODGRASS—J. M. WITTEN HERE'S THE PROOF FROM THE "SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER"! IDWAL JONES, DRAMATIC EDITOR,. SAID. RADIO PIANIST IS ORPHEUM HIT "Meet Profeaaor Snodgraea. and meet Mr. Whltten!" That'* tho fin I greeting to tho ntidlence at the Orphcum. T>on't you know who they areT Well, If you own on* of those ten-tube supt-r-M^tian-Tealn thlng- umaglge that catch for you In your parlor what the Troglodytfa are einglng la Jupiter, thon you know 'em well. Ttvy are the pianist find announcer, respectively, from Station WOS. Jefferson Citv. Mlzsoura. (Qoeh, the radio ed. ought to hava written thla.) Well, they looked quite at horn*. Their petting v;?n a repllra of their radio den atop the Capitol dome back South. Harry Fnodgraaa emote the piano and evoked, with excellent martellato and podalllng efT-cls. eurh ;.i -. rlfoi* ae "Thrti* o'clock In the) Morning 1 " and "Kitten on th» K«->h " H. pl.iys »'>n-»r..tjsiv. with euave feeling. Ajid Whttt«n'e voice-—he'e billed ae ' the prlz*-winning announcer"--la eo clear that lota of "announreri'' who butch*r the muth«*r tongue via air rnuot weep In envloue aniculeh. f;e<.rgie Price, lato etar of 'The Passing Show" strutted hia wturT, did Imita- tions, snuggled down to the footlights ind yawne d I172 s< m;i in .1 rau xus rc< it.iT. ■*. That he ha* a following win eyMent. for he wi\ < l-miNy «n.-. ■ r«-« 1. Theo Hekefl he a in a well-atagetj d.inc'rg r*vu#- M<t>t.y <"..i-k ;\m\ I'aul M> ' n'.- lough—clever comedians who are the |<iy of tho Mil- nn> r,n for a < < "nd w Chabot and Tortonl; Roth and Dr.tke. who do thin*-* on h roj.. , MM't and Mack, who hoof and alng. ar.d the Orontoa, ba !n r.^.-rn. ar<- othi-rn in th<t hiikw. I J. J