Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1908-09-04
TONY PASTORS START |
Personal "reminiscences Of the
Noted Vaudeville Manager.

| Noted vaudeville Manager.
STAR AS TAMBOURlNE PLAYER
Began His Career With a One Night
| Stand In His Fathers Cellar Gospel
Meeting Brought Him Again Into
Shadow Of the FootIishts.
| Tony Pastor, the veteran actor and
noted vaudeville manager, told few
years ago, on the thirty fifth anniver-
sary of his theatrical career. how he
made his debut He said:
began business at a one night stand
in the basement Of our house. That was
in 184well, SO far back don't like
to count. Father had laid in good
supply Of coal and wood that year in
the old house in Greenwich street, New
York. He had paid man to pile it up
nice and trim SO it looked pretty and
so you could get at it handy-like from
the furnace.
4 had my idea even in those days
about how to manage things. I was
always managing things, or trying to.
4 So / carted all the coal could lift and
shove and haul over to the back steps
Of the cellar. There / arranged it like
a bicycle track, a sort of sounding
| board and a place for the feet of the
4 audience-a raised seat, as it were.
Then the boys came and saw me
play the tambourine. AS a tambourine
player as q kid was star, If have
to say it for myself. The boys appre-
ciated this and made such noise on
the curtain calls that father heard
something doing and came down and
took the house by storm, so to speak.
1t was an awful anticlimax. It's
funny how fathers and straps can pro-
duce the most startling anticlimaxes.
Yet it isn't funny except when you
look at it in the perspective Of thirty
| five years of managership and con-
slant activity in the play business. For
the time being 1t was very serious and
looked as if my aspirations as an ac-
torina were ended all right.
Strange that gospel meeting should
be the means of bringing me into the
shadow Of the footlights again. Dad
was that proud Of my voice. had a
crackerjack Of a voice as kid, with
which a steam caIliope was not in the
same catalogue-that he said:
'sKid, there's to be meetin' in the
old Hand INLAND hall tonight, and
you'd better come along with me and
see what's doin.'"
So went-and sang. And the fire
got into me and never left. Father died
about then. My finances were rather
meager, so Mr.. Nathan, who was one
Of the firm of Welsh, Delevan s.
Nathan, took me as an apprentice to
learn the circus business.
4 There were no railroads over the
8 mountains in those days. We had to
cross in stagecoaches and didn't strike
4 railroad until we reached the old
4 Baltimore and Ohio railroad at Cum
berland, Md. Cincinnati was two
weeks from New York then, and one
had to hustle to get there that quick.
4 Our first trip to Cincinnati was event
full. because the elephant came very
near putting us all out Of business. He
got loose one day, and they closed the
4 doors of the tent so he couldn't get out
4 without some delay. It wasn't that he
couldn't get out SO much, think, as
that those on the outside of the tent
felt that il they did that he would turn
his attention to the things on the inside
4 Of the tent first before destroying Gin
cinnat.
I Boylike, I climbed the tent and
watched him from pole hole. There
4 he was, as calm as you please, a-b0wl.
ing things right and left. He didn'tmake
much noise, except once in awhile
when he made special large haul
!, with his trunk, he would trumpet loud
enough to wake the dead.
Outside they had all the police Of the
town and the fire department, all train
ed ON the tent, and the militia had beer
telegraphed for. Inside things began
/, to grow more warm. Not content witt
SO little noise, the elephant turned ovel
j cages and everything else except Thu
i tent poles. He seemed to know wal
! up there looking at him, and bis ne
membrance OF how had fed him pea
!, nuts softened his heart
!, Dear boy he said, 'he win live Il
see May irwin in Sister Mary It i
II enough
That's why I'm here today through
2 that elephants thoughtfulnes
!, I steered clear OF Cincinnati afte
: that. Oh, by the way. they caught tn
. elephant somehow. didn't wait Il
Z see how. {.
am. You know, the father OF higl
Z vaudeville. That sounds as IL ha,
: done something perhaps, but It ism
true. ] haven't done anything; Nv
been simply the instrument When
began (and was a manager at eight
een) only men and boys went to va
riety shows Our old house on fh
Bowery was like the shows OF Londor
n ! knew that II the women would onI
come we could purify the stage, 10
where the women are, God bless ZEN
their Influence fl felt That sounds