Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1908-09-06
TONY PASTOR SSTART
Personal $ ) "reminiscences Of the
Noted Vaudeville Manager.
STAR AS TAMBoURlNE PLAYER

STAR AS TAMB0URlNE PLAYER
Began; His Career With q One Night
Stand In His Fathers ar-Gospei
Meeting Brought Him. Again Int
Shadow Of the Footiishts.
Tony Pastor, the veteran actor and
noted vaudeville manager, told a few
years ago, on the thirty-ifth anniver-
sary of his theatrical career. how he
made his debut. He said:
began business at one night stand
in the basement of our house. That was
in 184-well, SO far back l. don't like
to count. Father had laid in a good
supply Of coal and wood that year in
the old house In Greenwich street, New
York. Hell had paid a man To pile it,up
nice and trim SO 1t looked pretty and
SO yon could get at it handy-like from
the furnace. .>ss K
l had my idea even in those days
about how to manage things. l was
always managing things, or trying to.
So carted all the coal could lift and
shove and haul over to the back steps
of the cellar. There arranged 1T like
q bicycle track q. sort of sounding
board and place for the feet Of the
audience-a raised seat, as it were.
Then the boys came and saw me
play the tambourine. AS q tambourine
player as kid was q 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 it was very. serious and
looked as If my aspirations as an ac-
torina were ended all right.
Strange that a gospel meeting should
be the means of bringing me into the
shadow Of the footlights again. Dad
was that proud of my syoice--I had a
crackerjack Of a voice as a. kid, with
which steam calliope was not in the
same catalogue-that he said:
kid. there's to be meetin' in the
old Hand-in- Hand hall tonight, and
you'd better come along with me and
see what's doin.'"
So l 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 &
Nathan. took me as an apprentices to
learn the circus business. J. ~ = ~
There were mo railroads over the
mountains. in. those. days. We had to
cross in stagecoaches and didn't strike
a railroad until we reached the old
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.
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
doors of the tent SO he couldn't get out
without some delay. 1t wasn't that he
couldn't get out so much, think, as
that those on the outside of the tent
felt that if they did that he would turn
his attention to the things on the inside
of the tent first before destroying Gin
cinnati. 2 s4 @<s.,, J.
Boylike, I climbed the tent and
watched him from a pole hole. There
he was, as calm as you please, a-bowl-
ing things right and left. Hedidn'tmake
much noise, except once in awhile,
when he made a 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 been
telegraphed for. Inside things began
to grow more warm. Not content with
so little noise, the elephant turned over
cages and everything else except the
tent poles. He seemed to know was
up there looking at him, and his re-
membrance Of how had fed him pea
nuts softened his heart.
Dear boy he said, che will live to
see May Irwin in Sister Mary It is
enough"
That's why I'm here today through
that elephants thoughtfulness.
steered clear of Cincinnati after
that. Oh, by the way, they caught the
elephant somehow. didn't wait to
see how.
] am, you know, the father OF high
vaudeville. That sounds as IL I had
done something perhaps. but 1t isn't
true. haven't done anything: I've
been simply the instrument. When
began (and was manager at eight.
een) only men and boys went to va
riety shows. Our old house on the
Bowery was like the shows Of London.
II knew that II the women would only
come we could purify the stage. for
where the women are, God bless ,em.
their influence is felt. That sounds a
little like grand stand speech. doesn't
ft2 Well ft isn't h