WEBVTT - The Second Act: Notable Vaudevillians 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History class from how 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:14.000 Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.000 I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy and we so 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:21.040 enjoyed doing our History of Vaudeville podcast that we decided 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.400 we'd like to talk about some notable performers. So we 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:27.080 put out a call on our Twitter Missed in History 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:30.000 and on our Facebook fan page to see what you 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.680 guys would like to hear. So these are all listener suggestions, 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.080 and the first one comes from a Twitter follower who 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:39.200 said that if we didn't do this, he would spite 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.400 our adorable voices. And I don't know what that means, 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:43.760 but I wasn't willing to risk it. So we're going 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.239 to start with the Marx Brothers. Welcome to the Sarah 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:52.280 and Katie Vaudeville Show. Sketch one, the Marx is Grout Show, Harpo, 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.920 chick O, Gummo, and Zeppo also known as Julius, Arthur, Leonard, 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.080 Milton and Herbert. And I think you have to it 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.720 that Zeppo is an improvement on Herbert. Herbert Mars does 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:08.240 not sound particularly exciting. It's not very stagy. Gummo and Zeppo. 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.560 Of course, we're out of the act by nineteen thirty five, 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:12.960 but the others became quite famous. I'm sure you've heard 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.360 of them. And the Marks brothers were the sons of 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:19.319 Jewish German immigrants, and they grew up in Manhattan's East Side, 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.480 and they began in vaudeville as singers, but soon switched 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.639 to a comedy act. A lot of it was based 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:30.160 on immigrants stereotypes and accents, like an Italian accent for one, 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:34.200 and a German accent, and they became stars at the Palace. 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.880 But even though they were playing up this immigrant based comedy, 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.880 they surprisingly didn't fall back on a lot of quote 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.800 unquote Jewish humor like some of the other vaudeville acts. 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:47.760 Will talk about later. Most of their sketches were actually 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:51.920 sort of waspy type settings, but there are subtle allusions 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:55.960 to relevant issues. An article in American Scholar that I 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.240 was reading a recounts a scene from their movie Monkey Business. 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:04.000 I'm quoting from the article. Groucho snidely informs an Indian chief, 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:05.760 if you don't like our country, you can go back 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.079 to where you came from. Earlier in the film, after 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.160 horrendous pun by Chicko. Groucho turns to face the camera 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.640 and declares, there's my argument restrict immigration. This at a 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.760 time when the Patrician Immigration Restriction League had warned against 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.600 the corrupting influence of physically, morally and politically in quotes, 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.120 degenerate Jews. But well, this is, you know, kind of 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.400 this politically outrageous sketch. They also did a lot of 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:34.560 um outrageous physical comedy and outrageous costumes, blonde wigs, the 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:40.120 Italian accents we talked about, painted on mustaches, anarchy and slapstick. 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:42.440 I mean, that was the name of the game. I 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:45.080 was watching a scene before this from A Night at 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:48.399 the Opera, which is possibly the most popular film on YouTube. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.800 And you've got Groucho with his cigar and his glasses 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.520 and a bushy mustache and eyebrows, and he keeps inviting 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:56.919 more and more people into this tiny little room with 0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:59.919 quips about how crowded it is. It's like a clown car, 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:01.840 you know. He keeps saying stuff like tell them to 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:03.880 send up a bigger room to William and then another 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.240 woman opens the door and everyone comes flying out, and 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.760 that's one of their most famous scenes. So a lot 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:12.400 of the folks we're going to talk about later have 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.280 really successful careers beyond Vaudeville, and that's really more why 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.400 we know them today. And if you're going to think 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:20.440 of one of the Marks Brothers going on like that, 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:23.520 it's definitely got to be Groucho. He's the guy who 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:27.600 most people consider to be the real star of the operation, 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.440 and he ended up on Long Island hanging out with 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.359 all the rich people and feeling terribly out of place. 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.800 By his own accounts. A lot of their work before this, too, 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.440 had to ended up playing on the idea of exclusion 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:41.360 and of people feeling out of place. And we're just 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.880 continuing the theme of it. Okay, our second act is 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.800 going to be evelyn Nesbitt. And obviously vaudeville wasn't all 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.920 about comedy routines. Like the Marx Brothers, We've got chorus 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.440 girls too, and evelyn Nesbitt is kind of the epitome 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.600 of a chorus girl. She's the first major it girl 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.640 of the twentieth century, and for a time she might 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:05.400 have been one of the most famous people in the 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.120 United States. She was born in eighteen eighty four, and 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.600 her father's early death forced the teenage, Nez bit to 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.600 get into modeling and acting. She ended up being drawn 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:19.160 by Charles Dana Gibson. She's a GiB priddy girl, and 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:23.480 she gets into entertainment and performance. She enters Broadway as 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.839 one of the florid Ora Girls, who are pretty prim 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.479 young women being serenaded by men in frock coats. Yeah, 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.080 we actually have a line from from that act. The 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.360 gentleman would say, pretty, tell me, pretty maiden, are there 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.360 any more at home like you, to which the maidens 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.520 would reply, there are a few kinds, sir, but simple 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.320 girls and proper too. So you remember from our earlier 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:50.280 podcast on vaudeville that was a big The family friendliness 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:52.839 of the acts was a big thing. They had to be, 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.039 you know, not too risk ay, even if it comes 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:00.240 across as slightly creepy. So it's sixteen. She took up 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.880 with a man named Stanford White, who was forty six 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.520 and had designed things like the Washington Square Arch. So 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.719 he's he's a notable figure, and he supported her and 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.480 her family, wined and dined her and had her sit 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.800 on his red velvet swing and kick at a wall 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:22.360 of paper parasols. His own particular fetish it's very creepy fetish, 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.880 so eventually their relationship turns abusive when he rapes her 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:31.120 after she's passed out and she calls him a benevolent vampire. 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:35.200 She feels like she can't leave him after this, and um, 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.039 she's she's got kind of a mixed idea about it 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.480 though her whole life there. She says that he's the 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.160 only man who she ever loved, but by the time 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:48.240 she's seventeen, he's mostly interested in really young girls and 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:53.120 she's sort of starting to look for new bows. John 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:55.960 Barrymore is one of the men who's available, and as 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.920 is a man named Harry k Thaw and Saul was 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.640 a millionaire son of a railroad slash coal baron. He 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.400 lived in a castle over his mills and begged Mss 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.160 Nesbit to marry him and his millions, even though the 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:14.159 other show girls gossiped about how he whipped girls. So again, 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:16.760 clearly we're not getting into a good relationship now, and 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:19.479 she manages to hold him off for a while. She's 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.480 still somewhat involved with Stanford White. White actually gets her 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:25.800 into a New Jersey boarding school for a time to 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.720 study music and literature. Um the school's run by Cecil b. 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.720 DeMille's mother too. On a side note, Um, she eventually 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.839 has an operation for what is officially disclosed as appendicitis, 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:42.320 and after she's recuperated enough, Thaw takes Evelyn and her 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.039 mother abroad, and this is where things get really bad. 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:51.000 Her mother is very disturbed by thaws mood swings. He's sadistic, 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:55.880 and Um goes from being just you know, worshiping the 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.680 two of them too freaking out at waiters yanking off 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.680 table clause. She's really bothered by this, so she leaves 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:07.560 her daughter alone with him, and their relationship to gets violent. 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.400 He whips her and beats her and finally gets her 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.640 to confess the details about her relationship with Stanford White, 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.840 and he's just driven mad by jealousy. At this point, 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:19.800 he's always wanted to save her from Stanford White, but 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.960 he hates that their relationship with sexual. After a second 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.520 trip to Europe, of Alyn gets appendicitis again, at which 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:31.160 point you have to make the conclusion that perhaps it 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.280 wasn't appendicitis. That's the issue we're talking about abortion. And 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.000 this is when she finally agrees to marry Thaw, who 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.840 is still completely obsessed with White, and at a nineteen 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:46.040 o six performance, Thaw finally runs into Stanford White and 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:51.080 shoots him, and this becomes just the most sensational trial 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.800 you can imagine. It's called the Crime of the Century, 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:55.920 even though I think we're kind of jumping the gun. 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.720 But the first trial is a hung jury, the second 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:05.400 a quits thought by reason of insanity. Nesbit actually testifies 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.280 after this huge monetary promise from Thaw's mother, which she 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:13.200 never ends up receiving, but um her her testimony, she 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.280 actually holds her own during it. The story of her 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:18.760 life was made into a film, The Girl in the 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.800 Red Velvet Swing, which clearly is not as innocuous as 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.240 it might sound, and she died in nineteen sixty seven. 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.400 But one of the favorite tidbits we came across researching 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:30.920 her was a headline from the New York Times from 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:35.400 nineteen oh seven. That headline is baby named Evelyn Nesbit. 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.760 Father and Kalamazoo objected, but mother had her way, which 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:41.920 I mean, the news doesn't get any better than that, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:46.800 I think. Next, on the stage, we have one W. C. Fields, 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:51.720 whose comedy Stick was about being misanthropic, hating women and children, 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:56.679 um anti establishment and quite fond of the bottle. You 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.640 might kind of remind you of Larry David actually herb 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.720 your and phusiasm, but but better. I think my first 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.480 experience with W. C. Fields was when I was a 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.360 small child and it was scarring. I was at MGM 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:11.800 Studios and went up to the W. C. Character and 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.240 asked for his autograph in my little book, and he 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.720 told me how awful children were, and I cried, and 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:19.760 my mom tried to explain to me that he was 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:21.720 a comedian and that's what he did. But I think 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:23.880 she was angry on my behalf only maybe not a 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:27.120 good character to have at MGM walking around talking to 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.720 the kids. But if you've never seen him, he's he's 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:32.920 very recognizable. He's this round man in a top hat 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.600 with a big red, bulbous news. He was born William 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.920 Claude Dukinfield in eighty and he was of a British background. 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:44.880 He had a pretty complicated home life, as almost all 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:49.720 of our vaudevillians do, and um, you know, some describe 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.040 it as happy, others as miserable. It was probably sort 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.760 of a mixture of the two. He described himself as 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:59.400 a brady, repulsive child, and he started his career as 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.240 a juggler in his teens. His act on the vaudeville 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:06.040 stage was a juggling tramp. He also went on to 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.040 the zig filled Follies before becoming a movie star, and 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.480 he wrote a lot of his own stuff for the movies, 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:16.280 but under really awesome synonyms like Mohot, Mactaine, Jeeves, and 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.719 if you've ever heard May West's famous movie line, come 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.439 up and see me sometime. The other half of that 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.600 was Fields, who responded, my will, my little chickadee. But 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.920 Fields also fit the stereotype of the comedian as a 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:35.280 haunted man. His marriage to his wife Hattie was pretty rough. 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.400 Um he met her on stage and he wouldn't give 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.480 up his life as a traveling performer. We've learned already 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.880 about these vaudevillians traveling on huge circuits all the time, 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:49.520 different city every night practically, and she wouldn't divorce him 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:52.640 because she was Catholic, and so they just had this long, 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:57.240 drawn out, very unhappy relationship. He was estranged from his 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.840 son Claude, and had a tense relationship even with his mistress, 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.800 and a non existent one with their illegitimate son. But 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.360 he put this all into his work. Some of the 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:11.000 kid and wife characters, which are never ever flattering, are 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.560 very obviously based on his own family. Sometimes they're even 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.000 named by their names, possibly in part because of his 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:23.400 loneliness and the hardness of his life. He's driven to alcoholism, 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.200 and he spends his later years in pretty bad health, 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.560 and also got the reputation of being pretty difficult to 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.400 work with, and that's what made his career flounder later on, 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.400 not that Hollywood was treating him the way he'd like. 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.600 He was being offered complete direct to be honest, and 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.960 he later switched to radio, finding that it served him 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.720 a bit better. But again, he was in ill health 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:49.079 and he had cirrhosis from his drinking. Supposedly he was 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.920 drinking a case of gin a week by the time 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:54.959 he ended up in the hospital, and any weeks before 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.120 he died, he was said to have been found reading 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:59.839 the Bible. And when his friends saw him, you know, 0:11:59.880 --> 0:12:04.120 he was known for hating religion, among many many other things, 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.000 they asked him why, and he said he was looking 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:11.000 for loopholes. W. C. Fields didn't just like jin though, apparently, 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.760 because one of his most famous quotes is I like 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.840 children fried. Perhaps with a little bit of ranches some 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.600 blue cheese on the side, and that brings us to 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:25.359 our next act. And our next act is bo Jangles, 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.280 who was one of the most famous soft shoe and 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.680 tap dancers of his age. And he was born Luther 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:36.680 Robinson on May seventy eight in Richmond, Virginia, and his 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.320 parents died when he was just an infant, so he 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.800 was raised by his grandmother, didn't get a lot of education, 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:47.120 and started dancing at age six for pennies at beer gardens, 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:50.839 which was the saddest little story. Yeah, but he must 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:52.960 be pretty good at it, because at age twelve he 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.160 joins a traveling company the South before the war and 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:00.760 eventually goes on a vaudeville circuit, and his agent, Marty Forkins, 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:05.040 helps make him really famous, launch him into that lower 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:09.360 level of vaudeville, to the headliner act um and he's 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.679 eventually performing for white audiences, starring in Blackbirds of nine 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:19.040 and putting on this dapper, genteel front. From then on 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:21.920 he does soft shoe and tap and you can think 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.640 of him as one of the great dance step originators. 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:29.240 To he invents something called the stair dance, and a 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:31.840 kind of strange thing about him. He's as good at 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:37.000 running backwards as most people are running forwards. Eventually he 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:39.400 became a film star too. He was in The Little 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:44.520 Colonel in Old Kentucky, The Littlest Rebel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.280 and he was often partnered with a little Shirley Temple. 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.360 And he makes a lot of money, up to six thousand, 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:52.920 six hundred dollars in a week for a time, but 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.959 he dies poor because he's very generous to his friends 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:00.280 and two people in need. But he's a soo got 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.800 a pretty bad gambling habit, especially gambling on the Yankees, 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.440 which there was an article about why he might be 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.920 the biggest Yankees fan of all time. Um. But he 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.760 would even arrange his schedule around the games and own 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:16.840 part of the New York Black Yankees as well. He 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:20.080 was an honorary mayor of Harlem before he died in 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:25.440 November ninety nine in New York. And now we're going 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:28.200 to talk about someone we got a lot of requests for. 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:32.680 Fanny Bryce. Fanny Bryce was one of the great comedians 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:36.880 and singers of vaudeville. She was born Fania borach In 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.920 to immigrant parents. Her mother was from Budapest, her father 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.720 from Alsace, and she hailed from the Lower East Side. 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.240 Her parents owned a saloon there, but her dad was 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:52.200 kind of a deadbeat and a gambler, and Fanny herself 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:56.120 wasn't very fond of school. She did like singing, though, 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.760 and after she sang a song in an amateur contest 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:01.520 called when You Oh, You're not Forgotten by the girl 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.560 you Can't Forget, she won five bucks and she was 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:07.920 just hooked on the stage at that point and dropped 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:11.760 out of school after eighth grade, and her career shoots 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.440 off right from there. It didn't exactly start off Shining Lee. 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.200 She got hired and then quickly fired for a George 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:20.920 m cohen show, and then ended up with a touring 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.920 company that went broke, so her next option was burlesque, 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.480 and this is when she changed her name, possibly to 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.680 sound Less Jewish. Her big break was singing Sadie salom 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.800 A go home, and to give you some sample lyrics 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.920 from the song, don't do that dance, I tell you, Sadie, 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.920 that's not a business for a lady. Most everybody knows 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.240 that I'm your loving mos Oi oi oi oi, where 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.520 is your clothes? And it's a funny take on what's 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.600 supposed to be a sexy scene, the disrobing salom A. 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.320 And the notable thing about this is that she sang 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.960 it in a Yiddish accent, but she didn't know any Yiddish. 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.960 They thought she, quote unquote looked Jewish, and so she 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:05.240 was encouraged to fake the accent by Irving Berlin no less, 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.200 and that's when she made her mark as a Jewish comedian. 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:10.800 She goes on to become a big success in the 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:15.000 zig Field Follies. But it wasn't all good times for 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.800 Fanny Bryce. For one thing, at least part of her 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.840 chafed being categorized as a comic actress. That's not all 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.160 she wanted to do. She wanted to broaden her repertoire 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.960 into drama and become a you know, serious actress in caps. 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.320 But no one was interested in Fanny Bryce as a dramatist. 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:36.080 They were interested in her as a comedian only. And 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.920 she also married badly to a man named nicky Arnstein, 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.880 who happened to be an adulterous and possibly big amous thief. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.800 It's just one step up from Evelyn Nust. But there 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.160 he went to sing sing for wire tapping and later 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:55.400 to leaven Worth after five million dollars in bonds mysteriously disappeared, 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.960 but she wouldn't leave him. He left her and her 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.800 kids first, and she finally decided to get a divorce. 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.560 But he did inspire her famous torch song, my Man, 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.080 which we have a few lyrics from it. It's cost 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:10.400 me a lot, but there's one thing that I've got. 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.480 It's my Man, and that's the one serious thing she 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:15.720 did that people loved. It was an older song that 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:19.520 had been translated, but her version of it was something 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.639 that was difficult to forget. And when she sang it 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.119 was clear she was singing about Ernstein, and since his 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.840 rather criminal pursuits were fairly public, people knew what it meant. 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.520 In the n she gets a nose job, and this 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.680 is partly her own idea of how to escape this 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.240 role that she's been type cast in. But she stars 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.160 in some more films. They flop and she ends up 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.760 marrying Bill Rose, and that doesn't really work out either. 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.240 She found some real stardom in radio with a character 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.239 called Baby Snooks, who was a brady little girl and 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.639 who didn't have an accent because she didn't have an 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.160 accent in that program. She felt like it gave her 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:02.480 better mass appeal. And the movie Funny Girl with one 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.159 Barbara Streisand is said to have been modeled after her life. 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.520 And I have to give a research mentioned to the 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.879 Jewish Women's Archive at jw A dot org, which was 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.960 really helpful with this one. But that brings us to 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:20.040 our next act, which is Gypsy rose Lee and June Havoc. 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.879 And at the time we're recording this, June Havoc recently died, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.359 so this is fairly timely. If you've heard of or 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.800 seen the musical Gypsy. The movie version has Rosalind Russell 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:34.200 and Natalie Wood. It's based on Gypsy rose Lee's memoir 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:37.560 and paints their mother, Mama Rose as the most insane 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:41.480 stage mother you've ever heard of, And June hated the musical. 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:43.960 She's quoted as saying mother was very prim and she 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:46.720 was tiny and lovely with big blue eyes. She was 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.720 endearing and alluring beyond belief. If she had drive an ambition, 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.920 what's wrong with that? So that's the word from June Havoc. 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:57.000 Louise rose Hovic was born in Seattle, and June Hovic 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:01.600 in Vancouver. Supposedly Louise wade Awapa twelve pounds but one 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:06.080 a healthy baby contest. Nevertheless, after their parents marriage ended, 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:09.920 mom arose saw the stage is salvation for the family. 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.439 Louise wasn't great at singing or dancing, but June was 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.560 a natural. She was on the vaudeville stage at eighteen months, 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:20.560 and Baby June, as her personage was known, was famous 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:24.399 and making major money by age six. But she wanted 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.400 to grow up and stop being dainty. June her name 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:31.520 after she outgrew baby um. And at thirteen, she married 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:33.560 a boy she'd met on the stage, and her mother 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:36.520 promptly tried to shoot him. Um. But we do have 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:38.560 to make a note the mom also had a bunch 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.399 of forged birth certificates, so who knew how old she 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:44.800 really was. After June got married and left show business, 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:46.880 life was tough for her, you know, after all, it's 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:51.280 the depression and times are hard for anyone. She and 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:55.879 her husband entered marathon dance contest when you literally danced 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:57.880 till you dropped, and if you want, you'd get fed. 0:19:57.920 --> 0:19:59.639 And if you didn't, well, you know you were the 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:03.720 one who dropped on the floor and her marriage wasn't working, 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:07.280 but they stayed together for professional reasons. She went on 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.720 to be a success, though although not as famous as 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.400 her sister. She wrote and directed plays, wrote a memoir, 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:16.119 performed on Broadway, she acted in film. June did pretty 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:18.359 well for herself, and she was quoted in the New 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:21.160 York Times as saying, my sister was beautiful and clever 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.720 and ruthless. My mother was endearing and adorable and lethal. 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:26.760 They were the same person. I was the fool of 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:28.879 the family, the one who thought I really was loved 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.560 for me, for myself. So moving on to gypsy life 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:35.320 wasn't easy for her. Either. She's not the cute or 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:39.240 the charming one, and mom Arose makes them shoplift and 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:43.440 lie about everything, so she has this very manipulated childhood 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:48.240 and it's harder for the not blonde, not adorable sister. 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:51.480 She plays a boy in their act most of the time, 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:56.719 and um just a tough stage life. And when June left, 0:20:57.040 --> 0:20:59.840 Louise finally had a chance in the Dancing Daughters to 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.680 her name, but this was during Vaudeville's dying breath, so 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:07.920 instead she turned to stripping in seedy places, But soon 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.200 she'd polished her acts. She made it funny and sexy 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.080 instead of just bumping grind. She wasn't even fully naked, 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:18.160 and she became a star and everyone came to see her. 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.919 And supposedly her mother's dying words were about taking Louise 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:24.080 to the grave with her. So that's the last word 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:27.040 on Mama Rose. So our final act for the show 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:30.280 is Windsor Mackay, who was a newspaper cartoonist and an 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.560 animation pioneer. He's going to plan to vaudeville, though, I promise. 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.439 He was born in eighteen sixty seven and in his 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.639 early twenties he worked as a poster and a billboard artist, 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:42.760 and he eventually gets a job as an illustrator and 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:47.040 cartoonist in Cincinnati, moves to New York, develops two pretty 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:51.200 popular strips there, and by nineteen o five he's made 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.760 his most famous creation, which is Little Nemo in Slumberland. 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.879 And I used to have a Little Nemo comic book, 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:01.320 and it's pretty cool if you've never If you've never 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:04.560 seen it, you should look it up. It's really surrealist. 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:08.080 There's not much plot because after all their dreams and 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:12.600 they're just these beautifully rendered drawings and really unconventional and 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:15.720 how they're laid out on the page. In nineteen o 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:18.679 nine he had a very popular vaudeville act where he 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:22.840 did speed drawings of his cartoon characters as well as caricatures. 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:26.600 And if you think watching a cartoonist draw sounds boring, 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:28.920 Sarah can assure you that it is not. Yeah, it's 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:31.520 really pretty cool to watch a cartoonist speed draw. I 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:34.960 saw cal from the Economist at a Second City performance, 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:38.480 and I mean just somebody with a transparency in a 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:43.760 pen and there uh creating political figures or celebrities who 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.720 you can recognize with just a few strokes. Pretty neat. 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:50.919 McKay started to play around with animation sometime after this 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:53.320 and did an animated version of Little Nemo that he 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:56.280 added to the vaudeville shows, and he followed this with 0:22:56.400 --> 0:23:00.480 nineteen twelves How a Mosquito Operates and in nineteen fourteen 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.600