page_title: Gus Hill
section_title: Burlesque and other enterprises
hierarchical_section_title: Gus Hill / Burlesque and other enterprises
caption_attribution_description: English: Poster c. 1902 for the vaudeville play McFadden's Flats by Gus Hill. From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. "copyright 1902 by The U.S. Lithograph Co., Russell-Morgan Print, Cincinnati &amp; New York."
context_page_description: Gus Hill was an American vaudeville performer who juggled Indian clubs. He later became a burlesque and vaudeville entrepreneur. Hill was one of the founders of the Columbia Amusement Company, an association of burlesque shows and theaters, and became president of the American Burlesque Association. He also staged drama and musical comedies. He launched a highly popular series of "cartoon theatricals", musical comedies based on comic strips or cartoons. At one time he was running fourteen different shows.
context_section_description: Gus Hill's Aggregation and Gus Hill's Stars were burlesque shows, but included variety acts and were cleaner than others.
  Gus Hill was one of sixteen producers who incorporated the Columbia Amusement Company on 12 July 1902.
  With the "Columbia Wheel" a series of companies followed each other round a circuit of theaters, a concept for which he claimed the credit.
  Hill produced three burlesque shows each season for Columbia until the early 1910s, when he leased his franchise to other producers so he could devote more time to Mutt and Jeff.
  The Columbia Wheel came to operate two large burlesque circuits after buying a rival. In May 1915 the company arranged to transfer its No. 2 circuit, which had forty theaters and thirty-four touring companies, to a new corporation called the American Burlesque Association.
  Gus Hill was named president of the new entity.
  Hill funded a number of African American reviews.
  One of these was Gus Hill's Smart Set Company, which starred performers such as Billy McClain, Ernest Hogan, Tom McIntosh and Sherman H. Dudley. The troupe staged vaudeville-style shows with comedy sketches, songs, dances and specialty acts.
  Gus Hill's Smart Set put on the touring show The Black Politician, a musical comedy, in 1904–08. Music and lyrics were by James Reese Europe and Cecil Mack.
  It starred Jim Burris, Tom Logan and Irvin Allen.
  At this time Hill was running fourteen different shows. He had a mule which had appeared in McFadden Flats, and then was moved to other revues without success. 
  Hill gave the mule to Dudley, who brought it on stage and created a sensation.Salem Tutt Whitney joined the Smart Set Company in 1905. In 1909 he and J. Homer Tutt organized the Whitney Musical Comedy Company, which toured under Hill's management as the Southern Smart Set Company.
  Hill ventured into film production with the Nonpareil Feature Film Company in 1914.
  The first film released was the pseudo-documentary The Line Up at Police Headquarters.
  Hill announced plans to make a series of single-reel Happy Hooligan episodes, but none appeared.
  Nonpareil released a version of Alice in Wonderland, starring Viola Savoy. 
  The company appears to have then quietly folded.
caption: Poster for McFadden's Flats (1902), based on a series from  The Yellow Kid
exif: {"Image ExifOffset": "26"}