The New York herald., 1922-04-30
Did You Hear?
About the German Dialect, the
Star Who Took a Cut and Co.
operatives Companies?
BY LUcIEN CLEvEs.

w yHO would have thought that
\A/ Joseph Cawthorn has made a
w study Of the historical devel-
opment Of German dialect? He has.
however. and II one observes closely
his way Of making fun in THE Blue
Kitten" now It is at the Earl Carroll
Theater It will add to the humor he
always creates.
when I was q child actor" Mr..
Cawthorn said the other day to the
the reporter for THE New YORK
HERALD, "the majority of German come
dams of the day believed that the
more they murdered the Kings Eng
lish the better would their audiences
be amused. You would hear lines
like this, for instance, I walk me down
the street out. smoking my p'oe yet al
ready vonce.' and the public was ex-
pected to laugh itself to death.
There were a few exceptions. such
as George s. Knight and Gus Will
ians initiated williams when
was child performer. and used indeed
to be billed as the pocket edition Of
Gus Williams
Dialects changed IN those days as
quickly az womens fashions and one
had to keep up with them or be hope
lessly lost In the shuttle. In the early
sos German comedians always said
'knickles' for knuckles. 'stimick' for
stomach and kiffin' for coughing.
think this dialect was introduced by
Lessinger OF Moor and Lessinger. then
a well known team Then came the
Yiddish which Weber and Fields used
for 30 many years. This style had a
long period OF popularity. 1t was OF
course subject to almost infinite varia-
tions.
| Il came to the conclusion from OBJ
servation that a straight German dialect
With an occasional misplaced word, got
as much laughter and applause as any
| OF the others. 1t was a decided advan-
| tage moreover In putting over a gag or
, a subtle point that would be spoiled by
| mixing up the words too much. So
adopted that kind OF dialect and stuck
| to 1t.
Even the makeup changed with the
| dialect. We used to redden our noses
with Chinese vermilion and line our
faces with India ink. never remember
| to have seen In those days a we'll
blended wig. All German comedians at
one time had to wear little chin
whiskers. A funny nose was indispen-
sable and later q cotton nose or nose
putty had to be used.
| TN those days all the German
comedians had to wear stomach pads.
They were q great nuisance. Straw
would break into pieces and lose it's
shape. Cotton was too heavy and an
| inflated rubber pad was too hot. After
trying them all. decided that horse
hair was the best. had the pad made
but 1t was not faultless. When the hair
got matted I could take 1t out and pull
the Jumps apart. The great disadvan
tage was that / could not keep the hair
from working into the skin. which was
rather unpleasant while acting before
an audience.
Then we had to wear clogs. Well do
remember when Gus Williams, the
foremost German monologue man OF his
day, came on the stage wearing patent
leather shoes We thought he had gone
crazy for discarding clogs. Others said
he merely had the big head. We all agreed
that II would kill his act. but he had as
much success as ever. and after awhile
we all followed his example. And then
came one other thing. It was always
Dutch In the old days. We never called
II German