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154-486: Mervyn LeRoy ( / l ə ˈ r ɔɪ / ; October 15, 1900 – September 13, 1987) was an American film director, producer and actor. In his youth he played juvenile roles in vaudeville and silent film comedies. During the 1930s, LeRoy was one of the two great practitioners of economical and effective film directing at Warner Brothers studios, the other his colleague, Michael Curtiz . LeRoy's most acclaimed films of his tenure at Warners include Little Caesar (1931), I Am

308-474: A Barbary Coast Dance Hall . It was different than most dance halls in that the only women there were the female employees who were paid to dance with the customers, and received commissions on the drinks that they could encourage their male customers to buy. Lawlessness was so bad in the Barbary Coast district that police did not patrol alone, but chose to walk their beats in pairs and sometimes in groups. There

462-471: A MacArthur Fellow and Tony Award -winning actor, are frequently lauded as "New Vaudevillians". References to vaudeville and the use of its distinctive argot continue throughout North American popular culture. Words such as "flop" and "gag" were terms created from the vaudeville era and have entered the American idiom. Vaudevillian techniques can commonly be witnessed on television and in movies, remarkably in

616-562: A "grudging admiration" that provides for a measure of sympathy when the gangster meets his sordid death in a back alley. LeRoy recalled the topicality of his subject in 1930: " Al Capone was a household word and the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre had happened only a year before." LeRoy further demonstrated his talent for delivering fast-paced and competently executed social commentary and entertainment with Five Star Final (1931), an exposé of tabloid journalism, and Two Seconds (1932),

770-513: A "vicious and disenchanted" cautionary tale of a death row inmate, each starring Robinson. Warner Brothers' most explosive social critique of the 1930s appeared with LeRoy's I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang , dramatizing the harsh penal codes in Georgia and starring Paul Muni as the hunted fugitive James Allen. Historian John Baxter observes that "no director has managed to close his film on so cold

924-584: A Broadway show. This is when she began experimenting with improvisational comedy and quickly found her unique success, even taking her performances global with acts in the U.K. Sophie Tucker , a Russian Jewish immigrant, was told by promoter Chris Brown that she was not attractive enough to succeed in show business without doing Blackface, so she performed that way for the first two years onstage, until one day she decided to go without it, and achieved much greater success being herself from that point on, especially with her song "Some of These Days." Moms Mabley

1078-486: A Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) and They Won't Forget (1937). LeRoy left Warners and moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in 1939 to serve as both director and producer. Perhaps his most notable achievement as a producer is the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz . LeRoy was born on October 15, 1900, in San Francisco, California , the only child of Edna (née Armer) and Harry LeRoy,

1232-413: A character study of convicts shot on location at San Quentin prison. The depiction of criminal elements had enjoyed popularity with Josef von Sternberg 's silent classic Underworld (1927), a fantasy treatment of his lone Byronic gangster "Bull" Weed. The gangster film as a genre was not achieved until LeRoy's 1930 Little Caesar , starring Edward G. Robinson , the first time that "any real attempt

1386-463: A commitment to entertainment equally inoffensive to men, women and children. Acts that violated this ethos (e.g., those that used words such as "hell") were admonished and threatened with expulsion from the week's remaining performances or were canceled altogether. In spite of such threats, performers routinely flouted this censorship , often to the delight of the very audience members whose sensibilities were supposedly endangered. He eventually instituted

1540-485: A couple of restaurants, that three block stretch of Pacific Street was almost wall to wall with drinking establishments. They included dance halls, concert saloons that had entertainment and dancing, melodeons, cheap groggeries, and deadfalls that were beer and wine dens. Initially the melodeons had mechanical reed organs that played music; however they quickly transformed into a kind of cabaret that had theatrical entertainment but no dance floor. The only women allowed in

1694-535: A fire, they waited for south westerly winds so that Sydney Town would not also catch fire. The citizens of San Francisco became enraged, and in 1851, they formed a first Vigilance Committee. Two of the Sydney Ducks, Samuel Whittaker and Robert McKenzie, were then arrested for arson, robbery, and burglary. The vigilantes then held a quick trial, and later hanged them. Vigilantes, unauthorized individuals who use trials and lynchings to punish criminals, were not uncommon in

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1848-480: A form of entertainment. He incorporated them in his shows as early as 1902. Later, he entered into a partnership with the Famous Players–Lasky , a major Hollywood production company and an affiliate of Paramount Pictures . By the late 1920s, most vaudeville shows included a healthy selection of cinema. Earlier in the century, many vaudevillians, cognizant of the threat represented by cinema, held out hope that

2002-544: A former vaudevillian who was twenty years his senior. Lasky was a partner with rising movie moguls Samuel Goldwyn and Adolf Zukor at its New York headquarters at Famous Players–Lasky . Lasky furnished LeRoy with note to the employment department at their Hollywood studios. A week later LeRoy began working in the Wardrobe Unit folding costumes for the American Civil War picture Secret Service (1919), earning $ 12.50

2156-600: A group of volunteers from the Mexican–American War were discharged and settled in San Francisco. Many of them were from New York City gangs from the Five Points and Bowery districts. About 60 of them organized into a gang named The Hounds , and they paraded around as if they were military, and even created a headquarters named Tammany Hall within a tent on Kearny Street. In 1849, these thugs began to call themselves

2310-458: A lack of strong government created many opportunities for criminals, corrupt politicians, and brothel owners. For many decades murderers and robbers could commit their crimes without punishment, sometimes boldly in public view. As a result, the Barbary Coast became a wild area representative of the Old West , and had many problems with political corruption, gambling, crime, and violence. Around 1848,

2464-415: A launching pad for later careers. They left live performance before achieving the national celebrity of earlier vaudeville stars, and found fame in new venues. The line between live and filmed performances was blurred by the number of vaudeville entrepreneurs who made more or less successful forays into the movie business. For example, Alexander Pantages quickly realized the importance of motion pictures as

2618-479: A lawless city. With only 100 policemen as of 1871, San Francisco had a severe shortage of law enforcement. At that time. Police Chief Crowley said in his annual report that there was only one officer for every 1,445 inhabitants while New York City had one in 464 and London had one for every 303 residents. Entertaining the miners, entrepreneurs, and sailors was a huge business and resulted in varied, inventive, and occasionally bizarre forms of entertainment. Except for

2772-522: A marketing strategy to attract many different audiences. As stated in Andrew Erdman 's book Blue Vaudeville , the Vaudeville stage was "a highly sexualized space ... where unclad bodies, provocative dancers, and singers of 'blue' lyrics all vied for attention." Such performances highlighted and objectified the female body as a "sexual delight", but more than that, historians think that Vaudeville marked

2926-523: A method of understanding different groups and their societal positions within their cities. The use of the greenhorn immigrant for comedic effect showcased how immigrants were viewed as new arrivals, but also what they could aspire to be. In addition to interpreting visual ethnic caricatures, the Irish American ideal of transitioning from the shanty to the lace curtain became a model of economic upward mobility for immigrant groups. The continued growth of

3080-512: A mob of 10,000 people surrounded the jail where Casey was being held. The vigilantes then demanded that the jail release James Casey into their custody, and the badly outnumbered jail guards acquiesced to their demands. King died six days after being shot, and subsequently Casey was put on trial by the Vigilance Committee. King's funeral attracted over 15,000 people, but by the time the funeral had ended, Casey had been convicted and hanged by

3234-618: A national discussion on the First Amendment 's freedom of speech rights when he was arrested at the Jazz Workshop for using profanity in his comedy act. When strip clubs started to arrive on Broadway, some local jazz musicians working in the strip clubs sat in and performed after hours at the jazz clubs. LGBT entertainments of female impersonators also appeared in North Beach at a nightclub named Finocchio's , which opened in 1929. The bar

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3388-603: A note as LeRoy." Muni's escaped convict, falsely condemned to hard labor, is reduced to furtive prey: Asked by his estranged sweetheart "how do you get along, how do you live?" he hisses "I steal" and retreats into the night. Muni continued to work effectively with LeRoy in The World Changes (1933) with Aline MacMahon and in Hi, Nellie! (1934) with Glenda Farrell . Vaudeville Vaudeville ( / ˈ v ɔː d ( ə ) v ɪ l , ˈ v oʊ -/ ; French: [vodvil] )

3542-692: A number of film sets in the greater San Francisco area. From these studies, LeRoy devised a burlesque of the comedian, and perfected his imitation on the local amateur circuit. In 1915 he won a competition that hosted almost a thousand Chaplin imitators at the Pantages Theater . His outstanding performance earned him a slot as "The Singing Newsboy" in Sid Grauman 's vaudeville show at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition titled "Chinatown by Night". In 1916 his father died, leaving

3696-841: A number of humorous skits, which were incorporated into the picture by director Alfred E. Green . Green offered him a position as "gag man". LeRoy recalled: I didn't have to think twice. That was what I wanted—a chance to be in on the creative aspect of movie-making. It wasn't directing, but it was getting closer. It was inventing, not interpreting...I abandoned my acting career with no regrets. While working at First National Pictures , LeRoy wrote gags for comedienne Colleen Moore in several films including Sally (1925), The Desert Flower (1925), We Moderns (1925) and Ella Cinders (1926). LeRoy served as acting advisor and confidant to Moore. In 1927 her husband John McCormick , studio head at First National in Hollywood, asked LeRoy to direct Moore in

3850-472: A popular journalist and publisher, vehemently protested the administrative graft of Broderick, which angered one of Broderick's main supporters, a supervisor named James Casey. While King was standing in front of his newspaper's building, Casey shot King in the chest, causing a mortal wound that ultimately launched the formation of a second Vigilance Committee in May 1856. Within two hours after Casey's shooting of King,

4004-459: A proto- screwball comedy with William Powell and Evelyn Brent , and The Heart of New York (1932) with Joe Smith . LeRoy embarked on a period of enormous productivity and inventiveness at Warner Studios, creating "some the most polished and ambitious" films of the Thirties. His only rival at Warner's was fellow director Michael Curtiz . Film historian John Baxter observes: Warners films were

4158-468: A sensation which drew the attention of journalist Herb Caen and Beat poets like Lawrence Ferlinghetti . Basin Street West started out as a jazz club but later hosted Otis Redding , Ike and Tina Turner , and Lenny Bruce. The hungry i club was a premier showcase of new talent and presented early performances of comedians Phyllis Diller and Woody Allen as well as vocalist Barbra Streisand when she

4312-528: A serious actress but was advised to remain in comedy. She went on to star in a few films but again returned to vaudeville, her original career. Another famous vaudevillian actress was Trixie Friganza , originally born Delia O'Callaghan. She had a famous catchphrase: "You know Trixie with her bag of tricks." She began her career in opera, performing to help provide for her family. The oldest of three daughters, she wanted to help her family financially but had to do it secretly, as female performers were frowned on at

4466-572: A set of guidelines to be an audience member at his show, and these were reinforced by the ushers working in the theatre. This "polite entertainment" also extended to Keith's company members. He went to extreme measures to maintain this level of modesty. Keith even went as far as posting warnings backstage such as this: "Don't say 'slob' or 'son of a gun' or 'hully gee' on the stage unless you want to be canceled peremptorily... if you are guilty of uttering anything sacrilegious or even suggestive you will be immediately closed and will never again be allowed in

4620-459: A single (an individual male or female performer); next would be an alley-oop (an acrobatic act); then another single, followed by yet another sketch such as a blackface comedy. The acts that followed these for the rest of the show would vary from musicals to jugglers to song-and-dance singles and end with a final extravaganza – either musical or drama – with the full company. These shows would feature such stars as ragtime and jazz pianist Eubie Blake ,

4774-402: A single host introducing a series of acts became a popular television style and can be seen consistently in the development of television, from The Milton Berle Show in 1948 to Late Night with David Letterman in the 1980s. The multi-act format had renewed success in shows such as Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and The Ed Sullivan Show . Today, performers such as Bill Irwin ,

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4928-433: A single parent. His mother moved to Oakland, California with Percy Teeple, a travel agent and former journalist, who would later become LeRoy's stepfather after the death of Harry LeRoy in 1916. LeRoy visited his mother as a child, regarding her more as "a grandparent or a favorite aunt." "A LeRoy-Armer family legend maintains that the newborn—delivered on the kitchen table and weighing only two-and-half pounds—was placed in

5082-515: A solid anchor for his speculation, and it was when he had this that his films reached heights at least as lofty as those scaled by Curtiz." – Biographer John Baxter, from his Hollywood in the Thirties (1970) ...While the world was struggling out of the Depression , I turned out film after film after film. It was a period of tremendous activity for me —- and for Hollywood in general...I threw myself into my work...we had to keep working to stay up with

5236-439: A stern reprimand, DeMille was delighted with the effect and used the footage in the film. LeRoy was immediately promoted to assistant cameraman. After six months behind the camera, LeRoy experienced a disastrous contretemps when he improperly adjusted the camera focus settings, ruining footage on several scenes on a DeMille production. LeRoy describes it as "a horrible mess" which led to his dismissal in 1921 as cameraman. LeRoy

5390-659: A surprise to audience members when such beautiful women actually possessed talent in addition to their appealing looks. This element of surprise colored much of the reaction to the female entertainment of this time. In the 1920s, announcements seeking all-girl bands for vaudeville performances appeared in industry publications like Billboard , Variety and in newspapers. Bands like The Ingenues and The Dixie Sweethearts were well-publicized, while other groups were simply described as "all-girl Revue". According to Feminist Theory, similar trends in theater and film objectified women, an example of male gaze , as women's role in public life

5544-498: A system of high salaries and expensive projects with political kickbacks that drained the city's treasury to near bankruptcy. This financial crisis at city hall created a great strain on commerce and affected individual businesses. The looting of the city's treasury could not have happened without the help of David Broderick , the most powerful man in San Francisco, who was a state senator and held tight control over San Francisco from 1851 until his death in 1859. Broderick's corruption

5698-411: A taste for the risqué . In the 1840s, the minstrel show , another type of variety performance, and "the first emanation of a pervasive and purely American mass culture", grew to enormous popularity and formed what Nick Tosches called "the heart of 19th-century show business". A significant influence also came from "Dutch" (i.e., German or faux-German) minstrels and comedians. Medicine shows traveled

5852-456: A technique in the lab: I had an idea. That night I stayed late in the lab...I got a big wooden box about twelve feet square and lined it with tar paper. Then I filled it with distilled water...I got a spotlight and carefully set it up so the light played upon the surface of the water...I took one of the studio's Pathé cameras, found a supply of raw film and shot some five-thousand feet of my pseudo-moonlight-on-the-water. Despite LeRoy suffering

6006-489: A theatre where Mr. Keith is in authority." Along these same lines of discipline, Keith's theatre managers would occasionally send out blue envelopes with orders to omit certain suggestive lines of songs and possible substitutions for those words. If actors chose to ignore these orders or quit, they would get "a black mark" on their name and would never again be allowed to work on the Keith Circuit. Thus, actors learned to follow

6160-628: A time in which the female body became its own "sexual spectacle". This sexual image began sprouting everywhere an American went: the shops, a restaurant, the grocery store, etc. The more this image brought in the highest revenue, the more Vaudeville focused on acts involving women. Even acts that were as innocent as a sister act were higher sellers than a good brother act. Consequently, Erdman adds that female Vaudeville performers such as Julie Mackey and Gibson's Bathing Girls began to focus less on talent and more on physical appeal through their figure, tight gowns, and other revealing attire. It eventually came as

6314-566: A trained mule) shared a stage with acts more usually regarded as "highbrow" or classical entertainment (opera vocalists, classical musicians). B. F. Keith took the next step, starting in Boston , where he built an empire of theatres and brought vaudeville to the United States and Canada. Later, E. F. Albee , adoptive grandfather of the Pulitzer Prize -winning playwright Edward Albee , managed

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6468-515: A turkey roasting pan and put in a warm oven to improve his chances of survival. The doctor who advised this procedure cautioned LeRoy's parents: "Make sure the flame is real low, however." The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire devastated the city when LeRoy was five-and-a-half years old. He was sleeping in his bed on the second floor when the quake struck in the early morning causing the house to collapse. Neither LeRoy nor his father suffered serious physical injury. His father's import-export store

6622-485: A typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals , magicians, ventriloquists , strongmen , female and male impersonators , acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs , jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels , and films. A vaudeville performer

6776-401: A unique ethnic interplay between Irish American use of self-deprecation as humor and their diverse inner city surroundings. The interactions between newly arrived immigrants and settled immigrants within the backdrop of the unknown American urban landscape allowed vaudeville to be utilized as an avenue for expression and understanding. The often hostile immigrant experience in their new country

6930-516: A version of Peg O' My Heart . When the project was cancelled studio president Richard A. Rowland , with Moore advocating, authorized LeRoy to direct a comedy, No Place to Go , starring Mary Astor and Lloyd Hughes and launching LeRoy's filmmaking career at age twenty-seven. His success with No Place to Go (1927), was followed by "a string of comedies and jazz-baby dramas" that served as vehicles for actress Alice White and allowed LeRoy to hone his skills as director. His prolific output in

7084-428: A week. According to film historian Kingley Canham, LeRoy's "enthusiasm, energy and push", in addition to a further appeal to Jesse Lasky, earned LeRoy promotion to lab technician in the film tinting unit. LeRoy's next advancement was achieved through his own initiative. Discovering that director William DeMille wished to create an illusion of moonlight shimmering on a lake to produce a romantic effect, LeRoy devised

7238-581: A well-to-do department store owner of Jewish descent. Both his parents' families had fully assimilated , residing in the Bay Area for several generations. LeRoy described his relatives as "San Franciscans first, Americans second, Jews third." LeRoy's mother was a frequent attendee at San Francisco's premier vaudeville venues, the Orpheum and the Alcazar , often socializing with the theater's personnel. She arranged for

7392-505: A wide range of clientele. Many small towns had purpose-built theatres. A small yet interesting example might include what is called Grange Halls in northern New England, still being used. These are old-fashioned, wooden buildings with creaky, dimly-lit, wooden stages, which were meant to offset the isolation of a farming lifestyle. These stages could offer anything from child performers to contra-dances to visits by Santa to local, musical talent, to homemade foods such as whoopee pies. Some of

7546-526: Is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, while changing over time. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain ,

7700-494: Is often considered to have been the death knell of vaudeville. Though talk of its resurrection was heard during the 1930s and later, the demise of the supporting apparatus of the circuits and the higher cost of live performance made any large-scale renewal of vaudeville unrealistic. The most striking examples of Gilded Age theatre architecture were commissioned by the big time vaudeville magnates and stood as monuments of their wealth and ambition. Examples of such architecture are

7854-477: Is often referred to as a "vaudevillian". Vaudeville developed from many sources, including the concert saloon , minstrelsy , freak shows , dime museums , and literary American burlesque . Called "the heart of American show business", vaudeville was one of the most popular types of entertainment in North America for several decades. The origin of the term is obscure but often explained as being derived from

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8008-510: The vau de vire origin, a truncated form of chanson du Vau de Vire ' song of the Valley of the Vire ' . Around 1610, Jean le Houx collected these works as Le Livre des Chants nouveaux de Vaudevire , which is probably the direct origin of the word. With its first subtle appearances within the early 1860s, vaudeville was not initially a common form of entertainment. The form gradually evolved from

8162-727: The Marx Brothers , Jimmy Durante , Bill "Bojangles" Robinson , Edgar Bergen , Fanny Brice , Burns and Allen , and Eddie Cantor , used the prominence gained in live variety performance to vault into the new medium of cinema. In doing so, such performers often exhausted in a few moments of screen time the novelty of an act that might have kept them on tour for several years. Other performers who entered in vaudeville's later years, including Jack Benny , Abbott and Costello , Kate Smith , Cary Grant , Bob Hope , Milton Berle , Judy Garland , Rose Marie , Sammy Davis Jr. , Red Skelton , Larry Storch and The Three Stooges , used vaudeville only as

8316-399: The Old West , but San Francisco's Vigilance Committees were the largest and most organized of America's history. The hangings scared the remaining Sydney Ducks into fleeing the city. Within two weeks after the hangings, Sydney Town had but only a few dance halls, saloons, and brothels remaining. That relative peace only lasted for two years; then criminals returned to the Barbary Coast. In

8470-586: The Tenderloin and Union Square as shopping centers took over. When Prohibition was adopted in 1920 and stopped the flow of alcohol to the bars, Terrific Street's block lost much excitement and its dance halls and concert saloons were replaced by offices, hotels, and warehouses. However, after Prohibition was repealed in 1933 and liquor was again available, an attempt was made to revive its entertainment scene. The police commission quashed these efforts when, on February 27, 1934, it announced that no dance permits for

8624-639: The Tivoli Theatre are housed at the State Library of Victoria , Melbourne , Australia , with additional personal papers of vaudevillian performers from the Tivoli Theatre, including extensive costume and set design holdings, held by the Performing Arts Collection , Arts Centre Melbourne . The American Vaudeville Museum, one of the largest collections of vaudeville memorabilia, is located at

8778-644: The concert saloon and variety hall into its mature form throughout the 1870s and 1880s. This more gentle form was known as "Polite Vaudeville". In the years before the American Civil War , entertainment existed on a different scale. Similar variety theatre existed before 1860 in Europe and elsewhere. In the US, as early as the first decades of the 19th century, theatergoers could enjoy a performance consisting of Shakespeare plays, acrobatics, singing, dancing, and comedy. As

8932-452: The "Irwin Sisters". Many years later, their act had taken off and with performances in both vaudeville and burlesque at famous music halls, until Irwin decided to continue her career on her own. She then changed her approach to vaudeville, performing African-American-influenced songs, even later writing her songs. She introduced her signature in vaudeville, "The Bully Song", which was performed in

9086-425: The "big time" (possible remuneration of several thousand dollars per week in large, urban theatres largely patronized by the middle and upper-middle classes). As performers rose in renown and established regional and national followings, they worked their way into the less arduous working conditions and better pay of the big time. The capital of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre (or just "The Palace" in

9240-423: The 15-year-old LeRoy responsible for providing his own financial support. Now a show-business professional, LeRoy left his newsboy job. Pairing with the 16-year-old actor-pianist Clyde Cooper, they formed a vaudeville routine "LeRoy and Cooper: Two Kids and a Piano." The duo struggled to find engagements, and LeRoy recalled "we would have played toilets if they had offered us some money." Soon they were discovered by

9394-418: The 1890s, San Francisco hit its peak alcohol consumption in having over 3,000 licensed bars and another 2,000 unlicensed bars. The waitresses were a major attraction for the saloons and were nicknamed the "pretty waiter girls", but they were not always attractive or young. They were scantily clothed in gaudy outfits while they sold drinks and danced with customers for money. The saloons hired women to exploit

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9548-506: The 1950s and 1960s. Some of Broadway's more famous clubs of that era included Basin Street West, Ann's nightclub, Mr. D's, El Matador, Sugar Hill, Keystone Korner , the hungry i , and the Jazz Workshop . Mr. D's club, so named because Sammy Davis Jr. was a partial owner, presented performances by Tony Bennett and James Brown . At Ann's nightclub legendary shock comedian Lenny Bruce received his start in standup comedy and created

9702-653: The Barbary Coast gained a wider appeal and its large dance halls drew tremendous crowds. The principal attraction of Terrific Street was dancing and many nationally known dance steps like the Texas Tommy and the Turkey Trot , were invented on Terrific Street. At night, its brightly lit block could be seen from across the bay in Oakland despite the fact that neon lights had not yet been invented. An extreme shift in political policy came about in 1911 when James "Sunny Jim" Rolph ,

9856-507: The Barbary Coast. However, prostitution persisted in the district, and it was not until 1917 that Mayor James Rolph made a declaration that he would close every brothel in San Francisco. Same-sex prostitution and entertainment that featured female impersonators briefly existed in a bar on the Barbary Coast as early as the spring of 1908 when The Dash opened on Pacific Street. The Dash employed some female impersonators, and patrons could purchase homosexual sex in its booths. The Dash closed near

10010-625: The Chinese, Italians, Germans and Jews utilized ethnic caricatures to understand themselves as well as the Irish. The urban diversity within the vaudeville stage and audience also reflected their societal status, with the working class constituting two-thirds of the typical vaudeville audience. The ethnic caricatures that now comprised American humor reflected the positive and negative interactions between ethnic groups in America's cities. The caricatures served as

10164-467: The Eureka and Bella Union, made an effort to have notable Barbary Coast performers appear in their shows and had attractive women for their pretty waiter girls. It was not unusual for the pretty waiter girls to put drugs into the customers' drinks, so they could later be more easily robbed and sometimes clubbed unconscious. Sailors, who were frequently the targets of the pretty waiter girls, had cause to dread

10318-574: The French expression voix de ville ' voice of the city ' . A second hypothesis is that it comes from the 15th-century songs on satire by poet Olivier Basselin , "Vau de Vire". In his Connections television series, science historian James Burke argues that the term is a corruption of the French Vau de Vire ' Vire River Valley ' , an area known for its bawdy drinking songs and where Basselin lived. The Oxford English Dictionary also endorses

10472-423: The Irish becoming subject to discrimination due to their ethnic physical and cultural characteristics. The ethnic stereotypes of Irish through their greenhorn depiction alluded to their newly arrived status as immigrant Americans, with the stereotype portrayed in avenues of entertainment. Following the Irish immigration wave were several waves in which new immigrants from different backgrounds came in contact with

10626-453: The Irish in America's urban centers. Already settled and being native English speakers, Irish Americans took hold of these advantages and began to assert their positions in the immigrant racial hierarchy based on skin tone and assimilation status, cementing job positions that were previously unavailable to them as recently arrived immigrants. As a result, Irish Americans became prominent in vaudeville entertainment as curators and actors, creating

10780-583: The Regulators as they harassed Mexicans and those of Spanish origin as well as extorted money from local businesses for protection services. Anyone who did not pay was likely to lose a nose, ear, or suffer greater bodily injury. However, after a group of 230 men organized into a militia and confronted the Hounds with possible arrest, they quickly fled from San Francisco. The Hounds was not the only group of criminals to set up business on San Francisco's Barbary Coast. By

10934-423: The United States and Canada and a large interest in two vaudeville circuits. Another major circuit was that of Alexander Pantages . In his heyday, Pantages owned more than 30 vaudeville theatres and controlled, through management contracts, perhaps 60 more in both the United States and Canada. At its height, vaudeville played across multiple strata of economic class and auditorium size. On the vaudeville circuit, it

11088-466: The United States and Canada, first for about three months in Emil Boreo’s Mirage de Paris followed by nine months in their own Ballet Caprice . After Jack quit the act near the end of 1927, Betty continued to manage the troupe and, with a new dance partner, toured throughout the northeastern United States for the next six months as Betty Felsen and Company. The final performance of Ballet Caprice

11242-565: The University of Arizona. Barbary Coast, San Francisco The Barbary Coast was born during the California Gold Rush of 1849 , when the population of San Francisco was growing at an exponential rate due to the rapid influx of tens of thousands of miners trying to find gold. The early decades of the Barbary Coast were marred by persistent lawlessness, gambling, administrative graft, vigilante justice , and prostitution ; however with

11396-471: The Vigilance Committee decided to disband and give control back to the elected officials. It was not until the 1860s when sailors gave the district its name, and began to refer to it as the Barbary Coast. The term Barbary Coast is borrowed from the Barbary Coast of North Africa where local pirates and slave traders launched raids on nearby coastal towns and vessels. That African region was notorious for

11550-1122: The activities of gambling, drinking, drugs, and prostitution. The fact that San Francisco functioned as a port city meant that it was able to sustain large transient populations that were less likely to conform to social rules and regulations. The Barbary Coast is the haunt of the low and the vile of every kind. The petty thief, the house burglar, the tramp, the whoremonger, lewd women, cutthroats, murderers, all are found here. Dance-halls and concert-saloons, where blear-eyed men and faded women drink vile liquor, smoke offensive tobacco, engage in vulgar conduct, sing obscene songs and say and do everything to heap upon themselves more degradation, are numerous. Low gambling houses, thronged with riot-loving rowdies, in all stages of intoxication, are there. Opium dens , where heathen Chinese and God-forsaken men and women are sprawled in miscellaneous confusion, disgustingly drowsy or completely overcome, are there. Licentiousness, debauchery, pollution, loathsome disease, insanity from dissipation, misery, poverty, wealth, profanity, blasphemy, and death, are there. And Hell, yawning to receive

11704-421: The age of twelve, with few prospects to acquire a formal education and his father financially strained, LeRoy became a newsboy and earned his first money. His father supported him in this endeavor. LeRoy hawked newspapers at iconic locations, including Chinatown , the Barbary Coast red-light district and Fisherman's Wharf , where he became educated as to the realities of life in the city: I saw life in raw on

11858-426: The area because the art of shanghaiing was perfected here. Many a sailor woke up after a night's leave to find himself unexpectedly on another ship bound for some faraway port. The verb to " shanghai " was first coined on the Barbary Coast. Most of the buildings on that stretch of Pacific Street were destroyed by the earthquake and fire of 1906 . However the city's financial boosters then saw an opportunity to clean

12012-562: The area would be issued. This action followed "the withdrawal by the California state board of equalization of state liquor permits for the district." Protests by women's groups and church organizations influenced these decisions. Still later, during World War II, in an attempt to revitalize the district, it was renamed International Settlement , and a pair of large promotional arched overhead signs, that read "International Settlement" were constructed on either end of that Pacific Street block. In

12166-1008: The business side of Vaudeville, like Amanda Thorpe, a white woman who founded a black theater in Virginia, and the Griffin Sisters , who managed several theaters in their efforts to create a Black Vaudeville circuit. Black performers and patrons participated in a racially segregated vaudeville circuit. Though many popular acts like Lewis and Walker, Ernest Hogan , Irving Jones , and the Hyers Sisters played to both white and black audiences, early Vaudeville performances for white audiences were limited to one Black act per show, and performers faced discrimination in restaurants and lodging. Entertainers and entrepreneurs like The Whitman Sisters , Pat Chapelle and John Isham created and managed their own touring companies; others took on theater ownership and management and created Black vaudeville circuits, as

12320-500: The chain to its greatest success. Circuits such as those managed by Keith-Albee provided vaudeville's greatest economic innovation and the principal source of its industrial strength. They enabled a chain of allied vaudeville houses that remedied the chaos of the single-theatre booking system by contracting acts for regional and national tours. These could easily be lengthened from a few weeks to two years. Albee also gave national prominence to vaudeville's trumpeting "polite" entertainment,

12474-420: The circuit's central office weekly, follow each act's description. The bill illustrates the typical pattern of opening the show with a "dumb" act to allow patrons to find their seats, placing strong acts in second and penultimate positions, and leaving the weakest act for the end, to clear the house. In this bill, as in many vaudeville shows, acts often associated with "lowbrow" or popular entertainment (acrobats,

12628-416: The countryside offering programs of comedy, music, jugglers , and other novelties along with displays of tonics, salves, and miracle elixirs, while " Wild West " shows provided romantic vistas of the disappearing frontier, complete with trick riding, music and drama. Vaudeville incorporated these various itinerant amusements into a stable, institutionalized form centered in America's growing urban hubs. From

12782-409: The daughter of a musician, she moved to the United States of America in her childhood. At just fourteen years old, she left home to begin her career, lying about her age and sending her mother half of her paycheck. Dressler found great success and was known for her comedic timing and physical comedy, like carrying her male co-stars. She eventually worked on Broadway, where she had a great desire to become

12936-538: The day, the San Francisco Herald , states of Sydney Town: The upper part of Pacific Street, after dark, is crowded by thieves, gamblers, low women, drunken sailors, and similar characters... Unsuspecting sailors and miners are entrapped by the dexterous thieves and swindlers that are always on the lookout, into these dens, where they are filled with liquor – drugged if necessary, until insensibility coming upon them, they fall an easy victim to their tempters...When

13090-505: The death of vaudeville. After all, when "small time" theatres could offer "big time" performers on screen at a nickel a seat, who could ask audiences to pay higher amounts for less impressive live talent? The newly-formed RKO studios took over the famed Orpheum vaudeville circuit and swiftly turned it into a chain of full-time movie theatres. The half-century tradition of vaudeville was effectively wiped out within less than four years. Inevitably, managers further trimmed costs by eliminating

13244-562: The decade (Curtiz filmed an astounding 44 features during the same period). Baxter adds: "No genius could function without variation under such pressure." The social perspective of films favored at Warner Brothers was distinct from those of its chief rivals: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (M-G-M), uncontested for its "technical virtuosity" aimed to serve "middle-class tastes" and Paramount studios identified for its "sophisticated dialogue and baroque settings" that catered to European sensibilities. In contrast, Warner Brothers films carried themes appealing to

13398-427: The demand. The public was voracious in its appetite for movies...Neighborhood theaters had double features, and the bill usually changed twice a week. That means they were showing four new pictures a week, 208 a year, and that's only one theater. LeRoy admits in retrospect that "I shot them so often and so fast that they tend to blend together in my memory." LeRoy's social realism mocked corrupt politicians, bankers and

13552-485: The early 1920s. The youthful and diminutive LeRoy (at 5 feet 7 inches [170 cm] and just over 115 pounds [52 kg]) was consistently cast in juvenile roles. appearing with film stars Wallace Reid , Betty Compson and Gloria Swanson (See Film Chronology table) He performed his last role in The Chorus Lady (1924) as "Duke". During the filming of The Ghost Breaker (1922), bit actor LeRoy suggested

13706-592: The end of 1849, several ships from Australia brought former members of Great Britain's penal colony – including ex-convicts, ticket-of-leave men, and criminals – to San Francisco, where they became known as the Sydney Ducks . These Australian immigrants had become so numerous that they dominated the neighborhood. They opened boarding houses and various types of groggeries that had prostitutes affiliated with their businesses. People who entered these groggeries and brothels frequently were beaten and robbed. A newspaper of

13860-459: The end of that same year. The thriving district also got a new nickname: Terrific Street. The term Terrific Street first was used by musicians in describing the quality of music at the Pacific Street clubs, and the first jazz clubs of San Francisco did occur on Terrific Street and attracted national talents like Sophie Tucker , Sid LeProtti , and Jelly Roll Morton . It was at this time that

14014-479: The famous and magical Harry Houdini , and child star Baby Rose Marie . In the New-York Tribune ' s article about Vaudeville, it is said that at any given time, Vaudeville was employing over twelve thousand different people throughout its entire industry. Each entertainer would be on the road 42 weeks at a time while working a particular "Circuit" – or an individual theatre chain of a major company. While

14168-420: The final years of the silent film era included the box-office successes Harold Teen with Arthur Lake and Oh, Kay! with Colleen Moore. Warner Brothers acquired First National in 1925 as a subsidiary studio and producer Jack Warner became a mentor and in-law to LeRoy in subsequent years. LeRoy eagerly anticipated his first sound picture assignment, Naughty Baby (1929): My fifth picture, in 1929,

14322-454: The habitues of this quarter have a reason to believe a man has money, they will follow him for days, and employ every device to get him into their clutches...These dance-groggeries are outrageous nuisances and nurseries of crime. When looting San Francisco's neighborhoods, the Sydney Ducks even set fire to San Francisco six times between 1849 and 1851 in order to distract citizens from their pillaging and murdering. Whenever they planned to start

14476-517: The idle rich, while celebrating the Depression Era experiences of "hard-working chorus girls...taxi-drivers and bell-hops struggling to make ends meet in the brawl of New York...gloss and polish were considered useless affectation." " Mother of mercy—Is this the last of Rico? —Iconic last words of fictional mob boss Enrico Bandello in "Little Caesar" LeRoy first departed from his comedy-romance themed films with his drama Numbered Men (1930),

14630-491: The instructions given to them by B. F. Keith for fear of losing their careers forever. By the late 1890s, vaudeville had large circuits, houses (small and large) in almost every sizable location, standardized booking, broad pools of skilled acts, and a loyal national following. One of the biggest circuits was Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit . It incorporated in 1919 and brought together 45 vaudeville theatres in 36 cities throughout

14784-592: The larger dance halls moved to other districts and managed to survive for several more years by masquerading as dance academies or closed dance halls , but they never regained their previous popularity. In 1917, the brothels were closed due to the Red Light Abatement Act , but by that time, all the excitement of Terrific Street had vanished. Following the Red Light Abatement Act, prostitution zones and prostitutes were forced to outskirt areas such as

14938-427: The last of the live performances. Vaudeville also suffered due to the rise of broadcast radio following the greater availability of inexpensive receiver sets later in the decade. Even the hardiest in the vaudeville industry realized the form was in decline; the perceptive understood the condition to be terminal. The standardized film distribution and talking pictures of the 1930s confirmed the end of vaudeville. By 1930,

15092-492: The latter half of the 19th century, San Francisco saw administrative graft, boss politics , and a persistent lawlessness. For a while after the hangings of Whittaker and McKenzie, San Francisco functioned as a law-abiding city. The hangings frightened corrupt judges and government officials, who then began to do their duties with a rare diligence, not seen so far in San Francisco. This new competency in government did not last long, and by 1852, corrupt government officials developed

15246-563: The lower-priced cinema in the early 1910s dealt the heaviest blow to vaudeville. This was similar to the advent of free broadcast television 's diminishing the cultural and economic strength of the cinema. Cinema was first regularly commercially presented in the US in vaudeville halls. The first public showing of movies projected on a screen took place at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in 1896. Lured by greater salaries and less arduous working conditions, many performers and personalities, such as Al Jolson , W. C. Fields , Mae West , Buster Keaton ,

15400-506: The massive infusion of treasure hunters, called 49-ers , seeking their fortunes by panning for gold as they searched for a potential gold mine. Before the Gold Rush of 1849 , there were only a few hundred people living in tents and wooden shanties within San Francisco . However, after the gold rush, the population of San Francisco increased fifty-fold in just two years—from 492 in 1847 to over 25,000 in 1849. This extreme growth combined with

15554-450: The melodeons were the waitresses and performers. Their shows usually contained songs, bawdy skits, and often featured can-can dancers. The deadfalls were the lowest of the establishments and had hard benches, damp sawdust on the floors, the bar was rough boards laid atop of barrels, had no entertainment, and their wine was often raw alcohol with an added coloring. The Coast, as it was called, also invented its own kind of dance hall, called

15708-402: The men, instructed to pick customers' pockets, and then give half that money back to the management. The pretty waiter girls earned about $ 20 per week plus a commission on any drinks and dances that they sold. Small grog houses and deadfalls hired only handful of pretty waiter girls, but the larger dance halls and concert saloons employed up to 50 women. However, some of the concert saloons, like

15862-531: The mid-1860s, impresario Tony Pastor , a former singing circus clown who had become a prominent variety theater performer and manager, capitalized on middle class sensibilities and spending power when he began to feature "polite" variety programs in his New York City theatres. Pastor opened his first "Opera House" on the Bowery in 1865, later moving his variety theater operation to Broadway and, finally, to Fourteenth Street near Union Square . He only began to use

16016-547: The military-run tent city on the Presidio for the next six months. The elder LeRoy obtained work as a salesman for the Heinz Pickle Company, but his business losses had left him "a beaten man." The young LeRoy emerged from the traumatic event with a sense of pride that he had survived the ordeal and to regard it as fortuitous: "The big thing in my life was the earthquake...it changed my life before I knew I even had one." At

16170-465: The most perfectly economical exercises in cinematic mechanics of which Hollywood was capable. There was no fat on them, either as art or entertainment...as a filmmaking tool, it functioned best in the hands of two great directors, Mervyn LeRoy and Michael Curtiz. In the studio's competitive crucible produced by the Great Depression demanding profitable entertainment, LeRoy directed 36 pictures during

16324-480: The most prominent vaudevillians successfully made the transition to cinema, though others were not as successful. Some performers such as Bert Lahr fashioned careers out of combining live performance with radio and film roles. Many others later appeared in the Catskill resorts that constituted the " Borscht Belt ". Vaudeville was instrumental in the success of the newer media of film, radio, and television. Comedies of

16478-636: The neighborhood character of vaudeville attendance had always promoted a tendency to tailor fare to specific audiences, mature vaudeville grew to feature houses and circuits specifically aimed at certain demographic groups. Black patrons, often segregated into the rear of the second gallery in white-oriented theatres, had their own smaller circuits, as did speakers of Italian and Yiddish (see below). This foreign addition combined with comedy produced such acts as "minstrel shows of antebellum America" and Yiddish theatre. Many ethnic families joined in on this entertainment business, and for them, this traveling lifestyle

16632-486: The new era adopted many of the dramatic and musical tropes of classic vaudeville acts. Film comedies of the 1920s through the 1940s used talent from the vaudeville stage and followed a vaudeville aesthetic of variety entertainment, both in Hollywood and in Asia, including China. The rich repertoire of the vaudeville tradition was mined for prominent prime-time radio variety shows such as The Rudy Vallée Show . The structure of

16786-501: The passage of time, the city's government gained strength and competence, and the Barbary Coast's maturing entertainment scene of dance halls and jazz clubs influenced American culture. The Barbary Coast's century-long evolution passed through many substantial incarnations due to the city's rapid cultural development during the transition to the 20th century. Its former location now is overlapped by Chinatown , North Beach , and Jackson Square . San Francisco's Barbary Coast arose from

16940-402: The police commission adopted resolutions that no dancing was allowed in any establishment of the district that served alcohol, that no women – employees or patrons – were permitted in any saloon of the district, and that even electric signs were forbidden. As a result, some drinking establishments fired their female employees and became straight saloons, and others closed their businesses. Some of

17094-670: The premier vaudeville circuits – Pantages , Gus Sun and Orpheum – and provided with regular bookings on national tours. LeRoy relished the lifestyle of a vaudevillian, occasionally appearing in shows that featured iconic performers of the era, among them Sarah Bernhardt , Harry Houdini and Jack Benny . After three years, and now "a fairly well-established act" in theater listings, the duo amicably disbanded after an unexpected death in Cooper's family. LeRoy joined George Choos's mostly female troupe in musical comedies, and Gus Edwards act billed "The Nine Country Kids" in 1922. LeRoy's enthusiasm for

17248-404: The promotion of black-face minstrelsy on the stage, purposefully used to place African Americans beneath the Irish in the racial and social urban hierarchy. Although the Irish had a strong Celtic presence in vaudeville and in the promotion of ethnic stereotypes, the ethnic groups that they were characterizing also utilized the same humor. As the Irish donned their ethnic costumes, groups such as

17402-419: The putrid mass, is there also. During this time, San Francisco went through much commercial growth and became an important shipping port, but matured to a level that forbade any more uprisings by vigilantes. Without the threat of vigilante justice, corruption and crime begin to return along with predatory dives similar to those of Sydney Town. The Barbary Coast continued to build on its notorious reputation as

17556-532: The recent, worldwide phenomenon of TV shows such as America's Got Talent . In professional wrestling , there was a noted tag team, based in WWE , called The Vaudevillains . In 2018, noted film director Christopher Annino, maker of a new silent feature film, Silent Times , founded Vaudeville Con, a gathering to celebrate the history of vaudeville. The first meeting was held in Pawcatuck, Connecticut . The records of

17710-429: The same kind of predatory dive bars that targeted sailors, as had been done on San Francisco's Barbary Coast. Miners, sailors, and sojourners hungry for female companionship and bawdy entertainment continued to stream into San Francisco in the 1850s and 1860s, becoming the Barbary Coast's primary clientele. During its early days, San Francisco had become a "wide" open city where police had little to no control in stopping

17864-524: The same way that the post-Barbary Coast establishments of Terrific Street attempted to draw customers and tourists with a reference to the Coast's nefarious past before the earthquake, International Settlement also tried to draw tourists with a reference to that lost era. During the latter half of the 20th century, the entertainment scene and dancing spread one block north to Broadway, which is parallel to Pacific Street. Jazz clubs were everywhere on Broadway during

18018-451: The silent nature of the "flickering shadow sweethearts" would preclude their usurpation of the paramount place in the public's affection. With the introduction of talking pictures in 1926, the burgeoning film studios removed what had remained the chief difference in favor of live theatrical performance: spoken dialogue. Historian John Kenrick wrote: Top vaudeville stars filmed their acts for one-time pay-offs, inadvertently helping to speed

18172-474: The situations and surroundings... LeRoy's output in the early Thirties was prodigious. The director attests to the rate of film production at the studios: "If the poorer Curtiz films are disappointing, LeRoy's failures are impossible to watch. When his initial concept was faulty or failed through heavy-handed scripting he could be as banal as Henry King at his worst. It needed a firm central theme to sustain LeRoy,

18326-451: The six-year-old LeRoy to serve as a Native-American papoose in the 1906 stage production of The Squaw Man . LeRoy attributed his early interest in vaudeville to "my mother's fascination with it" and to that of his cousins, Jesse L. Lasky and Blanche Lasky, vaudevillians during LeRoy's youth. LeRoy's parents separated suddenly in 1905 for reasons that were not divulged to their son. They never reunited and his father Harry raised LeRoy as

18480-464: The slang of vaudevillians), built by Martin Beck in 1913 and operated by Keith. Featuring a bill stocked with inventive novelty acts, national celebrities, and acknowledged masters of vaudeville performance (such as comedian and trick roper Will Rogers ), the Palace provided what many vaudevillians considered the apotheosis of remarkable careers. A standard show bill would begin with a sketch, follow with

18634-448: The songs that were popularized onstage by white singers, and paved the way for African-American musical theater . In addition to vaudeville's prominence as a form of American entertainment, it reflected the newly evolving urban inner-city culture and interaction of its operators and audience. Making up a large portion of immigration to the United States in the mid-19th century, Irish Americans interacted with established Americans, with

18788-506: The stage gradually waned and he left the troupe in 1923. LeRoy accepted a bit role in a scene with former The Perils of Pauline (1914) star Pearl White filmed at Fort Lee, New Jersey . LeRoy was "thoroughly intrigued" by the filmmaking process, recalling "I knew I was finished with vaudeville. I knew, just as positively that I wanted to get into the movie business." In October 1919 LeRoy, just turned 19, approached his cousin Jesse L. Lasky ,

18942-469: The streets of San Francisco. I met the cops and the whores and the reporters and the bartenders and the Chinese and the [commercial] fishermen and shopkeepers. I knew them all, knew how they thought and how they loved and how they hated. When it came time for me to make motion pictures, I made movies that were real, because I knew how real people behaved. Selling newspapers near the Alcazar Theatre , LeRoy

19096-410: The term "vaudeville" in place of "variety" in early 1876. Hoping to draw a potential audience from female and family-based shopping traffic uptown , Pastor barred the sale of liquor in his theatres, eliminated bawdy material from his shows, and offered gifts of coal and hams to attendees. Pastor's experiment proved successful, and other managers soon followed suit. The manager's comments, sent back to

19250-627: The theatres built by impresario Alexander Pantages . Pantages often used architect B. Marcus Priteca (1881–1971), who in turn regularly worked with muralist Anthony Heinsbergen . Priteca devised an exotic, neo-classical style that his employer called "Pantages Greek". Though classic vaudeville reached a zenith of capitalization and sophistication in urban areas dominated by national chains and commodious theatres, small-time vaudeville included countless more intimate and locally controlled houses. Small-time houses were often converted saloons, rough-hewn theatres, or multi-purpose halls, together catering to

19404-690: The time. She worked largely in comedy and gained acclaim and success due to her willingness to step into other's roles who had fallen ill, and were otherwise unable to perform. In her acts, she often emphasized her plus-size figure, calling herself the "perfect forty-six". Friganza was also a poet and writer. She used many of her performances as ways to raise money to support the poor or disenfranchised and went on record publicly numerous times to support these social causes. Friganza also spent much of her life fighting for women's equality and pushing for self-acceptance for women, both publicly and within themselves, as well as their rights in comparison to men. Betty Felsen

19558-427: The tone of the Barbary Coast, and transform it into an entertainment area that would be acceptable for every-day San Franciscans. Possessing a new sense of civic pride, the boosters invested heavily in reconstruction, and within three months, over a dozen dance halls and a dozen bars were rebuilt and operating. This new incarnation of Pacific Street was gentrified and tame compared to the lawless pre-earthquake version of

19712-534: The vast majority of formerly live theatres had been wired for sound, and none of the major studios were producing silent pictures. For a time, the most luxurious theatres continued to offer live entertainment, but most theatres were forced by the Great Depression to economize. Some in the industry blamed cinema's drain of talent from the vaudeville circuits for the medium's demise. Others argued that vaudeville had allowed its performances to become too familiar to its famously loyal, now seemingly fickle audiences. There

19866-478: The vaudeville stage, Irish Americans became interpreters of immigrant cultural images in American popular culture. New arrivals found their ethnic group status defined within the immigrant population and in their new country as a whole by the Irish on stage. Unfortunately, the same interactions between ethnic groups within the close living conditions of cities also created racial tensions which were reflected in vaudeville. Conflict between Irish and African Americans saw

20020-414: The vigilantes. Now energized by wide public support, the Vigilance Committee set up shop in a large building near the wharf that included jail cells, court rooms, a surrounding wall to resist any military intervention; it was nicknamed Fort Gunnybags. During the two months that followed the hanging of Casey, there was not a single murder in San Francisco and less than a half dozen robberies. In August 1856,

20174-585: The winter of 1923 Betty began a partnership with Jack Broderick. From then until the end of 927 Broderick & Felsen performed on the B.F. Keith and Pantages vaudeville circuits throughout the U.S. and Canada. Their act evolved from a simple dance act to one with over twenty dancers, an orchestra, and elaborate costumes and sets. From 1925 to 1926 they played for 20 straight weeks at the huge Colony Theater on Broadway in New York City. In 1926 and 1927, they starred in two spectacular musical productions, touring across

20328-402: The working classes. LeRoy biographer Kingsley Canham writes: The topicality of Warner's material and its direct appeal to the working classes set it apart from other studios. What their films lacked in gloss in comparison to M-G-M or the sophistication of Paramount was more than adequately compensated for by their presentation of everyday material...the working classes could identify with people,

20482-486: The years progressed, people seeking diversified amusement found an increasing number of ways to be entertained. Vaudeville was characterized by traveling companies touring through cities and towns. A handful of circuses regularly toured the country; dime museums appealed to the curious; amusement parks, riverboats, and town halls often featured "cleaner" presentations of variety entertainment; compared to saloons, music halls, and burlesque houses, which catered to those with

20636-444: Was 19 years old. The El Matador club became popular by booking pricey acts like Oscar Peterson , and its audience occasionally included celebrities such as Clint Eastwood , Frank Sinatra , and Marilyn Monroe . The Jazz Workshop became the premier club to hear jazz during the 1950s and 1960s when musicians like Miles Davis , Cannonball Adderley , and John Coltrane performed there. Comedian Lenny Bruce made headlines and opened

20790-585: Was a comedienne who got her start in Vaudeville and the Chitlin circuits in the 1920s, and ended up with mainstream success in the 20th century. Other 20th century women performers who started in Vaudeville included blues singers Ma Rainey , Ida Cox and Bessie Smith . Women-led touring companies like Black Patti's Troubadours , the Whitman Sisters and the Hyers Sisters were popular acts. Other women worked

20944-616: Was accepted to be a member of the Chicago Opera’s Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet corps de ballet. From December 1920 until the fall of 1922 Betty was a ballerina soloist and performed with them throughout North America. Under the name Buddye Felsen, Betty landed a starring dancing role in a new show at Fred Mann’s Million Dollar Rainbo Room in the Rainbo Gardens . The show, Rainbo Trail , directed by Frank Westphal , opened on 15 December 1922, and ran until 1 March 1923. In

21098-635: Was an American ballerina, vaudeville star, and teacher. She was born on 9 June 1905, in Chicago, IL Betty began taking lessons at a local Chicago ballet school when she was eight years old, and often performed solo dances in shows presented by that school. Just before her tenth birthday in 1916, her parents enrolled her as a ballet student with the Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet School within the Chicago Opera Association. Then, in 1919 Betty

21252-520: Was completely destroyed. LeRoy retained vivid mental images of the city's devastation: My memory is a kaleidoscope of pictures. I have always thought in visual terms and when I recall that morning of April 18, 1906, I see a mental album of tragic pictures...many years later in Quo Vadis , I shot the burning of Rome and I drew on my memories of the burning of San Francisco as a grim model. Reduced to virtual penury, father and son lived as displaced persons at

21406-518: Was elected as mayor to the first of 10 terms. Rolph, along with a new group of city supervisors and the business sector, was committed to reforming the Barbary Coast district. Just before election time in September 1913, William Randolph Hearst 's newspaper the Examiner , started a major crusade against the Barbary Coast and in a full page editorial suggested that it "should be wiped out." Ten days later,

21560-433: Was expanding. These expectations for women in the 19th century played a big role in the compelling aspects of vaudeville. Through vaudeville, many women were allowed to join their male counterparts on the stage and found success in their acts. Leila Marie Koerber, later Marie Dressler , was a Canadian actress who specialized in vaudeville comedy, and eventually won an Academy Award for Best Actress later in her career. Being

21714-428: Was made by Hollywood to describe the brutal reality of the criminal world." LeRoy's Little Caesar established the iconography of subsequent films on organized crime, emphasizing the hierarchy of family loyalties and the function of violence in advancing criminal careers. LeRoy's adroit cinematic handling of Robinson's Rico incrementally shifts initial audience response from revulsion at the character's homicidal acts to

21868-572: Was my first with sound. I had been watching the experiments with talkies with tremendous excitement...As a veteran of stage and vaudeville, I knew the value of the spoken and sung word. I understood dialogue, because I had been an actor...I couldn't wait until I had a change to direct a talking picture. LeRoy's early directing efforts at First National were largely limited to comedies. His movies from this period include Gentleman's Fate (1931) with John Gilbert (filmed at M-G-M studios), Tonight or Never (1931), with Gloria Swanson , High Pressure ,

22022-500: Was no abrupt end to vaudeville, though the form was clearly sagging by the late 1920s. Joseph Kennedy Sr. in a hostile buyout, acquired the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theatres Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theatres across the United States which had begun showing movies. The shift of New York City's Palace Theatre, vaudeville's center, to an exclusively cinema presentation on 16 November 1932,

22176-493: Was now used for comic relief on the vaudeville stage, where stereotypes of different ethnic groups were perpetuated. The crude stereotypes that emerged were easily identifiable not only by their distinct ethnic cultural attributes, but how those attributes differed from the mainstream established American culture and identity. Coupled with their historical presence on the English stage for comic relief, and as operators and actors of

22330-413: Was on 4 June 1928, at Broadway’s Palace Theater in New York City. Another famous comedienne, one who brought in thousands of audience members with her signature improvisational skills, was May Irwin . She worked from about 1875 to 1914. Originally born Ada Campbell, she began her life on the stage at thirteen years old following the death of her father. She and her older sister created a singing act called

22484-412: Was opened by Joseph Finocchio and was on Stockton Street. International Settlement 's club acts, with their can-can dancers and old-fashioned chorus girls, were unable to compete with the incredible talent and excitement of the emerging Broadway scene, and by the early 1960s their popularity had fallen below a critical level. But despite the brilliance and innovation of Broadway's entertainment scene of

22638-440: Was rivaled only by churches and public schools among the nation's premiere public gathering places. Another slightly different aspect of Vaudeville was an increasing interest in the female figure. The previously mentioned ominous idea of "the blue envelopes" led to the phrase "blue" material, which described the provocative subject matter present in many Vaudeville acts of the time. Many managers even saw this scandalous material as

22792-557: Was said that if an act would succeed in Peoria, Illinois , it would work anywhere. The question "Will it play in Peoria?" has now become a metaphor for whether something appeals to the American mainstream public. The three most common levels were the "small time" (lower-paying contracts for more frequent performances in rougher, often converted theatres), the "medium time" (moderate wages for two performances each day in purpose-built theatres), and

22946-460: Was simply a continuation of the circumstances that brought them to America. Through these acts, they were able to assimilate themselves into their new home while also bringing bits of their own culture into this new world. White-oriented regional circuits, such as New England 's "Peanut Circuit", also provided essential training grounds for new artists while allowing established acts to experiment with and polish new material. At its height, vaudeville

23100-444: Was soon hired as an extra on Cecil B. DeMille 's 1923 epic The Ten Commandments LeRoy credits Cecil B. DeMille, for inspiring him to become a director: "As the top director of the era, DeMille had been the magnet that had drawn me to his set as often as I could go." LeRoy also credits DeMille for teaching him the directing techniques required to make his own films. LeRoy worked intermittently in small supporting roles in film during

23254-575: Was spotted by stage star Theodore Roberts . A personable and attractive youth at age fourteen, LeRoy was engaged for a bit part in a 1914 stage production of Barbara Frietchie . Gratified by "that lovely feeling—audience approval", he performed in productions with the Liberty Theater in Oakland, playing the lead juvenile roles in Tom Sawyer and Little Lord Fauntleroy . As a 14-year-old, LeRoy carefully observed emerging screen star Charlie Chaplin at

23408-407: Was such that no man could be elected to public office unless he made a deal with Broderick to share half the profits from his office. As a result of these backroom deals, Broderick accumulated a large amount of wealth that strengthened his position as a powerful city boss. As news of the treasury's financial crisis became known, another even larger uprising of enraged citizenry occurred. James King,

23562-961: Was the case for Sherman H. Dudley and the Griffin Sisters Later, in the 1920s, many bookings were managed by the Theatre Owners Booking Association . African-Americans challenged the prevailing Blackface stereotypes played by white performers by bringing their own authenticity and style to the stage, composing music, comedy and dance routines and laying the groundwork for distinctly American cultural phenomena like blues , jazz , ragtime and tap dance . Notable Black entertainers in Vaudeville included comedians Bert Williams , and George Walker , dancer/choreographer Ada Overton Walker , and many others. Black songwriters and composers like Bob Cole , Ernest Hogan , Irving Jones , Rosamond Johnson , George Johnson , Tom Lemonier , Gussie L. Davis , and Chris Smith , wrote many of

23716-461: Was usually a murder every night and scores of robberies. And even while inside drinking establishments, a customer's property and life were never safe. Prostitution was so common on the Barbary Coast that it was referred to as the Paris of America. Drug addicts of the district could even buy cocaine or morphine at an all-night Grant Street drugstore for only two or three times the price of a beer. During

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