Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-07-05

- VERY year there hundreds Of new
faces and twice many new legs in
- the Broadway choruses Youth and
fresh beauty is the demand and youth
and fresh beauty storm the casting
Offices.
Experience Is not particularly important
Face, figure and a sense of rhythm are ma
terials which an expert ensemble director can
easily mold into a working unit of the girl and
music industry.
But he can't do it alone.
Just as a good captain can make fairly
efhcient company out of green recruits If he
has good non-coms and dozen or SO hard
boiled buck privates with at least one re-enlist-
ment behind them, a chorus director can
whip a green chorus into shape if he has few
hard-boiled, chorus-wse chorines with half
dozen long-run Broadway successes as their
training school for a nucleus of his merry
merries.
These girls necessary in chorus as
non-coms in the army. They range from an
old 10 to young IS. They blond or
brunei as nature DEGREES or the type requires.
Not all of them are pretty and not a few have
legs that are no threat to Lily Damita, Claudette
Colbert or Ann Pennington.
But they know show business They do
q new step after watching the dance director
once. They can snap into new number with
almost military precision after slight direction,
since they have learned that all new numbers
only old ones painted over. Furthermore,
they can swing the green ones into it with them,
which is important.
THEY are fippant and slangy They're as
Independent as hog on ice, as self-respect-
ing as any stenogra pher-and darn sight more
so than some debutantes- they are indis-
pensable to the success of any musical comedy.
They know it-and few of them ever go on
the road. When the show hits for the sticks
fkl0yy ivat< khnkB.
getting ready for the main stem.
Mamie Cunniffe angela Morne on the pro-
gram) was third from the end in the front row
OF Hot and Bothered" She was % and had
been chorus lady for five years. She was an
unhennaed redhead, feet g. and weighed 118
in chorus costume net of 117h, to be exact.
She was pretty, and her figure was good
enough so she could and did pick up few
dollars week extra by posing-hgure or cos
tune, as per requirements. She had no par
ucular modesty. She was used to being kissed
casually by almost any man who happened to
be back-stage; she had played night clubs now
and then; she knew all about the facts Of life.
She earned about SIS week, paid her half
Of a hundred-dollar a month apartment, bought
her own street Clothes did not support
widowed mother and did not have a car. She
was thrifty and had $500 in the savings bank.
She was born in New York and had never
been out Of it. She didn't want to 60 out of 1t.
She didn't see why anybody ever went out of it.
New York was her town and Broadway was
New York.
That was one of her two strongest convic-
tions The other was that chorus men were
no good and that girl didn't have anything
to 90 with them off stage.
She could see that she'd have to point that
out in frank and earnest fashion to Nick Mills.
The big bozo didn't seem to get wise. Every
night for the month he'd been with the show
he'd tried to date her.
A chorus man trying to date her! Kin you
imagine! Shed given him one run-around after
another, thinking he'd lay off. But the big
boob came back for more punishment
OF course, he wasn't 50 b" FIR chn~us
man. Most Of em were pretty terrible. This
baby was q bass and kinda HUSKY, 100. l,tnl ~
In the chorus? Was he one Of these stage
struck Johns that thought you could work into
leads by being a chorus man? Then he was
toe dumb for Mamie.
Huh? Whoever heard of a chorus man get
ting more than line like well, boys here he
comes now?
MO, if he asked her out again she'd have
to tell him where to get on. She sort Of
wished he wasn't chorus man. That'd be
different. He had nice big hands-and his
line wasn't so bad, either. Well, it would have
TO be done just the same.
She'd been thinking it over all evening and
If he made crack about date after the
curtain dropped she'd give him the works The
ensemble gave its final kick in the finale and
the curtain dropped
''Hearken, me proud patrician beauty" said
Nick Mills as they moved vineyard. you look