What's great about this documentary is that at the time this was made, a lot of those performers were still with us, and were able to recount and reminisce about their days in Vaudeville.
My great grandmother was one of Florence Ziegfeld's girls in the follies. Her husband was a grip working the stage during the elaborate performances. They traveled the country and did vaudeville road shows before settling down with a family. The performance bug got to the family and everyone on my father's side was a vaudeville performer. Drag shows, comedy skits, dance and music performances, you name it. The shed by the side of the house didn't hold yard tools..it held costumes, wigs and props. I only have one reel of footage from this side of the family, so it's nice to see what they could have been doing..it helps me understand where I come from.
That's amazing to hear, thank you for sharing! And the fact you have actual footage! I think it's great you get to have that reminder of your family's lineage, it's a very rare one indeed and you seem to be proud of it (as you should be). Did your immediate family ever do anything in show business or yourself? Or have you found yourself being drawn to such productions subconsciously or anything similar? I often think that children of such creative people have proclivities for such things. Random note about drag shows in Vaudeville - people don't know that gay rights were being fought for 100 years ago in NYC and Vaudeville. It wasn't the REASON for having drag in their shows but the activists did use it heavily. I don't mean to insert that as a political commentary or anything, just something to share. Regardless, the police were constantly at odds with performances being "too risque". My great grandfather 'Stan Stanley' worked with Mae West on "Pleasure Man" which was supposedly so offensive it made big news and that 1928 performance is what got Mae West dragged into court in 1930. You can find news on her story online quite easily now. Here's one I found rather quickly. bust.com/movies/194948-the-arrest-of-mae-west.html In the very last photo at the bottom, my great grandfather is the man immediately to the left of her. The only thing I have of him and his wife (who paired with him in their acts) is a giant folder full of flyers, newspaper clippings and even a letter he drafted for sending to Ole Olsen (big player in the scene back then). A submission of his was accepted by Ole and it was discussing making the production. That and a news portrait of my family, but it was missing one person - my grand mother. Written on the back was a note to the effect of "Couldn't find you, you were off with friends". Some other photo referred to Mae West as "Auntie Mae" (was just a nickname - no relation). I apologize if that's TL;DR, I didn't mean my response to be all about my stuff. Much of my meaning is, I bet your family has tons of stories brushing elbows with the stars of the time with all sorts of interesting tidbits. Especially in how it was all produced back then - that would be fascinating. I sometimes muse that if I had one wish, I'd like to have one day to spend with my grandparents and have them tell me all of their stories. Have you been able to find a way to digitize that reel you mentioned? Or anything else that you might have? That footage is precious, and I'm glad you have it but please preserve it and even upload it so it can at least float on the web for all time :)
An absolutely necessary understanding of America's intrinsic racism, industrialization, talent and entertainment development can only be gleaned through brilliantly produced documentaries such as this! With bittersweet reflection on the way Americans wanted to see themselves as being, rather than the way they were, The first hand interviews and memories of those still living performers, writers, and critics who made up the experience of Vaudeville are precious recordings that really make up the bulk of the treasure to be found within. With two ancestors of mine having worked in Vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies, and later, one a member of the Benny Goodman Orchestra, stories and reminisces told by grandparents and great aunts and uncles when I was little came to life in technicolor focus as this documentary took my imagination back in time to this wonderful, controversial, and important time in our history. Vaudeville is the story of Americans living in America told through the talents and creative imagination of the very people it celebrated. One of my favorite viewings on UA-cam to date.
Racism and segregation was real, but blackface wasn't the scourge throughout. White musicians wore it in protest on behalf of black musicians being banned from clubs. Here is something else I found: 'Democrats called white Republicans "radicals", lynched them along with blacks. Tuskegee Institute recorded that from 1882-1968 3,446 blacks, and 1,297 whites were lynched. Whites being "radical Republicans" who were caught registering freed blacks to vote."
Thanks for this. My mom started by wandering as a 6 year old into a San Francisco dance studio which was run by Gracie Allen's mom and sister. She had no money, but was clearly talented so they gave her free lessons. At 19 she joined the A.G. Barnes circus as a dancer. The Hawaiian "roustabouts" taught her the hula & when the circus folded, they all performed in the big hotel showrooms and then she went into Vaudeville. She never took off her clothes although she did perform a fan dance. At some point traveling from town to town her trunk of expensive costumes was stolen and immediately she gave it up and married my father. She never talked much about showbiz after that. I love Studs Terkel. He is much missed.
My mother was in a dance troupe called "The Silver Strutters"--all over 65. Among the group were 2 ex-vaudevillians--Maisie was 99, and could still do a mean Charleston. They were truly wonderful people--sang & danced old favourites at nursing homes & hospitals, told sweet but very funny jokes, did a lot of sitting & listening. (I was just their photographer)
My grandfather and his 3 sisters played in the movie theaters of Havana in the 1930's. He quit to marry my grandmother so the 3 sisters formed an all girl band that toured S.America. I wish I had talked to my great aunts more when they were around.
Vaudeville circuit reminds me of playing ing a working rock band in the 80s. Dumpy hotels, sleeping in cheap busses vans, 2 shows a night 4 or five nights a week. Just to put way some money for later. But damn it was fun. Best 3 yrs of my young life
Sure it was hard work and lousy pay but a lot of them stuck with it for the art. The performance of art is what many lived for. I had the pleasure of knowing a vaudevillian who went all the way back to the 1920's. This guy was one of the bigger acts and traveled all over the world. Sometimes he headlined and knew everyone who was anyone back in those days. World leaders, Royalty, famous performers and celebrities of other areas of society (for better or worse) as well as your average Joe. He dropped a lot of names and with those names he had stories. He showed me a photo of him sitting at a long table with the well-to-do at Walt Disney's mansion, with Walt himself sitting at the table! This is the kind of crowds he was associated with and that happened because of his own celebrity status as a stage performer thru Vaudeville. Show business was in his blood. When he was a young boy his baby sitter was Fanny Brice in Chicago. His parents knew her because his father once owned the Green Mill on the north side. A place where high musical acts performed for many decades. When he was a boy he won a dance contest on the lawn where the Uptown Theater now sits. A theater he would perform in himself later. When he took his act on the road he told me that they traveled in groups and whoever brought in the dough shared it and everyone ate and so they all worked as a team to survive. He told me that it was these folks who were the original rat packs as he called them. I saw old photos of him and he dressed sharp in Italian cut suites with shinny polished shoes. He was always ready and looking your best was key. Sometimes he did very well for himself and sometimes times were rough. During the Great Depression while he was in NYC he told me that sometimes you'd have to find a place to sleep if you couldn't afford a room. One of the places was Grants tomb in Riverside park. If you were late getting there then you'd have to sleep out on the grass and sometimes it rained. I can only imagine. He told me a story once where he said you could get a motel room and three square meals a day for a whole week for only $7 dollars back in the 1930's. SEVEN DOLLARS! Your lucky if you can get a burger, fries and a drink for that much today. That's how messed up inflation is! The cost of things where pretty affordable up until the early 1980's when Reaganomics took over. He use to cringe when I'd tell him how much something cost. His love for the stage was so strong that he skipped Hollywood when all of his friends went to become film stars. Names like Cagney, Lancaster and others. He was a true showmen. His last acts was working for Joe Saddlemier back in the 70's and 80's, who created those humous nationally televised commercials using old acts and funny people, one being the most famous characters of all, Ida, with the line she coined "wheeeeeeers's the beef!" for Wendy's commercial. He was in over 100 of Joe's commercials. He performed in NYC, all over these continents, many places around the world, and settled his act in Europe during the 1940s and 1950s, before coming back to America during the 1960's when vaudeville was on its last leg before it finally died out. He told me a ton of stories. He lived one of the most interesting lives I ever met. He passed about 15 years ago in Chicago at the age of 96. He was a true pleasure to hang out with. Everyone gave him respect.
Thanks for posting this. They had to be the best or they didn't eat. My favorites and still is Fanny Brice. Gracie Allen is also in there too. I must add June Havoc and her sister Gypsy Rose Lee both extremely talented in different ways. Eddie Cantor, Buster Keaton and Jack Benny are up there too.
I’m a diehard Fanny Brice fan too! I wish they would do another movie/musical that depicted her true life. I understand her daughter not wanting to air out her mother’s dirty laundry, sorta speak, but times are different now and there’s nothing to be ashamed of in my opinion. Gracie Allen was also a rare gem! I loved reading George Burns book “Gracie”.
Performers like The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, Laurel And Hardy, William Frawley and SO MANY MORE were blessed to be able to move on to the “new” technologies of film, radio and eventually TV….and WE were blessed as a result!
in reference to the last segment where they talk about modern day "channel surfers'...and how we create our own Vaudeville type of entertainment because of the variety we provide for ourselves: This brought to mind another conveyance for entertainment that is now gone, the TV variety show! I remember watching Dean Martin, Sonny And Cher, Flip Wilson and, the last two of the genre, The Donny And Marie Show and Barbara Mandrell And The Mandrell Sisters! You could say that those shows were very inspired by Vaudeville.....I think Television and we, as viewers, could really benefit from those kinds of shows making a comeback!
@@joanodom2104 I saw a couple dozen of Ed's shows when I was a boy back in the 60's. I remember seeing Tom Jones and The Doors perform as well as a number of other acts.
In many ways, "vaudeville" just moved to television. The same thing is happening to movies now in 2023. Audiences balked at paying money to see acts that they could see on television or hear on radio, well now, audiences are balking at paying money to see a movie in a theater when they could see it STREAMING on their flatscreen or laptop at home or on their phone! People will still pay to see top live performances like Cirque De Soleil or live concerts, but everything has to top notch to not see it at home.
The next time you happen upon something like the Renaissance Faire, take note of the stage shows like "Broon" or "Moonie" or even the acrobatic shows. Vaudeville still exists in these forms today and you'll find some of them even have lineage back to the original Vaudevillian days. While my great grandfather "Stan Stanley" wrote "The Pleasure Man" with Mae West and was one of the witnesses next to her in court in 1930 (NYC kept busting their plays), the theater tradition didn't make it through the generations due to family issues. But my grandmother always had stories about her father for me and I have a small treasure trove of keepsakes (Vaudeville fliers, photos, newspaper clippings, etc.). The furthest I ever got was indeed doing street theater gigs at the Faire (you could say it's low level performance as it's all improv but it takes good skill). Faire always felt like family to me and maybe there's something to all that. Even when you see the actual street performers in places like Hollywood, where Batman and Spiderman have a rap-off, that's Vaudeville people. It still lives in a slew of current forms. Throw a dollar in the hat, stick around and clap before you leave. What little is left should be appreciated.
Vaudeville is alive, it just went to onto TV & You tube & whatever media....On second thought, this is unique - no longer exists in this form. The type of acts & the way presented are a cultural niche in time - nothing quite like it now.....What a culture that was! And this presentation is top notch!
Here in my hometown of Ventura California, we have The Ventura Theater, now known as “The Majestic Ventura Theater”….it’s a somewhat scaled down version (although still very ornate) of the grand theater palaces built in the first part of the 20th century, such as the ones in the old theater district on Broadway in downtown LA and other areas of the country. It was built in 1928 to accommodate Vaudeville and the new “talkies”.
In the early 1990's, I was living in a rural smaller town area called Blackfoot, Idaho. I would stare at an old framed photo on the wall, a gathering of men wearing women's clothing. I always wondered what in the heck it was. Decades past, I moved out of Idaho but I found the picture again on an Idaho history FB page. There was a clue in the picture, a circus poster. People in the FB group helped me figure out the mystery, it was a Vaudeville group that was travelling thru Idaho by train, pre WW1. They had stopped in downtown Blackfoot and posed for the picture.
Most of the great vaudeville acts never crossed over to movies, radio and television, but all of the early classic movie stars were once in vaudeville. I believe that's how they became great, by honing their talent week after week in front of the best critics, the public. I also believe that such talent still exists today but they have no place to perfect that talent. Movies and music especially have become so homogeneous and lackluster not because of a lack of talent but a way for that talent to be seen and judged by the public in an affordable way. Now a record/movie production company decides what the public would like, and they're so out of touch that they're the last people who should have the power to decide. The movie industry alone is hashing out nothing but sequels, prequels and remakes. The economy is such that if they had a reemergence of a vaudeville style platform for entertainers, it would be sea change.
Its not that easy to switch from having a stage and projecting your voice out to an amphitheater to looking at a small camera staying in the restricted filming area. Also, magnetism on stage vs. the camera- not everyone can make the transition. In fact, not many major stars from the Silent Movie era could transition to sound films for similar reasons. Thats another documentary.
A lot of them chose not to move over to "Talkies" and stick to the stage, being left behind. This actually happened to my great grandparents who were close friends with Mae West. Mae tried fervently to get them to move to Hollywood for said Talkies but he chose to stay in New York on the stage (and also for his family). For a family where Mae West was referred to by my grandmother as "Auntie Mae", they simply disappeared into history even though they were headliners for a time in Vaudeville in NY. You can even find photos of them with Mae as ggfather wrote "Pleasure Man" with Mae and was part of the trial when she was arrested (his stage name was 'Stan Stanley'). So just imagine how many other people, even closer to Hollywood figures that made the same choice, and simply passed into obscurity. No doubt the tale of my great grandparents happened to thousands of these performers. It's interesting to think "what if" had he gone having such close ties to the industry at that point. My family may have ended up as a line of B-movie celebrities or some jank like that :P But then I likely also wouldn't be here for all I know. I find it amazing how decisions like that, a SINGLE decision of yes/no can alter one's family history forever in a completely different direction. I think anyone can find this in their own family history quite honestly and it's fun as a thought experiment I suppose :)
The world owes a HUGE amount of gratitude to the Jewish people for improving comedy. From Lenny Bruce to Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers to Fanny Brice, as a comic myself, I fell in love with Ernie Kovacs when I was seven years old! 😄 Vaudeville, the Catskills and Yiddish theatre altered the course of comedy. I, for one, am eternally grateful.
Comedy is oft borne of adversity. Myself, I was very bullied and I learned early to disarm them with humor and they'll stop kicking you. 😬 African American comics and the Jews have been through hell, historically. My Jewish and black buddies are, hands down, able to crack me up with just one LOOK. Comedy beats hell outta taking Prozac (for me, anyway). Cheers, all.
I was thinking of the Marx brothers when you mentioned the Jewish influence on vaudeville. That of course is where they made their start. And what an impact they had.
Most American popular culture seems to have come from the Jews, the Blacks and the Gays; without them there'd be Charles Ives (who I love) and Stephen Foster. Ok, I'm exaggerating; but there's some truth in there.
@@Pstephen I'd include the Irish who were at one time banned from many public places, jobs, and restaurants. James Cagney, Bertie O'hearn come to mind. The English music halls too: Bob Hope, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire
Great history lesson! What The People find entertaining/sensational tells us a story about the society, culture, and human condition from another era. How else to understand them?
@@inkyguy They have a PBS documentary too if you can find it. After touring in Europe in the early 1950s, one of the brothers chose to stay and remain in France till the late 60s. Didn't want to deal with the disgusting racism of American society. They were treated with DIGNITY in Europe.
When you hear of the kind of money one could earn in vaudeville, then the premise on “I Love Lucy” that Fred and Ethel were retired vaudeville entertainers who had used their savings to buy a brownstone walk-up apartment building in Manhattan to support themselves for the rest of their lives makes a lot of sense.
An article I found online which appeared in "Everybody's Magazine," 1905, says, "I should say that not less than $10,000,000 represents the salaries paid to vaudeville performers in this country every year, and that the public pays considerably more than twice that amount for its vaudeville entertainment. I am sure that this rough estimate is under, rather than over, the actual figures." In today's dollars, that's close to $380 million. When they worked, vaudeville paid well, but work was very unsteady and the competition was fierce. The same article says, "So great is the demand for really good acts that salaries are steadily advancing. There seems to be no limit to the price managers are willing to pay. Of late years the former vaudeville performers who have gone on the 'legitimate' stage as stars have frequently returned, at least for a part of a season, and many distinguished 'two-dollar stars,' as vaudeville managers designate those from the 'legitimate' stage, have been drawn into vaudeville. These, including the two or three people who assist them in a one-act sketch, may receive at first from $1,000 to $1,500 a week, because they will attract many who have not been in the habit of going to vaudeville theatres. Managers have learned that the established vaudeville performers almost always please more than the distinguished high-priced star, and the casual visitor who sees them usually becomes a regular patron. If the 'two-dollar' star remains in vaudeville, his salary is likely to drop nearly half unless he makes an exceptional success." Interesting article, and great video!
THIS IS FANTASTIC!!! Thanks a million! Can anyone tell me how all of these clips of Vaudeville acts come to us? They are clearly filmed. Lucky us! At least, most of them don't look like the performer is live in a theatre.
From my understanding when silent film started to became popular it was pushing Vaudeville to the back door. The filmmakers needed to put ppl in theater seats so what better way than filming the solid acts from Vaudeville that had a history of filling theaters. Some of the acts translated well to film & certain Vaudevillians like Charlie Chaplain & Buster Keaton grasped & developed this new art really well becoming some of the first major film celebrities. Because of this we now have historical film documenting these long lost stage acts.
@@Dang3rMouSe You are very kind. I know that movies began to kill vaudeville. But, I wonder why they needed to fill the seats IF silent films were so very popular? I'm still confused, but I certainly appreciate your information. Thanks so much!
So many talented acts performing live to their audiences. Each with their own unique style of entertainment. Such an exciting time to be in show business! Loved by people from all walks of life, from small towns to large cities from ordinary people to Presidents.
My mom was a ballet dancer….she brought me up in theater….my parents exposed me to show business at an early age….i got to see backstage at plays concerts and recitals …..I learned it’s all about creating the hype then the show if the show is engaging then the people will eat it up…..THEY WANT TO BE ENTERTAINED…..SO GIVE THEM A SHOW…..BIG MOVES BIG PASSION = BIG APPLAUSE 🎉
It’s gratifying that so much has been preserved for future generations, however I do have to question what the people of those times considered entertainment, but then I’ve heard rap.
1:14:47 "The Duncan Sisters were vaudevilles last minstrels". The Black and White Minstrel Show ran on television from June 14th 1958 until July 21st 1978. They also had a touring company which performed in theatres, beginning in 1960 and continuing through to 1989. Meanwhile Vivian Duncan had died of Alzheimers at the age of 89 in 1986 (surviving her older sister Rosetta by 27 years).
in the 60s there were multiple variety shows like Vaudeville, I think the last I can remember resembling it was Hee Haw with southern skits through out the program.
The word Vaudeville has sneaked into UK English, Britain never had Vaudeville they had Music Hall which was more high class. I love documentaries such as this, including the British series on silent movies.
Vaudeville performers would put together a 7-10 minute act and some spent years polishing it till they could rely on it “going over” (succeeding) with the audience. Think of stand-up comedy open mics, where comedians put together a “tight 10” (10 min. of material that “kills” the audience-making them laugh). I think the whole vaudeville shows only lasted 60-90 mins. total. So doing it 6-8 times per day was normal “on the circuit” - traveling from town to town, city to city through the months the houses were open. (I don’t think 12 was a realistic number) The acts that became big names who played the best houses (like the Palace in Chicago & New York) changed their act every season (fall through spring, since vaudeville houses were closed during summers, very similar to theater seasons today). The big names like Fred & Adele Astaire, George Burns & Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, W.C. Fields, The Marx Brothers, Houdini, The Three Keaton’s-featuring Buster, etc., would perform only matinee & evening performances at the best theaters. They got paid more so they could work less frequently. But the ordinary acts that never made it big, (and all the acts when they first started) just survived with enough to get them through winters & summers when theaters were dark. These acts would do the same bits (songs, dances, comedy routines, magic tricks, etc.) in smaller houses in every city and town that the trains stopped in. Some performers did the same acts year after year. They got around by train, and in cities, by trolley. The number of shows per day were a like movie showtimes now (though movies now are 2+ hrs, so they can only have 3-4 per day on each screen). Most vaudeville houses became movie houses in the late 1920s & ‘30s. Their movie showing times were based on the old vaudeville showtimes. And movies were only 60-70 minutes for most of the silent film era. Only big, major titles like Abel Vance’s Napoleon ran for 2 hrs. Once sound came in around ‘29, features ran for around 90 mins. This time slot schedule carried over to radio shows, & eventually to TV (so, the 60-90 min. program became the standard on TV that we still have today, for nighttime talk shows (think Colbert, Kimmel, Meyer, etc.) which are the last remnant of the TV variety shows that vaudeville morphed into. So while I don’t think 12 was likely, 6-8 was probably the standard.
@@boointhelotus5332 Thank you for that history of Vaudeville, was very interesting, certainly was not easy on those that didn't make it big, the traveling alone would kill me. Some of those acts were quite marvelous regardless how many times they trained to learn them. Recently watched Paul Whiteman, King of Jazz and he had a number of short players on, they were very entertaining (especially the 'girl slapping guy' routine) love it. Guy playing fiddle was also great. I thought that show Whiteman did was far ahead of it's time.
Molly Picon. I think of the Car 54 episodes. She would be trying to match up Muldoon or someone else and would always be up against the NYC government and winning. She was very funny in those roles!!
Why didn't they include the names of all the people interviewed? Only some names appeared - but not all. Why? Also, great choice having Ben Vereen narrate this!
1. I don't think I've ever seen Gypsy Rose Lee's little sister (June Havoc) in a documentary 2. That clip with Trixie Friganza singing about the hula girl has to be one of the strangest songs I've ever heard, and believe me, I've heard many.
P.S. Al Jolson said, "you ain't heard nothin' yet," and blacked up to say so... (my own grandfather sang in a barbershop quartet in the 1930s as a young man and he and his fellow singers, all white folks, blacked up, too....I remember asking my dad why Grandpa would do that. Daddy explained that was just how people entertained back then).
People who favor old bookshop'smay find a copy of Fred Allen's memoir "Much Ado About Me." The characters deal ing with his years in Vaudeville. He recounts the condition s and the personality who made it.
Lucy Ball was a riot in real life at times. Claimed that she didn't know Vaudeville was pretty much "dead" by 193O, she forgot to put bananas in banana splits working behind the counter of a drug store!
Ginger Rogers pretty much "kept" her real name: Ginger came to be because her little neice couldn't pronounce "Virginia" Legend says that Ginger and Lucy Ball were distant cousins - both born in 1911
These articulate have their career and lives destroyed now. We need to get back to when we could laugh at ourselves, instead taking everything and everyone so seriously. What we need to "wake up to" is how miserable we are making ourselves now
I read once that the world almost never heard of the Nicholas Brothers because there were some folks who didn't want them filmed or seen in or on anything mainstream. They were actively trying to destroy children! Can you believe it?! Sad.... What I feel bad for is all you didn't get to see. The people in this video were only the ones who got famous enough to be filmed. There was a ton of talent that never got the spotlight....
I have to take exception to Fayard Nicholas and his comment about limited roles for them as a Black Dance Team. What they did was so specialized, they could not be "mainstreamed" into a love story in the way that Fred Astaire, or Bing Crosby, or Gene Kelley could. Their pyrotechnic dancing separated them, not the color of their skin. Having said that, it must be admitted that Racism in America most likely did limit the roles available to them. Remember, in the South, scenes presenting Black characters were routinely cut from the film.
I was thinking that a dance act, no matter how good, could not carry a picture. Fred Astaire had to sing and act as well as dance, so did James Cagney and other dancers. A pure dance act might appear in a picture but it could not be built around them.
@@mrdanforth3744 Good point. As good as the Nicholas Brothers were with dance it would not be sufficient to carry a film. But I can't help but wonder if Racism did in fact limit roles available to them, as Fayard claims.
@@StevenTorrey I'm sure it did. Do you know where the term "Wasp" comes from? It came from a Jewish movie studio executive in the thirties who reminded his staff of writers, directors etc. that the movies are a mass market product and in the United States the market is predominantly white, Anglo saxon and Protestant. Needless to say things have changed since then but movie executives still worry about mass market appeal, and a movie that aimed at a small audience has little chance of being made.
Oh my gosh, who is that @25:40? I've always heard of Gypsy Rose Lee and seen her famous fan dance. this dance is so lovely. i was also wondering, given that many family histories are simply lost thru time or embarrassment that "GGrandma was on the stage", how many ppl don't have a clue about their ancestors' participation in this art form?
My maternal grandfather and grandmother met in Vaudeville. She was a dancer in the chorus line and he and his brother had a headliner act. From the stories I heard, they loved every minute of it.
Vaudeville was the fire under the ' great melting pot' from which emerged the American sense of humor, good spirited, self effacing , ethnic humor. " Laugh at me, I'm German, or Irish, or Jewish, or Black.......... but you wouldn't be laughing if you didn't understand what I am saying."
What's great about this documentary is that at the time this was made, a lot of those performers were still with us, and were able to recount and reminisce about their days in Vaudeville.
They would have loved UA-cam
You should watch the British documentary on silent films. All the people were still alive from infront of and behind the camera. It on UA-cam.
@@bostonblackie9503 Please post that UA-cam address. I'd like to check it out.
What year did this come out?
@@ilahildasissac1943 Oct '99.
My great grandmother was one of Florence Ziegfeld's girls in the follies. Her husband was a grip working the stage during the elaborate performances. They traveled the country and did vaudeville road shows before settling down with a family.
The performance bug got to the family and everyone on my father's side was a vaudeville performer.
Drag shows, comedy skits, dance and music performances, you name it. The shed by the side of the house didn't hold yard tools..it held costumes, wigs and props. I only have one reel of footage from this side of the family, so it's nice to see what they could have been doing..it helps me understand where I come from.
What a wonderful legacy!
That's amazing to hear, thank you for sharing! And the fact you have actual footage! I think it's great you get to have that reminder of your family's lineage, it's a very rare one indeed and you seem to be proud of it (as you should be). Did your immediate family ever do anything in show business or yourself? Or have you found yourself being drawn to such productions subconsciously or anything similar? I often think that children of such creative people have proclivities for such things.
Random note about drag shows in Vaudeville - people don't know that gay rights were being fought for 100 years ago in NYC and Vaudeville. It wasn't the REASON for having drag in their shows but the activists did use it heavily. I don't mean to insert that as a political commentary or anything, just something to share.
Regardless, the police were constantly at odds with performances being "too risque".
My great grandfather 'Stan Stanley' worked with Mae West on "Pleasure Man" which was supposedly so offensive it made big news and that 1928 performance is what got Mae West dragged into court in 1930. You can find news on her story online quite easily now. Here's one I found rather quickly.
bust.com/movies/194948-the-arrest-of-mae-west.html
In the very last photo at the bottom, my great grandfather is the man immediately to the left of her.
The only thing I have of him and his wife (who paired with him in their acts) is a giant folder full of flyers, newspaper clippings and even a letter he drafted for sending to Ole Olsen (big player in the scene back then). A submission of his was accepted by Ole and it was discussing making the production. That and a news portrait of my family, but it was missing one person - my grand mother. Written on the back was a note to the effect of "Couldn't find you, you were off with friends". Some other photo referred to Mae West as "Auntie Mae" (was just a nickname - no relation).
I apologize if that's TL;DR, I didn't mean my response to be all about my stuff. Much of my meaning is, I bet your family has tons of stories brushing elbows with the stars of the time with all sorts of interesting tidbits. Especially in how it was all produced back then - that would be fascinating. I sometimes muse that if I had one wish, I'd like to have one day to spend with my grandparents and have them tell me all of their stories.
Have you been able to find a way to digitize that reel you mentioned? Or anything else that you might have? That footage is precious, and I'm glad you have it but please preserve it and even upload it so it can at least float on the web for all time :)
Please, if you haven't already, convert to digital & upload the video here on YT for posterity.
I would also love to see the footage!
Florenz (not Florence) Ziegfeld.
This episode is an episode of American Masters, a PBS documentary series, first broadcast 26 Nov. 1997.
An absolutely necessary understanding of America's intrinsic racism, industrialization, talent and entertainment development can only be gleaned through brilliantly produced documentaries such as this! With bittersweet reflection on the way Americans wanted to see themselves as being, rather than the way they were, The first hand interviews and memories of those still living performers, writers, and critics who made up the experience of Vaudeville are precious recordings that really make up the bulk of the treasure to be found within. With two ancestors of mine having worked in Vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies, and later, one a member of the Benny Goodman Orchestra, stories and reminisces told by grandparents and great aunts and uncles when I was little came to life in technicolor focus as this documentary took my imagination back in time to this wonderful, controversial, and important time in our history. Vaudeville is the story of Americans living in America told through the talents and creative imagination of the very people it celebrated. One of my favorite viewings on UA-cam to date.
Racism and segregation was real, but blackface wasn't the scourge throughout. White musicians wore it in protest on behalf of black musicians being banned from clubs. Here is something else I found:
'Democrats called white Republicans "radicals", lynched them along with blacks.
Tuskegee Institute recorded that from 1882-1968 3,446 blacks, and 1,297 whites were lynched. Whites being "radical Republicans" who were caught registering freed blacks to vote."
Which worked with Ziegfeld? My great grandmother was one of his girls and her husband (my great grandfather) was a grip doing the stage work.
Thanks for this. My mom started by wandering as a 6 year old into a San Francisco dance studio which was run by Gracie Allen's mom and sister. She had no money, but was clearly talented so they gave her free lessons. At 19 she joined the A.G. Barnes circus as a dancer. The Hawaiian "roustabouts" taught her the hula & when the circus folded, they all performed in the big hotel showrooms and then she went into Vaudeville. She never took off her clothes although she did perform a fan dance. At some point traveling from town to town her trunk of expensive costumes was stolen and immediately she gave it up and married my father. She never talked much about showbiz after that. I love Studs Terkel. He is much missed.
My mother was in a dance troupe called "The Silver Strutters"--all over 65. Among the group were 2 ex-vaudevillians--Maisie was 99, and could still do a mean Charleston. They were truly wonderful people--sang & danced old favourites at nursing homes & hospitals, told sweet but very funny jokes, did a lot of sitting & listening. (I was just their photographer)
My grandfather and his 3 sisters played in the movie theaters of Havana in the 1930's. He quit to marry my grandmother so the 3 sisters formed an all girl band that toured S.America. I wish I had talked to my great aunts more when they were around.
now I know there is a difference between a geek and a regurgitator
53:55
Interviewer: "Were the plays that were done in vaudeville...were they very good plays?"
Ancient Man: "No." 🤣
Vaudeville circuit reminds me of playing ing a working rock band in the 80s. Dumpy hotels, sleeping in cheap busses vans, 2 shows a night 4 or five nights a week. Just to put way some money for later. But damn it was fun. Best 3 yrs of my young life
Yup, former Heavy Metal and Hip Hop acts from the 80s and 90s have similar stories.
Sure it was hard work and lousy pay but a lot of them stuck with it for the art. The performance of art is what many lived for. I had the pleasure of knowing a vaudevillian who went all the way back to the 1920's. This guy was one of the bigger acts and traveled all over the world. Sometimes he headlined and knew everyone who was anyone back in those days. World leaders, Royalty, famous performers and celebrities of other areas of society (for better or worse) as well as your average Joe. He dropped a lot of names and with those names he had stories.
He showed me a photo of him sitting at a long table with the well-to-do at Walt Disney's mansion, with Walt himself sitting at the table! This is the kind of crowds he was associated with and that happened because of his own celebrity status as a stage performer thru Vaudeville.
Show business was in his blood. When he was a young boy his baby sitter was Fanny Brice in Chicago. His parents knew her because his father once owned the Green Mill on the north side. A place where high musical acts performed for many decades. When he was a boy he won a dance contest on the lawn where the Uptown Theater now sits. A theater he would perform in himself later.
When he took his act on the road he told me that they traveled in groups and whoever brought in the dough shared it and everyone ate and so they all worked as a team to survive. He told me that it was these folks who were the original rat packs as he called them.
I saw old photos of him and he dressed sharp in Italian cut suites with shinny polished shoes. He was always ready and looking your best was key. Sometimes he did very well for himself and sometimes times were rough. During the Great Depression while he was in NYC he told me that sometimes you'd have to find a place to sleep if you couldn't afford a room. One of the places was Grants tomb in Riverside park. If you were late getting there then you'd have to sleep out on the grass and sometimes it rained. I can only imagine.
He told me a story once where he said you could get a motel room and three square meals a day for a whole week for only $7 dollars back in the 1930's. SEVEN DOLLARS! Your lucky if you can get a burger, fries and a drink for that much today. That's how messed up inflation is! The cost of things where pretty affordable up until the early 1980's when Reaganomics took over.
He use to cringe when I'd tell him how much something cost. His love for the stage was so strong that he skipped Hollywood when all of his friends went to become film stars. Names like Cagney, Lancaster and others. He was a true showmen. His last acts was working for Joe Saddlemier back in the 70's and 80's, who created those humous nationally televised commercials using old acts and funny people, one being the most famous characters of all, Ida, with the line she coined "wheeeeeeers's the beef!" for Wendy's commercial.
He was in over 100 of Joe's commercials. He performed in NYC, all over these continents, many places around the world, and settled his act in Europe during the 1940s and 1950s, before coming back to America during the 1960's when vaudeville was on its last leg before it finally died out.
He told me a ton of stories. He lived one of the most interesting lives I ever met. He passed about 15 years ago in Chicago at the age of 96. He was a true pleasure to hang out with. Everyone gave him respect.
Wow, were you lucky to know him! Thank you for sharing this with us.
What was his name?
Thanks for posting this. They had to be the best or they didn't eat. My favorites and still is Fanny Brice. Gracie Allen is also in there too. I must add June Havoc and her sister Gypsy Rose Lee both extremely talented in different ways. Eddie Cantor, Buster Keaton and Jack Benny are up there too.
I’m a diehard Fanny Brice fan too! I wish they would do another movie/musical that depicted her true life. I understand her daughter not wanting to air out her mother’s dirty laundry, sorta speak, but times are different now and there’s nothing to be ashamed of in my opinion. Gracie Allen was also a rare gem! I loved reading George Burns book “Gracie”.
So many, as you Google it!
Was Molly Picon a vaudey?
I think William Frawley, Fred on I Love Lucy, was an old song and dance man as well.
They sure did work hard for the money and tough life on the road
Thank you so much for this. It was amazing to see that so many of the original performances survived.
Performers like The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, Laurel And Hardy, William Frawley and SO MANY MORE were blessed to be able to move on to the “new” technologies of film, radio and eventually TV….and WE were blessed as a result!
Blown away by this documentary. Thanks.
in reference to the last segment where they talk about modern day "channel surfers'...and how we create our own Vaudeville type of entertainment because of the variety we provide for ourselves: This brought to mind another conveyance for entertainment that is now gone, the TV variety show!
I remember watching Dean Martin, Sonny And Cher, Flip Wilson and, the last two of the genre, The Donny And Marie Show and Barbara Mandrell And The Mandrell Sisters!
You could say that those shows were very inspired by Vaudeville.....I think Television and we, as viewers, could really benefit from those kinds of shows making a comeback!
Ed Sullivan launched a lot of careers on those Sunday night shows, didn't he? He was NOT the average presenter, but it worked!
@@joanodom2104 I saw a couple dozen of Ed's shows when I was a boy back in the 60's. I remember seeing Tom Jones and The Doors perform as well as a number of other acts.
Yes. Jackie Gleason, Ed Sullivan, Smothers Brothers, Carol Burnet, and more!
In many ways, "vaudeville" just moved to television. The same thing is happening to movies now in 2023. Audiences balked at paying money to see acts that they could see on television or hear on radio, well now, audiences are balking at paying money to see a movie in a theater when they could see it STREAMING on their flatscreen or laptop at home or on their phone! People will still pay to see top live performances like Cirque De Soleil or live concerts, but everything has to top notch to not see it at home.
The Muppet Show was pure vaudeville.
The next time you happen upon something like the Renaissance Faire, take note of the stage shows like "Broon" or "Moonie" or even the acrobatic shows. Vaudeville still exists in these forms today and you'll find some of them even have lineage back to the original Vaudevillian days.
While my great grandfather "Stan Stanley" wrote "The Pleasure Man" with Mae West and was one of the witnesses next to her in court in 1930 (NYC kept busting their plays), the theater tradition didn't make it through the generations due to family issues. But my grandmother always had stories about her father for me and I have a small treasure trove of keepsakes (Vaudeville fliers, photos, newspaper clippings, etc.). The furthest I ever got was indeed doing street theater gigs at the Faire (you could say it's low level performance as it's all improv but it takes good skill). Faire always felt like family to me and maybe there's something to all that.
Even when you see the actual street performers in places like Hollywood, where Batman and Spiderman have a rap-off, that's Vaudeville people. It still lives in a slew of current forms. Throw a dollar in the hat, stick around and clap before you leave. What little is left should be appreciated.
watched the whole thing. thanks for transferring it to here
Vaudeville is alive, it just went to onto TV & You tube & whatever media....On second thought, this is unique - no longer exists in this form. The type of acts & the way presented are a cultural niche in time - nothing quite like it now.....What a culture that was! And this presentation is top notch!
Here in my hometown of Ventura California, we have The Ventura Theater, now known as “The Majestic Ventura Theater”….it’s a somewhat scaled down version (although still very ornate) of the grand theater palaces built in the first part of the 20th century, such as the ones in the old theater district on Broadway in downtown LA and other areas of the country.
It was built in 1928 to accommodate Vaudeville and the new “talkies”.
Even in Vancouver, Canada, we had a theatre row which had many houses, some very ornate and gorgeous: The Stanley, the Orpheum, the Strand...
Arthur Tracy's voice - even in his eighties - was simply astounding! What a treasure that man was.
a favorite of my Grandmother, who was born in 1900.
Great documentary. I really enjoyed learning about that era of entertainment.
This is an interesting excellent documentary worth every minute of watching 👀 👌 👍 👏 🙌 😀
Fabulous documentary ❤️ loved learning about vaudeville
Very interesting, informative and worthwhile video.
Thank you! This is fascinating
Love this documentary
Thank you for sharing this!
My pleasure!
Really good production. Thank you.
What beautiful people! This doc is exhilarating and heartwarming (and -wrenching).
GREAT DOCUMENTARY ! WEDNESDAY 10/5/22 OCTOBER 5, 2022
In the early 1990's, I was living in a rural smaller town area called Blackfoot, Idaho. I would stare at an old framed photo on the wall, a gathering of men wearing women's clothing. I always wondered what in the heck it was. Decades past, I moved out of Idaho but I found the picture again on an Idaho history FB page. There was a clue in the picture, a circus poster. People in the FB group helped me figure out the mystery, it was a Vaudeville group that was travelling thru Idaho by train, pre WW1. They had stopped in downtown Blackfoot and posed for the picture.
Most of the great vaudeville acts never crossed over to movies, radio and television, but all of the early classic movie stars were once in vaudeville. I believe that's how they became great, by honing their talent week after week in front of the best critics, the public. I also believe that such talent still exists today but they have no place to perfect that talent. Movies and music especially have become so homogeneous and lackluster not because of a lack of talent but a way for that talent to be seen and judged by the public in an affordable way. Now a record/movie production company decides what the public would like, and they're so out of touch that they're the last people who should have the power to decide. The movie industry alone is hashing out nothing but sequels, prequels and remakes. The economy is such that if they had a reemergence of a vaudeville style platform for entertainers, it would be sea change.
Its not that easy to switch from having a stage and projecting your voice out to an amphitheater to looking at a small camera staying in the restricted filming area. Also, magnetism on stage vs. the camera- not everyone can make the transition. In fact, not many major stars from the Silent Movie era could transition to sound films for similar reasons. Thats another documentary.
A lot of them chose not to move over to "Talkies" and stick to the stage, being left behind. This actually happened to my great grandparents who were close friends with Mae West. Mae tried fervently to get them to move to Hollywood for said Talkies but he chose to stay in New York on the stage (and also for his family). For a family where Mae West was referred to by my grandmother as "Auntie Mae", they simply disappeared into history even though they were headliners for a time in Vaudeville in NY. You can even find photos of them with Mae as ggfather wrote "Pleasure Man" with Mae and was part of the trial when she was arrested (his stage name was 'Stan Stanley').
So just imagine how many other people, even closer to Hollywood figures that made the same choice, and simply passed into obscurity. No doubt the tale of my great grandparents happened to thousands of these performers.
It's interesting to think "what if" had he gone having such close ties to the industry at that point. My family may have ended up as a line of B-movie celebrities or some jank like that :P But then I likely also wouldn't be here for all I know. I find it amazing how decisions like that, a SINGLE decision of yes/no can alter one's family history forever in a completely different direction. I think anyone can find this in their own family history quite honestly and it's fun as a thought experiment I suppose :)
The world owes a HUGE amount of gratitude to the Jewish people for improving comedy. From Lenny Bruce to Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers to Fanny Brice, as a comic myself, I fell in love with Ernie Kovacs when I was seven years old! 😄 Vaudeville, the Catskills and Yiddish theatre altered the course of comedy. I, for one, am eternally grateful.
Comedy is oft borne of adversity. Myself, I was very bullied and I learned early to disarm them with humor and they'll stop kicking you. 😬 African American comics and the Jews have been through hell, historically. My Jewish and black buddies are, hands down, able to crack me up with just one LOOK. Comedy beats hell outta taking Prozac (for me, anyway). Cheers, all.
I was thinking of the Marx brothers when you mentioned the Jewish influence on vaudeville. That of course is where they made their start. And what an impact they had.
Most American popular culture seems to have come from the Jews, the Blacks and the Gays; without them there'd be Charles Ives (who I love) and Stephen Foster.
Ok, I'm exaggerating; but there's some truth in there.
@@pashadyne, don’t lose your day job.
@@Pstephen I'd include the Irish who were at one time banned from many public places, jobs, and restaurants. James Cagney, Bertie O'hearn come to mind. The English music halls too: Bob Hope, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire
I never knew the closing acts were usually bad so the theatres would clear out early. What a wonderful collection of interviews, clips and info.
Great history lesson!
What The People find entertaining/sensational tells us a story about the society, culture, and human condition from another era. How else to understand them?
This was a good watch. Thank you
Its been on a vhs for so long .Happy to have finally transferred it .
The Nicholas Brothers were truly great.
They take my breath away. Watching films of them can bring tears to my eyes because of their absolute genius.
@@inkyguy They have a PBS documentary too if you can find it. After touring in Europe in the early 1950s, one of the brothers chose to stay and remain in France till the late 60s. Didn't want to deal with the disgusting racism of American society. They were treated with DIGNITY in Europe.
THIS IS PHENOMENAL!! THANK YOU!!!
Thanks for getting this up here. That was lovely. I believe I'd still pay good money to watch those two fellows in closing credits.
Are they the Nicholas Brothers? I think the NB were of the same height, though. Anybody know?
Way before my time,but I love it. More please
Love this documentary I learn alot.
When you hear of the kind of money one could earn in vaudeville, then the premise on “I Love Lucy” that Fred and Ethel were retired vaudeville entertainers who had used their savings to buy a brownstone walk-up apartment building in Manhattan to support themselves for the rest of their lives makes a lot of sense.
That was a brownstone walk-up?!? I always thought it was a highrise from that window in the living room.
I came here in wonder to know what is this vaudeville that the likes of Tiny Tim, Alice Cooper and Davy Jones keep referring to.
fantastic thanks for such a great upload for us artists its a wonderful inspiration.
An article I found online which appeared in "Everybody's Magazine," 1905, says, "I should say that not less than $10,000,000 represents the salaries paid to vaudeville performers in this country every year, and that the public pays considerably more than twice that amount for its vaudeville entertainment. I am sure that this rough estimate is under, rather than over, the actual figures." In today's dollars, that's close to $380 million. When they worked, vaudeville paid well, but work was very unsteady and the competition was fierce. The same article says, "So great is the demand for really good acts that salaries are steadily advancing. There seems to be no limit to the price managers are willing to pay. Of late years the former vaudeville performers who have gone on the 'legitimate' stage as stars have frequently returned, at least for a part of a season, and many distinguished 'two-dollar stars,' as vaudeville managers designate those from the 'legitimate' stage, have been drawn into vaudeville. These, including the two or three people who assist them in a one-act sketch, may receive at first from $1,000 to $1,500 a week, because they will attract many who have not been in the habit of going to vaudeville theatres. Managers have learned that the established vaudeville performers almost always please more than the distinguished high-priced star, and the casual visitor who sees them usually becomes a regular patron. If the 'two-dollar' star remains in vaudeville, his salary is likely to drop nearly half unless he makes an exceptional success."
Interesting article, and great video!
I've already seen several Bugs Bunny, Loony Tunes, and Mickey Mouse skits in the first 40 minutes!
THIS IS FANTASTIC!!! Thanks a million! Can anyone tell me how all of these clips of Vaudeville acts come to us? They are clearly filmed. Lucky us! At least, most of them don't look like the performer is live in a theatre.
From my understanding when silent film started to became popular it was pushing Vaudeville to the back door. The filmmakers needed to put ppl in theater seats so what better way than filming the solid acts from Vaudeville that had a history of filling theaters.
Some of the acts translated well to film & certain Vaudevillians like Charlie Chaplain & Buster Keaton grasped & developed this new art really well becoming some of the first major film celebrities.
Because of this we now have historical film documenting these long lost stage acts.
@@Dang3rMouSe You are very kind. I know that movies began to kill vaudeville. But, I wonder why they needed to fill the seats IF silent films were so very popular? I'm still confused, but I certainly appreciate your information. Thanks so much!
So many talented acts performing live to their audiences. Each with their own unique style of entertainment. Such an exciting time to be in show business! Loved by people from all walks of life, from small towns to large cities from ordinary people to Presidents.
OMG Rubie Blake! The house of I’ll repute! I loved him and will miss him forever.
My mom was a ballet dancer….she brought me up in theater….my parents exposed me to show business at an early age….i got to see backstage at plays concerts and recitals …..I learned it’s all about creating the hype then the show if the show is engaging then the people will eat it up…..THEY WANT TO BE ENTERTAINED…..SO GIVE THEM A SHOW…..BIG MOVES BIG PASSION = BIG APPLAUSE 🎉
...that littlest Nicholas brother had such dancing eyes !!!!!
It’s gratifying that so much has been preserved for future generations, however I do have to question what the people of those times considered entertainment, but then I’ve heard rap.
Its crap for the masses ultimately for social engineering purposes. Read the protocols of zion.
This is awesome thanks for sharing!!
June Havoc had a wonderful speaking voice; she lived to 97, too
Gus Visser and his Singing Duck. LMAO!!! I love quacking ducks
I’ve been going to pantos since I can remember, I absolutely love them! I think it’s a very British thing .
1:14:47 "The Duncan Sisters were vaudevilles last minstrels". The Black and White Minstrel Show ran on television from June 14th 1958 until July 21st 1978. They also had a touring company which performed in theatres, beginning in 1960 and continuing through to 1989. Meanwhile Vivian Duncan had died of Alzheimers at the age of 89 in 1986 (surviving her older sister Rosetta by 27 years).
Great to hear from Carl Ballantine, never would have heard of him if not for "McHale's Navy", but I always wondered if he began in Vaudeville.
I think the majority of sitcom comedians from the '50s, '60s and '70s were Vaudeville alumnus.
Ooooh no. I’m in the rabbit hole.
in the 60s there were multiple variety shows like Vaudeville, I think the last I can remember resembling it was Hee Haw with southern skits through out the program.
The word Vaudeville has sneaked into UK English, Britain never had Vaudeville they had Music Hall which was more high class. I love documentaries such as this, including the British series on silent movies.
The British "Panto" was never high class. The Dame and some guy in horse costume?!?!?
'continued their act up to a dozen times a day' - are you kidding me? Who in the name of Ra could do their act 12 times in one day? Insane!
Vaudeville performers would put together a 7-10 minute act and some spent years polishing it till they could rely on it “going over” (succeeding) with the audience. Think of stand-up comedy open mics, where comedians put together a “tight 10” (10 min. of material that “kills” the audience-making them laugh). I think the whole vaudeville shows only lasted 60-90 mins. total. So doing it 6-8 times per day was normal “on the circuit” - traveling from town to town, city to city through the months the houses were open. (I don’t think 12 was a realistic number) The acts that became big names who played the best houses (like the Palace in Chicago & New York) changed their act every season (fall through spring, since vaudeville houses were closed during summers, very similar to theater seasons today). The big names like Fred & Adele Astaire, George Burns & Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, W.C. Fields, The Marx Brothers, Houdini, The Three Keaton’s-featuring Buster, etc., would perform only matinee & evening performances at the best theaters. They got paid more so they could work less frequently. But the ordinary acts that never made it big, (and all the acts when they first started) just survived with enough to get them through winters & summers when theaters were dark. These acts would do the same bits (songs, dances, comedy routines, magic tricks, etc.) in smaller houses in every city and town that the trains stopped in. Some performers did the same acts year after year. They got around by train, and in cities, by trolley. The number of shows per day were a like movie showtimes now (though movies now are 2+ hrs, so they can only have 3-4 per day on each screen). Most vaudeville houses became movie houses in the late 1920s & ‘30s. Their movie showing times were based on the old vaudeville showtimes. And movies were only 60-70 minutes for most of the silent film era. Only big, major titles like Abel Vance’s Napoleon ran for 2 hrs. Once sound came in around ‘29, features ran for around 90 mins. This time slot schedule carried over to radio shows, & eventually to TV (so, the 60-90 min. program became the standard on TV that we still have today, for nighttime talk shows (think Colbert, Kimmel, Meyer, etc.) which are the last remnant of the TV variety shows that vaudeville morphed into. So while I don’t think 12 was likely, 6-8 was probably the standard.
@@boointhelotus5332 Thank you for that history of Vaudeville, was very interesting, certainly was not easy on those that didn't make it big, the traveling alone would kill me. Some of those acts were quite marvelous regardless how many times they trained to learn them. Recently watched Paul Whiteman, King of Jazz and he had a number of short players on, they were very entertaining (especially the 'girl slapping guy' routine) love it. Guy playing fiddle was also great. I thought that show Whiteman did was far ahead of it's time.
Sun Ra
Molly Picon. I think of the Car 54 episodes. She would be trying to match up Muldoon or someone else and would always be up against the NYC government and winning. She was very funny in those roles!!
In the late 70’s Atlanta a building demolition exposed an adjacent brick side with Vaudeville Advertisement.
Why didn't they include the names of all the people interviewed? Only some names appeared - but not all. Why?
Also, great choice having Ben Vereen narrate this!
Yeah. We all wanted to know their names. But thanks a lot for the upload.
00:40 - My gosh, what was Gus doing to that duck?!
Very first scene…. Was that a duck sound, or the actual voice?
Excellent upload 👍
GREAT DOCUMENTARY.LOTS OF RESEARCH.FOR THOSE WHO COMPLAIN THE FILM'S ARE FUZZY.THIS IS VERY OLD FOOTAGE. FANTASTIC!!😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃
It's crazy that "Cary Me Back to Old Virginny" Was VA's state song until 1997!
Thank you.
Jolson never sang "Mammy" in vaudeville. He actually spent a very short time in vaudeville as an adult.
A wonderful history it is
1. I don't think I've ever seen Gypsy Rose Lee's little sister (June Havoc) in a documentary
2. That clip with Trixie Friganza singing about the hula girl has to be one of the strangest songs I've ever heard, and believe me, I've heard many.
P.S. Al Jolson said, "you ain't heard nothin' yet," and blacked up to say so... (my own grandfather sang in a barbershop quartet in the 1930s as a young man and he and his fellow singers, all white folks, blacked up, too....I remember asking my dad why Grandpa would do that. Daddy explained that was just how people entertained back then).
42:32 That joke still hits 100+ years later
So this is where all my weird co-workers came from when moving pictures came along.
Oh; to have a time machine!
TV ruined socializing. Musicians. People entertaining each other face to face.
41:41 immediately looked this guy up. he was full blooded italian 😑
Make America Vaudeville again
People who favor old bookshop'smay find a copy of Fred Allen's memoir "Much Ado About Me." The characters deal ing with his years in Vaudeville. He recounts the condition s and the personality who made it.
Lucy Ball was a riot in real life at times. Claimed that she didn't know Vaudeville was pretty much "dead" by 193O, she forgot to put bananas in banana splits working behind the counter of a drug store!
I do an act called The Junkshop Philosopher that keeps getting compared to vaudeville so checked this out. Fantastic documentary.
ua-cam.com/video/UKKTUGqJVOk/v-deo.htmlsi=f8T6zdmO0LQdwXCG
I can't believe this documentary left out the immortal Kid Jersey. He invented the term 'thank you,' for pete's sake.
Ginger Rogers pretty much "kept" her real name: Ginger came to be because her little neice couldn't pronounce "Virginia" Legend says that Ginger and Lucy Ball were distant cousins - both born in 1911
These articulate have their career and lives destroyed now. We need to get back to when we could laugh at ourselves, instead taking everything and everyone so seriously. What we need to "wake up to" is how miserable we are making ourselves now
Studs Terkrel in the house!
I read once that the world almost never heard of the Nicholas Brothers because there were some folks who didn't want them filmed or seen in or on anything mainstream. They were actively trying to destroy children! Can you believe it?! Sad.... What I feel bad for is all you didn't get to see. The people in this video were only the ones who got famous enough to be filmed. There was a ton of talent that never got the spotlight....
Is LeVar Burton from Reading Rainbow the narrator?
I have to take exception to Fayard Nicholas and his comment about limited roles for them as a Black Dance Team. What they did was so specialized, they could not be "mainstreamed" into a love story in the way that Fred Astaire, or Bing Crosby, or Gene Kelley could. Their pyrotechnic dancing separated them, not the color of their skin.
Having said that, it must be admitted that Racism in America most likely did limit the roles available to them. Remember, in the South, scenes presenting Black characters were routinely cut from the film.
I was thinking that a dance act, no matter how good, could not carry a picture. Fred Astaire had to sing and act as well as dance, so did James Cagney and other dancers. A pure dance act might appear in a picture but it could not be built around them.
@@mrdanforth3744 Good point. As good as the Nicholas Brothers were with dance it would not be sufficient to carry a film. But I can't help but wonder if Racism did in fact limit roles available to them, as Fayard claims.
@@StevenTorrey I'm sure it did. Do you know where the term "Wasp" comes from? It came from a Jewish movie studio executive in the thirties who reminded his staff of writers, directors etc. that the movies are a mass market product and in the United States the market is predominantly white, Anglo saxon and Protestant. Needless to say things have changed since then but movie executives still worry about mass market appeal, and a movie that aimed at a small audience has little chance of being made.
who is the girl with the ukulele at 35:24?
It was the tic tock of its day.
When a symphonic orchestra is playing Mozart or Beethoven where does they ask the (so called) rights from?
@43:10: That looks like a scene from "the Exorcist".
Anybody know when this documentary was made? I’m just curious. Thanks for posting it!
Look above in comments: I think it was 1997-ish
Oh my gosh, who is that @25:40? I've always heard of Gypsy Rose Lee and seen her famous fan dance. this dance is so lovely. i was also wondering, given that many family histories are simply lost thru time or embarrassment that "GGrandma was on the stage", how many ppl don't have a clue about their ancestors' participation in this art form?
My maternal grandfather and grandmother met in Vaudeville. She was a dancer in the chorus line and he and his brother had a headliner act. From the stories I heard, they loved every minute of it.
It was the best of times....it was the worst of times..
JOE FRISCO.WOW.I SEE WHERE JAMES BROWN , MICHAEL JACKSON, M.C.HAMMER GOT SOME OF THEIR STUFF.
it hit an off beat at 43:00 ... but 54:00 might be the actual funniest thing I've seen in a video, at all.
Vaudeville was the fire under the ' great melting pot' from which emerged the American sense of humor, good spirited, self effacing , ethnic humor. " Laugh at me, I'm German, or Irish, or Jewish, or Black.......... but you wouldn't be laughing if you didn't understand what I am saying."
Who is that girl in the "dumb bull" skit.🤩