The Washington herald., 1920-11-08
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SUPPOSE you know all about the
| stage ana stage people. You've
been touched with and by actors.
and you read the Newspaper crfti-
cisms and the Jokes in the weekiies
about the Rialto and the chorus
girls and the longhaired traRedians.
And sRpoae that a condensed list
OF your ideas about the mysterious
stageland would boil down 70 some
thing like this:
leading ladies have i've husbs nds.
paste diamonds. and figures no bet
ter than your own (madaml n they
weren't padded Chorus girls are
inseparable from peroxide, Panhards
and Pittsburgh All shows walk
back TO New York on tan oxford
and raflroad tiesL IrreproaehabIe
actresses reserve the comic-landlady "
part for their mothers on Broadway
and their step-aunts on the road.
Kyrie Bellows real name is Boyle
l0Keiley. The rawlings OF John Nc
culiough In the phonograph were
stolen from the frst sale Of the
Efien Terry memoirs. Joe Weber is
funnier than Z. H Sothern; bot
Henry Miller Is getting Older than
he was.
All theatrical people on leaving
the theater at night drink cham
payne and eat HOLSTERS until noon
the next day. After all. the moving
pictures have got the whole bunch
pounded TO a pulp. h.
Now, few Of US know the real life
of the stage people II we did. the
profession might be more over
I AAA 10 NY
askance at the players with an eye
full Of patronizing superiority-and
we go home and practise all sorts
of elocution and gestures in front
of our looking glasses.
Latterly there has been much talk
of - actor people in a new light.
II keems to have been divuiged that
instead of being motoring bacchan-
alians and diamond hungry loreleis
they are businesslike folk. stude nts
| and ascetics with childer and homes
and libraries. owning real estate,
and conducting their private affairs
in as orderly and unsensational q
manner as any OF US good citizens
who are bound to the chariot wheels
OF the gas. rent, coal. ice. and
wardmen.
Whether the old or the new report
Of the sock-and-h be the
true one Is a surmise that has no
place here. offer you merely this
little story Of two strollers: and for
proof Of its truth / can show you
only the dark patch above the cast
iron handle Of the stage entrance
door Of Keetor's old vaudeville the
ater made there by the petulant
push of gloved hands too impatient
to finger the clumsy thumb-latch-
and where ! last saw Cherry whisk-
ing through like a swallow into
her nest, Sh time to the minute, as
usual, to dress for her act.
The vaudeville team of Hart &
Cherry was an Inspiration Bob
Hart had been roaming through the
Eastern and Western circuits for
four years with a mixed-up act COM
prising a monologue. three lightning
changes with songs, a couple of imi-
tations of celebrated imitators, and
a buck-and-wing dance that had
dawn a glance Of approval from the
bass-viol player in more than one
house-than which no performer
ever received more satisfactory evi-
. dence of good work.
The greatest treat an actor can
have is to witness the pltiful per-
tors desecrate the stage. In order
, to give himself this pleasure he will
often forsake the sunniest Broad
way corner between Thirty-fourth
and Forty-fourth to attend a matinee
offering by his less gifted brothers.
Once during the lifetime of a min
I strel joke one comes to scoff and
remains to go through with that
most difficult exercise Of Thespian
muscles-the audible contact of the
palm of one hand against the palm
of the other.
One afternoon Bob Hart presented
his solvent, serious, well-known
vaudeville face at the box-office win
dow of a rival attraction and got his
d. h. coupon for an orchestra seat.
A. B, c, and d glowed success
sively on the announcement spaces
and passed into oblivion, each plung-
ing Mr.. Hart deeper into gloom
squirmed. whistled and applauded:
a Whole Show in HIMSELF" sat with
his face as long and his hands as
far apart as boy holding a hank
of yarn for his grandmother to wind
into a ball.
But when II came on. The Mus
tard" suddenly sat up straight. II
was the hsppy alphabetical prog
nosticator of .winona Cherry, in
Character Songs and Impersonations.
There were scarcely rsore than two
bites to Cherry; but she delivered
the merchandise tied with a pink
cord and charged to the old mans
account. She first showed you a
deliciously dewy and ginghamy
country girl with a basket OF prop
erty daises who informed you in
genuously that there were other
things to be learned at the old log
school-house besides cipherin' and
nouns, especially when the Teach