New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-12-07

Elsie Janis, Snowman,
Works Elsie, Actress.
Like a George Cohan

MOCuer, 1dmOub 10 CuOub6Hub o,
doughboys as the Demon Chaperon
lowered efficiently in the backgroun,
Of the dressing room.
BY this you will know that wa
interviewing Elsie Janis.
Elsie spoke jerkily between hast,
dabs Of makeup.
"I'm hurrying because I open thu
show. This here new business Of run
ming your own show makes for democ
racy. / never expected to do tina
highly demeaning thing again-open
ing the show. But la guerre learns
you a few things, and anyway it's my
own show"
1t is very much Elsie's show. Sh.
wrote what lines there are in ii As
she explained on the opening night, she
found that she could "snitch" jokes
as capably as any librettist. Anyway
most of them she had picked up her
self on her tour of the A. E. F. line
She has designed the scenery, drilled
whipped it all into the form Of q
casual musical entertainment calls it
Elsie and Her Gang"
Miss Janiss enthusiasm for the war
is very great. 1t was the Big Show
and she was featured player. And it
is safe to say that her turn" was
never more appreciated than it was
in that show. 1t Is therefore natural
| that she should cherish highly SEN
| timental regard for the humors and
the amenities Of the war, and that
she should find It difficult to return
to the limitations Of the conventional
musical show of peace time. For a
little while, before her contracts call
the roar Of the doughboy and to re-
awaken for him not 80 much the
echoes of the war as echoes Of its
free comradierie.
Somewhere in France once some 'eY"
officials demurred at letting her go
in to entertain some wounded men.
They thought her too exhilerating for
wounded men. But that was precisely
the quality that endeared her to huge
numbers Of men at the front. From
the moment of her high-spirited entry
into Chaumont, riding the bumper Of
an engine, to the end of her six hun
very specially as sort of little
daughter of the regiment. She was
perhaps the most favored Of the over
seas entertainers because she trav-
eled under the aegis of the A. E. f.
and under the official wing, so to speak,
of General Pershing. She had an army
car and driver and an aid and unlimited
access to any place on the American
line, however exposed the place might
be. Through it all that vigilant
mother stayed 80 close by her that
no bomb could have got one of them
without the other.
The great thing was, she says, that
for the first time in her life she was
admitted as an entertainer in her own
right. She did not need to imper-
senate other people to win the huge
approval of these doughboys. The more
distinctively and personally she was
Elsie Janis the better they liked her.
But mlmlcry being as native to her as
breathing, in time she developed new
gamut of representations to take the
place of the discarded ones. Sam Ber-
nard, Ethel Barrymore and Eddie Foy,
the approximations for which she won
youthful fame, have been crowded
out of her repertoire by portraits of
gauches young doughboys, cheeky young
English officers and dashing French
men.
The present show was sudden in
SEPARATION. She has four months at her
disposal before her English contracts
call her back to London, and for that
time at least she wants to recreate the
spirit of the A. E. F., as she saw it. A
brief run here, short runs in Chicago
and Boston, and then the war will be
officially over for Elsie Janis.
When the war started in 1914 she was
making her first appearance in London.
The success of an American artist in
London is still something worth special
mention, and hers was something of q
sensation. When she goes back she