Los Angeles herald., 1907-07-07
Clever Mimics Always Succeed

TINE retirement to private life of
ray Templeton, the hunt that Ce-
ella Lotus is making for COM
edy in which she will not have to do
limitations and other movements of
theatrical stars create new opportuni-
ties for actors and actresses who excel
in mimicry.
That initiating pays can be seen by
the new five years contract that Elsie
Janis has made with Charles Dilling-
ham under whose management she is
TO star. She gave UP a management
that had been paying her $3.50 a week
and her only reason for giving it up,
! she said was that 1t was not paving
her enough salary.
| A new imitator in the person of a
black eyed, black haired girl who until
lately had not been heard of has ap-
peared in vaudeville and her friends
announce with boldness that Is some
what startling that she is the real
successor to Miss Janis. This is La
Belle Blanche. She does one thing that
few imitators have done. She has omit
ted limitations of Eddie Foy and George
M. Cohan.
the Lew Fields company, while Cecilia
Lotus is on that job for the Joe Weber
| troupe.
Miss Ring did not do limitations when
she first went on the stage. At first she
sang songs. Later she discovered that
she could do acceptable limitations. One
of those she does is an imitation of
herself singing 1.-THE Belle of Avenue
A." 1.-THE Good Old Summer Time"
"Bedelia" and other songs with which
she has been closely connected in days
gone by.
One of the newer imitators is Ger
trude Hoffman. the wife of the man
who wrote much of the music that is
heard in Anna Held's 1.-THE Partisan
Model" She did her first initiating on
the stage of the Illinois theater in Chi
cago. She was in the company and
on the way to Chicago when she
amused the rest of the company by
initiating Miss Held. Miss Held saw
one of them and had F. Ziegfeld put the
Hoffman imitation in THE Partisan
| Model"
| Henry e. DiXey Is marvellous
mimic. One of the reasons that Rich
ard Mansfield does not care overmuch
for Dixey is that Dixey used to mimic
| him continually. He also used to mimic
Henry Irving. He did this in Lon
don at theater next door to the one in
which the great Henry was playing.
At a dinner given to Dixey Irving
once said:
"If anything should befall me one of
these nights and 1 could not get to the
theater they could send next door and
get the other Henry to play my part.
doubt if anybody would know the diff
| ference"
Fay Templeton in one of the old
Weber and Fields shows used to come
upon the stage just after Lillian Rus
sell had finished singing the beautiful
MY Evening STAR
She did an imitation of Miss Russell
singing that song that used to make
Miss Russell lean exhausted from
laughter against the wings.
! Nat Goodwin is an accomplished
mimic. Many times he has broken up
the members of the company acting
with him by giving impromptu imita-
tions of them at unlocked for moments.
Eddie Foy, George NJ Cohan. Sam
| Bernard, Vesta Victoria, Ethel Barry
more, Mrs. Carter and Bernhardt are
among the players that are most imi-
| tated.
Idalene Cotton who acts in vaude
vile with Nick Long does an imitation
of Mrs. Fiske that is startling in its
versimilitude.
Fay Templeton said once when asked
why she did not attempt an imitation
of a rushlight star that happened at
the time to be attracting considerable
attention:
my dear" said she, "I don't initiate
dead ones"