Let’s get a few things straight immediately. Selfridge was obsessed with all things beautiful, this included glamorous women. He also had a passion for gambling and was quite reckless. Thankfully, all of these traits are vividily portrayed in the TV show Mr Selfridge. So why is his demise and eventually downfall blamed on others, specifically the beautiful Dolly Sisters?

I have noticed in the press and online continued misleading headlines such as the latest ‘The saucy sisters who ruined Selfridge’ with the added bite of ‘they helped bring about his eventual downfall’. Let’s face it, such headlines do sell papers and make people read but they are not totally accurate or fair.

Put simply Selfridge’s fall from grace and his ruination must be attributed to himself, no other.

Prior to the death of his wife he was known to have several ‘affairs’ with glamorous women, most notably Ann Pavlova, Isadora Duncan, Elinor Glyn and Gaby Deslys. But when his wife died in 1918 and then his mother in 1924, he became even more reckless with his affection and money.

On meeting the Dolly Sisters when they were performing at the Kit-Kat Club in London in the summer of 1925 he was entranced and thus began a nearly ten-year romance with Jenny. No, he did not have a relationship with both twins, since Rosie was already engaged a wealthy French socialite and businessman. Jenny was the object of his affection and he did shower her with expensive gifts, property, shares and aid her in a business venture. Their attraction was also re-enforced by their mutual love of gambling.

This is the best description of their relationship ‘I should say that he saw at least part of his own daring and acquisitive image reflective in her tingling absorption in games of chance. She may have seen in him the father image, approving her daring.’

As Selfridge grew older his passion for gambling became more intense and was in fact a substitute sexual life. At the gambling tables, Selfridge, the business genius with the coolest head and the strongest nerves, had a unique system of betting when he was with Jenny. Whether they won or lost made a great difference to him financially. He always covered the losses, while Jenny kept any winnings, and the stakes sometimes ran into four figures. At the same time he also hosted parties in France that surpassed anything he had ever staged in London; to some the lavishness verged on the vulgar, with too much food and too much champagne. No wonder, as the years rolled past, his debts increased.

The Dolly Sisters website

For the full story of the Dolly Sisters and Mr Selfridge read The Dolly Sisters: Icons of the Jazz Age out now in paperback and e-book editions.

Amazon.co.uk e-book

The Daily Mail feature 28th January 2013

paperback (from marketplace sellers on Amazon.co.uk)

 Amazon.com e-book

paperback (from marketplace sellers on Amazon.com)

Apple i-tunes e-book (search for the title)

 An interesting feature about Sex & Shopping: The Story of Gordon Selfridge

The rags to riches story of identical twins Jenny and Rosie is set against the glittering backdrop of high society in America and Europe before the onset of the Second World War. They had a colourful life where nature’s duplicity enabled a highly successful career as dancers which made them ‘stars’. And yet, lurking behind their glamorous story of fame, fortune, mistaken identity, millionaires, love and sisterly devotion – that made them legends – is another of rivalry, duplicity and tragedy.

The Dolly Sisters is a dizzying cocktail of delight, extravagance and pathos. Teeming with fantastic and fascinating stories from the Jazz Age of the twenties and thirties, it tells a true story every bit as dramatic and engrossing as the best fiction and includes sections on Jenny’s ‘liaisons’ with David Prince of Wales and Mr Selfridge – now the subject of a glamorous TV series.

A revised edition of my biography about the glamorous Dolly Sisters with many more photographs is now ready in paperback and ebook versions.The e-book versions and the paperback are now live and available from:

Amazon.co.uk e-book

paperback (from marketplace sellers on Amazon.co.uk)

Amazon.com e-book

paperback (from marketplace sellers on Amazon.com)

Apple i-tunes e-book (search for the title)

Praise for The Dolly Sisters (published in Hardback as The Delectable Dollies)

‘They seduced tycoons, Kings and even the Prince of Wales with their exotic dance routines. But… the Dolly Sisters’ quest for fame and fortune had devastating consequences.’ Daily Mail

‘Forget Kylie Minogue for pure unadultrated glamour because two sisters held that crown before she shook her derriere at audiences around the World.’ Sunday Express

‘The Queens of Twenties and Thirties cafe society, with more diamante than you could shake a feather at.’ Tatler

‘A potent cocktail given due weight in Chapman’s effervescent biography.’ The Good Book Guide

‘A well-researched, informative biography.’ Gay Times

‘A labour of love…. Chapman is scrupulous in not presenting speculation as fact… By not probing too deeply, (he) is at least consonant with the period, for the Dollies inhabited a curiously innocent, pre-freudian world.’ Sunday Telegraph

‘A thoroughly researched story of the beautiful twenties twins, as remarkable for their social as their theatrical life.’ The Stage

‘Jenny and Rosie outshone everyone in exuberance and high living. If celebrity is a devalued currency these days, then they were the gold standard. But their glittering lives also reflect the potentially tragic nature of the pursuit of fame and fortune.’ Daily Mail

Canadian by birth, the thrifty and ambitious Louis Sherry originally opened an ice cream and candy store before giving Delmonico’s a run for their money by opening a salubrious restaurant in 1890 that became one of the most famous culinary landmarks in New York until the advent of prohibition.

Louis Sherry

Louis Sherry was born in St Alban’s Virginia. His father was a carpenter of French descent and his mother a member of an old Vermont family. Louis spoke fluent French. At an early age he went to Montreal and got a job as a general helper in a hotel and with savings arrived in New York and got a job at the old Brunswick Hotel, at 26th Street and 5th Avenue as a bus boy and then a waiter. His attention to detail and charm made him very popular. He moved to the Hotel Elberon, in New Jersey running the dining room for two summers and in the summer of 1881 he rose to the important post of maître d’hotel. He shrewdly cultivated the acquaintance of the hotel’s rich and prominent New York patrons. Deftly and efficiently he talked to the men he had been serving and began to exercise his remarkable facility for making friends and for holding onto them. He told men like Henry Clews, FR Coudert & William B. Dinsmore of his dream to establish his own enterprise and they all told him they would support it.

At the end of the season, and on these assurances, Sherry had saved $1,300 and with this he returned to New York and opened a small ice cream and confectionary shop at 662 6th Ave on the south side of 38th Street in late 1881. In the basement was his ice cream and pastry shop and a main kitchen, on the ground floor was the confectionery shop and restaurant, and on the third and fourth floors were the confectionery kitchens. Sherry himself lived on the second floor. As business increased over the years he leased the basement of an adjoining building for his widely expanding catering arm.

Sherry’s first large scale enterprise came in 1883 when he gained the contract to furnish refreshments for a gala fair at the new Metropolitan Opera House with a lunch, a table d’hote dinner and a later supper which was a huge success. Next, came a churchly affair for Bishop Potter’s luncheon for 400 and at the end of September 1885 he captured the Badminton Assembly one of the smartest social events of the season. Thereafter he co-ordinated a huge affair at Columbia College, Madison Ave at 49th street on 13 April 1887 for 2,000 people. These contracts set him up as a well-known caterer and his reputation grew year by year and he quickly became a real New York institution.

Sherry’s philosophy was simple ‘I do not let anything go out of my house that was not made in the best possible way, out of the best and most expensive materials on the market’ he also learned that ‘nothing goes further with dainty people than dainty decorations.’ When the Mikado came to New York, Sherry cornered the market with Japanese parasols and ornaments for decorating cream and cakes. Sherry saw that his success could be achieved by stressing the novelties of service. As he became more successful he went to Paris to discover the latest innovations and originated ideas for his growing business.

As New York grew, so grew its ideas of truly elegant entertainment. Outgrowing his original premises, Sherry decided to move his establishment. Although Martin’s and Maison Doree were a thorn in the side of Delmonico’s, Sherry’s now became a major threat when he opened his new restaurant in 1890 at 5th Ave at the corner of 37th street in a building that had been the property of the Goelet family. The building was totally re-modelled with a large and small ballroom and a small restaurant

Magnificent and opulent, one notable feature was the spacious, large 70 square foot ballroom that outshone in splendour, the somewhat tarnished red and gold 50 square foot ballroom of Delminico’s at 26th Street. Sherry’s immediately captured some of the season’s smartest dance affairs and become equal with Delmonico’s in the stakes of the smartest restaurant in New York but, not to be caught out, the latter promptly redecorated their ballroom in an elaborate Louis Quinze style.

Although Delmonico’s had started the trend of staging private functions, Sherry excelled at persuading New York society that it was more distinctive to have private dinners, dances, and other events such as bringing out daughters under his roof rather than in their own palatial dining rooms and ballrooms. He also caught the fancy of women with his introduction of the 5pm tea – at that hour the elite trooped to his dining room to sip tea and gossip. By 1891 Sherry’s was one of the socially select ballrooms that season and became patronised by members of New York’s 400. One interesting event in May 1896 was a Tableaux Vivants given for the benefit of the Mount Vernon Association (which sought to preserve the home of Washington) in the white and gold ballroom with 600 tickets sold and well known society women posing for the tableaux.

However, Delmonico’s and Sherry’s were no longer the only venues favoured by the sophisticated set and the opening of the Waldorf-Astoria in 1893 rivalled both. The night life and high life of New York had steadily been moving northward for sometime and when Delmonico’s moved uptown to 5th Ave and 44th Street in 1897, Sherry followed suit and opened across the street on 10 October 1898 in the south-west corner of 5th Ave and 44th street.

The new twelve storey building was a splendid structure built by Stamford White at a cost of $2,000,000, featuring the usual luxury. There was a large restaurant on the 5th avenue frontage and at the back on 44th street was the men’s grill that became popular as a lunching place and at night it became a popular rendezvous for informal and formal dinners. Upstairs was a splendid ballroom and other private rooms and above the living quarters of many distinguished New Yorkers.

For the next twenty years New York’s great capitals of food and good service existed side by side. One season Sherry’s would be the rage, the next Delmonico’s and then the Waldorf – the pendulum of social popularity swung back and forward. However, Sherry’s program for catering to the ultra fashionable became secure when Mrs Astor decided to give a ball at Sherry’s and it became the scene of many more elaborate dinners, dances, debutante presentations and other functions. In the large ballroom were staged some of the most important public dinners of the period.

For example, in January 1911 there was a fanciful costume ball – one of the largest and smartest semi-public balls ever given – with some of the most prestigious members of New York society in resplendent attire: Mrs Stuyvesant Fish in Louis XV Court dress and Mrs French Vanderbilt as Princess Lamballe maid of honour to Marie Antoinette. Later in December 1911, the first of two regular winter Cinderella dances was staged at Sherry’s. Dinners preceded the dance and a cotillion led by leading society figures started at 9 o’clock.

Then on 17 May 1919 came the end of an era. Sherry announced the closure of his 5th avenue palace. Sherry claimed it was due to prohibition and what he called ‘war-born bolshevism’ of waiters (he felt it was growing difficult to get the right, polite staff) that lowered the quality of service. The contents of the restaurant were auctioned for $291,000 and the Waldorf-Astoria bought his four Lille tapestries for $61,000. The $250,000 stock of wines disposed off to old customers. In retrospect the real cause was not prohibition, nor the bolshevism of waiters. In part it was the passing of the prestige of 5th avenue and in part the fickleness of the fashionable who flocked to new venues on Madison and Park avenues.

But this was not the end of Sherry’s enterprises. He opened a confectionary shop at Park Ave and 58th Street with a syndicate of wealthy men including members of the du Pont Hotel Group with a branch in Paris. This new venue was primarily for catering and the manufacture and sales of candies and pastries
But did have a small restaurant serving light lunches and afternoon teas.

With the construction of the new splendid, Grand Central station a new smart Park Avenue emerged and in late 1921 Sherry opened a new restaurant at 300 Park Ave on two floors of an eighteen storey apartment hotel. There was a large formal restaurant and a small informal one on the ground floor, ballrooms above and then fourteen stories of ninety living apartments. The main restaurant had a collection of Sixteenth century tapestries valued at $200,000.

A little later Louis Sherry Incorporated was formed, a $400,000 corporation to carry out new business in alliance with the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel which will put the Sherry Service into the hotel. The Waldorf-Astoria also took over the regular social functions previously held at Sherry’s.

Louis Sherry retired and died at the Hotel Ambassador aged 71 on the 9 June 1926 but his business and legacy carried on. The new Louis Sherry Inc built a new tower on the site of the former Netherland Hotel situated at the northeast corner of 5th avenue and 59th street and the new Sherry-Netherland tower – thirty-nine stories in height, with two restaurants – opened in 1927. Next, a Louis Sherry shop was opened at 35th street and 5th that met the luncheon and tea necessities of downtown shoppers. Another new shop opened at Madison Ave and 62nd street in an impressive two storied building designed in the modern mode of simplicity and charm. The Sherry Table of Delicacies was established here and many unique items were sold such as cavier, olive oil, pate, coffee and foie gras. Although Sherry had opened a Paris shop before he died, a new one opened at the Rond Point on the Champs Elysees.

Known in the USA and Europe as ‘the two birds of Paradise’, the Dodge Twins sang, danced and dressed as birds and whistled. They seemingly emerged out of nowhere in the mid-20s with a singing and dancing act that took Europe by storm.

The Dodge Twins in La Grande Folie at the Folies Bergere, Paris, 1928

Beth and Betty Dodge were born Dora Beth and Betty in Sprague, Washington in about 1909. From San Francisco, they made their stage debut on the coast where they appeared as dancers in picture house presentations. Despite their limited stage experience, their allure as a twin sister act emulating the hugely successful Dolly Sisters, made them a valuable property. In July 1925, while performing in New York, they were signed by a booking agent called Karl Lindsay for two years and agreed to appear in London and Europe. This was the making of their career.

Chaperoned by their mother Dorothy, and at the rather tender age of 16, they arrived in Southampton aboard Mauretania from New York on 21 December 1925 and stepped into Julian Wylie’s musical Turned Up at the New Oxford in January 1926. A peppy show ‘beloved of the young moderns’ it was based on a farcical situation whereby a brother and sister discover they have two mothers and two fathers. It was ‘full of jolly tunes, super-speed dancing, topical humour and gorgeousness’. The leads were Jack Melford, Lupino Lane, Vesta Sylva and Anita Elson while Danny Graham and the Dodge Twins provided speciality dancing numbers.

In the ‘Castles in Spain’ scene with Miss Giannina Doria and a chorus costumed in Spanish dresses, the Dodge Twins appeared in ‘some striking creations’ designed by Dolly Tree. One of these costumes had a train designed on the principle of a peacock tail either to trail on the ground or to stand up as a background for the wearers. Turned Up did well at the New Oxford, but after 90 performances, any chance of a longer run was terminated when the freehold of the theatre was sold and as a result the show was sent out as two touring companies.

The Dodge Twins meanwhile had already been snapped up by C.B. Cochran and had been doubling in his new cabaret show at the Trocadero Grill Room called Supper Time (that ran from February until October) with stunning costumes designed by Doris Zinkeisen. The show featured Kingsley Lark as compere and vocalist along with the Mathano Brothers (comedy skaters), Danny Graham (eccentric dancer also from Turned Up) and Marjorie Robertson. There were three main ensembles: ‘Scotch and Irish’, ‘Venetian Carnival’ with a series of delightful eighteenth century venetian costumes and ‘The Progress of the Dance’ which started with the graceful minuet of 1816 and was followed by the waltz of 1859, the polka of 1885 and finished with the jazz dances of the time. The Stage thought that Dodge Twins act were ‘the usual American ‘sister’ one, unmusical, high speed, bizarre’ but added that they were ‘full of pep’.

The Dodge Twins in cabaret, London, 1926

At the same time the sisters were also featured in The Empress Rooms (in the fashionable Royal Palace Hotel in Kensington) in their one-off Sunday night cabarets along with Hatch and Carpenter (an act like Layton and Johnson), Huxter brothers (comic acrobats) and Carr and Parr (eccentric comedians).

By the early summer of 1926, the Dodge Twins had left Cochran’s Supper Time show and had joined the management of the New Princes Restaurant. This prestigious cabaret venue in Piccadilly had taken a three-year lease on the old Karsino casino on Tagg’s island in the Thames near Hampton Court, and after refurbishment, re-opened as The Palm Beach on 8 May 1926.

The intention was to convert this island into a miniature version of Palm Beach, Florida by placing thousands of tons of sand, palm trees, sunshades, beach chairs and a fleet of motor-boats, punts and canoes for river merrymakers. Guests were picked up from central London and conveyed by motorcar free of charge, although one wonders how much admission, lodgings and refreshments cost.

Beaumont Alexander, MD of the New Princes put on a nightly show in the famous ballroom featuring Jack Smith, an American gramophone and radio star known as ‘the whispering baritone’ singing the latest American popular songs, Frank Masters, White Bud, the horse with a human mind, the dancer Terpsichore, Jean Rai and Alfredo’s band. The Dodge Twins delighted audiences with their ‘Peacock dance’ from Turned Up. But the experiment in creating an out-of-town summer rendezvous simply did not catch on.

The Dodge Twins in Herman Haller's An Und Aus (In and Out) at the Admiral Palast, Berlin, 1927

On 12 July the Dodge Twins began a short season at the Coliseum variety theatre in London before leaving for Berlin. On 18 August 1926, they opened in Herman Haller’s spectacular revue An Und Aus (In and Out) at the Admiral Palast, Berlin along with La Jana, Alice Hechy, Trude Hesterberg and Ruth Zackey. The show ran through until 22 March 1927 and was then transferred to the Apollo Theatre, Vienna (25/3/27 – 28/4/26) and in a theatre in Dresden for a short run from 1 May 1927 (in which the Sisters did not appear). During their stay in Berlin they were lured into German movies and appeared in Conrad Wiene’s Unter Ausschlub Der Offentlichkeit (1927) and Willi Wolff’s Dei Schonsten Beine von Berlin (1927).

Arriving back in New York they secured a run at the Palace Theatre in vaudeville before a short tour of the Orpheum vaudeville circuit from mid April 1927. Variety observed ‘they played over here without attracting attention but abroad they caught on with a bang’ and thought they had ‘class’. The act seemingly was derived from some of their ‘turns’ in London and Berlin and included a boy and girl flirtation number in German, a sort of dance while seated in chairs, a whistling number and an odd routine of splits. They sang in German, French and English terminating with their own ideas of a dance number by twins. They seemingly toured through the early part of the summer and in mid-May jumped from Philadelphia to Oakland, California opening at the Orpheum Theatre.

Back in New York they headed across the Atlantic once more aboard Mauretania arriving in Southampton 23 August 1927 and took up their parts in the new musical Oh Kay staged at His Majesty’s Theatre from 21 September 1927. With music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse it had originally opened on Broadway in 1926, with Gertrude Lawrence and Victor Moore. The London run, a year later, also starred Gertrude Lawrence with John Kirby. The plot revolved around the adventures of the Duke of Durham and his sister, Lady Kay, English bootleggers in Prohibition Era America. Kay finds herself falling in love with a man who seems unavailable. The Dodge Twins were given dramatic parts in the production as the Ruxton Twins besides offering their usual dance routines. According to Theatre World, the dancing of the Dodge Twins was the best non Gertrude Lawrence feature.

By October, the Kit Cat club had secured them to double in their prestigious cabaret in the Haymarket, but the management of His Majesty’s stopped them and a row broke out about their contract which the twins claimed allowed them to perform in cabaret. Clearly they were not able to get out of the enforcement and so left the show at the end of the year (they were replaced by the Tosh Twins) with perhaps the biggest accolade and highlight of their career to date – star billing at the Folies Bergere in Paris, an engagement that they landed by sheer luck.

The Dodge Twins in La Grande Folie, Folies Bergere, Paris, 1928

Despite assurances in late 1927, following serious illness, that the Dolly Sisters would retire, they had signed to headline in the new Folies Bergere show in January 1928. Seemingly they must have been able to wriggle out of their contract because at the last minute the Dodge Twins took their place in La Grande Folie that opened 8 February 1928.

As usual for the Folies Bergere, La Grande Folie was a huge production with 2 acts and 60 tableaux produced by Louis Lemarchand with a host of stars including Smolinska, Randall, Colette Jove, Tamara and Roberts and Georgie Graves. Oddly, the Dodge Twins only appeared in three scenes: Passez Muscade (Hey Presto) with Randall; A Tire D’Ailes (On the Wing) as feathered canaries and Les Elegantes aux Eventails (the Elegant Fans). Perhaps because they stepped into the Dolly Sisters shoes at the last minute this was all that could be rehearsed and staged given the time constraints.

The show achieved the usual success and the Dodge Twins swiftly became part of the American contingent in Paris and in June 1928 took part in the American ball at Claridges with fellow Americans Harry Pilcer, Miss Florence and Gypsy Rhoumage.

After nearly two years in Europe the Dodge Twins returned to New York aboard Majestic ready to appear in the Shubert revue A Night in Venice (21/5/29 – 10/29) at the Shubert Theatre. Staged by Busby Berkeley, the show also starred Ted Healy and Ann Seymour and featured the Chester Hale troupe and the Allan K. Foster Girls. The Dodge Twins were featured in six numbers : a dancing introduction; Fans; the Grand Staircase; the Lido Shores; Loose Ankles and Lessons in French.

After their success for the Shubert’s they seemingly returned to vaudeville and then in early February were hired by MGM to appear in a big all star cast musical. The story of the making of this film is fascinating. Metro’s part-Technicolor cavalcade of the entertainment business from 1890s to the present was originally called From Broadway to Heaven but renamed The March of Time (production 462). The plot concerned three generations of one family, the Hacketts, a popular literary and stage theme of the period and had a vast cast including Van and Schenck, Weber and Fields, Marie Dressler, The Duncan Sisters and dozens of other leading players. It was planned to make the film in two sections: the past and the present.

Filming began on ‘the past’ segment in December 1929 and stopped at the beginning of February 1930 while additional numbers were added to ‘the present’ sequence. This included The Dodge Sisters in two numbers ‘A Girl, a Fan, and a Fella’ and ‘Lock Step Prison’ and sequences with the Albertina Rasch dancers and production resumed.

During filming the title was changed again to The Revue of 1930 and it was completed in June 1930. However, when previewed there were serious concerns about the film in light of a sharp decline in audience interest in musical films and the fact it was thought that many of the vaudeville performers did not register well and lacked screen technique. MGM decided against releasing the film and planned instead to cut up the musical numbers for interpolation in musical shorts.

At the end of March 1931, MGM released a German Version of the film called Wir Schalten Un Auf Hollywood (We Are Switching Gears to Hollywood) containing three of the 2-Strip Technicolor numbers ‘Lock Step’ and ‘The Fan Episode’ with the Dodge Sisters and ‘Poor Little G String’ with the Albertina Rasch Girls. One wonders if this release had anything to do with the fact that the Dodge Twins had been highly successful in the Haller revue in Berlin a few years earlier. However, this was not the end of the story and in 1933, MGM revived the production with a new cast playing the original characters and some of the original footage retained. It was released as Broadway to Hollywood in September 1933.

Back in New York in the spring of 1930, the Dodge Twins resumed their vaudeville engagements and during these shows Beth met Clarence Stroud (also a twin and in a stage act with his brother Claude and both 22, born in 1907). Both Claude and Clarence had been married before. Clarence had been married to Betty Wheeler (previously married to Bert Wheeler, the comedian for 11 years). Betty had insisted that Clarence split with Claude in their dancing act and that they should develop their own act. Sadly, it was not a success and Clarence returned to his brother. Betty gained a divorce. Claude had been married to another twin called Thelma White but had divorced in December 1929 because she could never be sure whether she was giving her affections to Claude or Clarence. In fact she got fed up having Clarence around all the time.

When Clarence married Beth in May 1930, Beth announced that when they finished their current engagements she would leave the stage behind and become a housewife. Claude beleived that twins were a bad matrimonial risk and told the happy couple his opinion. ‘They ought not to have done it. It’s risky enough for ordinary people to get married these days but when anybody marries a twin the risk is prohibitive. Don’t I know? I am a twin myself. And when a twin marries another twin it is simply flying in the face of providence. I ought to know.’ Later, he forgot his words advice and in 1941 married twin Gloria Brewster. Beth’s marriage to Clarence was all too brief and within a short space of time the couple were divorced as Claude predicted.

In early 1931, the Dodge Twins were lured back to vaudeville once again in a new act assisted by Jack Allen and Moe Kent. Their routine was well mounted and beautifully costumed and included their bird imitations and whistling in an attractive spring-time woodland scene. Despite performing through the Spring, in May1931 the Dodge Twins filed a petition of bankruptcy with $4863 liabilities.

Then the following year on 15 May 1932, Beth remarried Clarence in San Francisco and had two children Beth (born 1933) and Charles (born 1936). Things did last the second time around and in April 1938 living with her parents in Chicago, Mrs Clarence Stroud won her second divorce from her talkative radio-comedian husband on grounds of cruelty and was granted $30 weekly for her two children.

A surprising British feature film released in 1923 was Bertram Phillips’ The School For Scandal starring Queenie Thomas based on a well-known British stage play by Richard Sheridan.

Queenie Thomas in School for Scandal

When it was announced that Bertram Phillips was to film an adaptation of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s amusing comedy of manners, some said he had courage and enterprise others audacity and impudence. One critic decided that in selecting the subject he should be accused of having pluck rather than nerve. It was agreed that it was not an easy play to transfer to the screen since it had an intricate plot and was concerned with manners and conversation and not action.

The original stage production was launched in 1777 at the Drury Lane Theatre and had been hugely popular and successful being revived more than 70 times before it was adapted for the screen. The story was regarded as a perfect picture of the period and considered by some to be the greatest comedy of manners in the English language with a deep insight in human nature.

Bertram Phillips was a well-known character in the film trade who emerged as MD of the Holmfirth Producing Company formed in October 1915. Holmfirth leased Cherry Kearton’s studio at Cranmer Court, Clapham the following year, that had one dark stage 45 x 30 ft and was under a railway bridge. Here, Phillips produced a number of moderately long dramas toward the end of the war that featured his leading lady Queenie Thomas (a Welsh actress and singer) the last of which was Meg O’the Woods (February 1918). Thereafter, Phillips joined Butcher’s Film Service as producer for a short while. In 1919 Phillips acquired a mansion type studio at Thornton House, Clapham Park and made plans for further production, but when Queenie Thomas married in late 1919 production plans fizzled out.

Early in 1923 Queenie Thomas made a comeback under Bertram Phillips once again and appeared in series of short comedies called Syncopated Picture Plays before appearing in a series of longer films with better casts including two with the young actor John Stuart (Alley of the Golden Hearts and Her Redemption). The production team included Percy Anthony as photographer and the famous illustrator and poster artist E.P. Kinsella as art director (he had already produced films and wrote some screenplays). The first of these films was The School For Scandal filmed at Thornton House. It was distributed by Butcher’s Film Services and given a trade show in September 1923 and became one of the films selected for British Film Week in early 1924.

A scene from School for Scandal with Basil Rathbone (centre)

The story started with Sir Peter Teazle (Frank Stanmore), a courtly though crusty gentleman bachelor of the old school, taking a young and charming girl as his wife (Queenie Thomas). Fresh from a country manor and unused to the artificialities of society she is keenly anxious to be considered ‘smart’.

The wonderful gallery of scandal-mongers – Lady Sneerwell (Elsie French), Mrs Candour (Mary Brough), Sir Benjamin Backbite (Richard Turner) and their circle – like to think themselves select and find their chief delight is discussing the morals of others. These gossips try to teach Lady Teazle the ethics of their school of thought and try to persuade her that every married lady, in order to be considered really fashionable must engaged in a secret, although harmless, love affair.

Lady Teazle is dazzled by their flattery and attention and because she does not want to be considered unsophisticated, reluctantly accepts the attentions of the sauve and polished Joseph Surface (Basil Rathbone in one of his very early film appearances).

Queenie Thomas and Basil Rathbone in School for Scandal

Sir Peter takes on the guardianship of Maria (Billie Shotter), a wealthy heiress with whom his nephew Charles (John Stuart) falls in love. Charles’ brother Joseph schemes to marry Maria for her fortune and endeavours to cover his designs by his flirtation with Lady Teazle.

Later, Oliver Surface (Sydney Paxton) returns from the West Indies and determines to find out which of the two nephews, Charles and Joseph is the more sincere. The contrast between Joseph, the seemingly moral young man and his reckless but open-hearted brother Charles and their wealthy uncle’s investigation into their true character made excellent comedy.

Joseph induces Lady Teazle to visit him and is surprised by Sir Peter. Lady Teazle is hidden behind a screen and learns Joseph’s true character and receives proof of Sir Peter’s love and generosity having had her eyes opened to Joseph’s hypocrisy and the shallowness of the Sneerwell set.

The reviews and comments were mixed. Kine Weekly decided that Phillips had managed to make a fairly entertaining picture but had not reproduced the comedy but considering the lack of action it was agreed he had managed ‘to make his characters stand out quite well.’ However, further criticism was harsh with comments like the settings were unremarkable, the continuity scrappy, the action jerky and harsh and the lighting uneven.

In complete contrast, Bioscope thought that the settings were elaborate and the technical quality of a high order. Motion Picture Studio thought that it was the best picture Phillips had given and that he had done a good job saying it was credible and ‘very reasonably faithful to the original….a pleasant, interesting and often amusing picture.’ They were also full of praise for the art direction ‘the mounting of the sets are as charming as the dresses and EP Kinsella is to be unreservedly complimented upon the art direction throughout which strikes a note of daintiness and exquisiteness as opposed to garish lavishness.’

Another scene from School for Scandal

The casting was commendable because of the variation of the personalities all of whom were regarded as interesting and none colourless. One reviewer thought Queenie Thomas did not make an ideal Lady Teazle and another thought that she lacked something of the feminine wilfulness associated with her many illustrious forerunners in the part. However, it was agreed that she gave an agreeable and animated performance and looked fresh and charming. Oddly, one critic thought Basil Rathbone was splendid, another that he was badly cast.

Despite his mid 20s output, Phillips clearly could not adapt to the new more lavish British film–making process and was regarded as being rather old-fashioned. By mid 1925 he was declared bankrupt. Rachael Low commented, rather harshly, but perhaps with some truth, that his ‘type of film making with poor technical resources, ridiculous stories and no real talent was weeded out…’

Produced by Emerald Pictures and distributed by Metro, The Million Dollar Dollies, was the first and only film that the Dolly Sisters appeared in together. It was released in early 1918 in the USA but did not surface in the UK until 1920.

Leonce Perret (1880-1935), the celebrated French director saw the Dolly Sisters dance in one of their vaudeville engagements at the Palace Theatre, New York in late 1917 and ‘was caught by their lithsomeness, their personalities, the sheer expressiveness of their twinkling feet, their nimble bodies and their provocative faces. ‘Absolutely’ he said to himself ‘the Dolly Sisters were born for the screen.’ He decided to write a screenplay especially for them and persuaded them to appear together in what was rather aptly titled The Million Dollar Dollies, a name that certainly stuck to them like glue thereafter.

Perret had been director-general of the Champagnie Gaumont film company in Paris for fourteen years and had written or produced over three hundred feature films mostly prior to First World War but had now made his American debut with Captain Robert Warwick in The Silent Master and The Mad Lover, The Accidental Honeymoon and others.

Leonce Perret and the Dolly Sisters on set

Both sisters had already appeared individually in one picture before. Rosie in The Lily and the Rose (1915) and Jenny in The Call of the Dance (1915), but neither had succumbed to further screen offers.

After lengthy appearances in vaudeville and cabaret in 1917, the Dolly Sisters spent part of the winter performing for the Red Cross in the glamorous American resort of Palm Beach before rushing back to the Biograph studio in New York to begin filming in February 1918.

The film itself was a romantic fantasy with comedy elements and had a silly plot about the Dollies, Maharajahs and a million dollars. An Indian Maharajah (Ernest Maupain) living in New York had been cast under a hypnotic spell by his ferocious uncle the Rajah Ismael (Paul Doucet). He exercises his power over the Maharajah forcing him to detest and have nothing to do with his wife, the Princess (Dolores Cassinelli) and spends his time instead dragging the depths of his marble aquarium looking for fish.

Two beautiful dancers are engaged to marry two wealthy young men (Jack Hobson (Bradley Barker) and Huntley Gordon (Tom Hylan) but decide to postpone their marriage until they can, by their own efforts, equal the fortune of their future husbands. Rather timely, whilst skating at a hotel, they meet a celebrated psychologist (Marshall Phillip) who is trying to cure the Maharajah of his ailment. He promises the sisters a million dollars if they will visit the New York palace of the Maharajah, break the spell and reunite the royal pair.

After many dangerous adventures, one of the twins obtains the Maharajah’s ring and gives it to the Princess and breaks the spell, The twins return home with their million dollars and prepare to marry their sweethearts.

It was a picturesque tale with extremely good sets designed by Henri Menessier that evoked the right atmosphere of the mysticism of the orient with the hall of a Moorish palace, the marble courtyard, the Maharajah’s bedroom, the Princess’ room, underground chambers of the palace, the interior of a theatre, rooms in an apartment and a replica of the very fashionable Sherry’s restaurant.

The palace was an excellent example of Moorish architecture with its intricacies of design. Arabesque decorations with mural ornamentations of grotesque figures, griffins, dragons and chimeras and costly tapestries, with costly rugs and carpets rendered a splendid scene. According to one reviewer ‘the palace looks as if it had been spirited into existence by the magic of a genie from the Arabian Nights.’

The theatre scene was also admired and here on the stage, representing the boards of a prominent vaudeville house, the Dolly Sisters presented the dancing act that had made them famous.

The swimming pool in the palace was also magnificent. It was deep enough for one of the sisters to do a high dive into it and real swans mingled with the swimmers. In the big fight scene between the Hindu attendants and the police near the end of the picture, many of the participants were thrown into the pool!

In essence the film played up the Dolly Sisters as the Dolly Sisters and was a vehicle to display their dancing, mannerisms and of course their amazing wardrobe, which allegedly comprised forty-eight different costumes all more than likely created especially for them by Lucile.

The film did not surface in the UK until the Dolly Sisters made it big at the London Hippodrome in the Albert de Courville revue Jigsaw in early 1920 and it was then decided to release the film via Gaumont in the summer of 1920.

Kine Weekly thought it was ‘cleverly done… very entertaining’ and ‘handsomely set.’ Of course the Dolly Sisters were liked because they looked ‘bewitchingly and bewilderingly alike in a whole series of dresses and undresses.’ Needless to say the story was considered weak and improbable but the reviewer stressed it was a spectacle and more or less a screen pantomime where it was ‘unnecessary to discuss probabilities too seriously.’

For the Bioscope, it was ‘novel’ and ‘unique’ and ‘typically American in its dash and sparkle’ but overall a very ‘bright and pleasing entertainment’. Although they thought the story ‘fanciful and ingenious’ the Dolly Sisters were described as ‘charming… clever and attractive’ and thought they had a pretty talent for comedy which the scenario brought out to admiration.

After becoming stars of the silver screen the Dolly Sisters became a more highly visible commodity ‘their rise has been more rapid that that of any other girls on the stage. Their remarkable grace and beauty combined with their rare ability as dancers made a strong popular appeal.’ The Dolly Sisters secured more vaudeville and cabaret engagements and then starred in the Elliott, Comstock and Gest show Oh Look (1918) before conquering London and Paris.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

The fourth Ambassadeurs show in Paris was presented by Edmund Sayag in the summer of 1929 with a vaguely oriental but again distinctively American content.

Once again Sayag along with Henri Lartique, the French booking agent for William Morris, spent March 1929 in New York to book fresh American talent for the Ambassadors show of 1929 in Paris that was launched on 23rd May 1929.

Noble Sissle and his Orchestra

Staged by Bunny Weldon, famous for producing a variety of nightclub shows in New York, the show featured Noble Sissle and his Ambassadeurs Orchestra and starred Lester Allen (who had also appeared in the 1927 edition) and Nelly Breen, Miss Noree, George Dewey Washington, Jimmy Rae and Bobbe Arnst, Carolyn Nolte, the dancing duo Geraldine and Joe and a Chinese troupe of twelve Chinese girls and eight Chinese boys. In July the celebrated American dancing team of Medrano and Donna, described as ‘admirable tango dancers’ were added to the cast.

With twenty scenes, the lyrics were provided by Cole Porter, Rene Pujol, R. Kaiges, Gers Kahn and Dorothy Fields and the music by Cole Porter, Louis Alter, Jim Mac Hugh, Bunny Weldon, Ted Shapiro, Jim Campbell, Zey Confrey and Walter Donaldson.

The programme gave credit for all costumes and curtains to Max Weldy with costume design by Zig and set design by Alex Shanks and yet once again Billboard clearly stated that the Brooks Costume Company from New York, executed a large set of costumes from designs by Dolly Tree. Undoubtedly it must have been a collective effort.

By mid-September it was announced that the Ambassadeurs restaurant was to close and be demolished. In its place the Theatre de Concorde was to be built designed to be the home of smart revues. Adjoining the theatre, a new Ambassadeurs restaurant was to be constructed designed to be a duplicate of the Central Park Casino in New York and tstill be under Sayag’s rule. The new complex was to open in the Spring of 1930.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

Herbert’s Wilcox’s second film with Mae Marsh, following The Flames of Passion, was Paddy the Next Best Thing, a romantic drama about a young tomboy and her growing love for a rich landowner set in Ireland and London, once again directed by Graham Cutts.

After filming The Flames of Passion in the summer of 1922, Mae Marsh returned to New York toward the end of August but her stay at home was extremely brief because she arrived back in Southampton aboard Olympic 9th September and settled in at the Savoy Theatre.

The Graham-Wilcox production company, with Graham Cutts as director, started filming at the Famous Players Lasky studio in September 1922. Like its predecessor it was a lavish production and once again Lucile created all the costumes for the cast.

The film was adapted from Gertrude Page’s novel and play that was staged at the Savoy Theatre in 1920. The family of the Adairs lived in Mourne Hall amidst picturesque countryside and the story centred on the romance of Paddy Adair played by Mae Marsh, a kind, yet impulsive and wild Irish girl who was a son to her father (Sir Simeon Stuart), who would have dearly liked a boy. Hence Paddy as ‘the next best thing’.

The opening of the film showed a yacht race between Paddy and her father in which Paddy very nearly gets drowned. Rescued by her father they arrive back on land where she meets Lawrence Blake (Darby Foster), the polished man of the world and the owner of a neighbouring estate. In her eyes he has disgracefully neglected the land of his birth by shooting big game in India in preference to leading the life of an Irish gentleman and conceives an immediate dislike of him.

For Paddy, Lawrence exuded a self-satisfied superiority and she delighted in trying to bring him down earth. In the meantime, Paddy encourages Jack O’Hara (George K. Arthur) in his quest for her sister Eileen (Lillian Douglas) but she has fallen for Lawrence.

There were various social gathering in Mourne Lodge, including a lavish birthday party, a fox hunt and a ball featuring an elaborate ballet (overall thought to be incongruous) and an Irish country dance. Throughout, verbal skirmishes between Paddy and Lawrence take place.

Eventually, Lawrence tells Paddy that he does not care for her sister and she calls him a cad for having led her sister on, but then he tells her that she is the woman he loves. ‘One day I will break down your defences’ he says. Paddy replies defiantly ‘I despise you’. This forces Lawrence to leave for Europe and India and Jack also goes abroad to seek his fortune.

The death of the girl’s father breaks up the home. Sadly General Adair saved little of his fortune and Paddy visits the desolate shuttered mansion and has to go and live with her doctor uncle in Shepherds Bush and works as a dispenser. When Blake returns, he tracks Paddy down and again declares his love without success as she judges him to be a mere philanderer. In a realistic street fight Lawrence proves his mettle and Paddy binding up his wounds, impulsively kisses him. She realizes that perhaps she does love him but still resists with her usual fervor.

Paddy receives a telegram announcing Jack had returned home with a fortune and had become engaged to her sister Eileen. She rushes back to Ireland. One evening, leaving her sister and Jack, Paddy wanders off alone into the hills feeling lonely and unloved. She is soon lost in a dense fog on the edge of a treacherous bog. Lawrence who had followed her immediately to Ireland arrives to hear the tragic news that Paddy is lost and heads the search party with the villagers. Their torchlight procession showed hundreds of points of light moving across a mist shrouded moor. Lawrence arrives just in time to snatch Paddy from death and Paddy at last confesses her long repressed love that concludes the usual happy ending.

A warm hearted romance, it was an outstanding success and was given a trade show in January 1923. It was regarded as being as good technically in terms of staging and photography as Flames of Passion. The Bioscope thought the film was ‘outstanding’ and added ‘a delightful entertainment splendidly presented…. a genuine triumph’ and Kine Weekly proclaimed ‘this is another film which marks a milestone in the improvement of British screen art and its success as a feature is assured’ and continued ‘there is not a dull moment in the whole picture and the excellence of the production does not allow one to be hyper-critical about either the theme of the reality of any particular incident.’

The story itself, although it had a deep human appeal, was thought to be slender and slight and rather unconvincing and disjointed in places. And yet, it was believed, the screen version gained additional power to convey the sentiment and sweetness more convincingly. The Bioscope clarified this thought by saying ‘Cutts has succeeded in evolving a charming entertainment from slender material and is the best evidence of his skill.’

Mae Marsh as Paddy was regarded as at her best and a delight, illustrating the heroines many moods with art and realism from tomboy high spirits to hot tempered anger and gentle sympathy. Her methods were infinitely varied, her work was never monotonous and she created a consistent and carefully worked out characterisation of a likeable, yet fiesty heroine. Mae Marsh returned to the USA and arrived in New York 17th November 1922 aboard Berengaria.

In January 1923, Cutts and Wilcox visited America to promote the distribution of Paddy The Next Best Thing. Variety was impressed with the film ‘this is one of the best British films yet made’ and added that ‘Cutts has done his work admirably.’ On return to London Cutts left the Graham-Wilcox concern, perhaps because Herbert Wilcox had aspirations to direct rather than produce. Within a short space of time Cutts had joined the newly formed Balcon-Saville-Freedman company with Michael Balcon, Victor Saville and John (or Jack) Freedman (related to the Freedman from the distributor W&F) and went on to direct the ground-breaking Woman to Woman (1923).

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

‘Broadway’ was regarded at the time as one of the best and slickest crime plays seen on the stage, laying bare the gangster racket in New York at the height of Prohibition in the mid 1920s. It was staged in both New York and London and was described as a thoroughly modern melodrama, although Theatre world insisted that the correct description, although a hybrid expression, was in fact a comedy drama.

The Programme cover for Broadway at the Adelphi Theatre, London, 1927

‘Broadway’ was probably the best kind of American crook play, with speed, grip and probability and was written and directed by Phillip Dunning and George Abbott in three acts. It was originally staged at the Broadhurst Theatre New York on 16th September 1926 and ran for 603 performances until February 1928.

The London production, with an all American cast (that included Roy Lloyd who had appeared in the original New York show) was staged initially at the Strand Theatre on 22nd December 1926 and was then transferred to the Adelphi Theatre in early 1927, running for 252 performances.

Described as a cabaret and boot-legging drama of New York life, the action took place within two days in the private party room of the Paradise Night Club in New York. Typical of Broadway and its hectic night-life the show provided a cast of bootleggers, hijackers, detectives, butter and egg men, cabaret dancers, waiters and assorted punters.

The programme explained the setting for those unfamiliar with prohibition, bootlegging and the cabaret scenein New York: ‘The introduction of prohibition in the USA has called into being an enormous traffic in illicit liquor known as the ‘boot-legging’ industry. New York has been divided into areas under the control of separate gangs of boot-leggers and when these gangs trespass upon the territory of a rival gang, matters are settled by gang wars ad feuds of amazing ferocity, as neither party can have recourse to the law. The position is further complicated by the existence of roving bands of desperate men known as ‘hi-jackers’ who still illicit liquor from the boot-leggers themselves. In ‘Broadway’ one of these gang feuds flares up and pursues its course through the gaiety and bustle of the Paradise Night Club.’

The cabaret girls at the Paradise Club in ‘Broadway’

The plot follows Roy Lane (played by Roy Lloyd), a hoofer who falls in love with a little dancing girl and aspires to big time vaudeville. Billie Moore (Violet Dunn) is the good little dancing girl whose life is just one round of vanquished temptations. They both perform at the Paradise Club owned and run by Americanised Italian Nick Verdis (Walter Armin). His resort was used by one of the rival gangs of bootleggers (preyed upon by the liquour stealing hi-jackers) whose feuds disgrace the nightlife of the city.

Steve Crandall (Bernard J. Nedell), the head of one of these gangs shoots dead in the back a hostile bootlegger ‘scar’ called Edwards. With great daring he ventures into the establishment kept by Verdis. In the intervals snatched from bootlegging and gun-handling, Crandall makes insidious advances to the cabaret girl Billie Moore. She is being coached in a dancing act by her partner with a ‘personality’ (and devout lover) Roy Lane, soon jealous and suspicious of the plausible bootlegger whom he tries to expose to the police as represented by the cool and non-commitial Dan McCorn (Hartley Power).

Roy after having been knocked down by Crandall is arrested by the detective and suspected of the murder of Edwards as he was trying to shoot Crandall with the latter’s weapon. However, in the end the smooth-tongued villian whose final loss of nerve and degeneration into cowardice are shown very skillfully indeed is himself shot by one of the cabaret girls who had followed Crandall, presumably as member of Edward’s gang to avenge her leader.

Theatre World stated rather obviously that the show was American in inspiration, action and location and thought that it thrilled and amused with slickness evident in the writing, production and its acting. Although they added that it was a rattling good entertainment, they thought it ‘neither great nor good.’ The Stage however, thought it ‘one of the best and most thrilling of present American importations.’

Some of the players remained in London and became popular most notable among them was Ben Weldon, who played Joe.

Universal adapted the play for the screen and Broadway, the film, directed by Pal Fejos, was released in May 1929 starring Glenn Tyron, Evelyn Brent, Merna Kennedy, Thomas E. Jackson, Robert Ellis and many others.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

Julian Wylie’s 1922 spectacular show for the London Hippodrome was Round in 50. It was not a golf problem but a ‘musical adventure’ designed as a vehicle for the hugely popular comedian George Robey, with the later addition of the American vaudeville star Sophie Tucker.

The Programme for Round in 50 at the London Hippodrome

Launched out of town for a preliminary run of a week at the Cardiff Empire from Monday 6th March 1922 Round in 50 was then presented at the London Hippodrome on 16th March. The plot was taken from Jules Verne’s Round the World in Eighty Days when Phileas Fogg angered by his nephew’s extravagance issued an ultimatum that unless he created a new record travelling the globe in fifty days he will be disinherited. The nephew Phil Fogg (Alec Kellaway) sets off to accomplish the feat accompanied by Harold, a worthy attendant (George Robey), Jill Carey, a lady journalist (Jean Allistone), a telephone girl (Renne Reel) and a couple of detectives from Scotland Yard (Wallace Lupino as Inspector Tutty and Barry Lupino as Inspector Tippett) who have mistaken him for a run away bank thief.

The book was by Sax Rohmer, Julian Wylie and Lauri Wylie, lyrics by Clifford Harris and music by Jas W. Tate and Herman Finck, with dances staged by Gus Sohlke and scenery by Marc Henri and Laverdet, George W. Harris, Philip Howden, Ernest Howard, Bruce Smith and Sackman.

The seventeen scenes travelled across the globe visiting France, Italy, China and the USA providing a perfect frame for wonderful sets and costumes and various madcap adventures and some of best musical numbers were Spoony Waltx, Tea Leaves, Sing Sing, Nerves, Uncle Sambo and Harlequin Rag.

In Italy at the Hotel de L’Europe in Brindisi (Scene 3) there was My Lady Liqueur with Liliane Gilbert in the leading part introducing a procession of ladies dressed to represent the favourite liqueurs of the world shaded in ‘all the colours of the rainbow…. in kaleidoscope effect’ which included advocat, cherry brandy, prunella, green chartreuse, yellow chartreuse, creme de violette, forbidden fruit, grand marnier, vielle cure, peach brandy, poussee cafe, creme de cacoa, creme d’angelique, creme de menthe, kummel, creme de ciel and medoc.

The Romance of the Tea Leaves scene

Arriving in China, in a street in Hong Kong (Scene 4) Harold (Robey) fell easy prey to thieves with designs on his wallet and Wallace Lupino, Barry Lupino and Renee Reel break out into a joyous song and dance number. This was followed by the extravagant tableau of the Romance of the Tea Leaves (Scene 5) with showgirls dressed in black and white representing old Chinese ivory carvings that to many resembled an Aubrey Beardsley drawing come to life. ‘The dresses with their flourishes and arabesques of black line look like a page of beautifully ornate lettering on an old manuscript to which an illuminated capital is added when a girl in a dress of glittering gold ascends the flight of stairs at the back of the stage, trailing behind her a train of gorgeous ribbons outspread like the trail of a peacock.’

Arriving in America the cast found themselves in a cabaret in San Francisco (Scene 6). The curtain rose on an amusing scene (re-used from The Whirl of Today) of revelry with dancing, drinking and gaming all in progress to the strains of a ragtime band. Harold (George Robey) had a flutter and lost everything even his coat and waistcoat. Then, when a warning of a police raid is received, the scenery and costumes were transformed and the decorations of the room metamorphosed into a lecture room with the result that the cabaret became an earnest Pussyfoot (tea-totallers) meeting addressed by Harold (George Robey).

A few months after the launch of the show, in mid May 1922, Wylie secured Sophie Tucker, who had made her UK debut and scored a big hit in the Hotel Metropole cabaret, the Finsbury Park Empire and in a regional theatre tour. She was added to the Cabaret scene wearing creations from Isobel couture and made a huge impression. She gave what was in effect her music-hall act assisted by her two pianists and rattled of four numbers ‘in her own quaint and amusing manner… she has that rare gift of personality and a certain forceful manner that gets all her work well over the footlights.’

Two photos of George Robey

Next, Harold (George Robey) found himself in a Prison cell (Scene 7) and wearing a striped convict outfit he gave a wonderful little song about Sing Sing the celebrated American jail. This is followed by a scene in which the well-meaning Governor of the prison provides a variety entertainment for the amusement of the prisoners that include a Quartette of bell ringers and a conjuror

We are then transformed into a glorious Californian orange grove (Scene 9) showing trees laden with ripe fruit and lovely girls gathering it in with harvest festivities prevailing including a quaint banjo band culminating in nightfall and every orange a glowing light.

All the remaining scenes (10-17) are placed in New York and London with a finale in the ballroom of the Gridiron Club showing seven entire scenes presented in twenty minutes.

One of the major features of the revue was the theme of drinking and the importance of prohibition in the USA. As the Bystander observed ‘one of the features of the revue is the prominence given to what Prohibitionists in America call the Demon run.’ Right at the beginning in Scene 2 at customs in Boulogne, Harold (George Robey) is observed to be in a nicely matured state of intoxication and the source of much amusement. Later, there is the display of liqueurs in Italy, in the Hong Kong scene is a sort of cafe with the alluring sign ‘Plentee Muchee Booze’ and then there is cabaret scene in San Francisco.

Dolly Tree, who was responsible for the costuming the show had a massive undertaking with hundreds of designs which created an enormous impact on the London theatre scene and the critics were delighted: “the effects are positively dazzling’ and ‘one can hardly speak too highly of the charm of the scenes and dresses and of the art with which the whole has been staged.’ Of course the two rather spectacular tableaux with extraordinary costumes were My Lady Liqueur and Romance of the tea leaves and the cabaret scene had ‘contemporary costumes of a most fashionable extravagance.’ All the gowns were executed by Peron and costumes by Alias, Morris Angel and Betty S. Roberts.

Interestingly, what the stage was unable to supply was provided by film via Julian Wylie’s brother G.B. Samuelson, the British film producer. ‘For the first time in the history of the theatre, I believe an alliance has been formed between the two rival arts,’ The Queen magazine commented. This included a backdrop film of a river in the distance in the Californian orange grove scene and a race between an Atlantic liner and a motor launch carrying the cast.

The critics were unanimous in their praise. The Stage thought that the show was: ‘a blend of the best features in musical comedy, drama and revue… there is not a dull moment from first to last and there are brilliant scenes, magnificent dresses, haunting songs, graceful dancing and charming lighting effects.’ The Era thought ‘it has a coherent plot, some delightful stage pictures, without being overweighted with spectacle, many attractive songs and dances and George Robey at his funniest.’  There was also great praise for the cast, most notably for George Robey who had the leading part and was given plenty of scope for his rich humour. He masqueraded in an array of disguises throughout, with jokes and songs well suited to his particular style. For example, he made his first appearance as Chester, the Orphen chef, the original of Sir William Orpen’s much-admired Academy picture of 1921. The amusing Lupino’s were both in their element with their remarkable acrobatic dancing and trap-door business. Ruth French was the principal dancer who had ‘never been seen to better advantage’ along with 16 other chorus dancers. Alec Kellaway was described as ‘bright and breezy’, Jean Allistone gave a pleasing and attractive performance and Renee Reel was regarded as a gifted comedienne.

After 469 performances, Round in 50 closed in mid December to make way for the annual pantomime Cinderella, but was swiftly sent on tour through the regions in 1923.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

Josephine Earle was an American actress who made a name for herself at Vitagraph in a series of Vamp movie roles from 1915. She then made herself thoroughly at home in England during the 1920s appearing in British silent films, legitimate stage shows and cabaret.

She was born in Columbia Heights, Brooklyn on 23rd February 1892 near the spot where the Pilgrim Fathers are said to have made their first settlement. Her real name was Josephine MacEwan (sometimes listed as McEwan) and she was of Scottish descent. At an early age she told her friends that she would make a good actress. They laughed at her so she got herself an engagement to prove them wrong and became the Beauty in Henry W. Savage’s production of Everywoman (1911-1912) staged in New York and, with her soprano voice, played a season singing the prima donna roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

Thereafter she drifted into film and became a featured player for the Vitagraph Film Company from 1915-1917. She described her roles ‘everybody in the company had to play whatever was on the programme for that day. One day it might be a vampire role in a feature drama and on the following day the unhappy wife in a domestic drama or a slapstick comedy character.’ At one point she did say ‘I prefer cinema acting to the stage.’ Despite her vampire roles she was thought of as a loveable and charming person with red gold hair, blue eyes and although she spoke with an American expression there was a hint of an accent that betrayed her Scottish blood.

In late 1917 she accepted an invitation from J.L. Sacks to go to England and appear in the stage production of Lilac Domino. After a very stormy passage she arrived mid December with bombs dropping on London ‘I was really surprised when I arrived to find London was not nearly so black as it was painted in New York.’

The British version of the operatta Lilac Domino was presented in London, with revised dialogue by S. J. Adair Fitzgerald, opening at the Empire Theatre on 21st February 1918 and running there until 27th September 1919. After a brief break, the production transferred to the Palace Theatre in October 1919. The piece ran for a total of 747 performances, closing on December 13, 1919, an extraordinarily long run at that time. Josephine played the part of Leonie Forde along with R. Stuart Pigott, Vincent Sullivan, Frank Lalor, Edwin Wilson, Jamieson Dodds, Dallas Anderson, Clara Butterworth and Andrée Corda.

Josephine Earle in Lilac Domino

During the run of the Lilac Domino, in 1917, she met and then married Captain James Alpheus Glen in September 1918 at Newport, on the Isle of Wight. Glen was a Canadian air force pilot who flew with the RAF during the First World War. He was born in 1890 on a farm near Turtle Mountain, Manitoba and attended high school in Enderby, British Columbia. He joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1915. Flying the Sopwith Pup, he became an ace during the summer of 1917 but was ill in August and went home to Canada to recuperate. In January 1918, he returned to active duty, scoring nine more victories with the Sopwith Camel. Strangely, for whatever reason, Josephine kept her marriage a secret for two years and it was finally revealed in the summer of 1920.

At some point in mid 1919, she was snapped up by the Gaumont Film Company that was revitalizing its film production after a post war lull and the departure of their prime director George Pearson. Run by the Bromhead brothers it was established in 1898 focused on distribution and renting from the French company but later went into film production with a studio at Shepherds Bush and Lime Grove. In early 1919 they engaged two new directors Will Kellino, a former circus clown and Captain C.C. Calvert and two brands of film – Westminster and British Screencraft were created for the two directors.

Although described by Rachael Low as ‘a sophisticated former Vitagraph star, now fading a little’ Josephine, playing the part of Countess de la Merthe, was the star of Kellino’s thriller The Fall of the Saint (January 1920) in which she made a point of stressing the importance of being well gowned with sixteen different outfits. She appeared with Gerald Lawrence, H. Heaton Grey and Dallas Anderson (with whom she appeared in Lilac Domino). In October 1920 Bioscope announced ‘Josephine Earle has, I hear, the honour of being the first British screen actress to be announced in electric lights in the theatrical centre of New York. The Fall of a Saint, in which she plays lead, commenced its run at the New York Theatre on September 13th.’

Next, she appeared in four Calvert films in the British Screencraft series: Walls of Prejudice/Break Down the Walls (April 1920) with Dallas Anderson Pat Somerset, Cecil du Gue and Zoe Palmer; The Edge of Youth (June 1920) with Dallas Anderson, Cecile du Gue and George Bellamy; Branded (September 1920) with Dallas Anderson, Nora Swinburne and Francis Lister and The Way of the Man (January 1921) with Cecil du Gue, Lewis Dayton, Philip Anthony, George Bellamy and Cyril Smith.

In the summer of 1920, when her marriage to Captain Glen was announced, it was also revealed that he was to return to Canada on a three-year visit to help in the establishment of the Canadian Air Force, although subsequently, he hoped to settle permanently in England.

That autumn along with Walter Passmore, George Hassall, Fred Tooze, David Miller, Aimee Bebb and Hilda Guiver, Josephine appeared for three weeks in the touring production of The Purple Lady opening 18th October at the Grand, Blackpool and then visiting Bournemouth and the Royal Brighton. It was muted to then appear in a West End theatre but seemingly this did not happen.

Eventually Josephine and Captain Glen left the UK for Canada in January 1921 arriving in St John Brunswick, but her stay in Canada did not last long and she returned to England nine months later departing Montreal, Quebec and arriving in Liverpool 22nd October 1921. The marriage did not last.

Josephine was swift of the mark and seemingly gained an engagement at Ciro’s, one of London’s leading nightspots, where as part of her performance she gave a sort of monologue called The Language of the Fan. Later, the Stage would comment ‘Jo Earle was one of the very first, first class artists to go into cabaret and the first to introduce the much copied big fan.’ Her act was so popular that Gaumont filmed her for their popular Around the Town serial released in January 1922, where she showed some beautiful fans and did a Spanish dance.

At about the same time she appeared in the short lived Albert de Courville show Put and Take, a gesture to a popular game of the time. Originally staged as Fantasia at the Queens Theatre on 1st December 1921, it was abandoned after a few days and after quick rehearsals Put and Take replaced it as a disconnected vaudeville entertainment with Anita Elson, Jack Morrison, Charles Brooks, Mary Brough (a fine comedienne), Rebla and the Palace Girls. Josephine had one of the prettiest songs in the production called April Showers. But even the new line up did not work and the show closed after merely twenty performances.

In mid February 1922, Josephine joined forces with the well-known author and composer Arthur Klein and made her vaudeville debut at the Glasgow Pavilion, which then toured the provinces and London venues. Their little ‘drawing room act’ with pleasant duets, featuring new songs by Klein, found much favour. Josephine’s voice was described as ‘a dainty and pleasing, if scarcely ‘big’ soprano’ opened the proceedings with a clever rendering of ‘All By Myself’. She then sang a snappy little new number by Klein called ‘Not Tonight Josephine’ and finished on the melodious waltz time number ‘Love’s a Game of Chance’ all accompanied by Klein at the piano.

In the autumn of 1922, she stepped into the new, spectacular and ambitious cabaret show at Murray’s nightclub in Beak Street. With eight numbers staged at dinner and supper, Josephine starred with the American dancer Hazel Shelley, Ernest Marini and a chorus of ten. Josephine sang several songs and danced with Marini, with specialty dancing from Shelley. It was a huge hit and rivaled the success of other shows at the Hotel Metropole and the Queens Hall Roof.

Her successes in cabaret and vaudeville prompted a visit to Paris and she joined forces with the famous Trix Sisters. In early February The Trix Sisters Blues Room opened on the first floor of the legendary establishment of the Abbaye de Theleme in the Place Pigalle and Josephine appeared with the Trix Sisters, Flora Lea and Simonne Mirat.

Josephine Earle (on the right) with Betty Compson (on the left) in Woman to Woman (1923)

Back in London she signed a two-picture deal with G.B. Samuelson and appeared with Lillian Hall-Davis, Rex Davis, Tom Reynolds, Julian Royce and Mickey Brantford in Alexander Butler’s The Knockout (June 1923) and Fred Paul’s The Hotel Mouse (July 1923) with Lillian Hall-Davis, Campbell Gullan, Warwick Ward and Morgan Wallace. But her piece de resistance was filmed in the summer of 1923. Graham Cutts’ Woman to Woman (November 1923) has been regarded as one of the most important movies from the British silent era but sadly lost. Based on the Michael Morton play and starring the American star Betty Compson in the lead it became a smash hit with Josephine in a supporting role as Mrs. Anson-Pond along with Clive Brook, Henry Vibart and Marie Ault.

In October 1923 Josephine was added to the cast of the successful C.B. Cochran musical Little Nellie Kelly. George M. Cohan’s song and dance show had been premiered at the New Oxford Theatre on 2nd July 1923 and starred Sonnie Hale, June, Maidie Hope and Anita Elson with specialty dances from The Forde Sisters, Terri Storey and Santry and Norton, with dances by Edward Dolly.

Given that Josephine had been described as being one of Britain’s best-dressed movie stars it is no surprise that she opened her own couture establishment in Savile row in October 1923. ‘What pluck to invade the quarter sacred to tailors’ exclaimed The Era before describing her collection as ‘being suitable for the average woman and I noticed many new ideas on them.’  The walls of her rooms were painted white and had vivid wooden silhouettes hung with tassels instead of pictures and glowing incense burners. Her first mannequin display was accompanied by a Hawaiian musician hung with garlands playing the ukele. Marion Forde (one of the actresses from Little Nellie Kelly) acted as one of her mannequins.

Her success was confirmed when the costume designer Dolly Tree (who had dressed her in Woman to Woman) used her services to create all her modern gowns in the stage productions of Leap Year at the London Hippodrome in the spring of 1924 and The Punch Bowl at the Duke of Yorks Theatre also in 1924.

Her next known credit was in the Grafton Galleries cabaret called Hello Grafton that then became Dolly’s Revels staged by Edward Dolly and dressed by Dolly Tree that ran from the summer through the autumn of 1924. She was one of the principals along with the dancer and singer Edna May, Fayette Perry, Doris Bransgove and Tom O’Connor and her song ‘What’ll I do? Was greatly admired.

In the early part of 1925, Josephine was cast in William J. Wilson’s production of Sometime at the Vaudeville. A musical comedy in two acts and 7 scenes she played Phyllis Grey and sang more songs in support of the leading lady Desiree Ellinger and the comedian Frank Tinney.

With no more film roles and fewer stage and cabaret roles over the next few years she slipped form view with the exception of a stint at the Mirador nightspot in Paris (35 Rue Pigalle) in January 1926 opening and the Imperial cabaret also in Paris in November 1926. At some point she also returned to America because she arrived in Southampton aboard Tuscania from New York on 18th October 1927.

A year later in October 1928, the Stage was curious about her absence from London ‘on many occasions during this last two or three years I have been asked ‘Where is Jo Earle?’ and I have always been unable to answer. I have asked the same question myself and have had a variety of replies from which I have gathered that she was playing in America, running a cabaret in Paris, a nightclub in Berlin or something or other in Vienna. But she is now back in London and has been spending the greater part of the last years back in America and has not been running nightclubs in any city.’

It was noted that ‘with neither her voice nor her appearance impaired’ she was about to reappear in London both in theatre and cabaret and perhaps a projected film production after seasons in New York, Berlin and Paris. The cabaret turned out to be at Nunky’s, a club at 177 Regent Street that had opened at the end of 1928, where she was the leading player from December 1928 for several months. She was described as ‘an artist of exceptional experience for cabaret’ who had run a West end dressmaking establishment, a beauty parlour and was an expert cocktail maker.

Although a theatre engagement did not materialize two film parts did. She played the rich mother of a young man (Harry Lorraine) in A.E. Coleby’s war time drama Unto Each Other (International Cinema January 1930) ‘a part requiring little but sitting either in smiles or tears and wearing smart clothes and jewellery.’  It was thought to have a hackneyed theme, showed little imagination and had poor continuity. She fared better in the cast of the Walter Summers Raise the Roof (BIP February 1930) with Betty Balfour that was a big success and regarded as the first sound British movie musical.

There were no more stage or screen appearances. In September 1932 she married John T. Matthews in Hanover Square, London and at some point moved to Stratford Upon Avon where, with her husband (Mr Matthews or a new husband) she bred Alsatians and opened a flower shop in Sheep Street and Henley Street. But after her husband died she could not cope and became an alcoholic. On 23rd April 1961 she had finished arranging the flower orders for Shakespeare’s birthday but became ill and died 26th April 1961.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

Murray’s Night Club in Beak Street, London was opened in late 1913 by Jack Mays, an American and Ernest A. Cordell, an Englishman. It was part of the cabaret boom inspired by the tango craze that had been sweeping Europe and the USA and emerged at the same time as other venues such as the 400 Club the Lotus and slightly later the Cosmopolitan, the Tabarin, Macfarlane’s and The Cave of the Golden Calf.

Sketch of the interior of Murray's nightclub, London

Not much is known about Jack Mays other than he came from Chicago and had been involved in the nightclub business there but why he moved to London is anyone’s guess. Although he became an influential figure in London nightlife, he seemingly kept himself to himself. For some he was unpalatable. He was described by one person as ‘a very bad fellow’ and ‘for vice or money or both he induces girls to smoke opium in some foul place. He….. does a good deal of harm.’ To others he was a godsend, a pioneer of night-time entertainment in London, ‘a restless genius’ and ‘a popular and amusing character.’

Murray’s club stood on the site of the old Blanchard’s restaurant, formerly a famous coaching house constructed in the 1860s or early 70s. The entrance on Beak Street described as having a ‘severe frontage reminiscent of a bank or an office’ opened onto a hall out of which was a restaurant and thereafter a stairway led down to the main ballroom and dance floor below. This was a vast impressive room with a high ceiling; large chandeliers and the walls featured wood panels up half the walls. On one side was the dance area and on the other pillars to one side interspersed with tables and chairs. There was a great kitchen that catered for in excess of 400 diners, and behind the stage where the band played were dressing rooms for the entertainers.

At the outset Murray’s like so many of the other ‘nightclubs’ was predominately a members only club where people could meet, mingle, eat, drink and dance. There were always dancing acts as entertainment, and in 1914 for example, Marquis and Miss Clayton were appearing regularly at the Savoy, Murray’s, the 400 and the Lotus where they mostly demonstrated the Tango. By 1915 Arthur Mirador was the featured dancer at Murray’s.

The entrance to Murray's nightclub

Jack Mays set the tone for the growth of the ‘thé dansant’, which became a very fashionable accompaniment to the vogue of the Tango and staged successfully at Murray’s for a while. But as the novelty began to wear a little thin he introduced the idea of the ‘Super Tango Tea’ in April 1914. It was nothing more than a re-branding exercise but with the added bonus of a mini show. Firstly there were a series of tableaux featuring Chinese ladies in ‘Precious Pearl’ and ‘the Earthly Paradise’ with dances and music, followed by a series of Venetian Furlana dances. Next, an exhibition of the Hesitation, Valse, Maxixe and the Tango and finally a mannequin parade showing the latest Paris fashions. His strategy certainly succeeded and enthralled and re-vitalised London’s jaded seekers of amusement.

Despite the outbreak of war most of the nightclubs carried on, although many closed. Murray’s endured and opened every afternoon for dancing from 4.30-7pm and in the evening, from 11pm. Jack May also opened a summer venue at Maidenhead that became hugely popular.

The interior of Murray's nightclub

After the war Murray’s continued to be one of London’s major venues and was regarded as ‘the hub of the English dancing world where new dances and new steps are tested by the best dancers in town…. It is a most pleasing place, artistic decorations, good things to eat and drink, a song or two, pleasing music and good dancing on an excellent floor.’

Not only was it a favoured place for dancing in the evening but also it was always busy in the afternoon for the thé dansant. A new Ozonair system had been installed throughout the building keeping the air fresh and pure and perfect for the dancers especially in the heat of the summer, which enabled summer opening (in the past the venue closed in the summer).

Then in late 1920 Mays imitated New York’s roof garden cabarets and introduced a cabaret show (it was not the first since the American Jack Haskell had staged a cabaret show at Ciro’s in 1917). The show was called Murray’s Frolics, featured the dancers Marjorie Moss and George Fontana and a young Gertrude Lawrence was one of the girls in the chorus.

By the spring of 1921 the show starred the dancers Ivy Collette and Marcel Breton with the Broadway Sextette band. Breton had studied dancing with Mde Astafieva and Collette was making her debut as a professional dancer but had been a prominent member of the Gaiety Company. George Fontana coached both.

The stars of the cabaret show at Murray's in 1922

In September 1922 a bigger and more ambitious show with eight numbers was staged at dinner and supper featuring the American actress Josephine Earle, the American dancer Hazel Shelley, Ernest Marini and a chorus of ten. Earle sang several songs and danced with Marini, with specialty dancing from Shelley. The chorus in one scene was dressed in costumes representing powder boxes with abundant fluffy underthings and in another they wore Hawaiian costume. These Hawaiian dresses bear an uncanny resemblance to the dresses designed by Dolly Tree and worn by the chorus accompanying Dorothy Dickson in her Hawaiian ‘Ka-Lu-a’ song from The Cabaret Girl, which was running at the time.

Sheridan Morley in his autobiography of Gertrude Lawrence described how Murray’s club provided ‘its upper-crust customers with the best floorshow in town, a carefully choreographed all-singing, all dancing extravaganza, a miniaturized version of one of the Cochran or Chariot revues. Its overriding attraction was that you could eat and drink, maybe even talk during the entertainment.’ In the autumn of 1922, Murray’s had become the talk of London with its sparkling song and dance show, which The Tatler described as ‘a very excellent revue-cum-cabaret entertainment.’

During the winter of 1922-1923, the club was closed and renovated and re-opened with its old name Blanchard’s. A new floor was installed and placed in the middle of the room not to the side as before. Once again the venue was to be open for tea and theatre dinners but dancing would not commence until 11pm and a new cabaret called The Midnight Revue was staged at midnight. This show, launched in the spring of 1923, featured Edith Baird’s Snapshots in two scenes, the first a gypsy camp with a chorus dressed as gypsies and the second featuring a range of dances including the Tarantelle and Pas de Valse.

In April 1923 it was announced that Harry Day, who controlled the revue productions at the Palladium, would be responsible for all the entertainments to be staged at Murray’s Club for the next 2 years. Seemingly, Day used condensed versions of his Palladium revues such as Rockets, Crystals and Radio’s for the cabaret. His first show titled Harry Day’s Crystal Cabaret was launched in mid April 1923. This was thought to be the first time that a full company of 50 performers had been seen in a dance club. The cast included the Royal North Octette, the Crystal dancing Belles and Douglas Byng. Day’s designer for his revues had been George Criscudo and in all probability he was also engaged to design the costumes at Murray’s. At the time Criscudo had designed the costumes for Pierre Lander’s cabaret show Brighter London Silver Cabaret, which was first staged at the Bedford Music Hall in March 1923, before appearing at leading vaudeville houses on the various circuits.

By May 1923 the show had become Rockets with Hilda Newsome, Levoi and Moran and the rocket dancers and thereafter in the summer a range of exhibition dancers featured. By October Murray’s was featuring the sensational exhibition dancers Quentin Todd and Vera Dent. The latter wore some delicious frocks including a panniered affair of shot gold and orange tinsel in which she did a Spanish dance and a jolly little long waisted, full skirted yellow georgette with flat velvet flowers.

Tw of the showgirls from the 1922 cabaret show at Murray's nightclub

In April 1924 it was announced that Jack May had sold Blanchard’s to London Restaurants Ltd, who already owned the popular Florence and Romano restaurants but retained his interest in Murray’s River Club Maidenhead. The place closed for a short while and was completely re-decorated and new, comfortable, well-padded settees surrounding the tables were added. Concealed lighting in attractive tabular shades of rainbow hues shone out from wide panels set against the walls like pictures in the palest pink with touches of green and yellow. The new cabaret show was called The Midnight Revue and the chorus girls in one number wore abbreviated frocks of silver tissue adorned with diamonds of black velvet with silver wigs. The stars of the show were the British dancing team of Claire Divina and Lawrence Charles who demonstrated their clever slow motion acrobatic dancing.

Murray’s or Blanchard’s continued to be popular and regularly staged new cabaret acts. In October 1924 the dancers Haroun and Yasmin featured and in March 1925 a new show was staged by Albert de Courville called Faites Vos Jeux direct from the Capitol Restaurant, Monte Carlo. In late 1925 acts were seemingly changed weekly, and for example, one week there was the juggler Harry Adams with the acrobatic balancing of Austel and Arthur followed the next week by the dance music of Sissle and Blake and dancers Carr and Parr.

The delightful surroundings were described as congenial with the wide and spacious staircase richly carpeted, the long and elegantly appointed dining and dance hall attractively decorated in brown, silver and grey and charmingly illuminated by scores of lights concealed beneath pink shades of tasteful design and long variegated coloured glass tubes. Mirrored panels were inset into the walls whilst mirrored columns supported the lofty ceiling.

By early 1926 the management of Murray’s appear to have expanded their activities and controlled the Cabaret Club and all cabaret artists appeared at both venues. In March the show was called the Midnight Merriments and included the dancers Renee and Godfrey, Iris Whyte, the juggler Eddie Gray and the singing and dancing of Edwin Henderson. By June the management also opened the Palermo Club with a show starring the hugely popular black singers Layton and Johnston and at some point they also took on the Cosmo Club. The cabaret at Murray’s was described as ‘…one of the best often reminiscent of a good music hall bill’ with acrobats, jugglers, ventriloquists, whistlers, mimics and dancers. Since at the time Jack May was described as Managing Director of the Cosmo Club, one wonders if he had bought back his interest in Murray’s.

Through 1927 and 1928, the short-lived cabaret scene was dipping through a slump, perhaps because after five years of fun and frolics the novelty value was fading. Some cabarets closed like the famous Midnight Follies at the Hotel Metropole, while others removed the ornate productions and chorus girls and simply staged one or two acts.

Programme cover for Murray's Cabaret Club, date uncertain but possibly from 40s or 50s

Murray’s continued its activities with a simpler format and in late 1927 the dancing duo of Graham and Barbara drew crowds, as did Deslys and Clark in April 1928. By early 1928 the entertainment was ‘very near variety as can be found and almost a high class modern twice nightly music hall bill’ and featured the Mizuni Trio of jugglers and equilibrists, the Roy Sisters in song and dance and the trio of speciality dancers Tom Fagen, Metrini and Leslie.

By March 1928 Murray’s was featuring Vladimir Zaaloff’s Russian Strolling Players in Balagantschina which was a sort of miniature Chauve Souris but without the announcer. Strikingly original, there were various musical numbers such as Outside a Russian Tavern, Nightingale and In Old Russia, along with the Roxana sisters in a comic polka and marionette dance.

Then in late 1928, Murray’s decided to return to full production with other venues promising to follow suit. At first Douglas Lyle and Ernest Cordell staged a mini-revue for the motor show week at midnight with Les Germains, Rallis Duo, Mai and Dorina, Faun and Fell and Whispering Band playing dance music until 2am. Then in early November Martin Adeson Junior launched Murray’s Frolics, a new show to be staged twice nightly at 10 and midnight with no American or Contintental stars and no-one with a big name. It did have the eight Duncan girls, Adeson, Cecily Compton, Quennie Pickford and Bruce Carfax in half a dozen musical numbers including a big number which was a revival of old time songs. The programme of acts changed weekly and the Frolics continued through the early part of 1929.

Al Tabor and his band (following a season of over 3 years at the Hammersmith Palais de Danse) with a supporting cabaret of the Honolulu Trio, Zelda and John Juan (Australian dancers) and the dancer Alma Mackie opened for a season in March 1928.

However, the cabaret scene was still not good and by the spring of 1929 there were only six nightclubs and three ‘bohemian’ clubs left in the whole of London. Despite this Murray’s kept going. Sadly, in February 1930 it was reported that Jack May (one of the oldest nightclub operators in London) was being deported by the home office to America. This was seen as rather drastic action given that he had operated his establishments circumspectly. Why this action was taken, where Mays ended up and what happened to him is not known. By October 1932, ownership of Murray’s had passed to Beaumont Alexander, who had previous run the New Princes Hotel and Cabaret.

One presumes that Murray’s Club endured and was the same Murray’s that flourished under Percival Murray and his son David through the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s finally closing its doors in 1975.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

One of the earliest ground breaking British silent films from Herbert Wilcox and Graham Cutts was The Flames of Passion starring the American actress Mae Marsh and a solid British cast.

Herbert Wilcox formed the production company of Graham-Wilcox with the director Graham Cutts in late 1921 or early 1922.  Cutts had already made Cocaine, which, because of its rather provocative and sensational title and thus censorship issues, was re-titled While London Sleeps and was given a trade show in July 1922. His next film, The Wonderful Story, was trade shown in May 1922 under the new company.

Eva Morre (left) and Mae Marsh (right) in a scene from The Flames of Passion

For their next project  – Flames of Passion – Graham-Wilcox productions took a lease on the whole of the huge and vacant Famous Players Lasky studio at Islington and agreed to import the American actress Mae Marsh as the lead. Mae Marsh (in real life Mrs Mary Arms) was a D.W. Griffith star of such films as Intolerance and The White Rose and arrived in Southampon with her husband Louis and child Mary aboard Mauretania from New York 3rd July 1922. At Waterloo she was greeted with huge crowds estimated to be in the region of 100,000. Filming began in earnest thereafter at the height of the summer.

Cutts said he was going to make Flames of Passion as lavish as The Wonderful Story was simple with a budget of £45,000. He made it clear that the all star cast had been chosen after a lot of consideration and only when they felt sure that the artists were entirely suited to the parts selected for them. ‘Cutts is a firm believer in the policy that it pays to engage artistes first and foremost for their suitability to portray a given role. Should they possess names which are of value to the box office in addition so much the better. A name alone would not induce Cutts to engage an artist.’

Needless to say Mae Marsh’s name was a huge asset and Pictures and Picturegoer observed that ‘the cast consists of both British and American artistes which is in pursuance of the new idea of blending the talent of both countries in order to arouse international interest in the picture.’

The film was based on an original story especially written for the screen by Herbert Wilcox and his wife and was described as powerful, dramatic and with a universal appeal. However, it was a lurid tale in essence about baby murder reflecting high and low life.

Dorothy Forbes  (Mae Marsh) was the daughter of John Forbes (Allan Aynesworth), a wealthy man but was neglected. When she arrived home from school she found herself left to her own resources. She became friendly with her father’s chauffeur Henry Watson (Herbert Langley). But things go too far and they became far too intimately connected and eventually she found out that she was pregnant. She confided in her practical and worldy wise aunt (Eva Moore) who managed to make arrangements to keep the birth of the baby secret. Dorothy retires to the country for the birth of the child. It is put out to nurse and she returns home. She pines for the baby and it is brought from its original foster parents.

Henry Watson, the chauffeur (Herbert Langley) bullying his wife Kate (Hilda Bayley) in The Flames of Passion

Meantime, the chauffeur is still besotted with Dorothy. He sinks considerably lower and spent his spare time bullying his wife Kate (Hilda Bayley) and getting drunk and he is dismissed as the chauffeur. His wife begs that he be reinstated but the request is refused. However, the aunt gives her the child to look after saying it belongs to some friends of hers who have gone to India. Meanwhile, Richard Hawke (C. Aubrey Smith), a famous barrister falls in love with Dorothy Forbes and marries her. She keeps her secret to herself. In a drunken fit the chauffeur kills the child not knowing that it was his. The barrister, Richard Hawke, is counsel for the prosecution and his wife in an agony of fear that he will find out or that the murderer will escape, confesses all. He then calls her as a witness to prove the motive for the murder. He forgives his wife but gives up his career. The last scene shows the couple in a rural retreat, happy in their love and family.

Other cast members included George K. Arthur (Arthur Watson),  G. Henry Vibart (Lord Chief Justice), A.G. Poulton (Council for the Defence) plus, Alban Atwood, Harry J. Worth and Tony Fraser. Cutts was assisted by Robert Cullen, Norman Arnold was the art director and C. Macdonnell the photographer.

Exterior shots took place at Goodwood, Henley, Maidenhead, Cowes and other society rendezvous, and the two major interior scenes took place in a ballroom and the Old Bailey. At the finale and the ballroom scene, the film burst into colour – described as Prizma colour – similar to the other films made in the same year by John Stuart Blackton.

All the gowns for Mae Marsh, and possibly the other leading ladies, were created especially by Lucile, the world famous couturier. Mae Marsh explained  ‘I always have my clothes made at Lucile’s in New York, they understand my personality and now they are just as charming here.’  She had between 20-25 costume changes and had to endure countless hours in dress fitting operations at Lucile’s establishment.

Eva Moore (left) and Mae Marsh (right) in The Flames of Passion

Overall, it was highly regarded by the trade press for staging, direction and acting. Motion Picture Studio described it as an ‘excellent production’, Kineweekly thought it ‘was undoubtedly the most ambitious and successful British picture attempted and is quite comparable with any foreign standard’ and Variety ‘a capital entertainment’ that would become ‘exceedingly popular.’ Although Variety thought that the production was masterly and the photography brilliant, it did not approach ‘the art or value of the same producers The Wonderful Story.’

Pictures and Picturegoer  wrote ‘although one realizes that the film is only holding up a mirror to the shadier side of life, it has much of the gripping power that is inspired by a real murder trail…There are lighter moment in the film which help forget the somewhat gloomy nature of the story.’

There was severe criticism of the story that was regarded as slight and thin, not particular strong and rather unpleasant. Kineweekly thought it crude and sordid with more than a touch of melodrama and full of improbabilities and implausible plotlines. ‘It has so many unconvincing turns to the plot that it loses interest as a story and only holds the attention by the excellence of the acting’ and added ‘it is a pity that the skill and care bestowed on the picture could not have been given a worthier object that the story chosen.’  Variety thought it an ‘ordinary story and by no means strong enough but the subject is well and carefully handled.’

The exteriors and interiors were highly praised especially the replica of the Old Bailey which Kineweekly thought was  ‘outstanding’ and  Picturegoer thought that it reflected ‘a wealth of grim realism.’ But the fancy dress ball in the ballroom scene was criticized by the attempt to colourise it as it distorted the beauty of the scene that contained a slightly incongruent ballet sequence staged by Miss Purcell, a celebrated terpsichorean instructress,

There were glowing comments about the acting with one or two slight reservations. Mae Marsh was admired for acting with feeling and a real sense of what was required. In her ingenue scenes as a light, frivolous girl she was unapproachable but there were doubts about her keeping up to the standard in the heavier scenes. Hilda Bayley had an exceedingly difficult part but acquited herself admirably. She evidenced sympathetic insight into the character and her performance had finesse which made it a pleasure to behold.  Herbert Langley was a little too heavy in his bad man part but his performance was polished and Eva Moore played the aunt with all her usual grace and charm.

The Old Bailey scene in The Flames of Passion

Toward the end of August 1922, a farewell dinner was held at the Criterion Restaurant where Mae Marsh was the guest of honour. During the evening Herbert Wilcox announced that he had purchased the film rights of Paddy the Next Best Thing and everyone agreed that Mae Marsh would be ideal as Paddy.  She left Southampton aboard Olympic and arrived in back in New York 30th August 1922.

Flames of Passion was given a premiere at the New Oxford Theatre on10^th November 1922 and was a big success, making a substantial profit especially after it was sold to America.  Wilcox thought that it was the first British film to be sold to the USA after World War 1.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

The debut revue from the Julian Wylie and Jas W. Tate organization at the London Hippodrome was The Peepshow launched 14th April 1921. Described as a tropical fantasia it proved to be a runaway success partly because several of the main scenes had already been tried and tested in previous Wylie–Tate productions, and so from the outset, the production was viewed as being polished and well produced.

Programme for The Peepshow

Wylie-Tate had a huge reputation for touring excellent productions in the regions and were already old hands at this popular game before they presented their first West End revue at the Hippodrome. ‘They have only to take some of the most successful items from their touring productions add to them a few novel features, engage some well known artists and lo and behold they have an entertainment ready which is almost certain to be successful.’ These scenes, especially the two big spectacular scenes of the Song Shop and Down Dickens Street, possessed none of the rough edges which most revue scenes had at the beginning since they had already been worked up, elaborated and improved upon after many months of touring.

The company was headed by Mona Vivian, Stanley Lupino, Annie Croft, Reginald Sharland and Fred Allandale and the sixteen original scenes were arranged charmingly as “peeps”. They were all loosely interlinked to form a more cohesive story than was usual in a revue, peppered with all kinds of topical interludes and nostalgic reminiscences of times past that enlivened proceedings. After a short while two scenes were dropped and many of the peeps were change around.

At the start (scene designed by Tom Webster) two American gentlemen George Cricklewood (Stanley Lupino) and Lord Harry Coe (Reginald Sharland) were guests of Professor Duddard (Albert Darnley) and Eslie (Mona Vivian). The professor is carrying out experiments for reaching the moon and the two gentlemen like the idea of chipping off a piece of the moon so agree to fly off in the professor’s newly invented ‘Jules Verne’ giant sky rocket.

On the Moon the two explorers discover it is inhabited by Pierrots and Pierrettes. They are met by the chief Pierrot (Fred Allandale) and his daughter Light O’The Moon (Annie Croft) who explains some of their lunar ways and customs. This was described as ‘a wonderous scene, beautifully and brilliantly devised’ and featured two songs ‘Hello Little Girlie’ and ‘I do Like Being in Love’.

In On the Way Home, Light O’the Moon (Annie Croft) decides to visit earth with the two travelers and is shown some of the interesting sights from the past and the present and finally falls in love with one of the young men. However, on the downward trip the rocket meets with a mishap and the party are plunged in the sea off Scotland where they find themselves in the Fourth Peep in the Castle McBluff The Castle is occupied by a wealthy and practical American played by Fred Allandale who is wanting to collect the mountain dew at its source and with a gathering of the clans there is a Pageant of Bonnie Scotland with a number of nice girls in kilts and the visible romance of Scotland. Mona Vivian sang ‘The Kiltie Brigade’ and Annie Croft sang her Flora Macdonald song ‘Prince of my Heart” with the background changing from baronial hall to ocean shore.

After Captain Speckleton’s Lecture, a comic interlude given by Fred Allandale about Arctic exploration was the Song Shop, one of the big spectacular scenes of the show with reminiscences of old time songs. Described as ‘the real scintillating gem’, the Song Shop had been a much favoured scene in Wylie-Tate’s touring revue The Passing Show of 1920 and cleverly conjured up the atmosphere of the music halls of the nineties.

The Song Shop scene from The Peepshow

This scene depicted the window of the publishing house of Francis, Day and Hunter and the principals impersonated former old music hall favourites and sang songs that made each character famous. There was Charles Godfrey singing Hi-tiddly-hi-ti, Charles Coborn with ‘The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte carlo’, Eugene Stratton’s ‘Little Dolly Daydream’, Stanley Lupino as Dan Leno singing ‘Mary Ann’s Refused Me’ and Mona Vivian’s amusing impression of Maggie Duggan singing ‘In Her Hair She Wore a White Camelia’ and another wonderful take on Lottie Collins. The conclusion was a good old time minstrel show with costumes of orange and purple.

One of the costume sketches by Dolly Tree for the Dutch Garden number in The Peepshow

Other scenes included The Strand, Ministry of Waste, Pre-War Land (a nostalgic look at funny pre-war life) and Curing a Cold, Stanley Lupino’s funny scene about all the fussy people who are usually on hand on at these times.

Another big number was My Lady’s Dressing Table, a ballet (taken from the regional revue The Whirl of Today), with the dancing of Ruth French, the Hippodrome Eight (as powder puffs), Annie Croft as My Lady and other representatives of a ladies boudoir including the hand mirror, hairbrush, scent spray, Lip salve, the patch and manicure.

In Holland and A Dutch Garden was Desiree Ellinger singing ‘The Voice’ a fairy-tale legend about a frog turned into a prince when a fair lady kissed it along with the Hippodrome eight as assistants to Mona Vivian in a clog dance and a series of Dutch Festival costumes with inspiration derived from old Dutch prints to get the right effect.

Undoubtedly the most spectacular scene was Down Dickens Street (taken from the regional revue The Follies of 1920) described as ‘one of the most ably conceived items which have been seen in a revue for years.’ 

The Down Dickens Street scene in The Peepshow

A long procession of the best known characters and scenes from the Dickens novels were introduced all in appropriate Victorian costume with the White Hart Inn, Bleak House, Scrooge’s Front Door, the Old Curiosity Shop and Fezziwig’s Store. Notably, Stanley Lupino played Scrooge, Sam Weller and Uriah Heep, Mona Vivian played Oliver Twist, Little Nell and Poor Jo and Annie Croft played Dolly Varden and Nancy.

There was also a Persian Carpet Ballet with Desiree Ellinger as the singer with narghili and turban, Ruth French as the dancer and the Arabian rag sung by Mona Vivian, J. Phillips and Leslie Sarony. The scene was made to look like a vast carpet emporium and the chorus had to look like a huge Persian carpet.

The finale was a simple scene where the two lovers, Annie Croft and Reginald Sharland, make up their minds in the song ‘Find Me Two Dear Eyes’ to go back to the moon.

The reviews were laudatory: The Tatler said ‘unquestionably one of the most remarkable productions of its kind’; The Era ‘brimful and running over with tastefulness, fun and a fancifulness seldom exceeded in the annals of English entertainment’ and The Bystander ‘there are flashes of genius in this revue with its beautiful mounting and agreeably refreshing fun.’

One of the costume sketches by Dolly Tree for the Persian Carpet scene in The Peepshow

Of the costumes and gowns, which were all designed by Dolly Tree, The Stage observed ‘it is staged and dressed with an originality of design and colouring that cannot fail to please those who delight in beautiful things.’

There was equal praise for all the principals but Annie Croft in particular was admired for her charming personality and was regarded as ‘beautiful, dainty and charming of voice.’

By July 1921 there were various changes in the programme with two new features introduced both from America and Renee Reel replaced Mona Vivian. The Weaver Brothers presented a novel musical act appearing in the guise of ‘hayseeds’ and after opening with a typical Southern melody to the accompaniment of the banjo they proceed to extract ‘music’ from a range of artifcacts such as a stable fork adapted as a one string fiddle and then carpenter saws. But the spectacular ‘turn’ was Karyl Norman presenting ‘The Creole Fashion Plate’. This act had already performed in variety elsewhere in England for a short time before landing this plum spot in a London revue. Norman, as a charmingly gowned lady sang an introductory number in a mezzo soprano and then followed with a spirited Spanish number. The audience were hardly prepared for the surprise when Norman took of his wig to reveal ‘a young man with a baritone voice and an ingratiating smile.’ He was in fact one of America’s leading female impersonators following in the delicate footsteps of Julian Eltinge. Further songs followed and Norman’s act was well received and described as ‘finely staged and dressed.’ Indeed, the dressing was so admired that his mother gave a press conference and allowed journalists to inspect the gowns and explained the technicalities of how they were made. But sadly according to a later story ‘he didn’t set the Thames on fire.’

To make way for these additional acts the scenes The Castle of MacBluff, Down Dickens Street and Carpets were deleted but to freshen things up a bit two new scenes – Chickweed’s Garden and The Valley of the Echoes – were added. For the latter, magical changes of costumes, makeup and properties and scenery invented and designed by Adrian V. Samoiloff were introduced. Somewhere within the show was also the Pogo parade with the chorus girls dressed in weird costumes using pogo sticks.

After 421 performances, The Peepshow closed at the Hippodrome on 15th December 1921 to make way for the Christmas pantomime. For the regional run which began in spring 1922 and continued through 1923, the production was completely revised and only comprised 10 peeps many of which did not appear in the original or revised production.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

A few years ago a batch of rather delightful costume designs were sold on ebay all drawn, and many signed, by the rather enigmatic Gertrude A. Johnson. But who was she? Since the drawings come from America one can deduce that she was American and the distinctive style of her work, reflecting the prevailing 20s eccentricities, clearly places them in the 1920s.

A sketch by Gertrude A. Johnson

She first surfaces working for Behren’s theatrical costumiers in New York (163 West 48th Street) from 1919 through the early 1920s with another house designer called Marie Breivogel. By 1923 (and at 120 West 48th Street) only Gertrude featured in their advertisements. One show that Behrens helped to costume during this period, along with several other costume houses like Brooks, was Frivolities of 1920 at the 44th Theatre in early 1920, which presumably featured Gertrude Johnson’s designs.

Confirmed theatre credits are sparse but it does appear that she dressed the Lew Leslie Plantation Revue that ran during July and August 1922 starring Florence Mills at the 48th Street Theatre, New York. A little later she was also credited with dressing Talk About Girls, a musical comedy produced by Harry and Sam Grisman which had an out of town run in May including the Garrick, Philadelphia and then in June 1927 at the Waldorf Theatre, New York, although the review in Variety says the costumes were by Nestor.

One of my drawings (undated) comes from the Nesor Costume Company and one credit for Nesor in the 1920s was costuming the musical comedy Oh Ernest! at the Royale and Earl Carroll Theatres in mid 1927, although there is no mention of the designer. Perhaps Gertrude Johnson moved from Behrens to Nesor, run by Bam Balvin, in the mid 1920s.
In April 1927 it was announced that Baroness Marie Vorn Bronchilch had been signed by Nesor as exclusive designer but interestingly, in August 1927, Nesor merged with Booth-Willoughby to form the Nesor-Booth-Willoughby Costume Company. It is not known if Gertrude Johnson continued working for them through this period.

A sketch by Gertrude A. Johnson

Some of the designs in George Glazer’s collection are allegedly from a production called Waltz Ho / American Beauty, but all attempts to trace this show have failed. Perhaps it is the title of a segment within a show or a cabaret or a vaudeville number.

Since Gertrude Johnson gained so few legitimate theatrical credits for mainstream Broadway productions one can only assume that she worked on shows where she did not get credit and perhaps she was more productive dressing regional shows, cabarets and vaudeville.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

At special events throughout history there has always been the desire to augment festivities with novelties of all kinds, especially at special occasions like New Year and weddings. Toward the end of the 19th century as dances, balls, galas and the new concept of the smart restaurant proliferated on both sides of the Atlantic, special nights were introduced where a wide range of gifts or carnival novelties were given away as souvenirs to make the night special and stand out. Later, these ‘favours’ became indicative of the madcap nocturnal fun and frolics of the Jazz Age and the 1920s.

Pigall's nightclub in Paris, 1920s

Apart from the obvious things like balloons, streamers and party hats, special gifts increasingly became a necessary part of any special affair. For example, in New York, at Delmonico’s restaurant in February 1909, a private party used the theme of American beauty roses for décor and all the ladies received a bouquet of flowers; at the first Cinderella dance at Sherry’s restaurant in late 1911 favours were cigarette cases for the men and boudoir caps for the women; in late 1913 at a charity event at the Astor hotel, all the ladies received a little antimony jewel box and at the Sans Souci nightclub, where Irene and Vernon Castle were the attraction in early 1914, all the women received white gardenias as favours.

Special favours became popular in Europe immediately after the First World War. The fad appears to have gained impetus when Leon Volterra opened Le Perroquet in Paris in the spring of 1921. This restaurant, nightclub, dance hall and cabaret de luxe was situated above the foyer of the Casino de Paris at 16 Rue Clichy and became the most fashionable and elegant night-spot in Paris. One of Volterra’s marketing ploys was to give each lady a beautifully dressed poupee doll as a souvenir on the weekly gala nights. These became highly sought after and much talked about and followed the craze for boudoir dolls which was increasing in popularity.

As the 1920s progressed, special gala nights and themed fetes were being staged constantly and as a result they provided great inspiration for unique and novel gifts. A keen rivalry also developed between proprietors over these gifts and in many cases quite expensive presents were presented such as dainty silk cushions, cigarette cases, silver vases, bath crystals, feathery fans and porcelain bells.

When the Piccadilly Hotel began to stage themed balls during the summer of 1922, it was announced that ‘Fete de Fleurs’ on Friday 5th May would be ‘the first of a novel and brilliant series of fascinating festivities introducing the very latest Parisian novelties quite new to London.’ The famous ballroom would be transformed for each themed event, so for the ‘Fete Espagnole’ (Friday 12th May) there was dancing in the enchanted atmosphere of old Madrid with Spanish decorations and novelties ‘everything to capture the spirit of old world city of music and colourful romance.’ For the ‘Fete des Oiseau’ (Friday 19th May) everyone was given a bird hat from Paris and for the Venetian Fete (11th July) coveted Venetian shawls were given away to the ladies.

An advert for 'Favours'

The ‘favour fad’ was described succinctly: ‘The value or the novelty of the presents distributed among guests appear to be the principal attractions which induce dancers of the fair sex to visit certain dance rendezvous ‘I simply must go to so-and-so hotel tonight: they’re giving away the duckiest little vanity bags I hear’ But apart from the paper hats, coloured balloons, tinsel novelties and absurd baubles which are common gifts at dances, presents of real use and intrinsic worth are nowadays lavished as souvenirs of happy dancing hours. This apparent something for nothing offer has an extraordinary lure for the feminine visitor even if they cannot understand the price of the tickets (which presumably they do not pay for). It shows a keen understanding of the feminine psychology on the part of the dance promoters who show such ostensible generosity.’

Derby night in early June became one of the many popular themed events and a focus of fun and festivities. At the Hotel Metropole cabaret in 1923 The Follies Derby was an attractive innovation where you could enjoy the excitement of Newmarket in miniature. The girls in the guise of bookies gave out coloured discs representing racing colours. When the odds were called, four steeds made of papier-mâché and mounted on tiny wheels concealed in their hoofs appeared and they were raced by the girls, albeit slowly with the winner snapping the tape. Thereafter, all London cabarets had big annual Derby nights with favours and gifts for all. At Dolly’s Revels in 1924, the souvenirs were appropriately horses and jockeys heads on the end of long wands but enough and to spare to go round and at the Summer-time Frolics as the Café de Paris all the ladies had souvenirs of powder boxes containing a dainty little dancing figure.

During 1924 the Restaurant des Ambassadeurs at the Hotel Metropole introduced its novel Sunday evening dinner dances with a special theme and setting – a concept that had been tried and tested earlier in the year at Monte Carlo. ‘Un Soir a Nagasaki’ (May 1924) was held in a bower of Japanese lanterns with table decorations of real almond, plum and peach blossom and souvenirs of dainty almond trees, flower hair ornaments and quaint Japanese figures. ‘En Chine’ (October 1924) featured masses of Chinese favours that were showered on the guests including caps, hats, fans, dolls, mandarins, pipes, lanterns, whistles and even lacquered powder boxes.

At the Café de Paris in late 1924, the ‘favours’ showered on the visitors were most original – surmounting slender sticks are posies of coloured flowers, black cats with arched backs and glowing eyes and grotesque faces all of which were be lit up by a tiny electric bulb. At midnight the lights were lowered and the effect of the dancers moving around the room with these illuminated favours was most charming.

At the same time there was anther innovation. When Parysis, the famous Parisian artist made her first appearance at the Hotel Metropole cabaret, lifelike statuettes of her modelled in wax were given away as a memento.

An advert for 'Favours'

‘I know several dancing enthusiasts who are making collections of these jolly mementoes of gay evenings at London clubs and restaurants. The trade in them must be immense and much ingenuity is shown by someone in devising new ideas.’

When Roger Wolfe Kahn’s fashionable new cabaret called Le Perroquet de Paris, opened in New York in November 1926 with a mirrored dance floor and aquariums beneath the individual tables, he made a point of following the Parisian example of giving expensive souvenirs to the women – in this instance a bottle of premier perfume. Back in Paris the legendary American dancer Harry Pilcer took over the dansants at Claridge’s in early 1927 and once again returned to the favoured dolls gift for the ladies that had become such a feature of Le Perroquet five years earlier.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

The social season was a well established pattern of behavior where the elite, rich and famous members of society moved with the seasons like a flock of migratory birds from one nesting place to another enjoying a range of activities and events.

Fashionable society has always lived by a routine largely defined by the seasons hence perhaps the term ‘social season’. The roots of the concept, certainly in the UK, were linked to the movements of the royal family and certainly, by the 18th Century, they were in residence in London from April to July and from October until Christmas along with members of the aristocracy and the ruling classes. The Season traditionally began after Easter with the custom of returning to London at the end of the hunting season and ended with the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ (12th August), which was the start of the shooting season for red grouse.

The period was marked by high profile balls, galas, parties, sporting events, horse racing, debutante balls, dances, concerts and charity and other special events. One of the first social significant event was staged by George III, for example, who staged a May ball, to raise money for a new maternity hospital, named after his wife Queen Charlotte. It became an annual event, and the fulcrum of the social season at the time.

As a result a social calendar and ritual of events was established whereby the elite knew where they should be and what they needed to do. The season also became known for when well-bred girls were launched into society and the marriage market at the age of 17 or 18 with a formal introduction to the monarch and a debut at the high-profile ball.

Similar activities were followed all over Europe and America and, with the advent of the 20th century and foreign travel becoming more prevalent and fashionable, many of the elite established new patterns of engagement particularly with accepted sojourns on the Riviera in early spring and Deauville and other Normandy resorts in August.

However, the traditional season was interrupted by the First World War and thereafter it more became difficult to maintain social exclusivity. As a result, a slightly more flexible, more open, and more European model emerged and in the 1920s the social season was a far more complex and varied affair.

London’s season followed a set pattern with racing at Ascot in June, racing at Goodwood in July and the Cowes regatta in August. These events along with the more usual court functions, debutante balls, the craze for dancing, the growth of nightclubs and the evolution of smart cocktail parties spawned an ever increasing demand for luxurious garments, which gave rise to the growth of many new fashion houses in the 1920s and a set pattern emerged with each house giving two seasonal collections each year in March or April and in September or October. Equally, the new cabaret craze also followed a set season with openings and new shows in the spring and autumn with summer closings in town but dedicated venues for summer entertainment out of town.

In Europe, especially France, the season began with a visit to Saint-Moritz in January and then Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo in February and March, Le Touquet at Easter, Paris in June for the horse racing, Deauville in August and Biarritz in September.

Paris, always a social magnet like London, had a busy summer season and throughout June there were numerous race meetings, which culminated in the Grand Steeplechase at Auteuil (21st June) and the Grand Prix at Longchamps (28th June). Both race courses were located within ten minutes of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne about a mile from each other, and become an institution. The races themselves were often eclipsed by the kaleidoscopic pictures of colourful fashions that paraded around the green lawns giving a sneak preview of the distinctive features that would dictate the autumn couture shows.

One of the most important events of the social season was the Bal du Grand Prix at the Opera on the night before the Grand Prix. After the races everyone trouped back to Paris, but many stopped for tea and dancing at one of the popular summer hot spots in the Bois de Bologne: l’Hermitage, Chateau de Madrid, the Pre Catalan or the Café d’Armenonville.

But things were not the same and the changes were more visible on the Riviera in the early part of the year. Many of the old breed of visitors had vanished. The Russian aristocracy, once the heaviest gamblers in Europe and lovers of Monte Carlo and its Casino, and the rich members of the German and Austro-Hungarian empires had been largely wiped out by war and revolution. Their places were taken by a new type of visitor, one that the old guard clearly despised – Americans! The growing numbers of freshly minted American millionaires, and others with lighter fortunes, flocked to Europe to avoid Prohibition and avail the benefits of an exceedingly good exchange rate. They particularly loved the horse racing in Paris and, although they tended to avoid Monte Carlo, with its more exotic atmosphere and its eccentric inhabitants dedicated to gambling, gravitated to the newer casinos at Nice and Cannes.

One disgruntled commentator said in 1921 ‘the Riviera is not what it was. It is different and it is not better. I am not concerned to maintain that is less attractive than the Spring of 1914, say, but it is certainly a very much less attractive, less amusing and less intimate place than it used to be 20 or more years ago. It has become democratic, for one thing and is has become much more moral.’

Americans also had a marked effect on changing the dictates of the season as Vogue observed ‘no longer is the American an innocent abroad, he not only follows but frequently sets the style… We always think of going to Europe in the summer, of Paris and London in May and June, but very shortly, there will be no ‘season’ for Europe, as there has always been before, because the sophisticated American had now discovered that the most charming time in Europe, especially for those who have friends there, is the off season.’

August was the height of the season for Deauville on the Normandy coast followed by Biarritz in September. Deauville was seen as act one and Biarritz as act two in a ‘comedy of extravagant pleasure.’ But, equally changes were afoot and other resorts like Ostend and Venice were gaining ground.

Although Ostende was a place to visit most of the spring and summer it was at the height of the season during June to August when it became a cosmopolitan assemblage of rank, fashion and beauty. Deauville, long the champion of society throughout August, soon learned that a visit to Ostend was needed before or after its season.

At the same time some felt that Deauville was losing its exclusivity and even becoming vulgar. It was felt that Deauville’s reputation was attracting too many sightseers and that Americans in particular crossed the Atlantic because they simply had to see Deauville or the ‘City of Spectacular Sin.’ As a result many of the social elite transferred their affections to the Lido in Venice described as ‘the Deauville of Italy.’ As Vogue said ‘even with the terrific popularity that Biarritz and Le Touquet have had, Venice can not be touched, for there is no such setting in the world.’

Of course another innovation had a major impact on the season – sunbathing and this was also largely due to American’s. In the early 1920s a group of Americans began to spend the summer on the Riviera. This was considered daring and very strange at the time since the Riviera season was a winter one and all the hotels closed from late spring all through the summer. Cole Porter decided to rent the Chateau de la Garoupe in Antibes for the summer of 1921 and invited friends to visit and had a grand time. The next the summer (in 1922) Gerald and Sara Murphy rented a whole floor in the Grand Hotel at Cap d’Antibes. Outside they created a beach by removing the seaweed to reveal the sand and dowsed themselves in banana oil and sunbathed. Within a few years the fad of sunbathing engulfed society and the Riviera became an all year round destination. By the late 1920s it was de rigeur to spend the summer not on the Normandy Coast or the Lido but the new elite Cote d’Azur beaches .

After World War II, society had become more egalitarian and the social season of the past gradually changed and, significantly, in recent years it has been largely eroded although some of the more high profile events still endure.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

In the early 1920s a series of rather simple, yet wonderful adverts appeared in theatre programmes for the fashion house of Ninette. With two outlets in London at 47 Cranbourne Street and 79 Shaftesbury Avenue, Ninette was rather well placed, but seemingly only flourished for a few years.

An advert for Ninette, early 1920s

In the spring of 1923 the film star Flora Le Breton (wearing a Ninette gown) and Vincent Davies were the dancing act at the opening of Revelle’s club and in Paris, Joan Pickering at the Club Daunou, wore another Ninette creation of ecru lace on a little dance frock of powder blue faille over flesh pink georgette. The absence of adornment was its greatest charm and caused great admiration as it lent its wearer that coveted ‘jeaune fille’ appearance.

But, all attempts to locate any further information have been elusive, so who was behind this rather wonderful British fashion house now completely forgotten?

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

In a London street, not known for its smartness, shone a beacon of culinary delight, providing dinners, suppers and dancing all for half a crown in 1914.

Advert for Maxim's, early 1920s

When the Imperial Austrian Exhibition was staged in Earls Court in 1906 the organisers established an Austrian restaurant providing admirable Austrian food as part of the experience. They brought over the son-in-law of the proprietor of the famous Rubezahl Café in the Austrian Highlands called Maximilan Lurion to become the manager and when Earls Court closed for the winter Lurion stay on.

Lurion decided to open a restaurant in central London and with a British syndicate bought a site on the corner of Wardour and Gerrard Streets. A small public house carrying a license was included in the sale and the entire plot was re-developed incorporating the saloon. The name of the restaurant was deemed to be a shortened version of Lorion’s Christian name and so Restaurant Maxim was born at 30 Wardour Street. The fact that it had the same name as the famous restaurant in Paris must have been a coincidence!

Although the area was not exactly fashionable the new restaurant was described as ‘a bright and cheerful place, in a neighbourhood where brightness is not the rule.’ The white exterior had touches of gilding on the wreaths that embellish the outer walls and there was a domed turret on the roof. Compact, yet elegant, the interior was handsomely appointed on three floors with a stunning balcony.

On entry there was a smart Commissionaire in a well fitting coat who welcomed you to the ground floor restaurant which was panelled in white with red-shaded lamps on the tables and some potted palms adding colour. The chairs were of white wood upholstered in green leather and the carpets a deep rose colour. The upper floor comprised a balcony looking down into the lower restaurant and there were rows of white curtained narrow windows and a brass ornamental rail surrounding the balcony. The walls were papered in deep red with white woodwork and classic white ornamentation and had large mirrors and panels showing the arms of the house displayed in proper heraldic colours (three stag’s heads on a shield with a boar’s head as a crest and two stags as supporters). There were two circular lines of tables one close to the railings and one against the walls and a string band played on this level which could also be heard below. Cut glass electroliers, some hanging some fixed to the ceiling, gave light both to the upper and lower restaurants. In the basement was a grill-room.

Maxim’s was of course in the land of bohemia and so the ambiance was relaxed and unrestricted with no pre-requisite about wearing clothes of ceremony.

An interior view of Maxim's from the ground floor looking up to the balcony

A view of a table setting in Maxim's

The restaurant under Lorion, for whatever reason, did not succeed and it soon changed hands. By 1914, M. Ducker was the manager and there had been a struggle to bring it to its present state of prosperity. Oddly, some believed that the reputation of Maxim’s was far from spotless, that English society allegedly gave it a wide berth and it was regarded as ‘the meeting place of clandestine lovers.’ Most likely, after Lorion’s departure it had been regarded as a dubious place but the new

A view of the balcony level (first floor) of Maxim's

The menu in 1914 included Hors d’oeuvre a la Russe, Consomme Chiffonnette, Crème Gentilhomme (thick green soup flavoured most likely with spinach), Supreme de Barbue Nicoise (fish with pink accompaniment of tomatoes and shrimp), Carre de Pre-Sale Bourguignonne, Pommes Fondantes, Poulet en Casserole, Salade and Glace Chantilly or Fraises Melba. What a feast.

During the early 20s the growth and popularity of dinner and dancing prompted a change and a new, much improved parquet floor was added and dances were orchestrated in the central part of the main room. Eventually, the restaurant must have been bought by a new owners who turned into a dancing hall and café called Revelle’s Club that opened Thursday 1st March 1923. Dinners and suppers were still a feature but dancing to Hugh Mayo’s Reverie Revels was the main attraction. Opening hours were 7.-12.30am, with special gala nights twice a week until 2.30am and on Sundays the club opened 7pm to midnight. As an added treat a cabaret show was provided by the dancing of Flora Le Breton and Vincent Davies. Le Breton would have been a big draw. She had started off in the chorus of Murray’s cabaret and was then snapped up by film producers scoring a big success with the boxer Georges Carpentier in The Gypsy Chavalier in 1922 and was a hugely popular and well-known figure.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

Advert for Revelle's Club (formerly Maxim's)

The third Ambassadeurs show presented by Edmund Sayag in the summer of 1928 was simply called ‘Vingt-huit’ and once again featured a largely American cast in what was called a ‘record monster programme.’

Fred Waring's Pennyslyvanians

Sayag spent sometime in New York during the spring of 1928 securing ‘the finest American troupe yet introduced into the French capital’ under the supervision of Connolly-Morrison and William Morris. The show described as ‘a combination of variety hall and cabaret, a series of turns by some of the most astonishing acrobatic dancers and comedians that have ever appeared on a Parisian stage’ was in fact staged by Bob Connolly and George Hale and the twenty-four song score was specially written by Cole Porter.

It was George Hale that persuaded Sayag to get Porter to write the score for the show. They had in fact all met the previous year when Porter allowed the English actress June to sing ‘Let’s Misbehave’. Porter attended the rehearsals and got involved in the intricacies of the staging and the monumental success of the show marked the end of Cole’s professional stagnation. Later in the run, Porter wrote a number specifically for Clifton Webb and Dorothy Dickson called ‘Looking at You’ which was an immediate success and was eventually used again in C.B. Cochran’s production of Wake up and Dream in London and New York.

Buster West

The troupe of ‘Vingt-Huit’ numbered fifty and included Buster and John West (humorous dancers), Evelyn Hoey (singer), Florence Gerswin (singer), Morton Downey (singer), Myrio, Desha and Barte (acrobatic dancers), the Three Eddies (black dancers), the Nesbit brothers (comic singers and dancers), Bud and Jack Pearson (clever parodists and masters of rhythm), Joan Carter Waddell (dancer and beauty), Mary Leigh and Basil Howes (the only British act), Fred Waring‘s Pennsylvanians jazz orchestra and George Hale’s eighteen girls.

The true star of the troupe was recognised as Buster West partnered by his father John West – who provide what was called humorous dancing. Buster was regarded as a genius and a superlative comedian, full of original ideas and exquisitely funny.

Starting at 8.30 the show began with a skit on a touring car filled with tourists riding up the Champs Elysees with Eleanor Shaler as the uniformed guide and Jack Pearson the chief tourist surrounded by American sightseers. The same chorus girls appeared later as Highland soldiers in the Stuart tartan scene (finale of first part) with Buster West impersonating the Prince of Wales and Evelyn Hoey as solo vocalist and a band of real pipers in kilts. Francis Gershwin sang a number by her famous brother, Morton Downey sang Blue Hour, Joan Carter Wadell was a stunning beauty clothed in white feathers against a black velvet background and the British couple Mary Leigh and Basil Howes featured in the Old Fashioned Girl number.

Desha and Myrio

Although the revue was all American, Variety observed that the costumes were to be designed and executed in Paris. Sayag said ‘French producers have not followed the American vogue of dressing the feminine assemble to conform with certain constabulary edicts.’ In other words costuming for the French music hall was far more minimal and less conservative that its American counterpart. However, Billboard reported that once again Dolly Tree of the Brooks Costume Company was designing the costumes and, since she had already designed for the French music hall and had worked on two previous editions of Sayag’s shows, she would have been well aware of the difference in approach. The programme mentions that costumes for the tableau Les Heures Bleus was designed by Louis Curti and executed by Gaston Zanel and that other costumes were by Max Weldy. One can only presume that Dolly Tree did design most of the costumes and simply did not get credit. The décor for the production was designed by Andre Boll except for Les Heures Bleues and Jardin du Maroc by Louis Curti and executed by Emile Bertin.

The 1928 Ambassadors show was launched on 10th May 1928 and the audience were charged the extraordinary amount of $70 entry fee (dinner and show but no champagne). Small wonder it was regarded so highly with such an entrance fee! There were two orchestras for general dancing before, between and after the show besides the star orchestra of Waring’s Pennsylvanians.

Ted Lewis and his orchestra

Once again it was smash hit and described as ‘one of the best this hall has hitherto shown and about the best in Paris.’ After a few weeks the show was broken into three segments and there were changes including the addition of the famous dancer Clifton Webb and Dorothy Dickson singing ‘Looking for You’.

However, all was not going to plan and by June there was dissatisfaction with Sayag from American performers when it was learned that many contracts would not be renewed. Sayag had issued eight-week contracts with additional four and eight week renewal options. He decided to retain Buster and John West, Joan Carter Waddell and Clifton Webb but did not extend the chorus of 18, the Pearson duo, the three Eddies, Evelyn Hoey and Waring’s Pennyslyvanians. The latter were replaced with Ted Lewis and his orchestra and Lewis himself was hailed as ‘an incomparable animator, singer, reciter, announcer, mimic and virtuoso of the clarinet and saxophone.’

Variety commented that there had been previous complaints that Sayag was too much of a stickler for contractual detail and that nothing not expressly provided for in writing is binding with him. ‘Sayag made promises in order to make the large display he did at the premiere of the show in Paris. When the show went over and big, he probably figured to cut down the overhead at the expense of the very Americans receiving his promises.’

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

The second Ambassadeur’s show presented by Edmund Sayag in the summer of 1927 was described as ‘not a revue but a series of acts to entertain the classy diners’ and primarily featured a range of top American acts headed by Georgie Hale.

Miss June, one of the leading ladies in the Ambassadeur's 1927 show

In the Spring of 1927 Sayag visited New York and with William Morris Jr, the son of the theatrical manager, made plans for his summer spectacular show. American talent comprising forty principals and twenty chorus girls were booked and the troupe began rehearsals in New York before sailing for France on 20th April.The Ambassadors show of 1927 (variously entitled Broadway – New York, Broadway in Paris, ‘Revue America’) opened on 1st June with an impressive line-up headed by Georgie Hale (the dapper American light comedy singer and dancer who also staged the dances), Margie Finley, Cyril and Ethel D’Ath, Cal and Ethel Norris (acrobatic dancing), the Four Admirals (musicians, singers and dancers), the jazz band of the Aaronsons Commanders, Johnny Hudgins (black performer who was the star comedian and dancer in the previous season), Robert Stickney (the Charleston dancer on stilts, who had already made a big hit at the Piccadilly Hotel cabaret the previous summer), Helen Morgan (famous New York cabaret singer), Mabel Hill (Hawaian dancer), Gus Muleahy (eccentric dancer), Christine Matson, Viva Regor and Jean Marini. Another of the key principals was the famous British actress June with her dancing companion Billy Reardon.

The cuisine at the Ambassadeurs was top-rate and Sayag’s Chef Fabre became rather legendary especially for his chicken dishes and Sayag was quoted as saying he paid Fabre more money that he did his most expensive prima donna. William Morris Jr contributed a lot of energy in rehearsing and preparing each piece and helped as stage hand, curtain raiser, interpreter and major domo.

Johnny Hudgins who had made such an impression the previous season continued to astonish and delight Parisians with his tremendous energetic Charleston dancing cries of ‘Ooah ooah’.

Helen Morgan

June was described as being ‘very pretty’ and was a ‘perfect exponent of old French and modern dances.’ Rather pompously, in her autobiography June thought that she was the star of the show, and according to her Sayag ‘refused none of my somewhat exorbitant demands.’ He paid her £250 per week, selected her own dancing partner, couturier and showmaker, supplied two dozen pairs of silk stockings a week, six gowns to begin with from Worth and a new one every week and in addition she could have two supper parties per week free. ‘This is like having life served to you on an emerald-and-diamond tray!’ she squawked. June ‘s dancing partner was the Irish-American Billie Reardon who she had seen dancing with Irene Castle at the Embassy in London in the summer of 1923. She said ‘Billy was not a great dancer but he had chic and a large following among the international set and he was fun.’ June claimed she was feted by the beaux of Paris and found herself the toast of Paris.

The English designer Dolly Tree, who had re-located to New York from London and had worked with Sayag before, (it was reported that she had created costumes the second edition of the 1926 show) was commissioned to design the costumes and sets with the costumes being executed by Brooks Costume Company who had dressed the Blackbirds show the previous summer. Although Dolly Tree created the bulk of the costumes ‘the dancing was lavishly embellished with the most gorgeous costuming’ some of the other performers were dressed by other couturiers of their choice.

Such was the importance of the reopening of the smartest Parisian venue that in the inaugural audience everyone who was anyone was there including the Royal Princes’ George and Henry and many leading figures of French stage and public life such as Sacha Guiltry, Yvonne Printemps, Jane Marnac, Jane Renouardt, Georges Carpenter, Josephine Baker, Mistinguett, Earl Leslie, the Dolly Sisters, the Maharajah of Kapurthala and Damia.

Robert Stickney

Dancing Times observed ‘Paris is coming more and more under the influence of English and American taste, especially the latter for its theatre and music hall shows. First came their dances, then their artistes in ever increasing numbers to show how they should be done and now the whole style of the entertainment tends to become purely American. The transformation is complete at the Ambassadeurs. The title of the show is no misnomer. You dine luxuriously amid pergolas of flowers, luminous cascades and thousands of coloured lights where you dance between courses and watch tabloid turns between the dances.’

As usual, Sayag made changes to the show, and in August the American comedian Lester Allen joined the cast, (a comedian of varied effects, at one moment he appeared in the role of young dandy dressed up to the nines and in another his style was that of Little Tich) followed in September by the ballroom dancing of Jack Holland and Joan Barry. At the end of the Paris engagement it was muted that the show would be taken to Berlin and then perhaps Broadway but this did not happen.

During rehearsals the atmosphere was chaotic and the noise and confusion were unbelievable as the interior of the Ambassadeurs was being re-decorated with the ceiling and walls being trellised and festooned with life-like wisteria and lilacs. June was due to do a song with Georgie Hale, the dapper American light comedy singer and dancer. She thought it was banal and Sayag refused to provide her with another. She was furious and tracked Sayag down for a discussion with two other men in a garden room. She tried to retreat but Sayag said ‘Mes amis, this is my charming but temperamental English star’. One of the other men introduced himself as the great Russian opera star Chaliapin. They asked what was the matter and she said that Sayag had given her a stupid song and she refused to sing it ‘what I need is something with a lilt and, if possible, with a point to it’.

The other man said that he had written a few songs and asked if she’d liked to hear one or two. She reluctantly led him to a piano where he sat and played and sang ‘Let’s Misbehave.’ She thought it was good but ‘too risqué for London, but perfect for Paris.’ As the lyrics got naughtier and naughtier, the chorus girls and musicians gathered smiling and chuckling and when finished burst into applause.

June exclaimed ‘I must have it…. Sayag must buy it for me.’
The man kissed her hand and said ‘I give it to you.’
She turned to Billy Reardon and said ‘I guarantee it will make his name’ Billy gaped ‘Make his name! My god, don’t you know who he is? Cole Porter! One of America’s top song-writers.’

One presumes that June sang the song in the show….

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

Roseray and Capella were one of the most famous French dancing acts of the 1920s. Not only were they accomplished acrobatic and adagio dancers but they were also extremely elegant and beautiful if somewhat audacious in terms of the brevity of their costuming which some thought rather salacious. Indeed, if the gossip about them being mother and son were true, it was an extraordinary act.

Roseray and Capella in a typical pose

Simone Roseray and Jacques Capella rose to prominence shortly after the First World War and were described as a Franco-Russian pair. In the summer of 1919, a photograph of Roseray appeared in the Tatler describing her as ‘a young newcomer to the Parisian stage who studied with the famous professor Stilson’ and by late 1923 the pair were clearly an established dancing team ‘applauded in turn at Folies Bergere, the Marigny and La Gaite-Rochechouart.’

However, it was not until the Spring of 1924 that they really came to prominence. After making a splash on the Riviera in early 1924, especially in Nice, they became one of the main attractions (along with Rose Amy, Gaby Montbreuse and Rene Thano) in the Concert Mayol show Toute Neu from March 1924. Here they gave ‘a number of acrobatic dances which show off the beauty of physical form of both partners’ in such exotic numbers as Nuit de Sheherazade, La Favourite and L’Amant (the lover), La Boite de Jeux – Le Jeu des Dames (play of the ladies) and La Javaise des Roses – L’Ame des Roses (the heart of the roses). At the same time they doubled at the fashionable Canari nightclub in the Rue Faubourg.

Roseray and Capella in Paris En Fleurs, Casino de Paris, Paris, 1925

Later in 1924, along with Maurice Chevalier, Yvonne Vallee and the Irvin Sisters, Roseray and Capella starred in Vive Les Femmes at the Palace Theatre. A photo caption of them at the time suggested that they had already performed to great success in Berlin and Vienna, so perhaps they had made a trip to both cities in the summer of 1924. The next big production that they entered was Paris En Fleurs at the Casino de Paris launched in November 1925 starring the Dolly Sisters, Maurice Chevalier and Yvonne Vallee. Their dances in a Grecian number, India of a thousand and one nights and Versailles in the autumn were greatly admired.

Roseray and Capella taken at the time of The Great Temptations, New York, 1926. Photo courtesy of the Shubert Archive.

Their elegance and allure clearly made an impression with the Shubert brothers, New York theatrical producers, and they snapped them up to headline in their new musical revue called The Great Temptations that was launched at the Winter Garden Theatre, New York on 18th May 1926. Dancing was a big feature and there were other notable dancing acts including Pat and Terry Kendall, the Guy Sisters (also from Paris) and the 15 Foster Girls. Variety particularly enthused about Roseray and Capella by saying ‘the real sensation of the show is an almost naked duo.’

Roseray and Capella taken at the time of The Great Temptations, New York, 1926. Photo courtesy of the Shubert Archive.

Roseray and Capella appeared midway in the first half (scene 12 On the Veranda) ‘to a very fancy dance with very few clothes and lots of thrills. Capella is a well built fellow who wears a tiny beaded loincloth, skillfully adjusted and open at the sides to allow for a great flesh display. Roseray wears some beads on a head-dress and a rhinestone thingamajig judiciously spotted. Otherwise she has freedom of the body and with her partner does the dance that will keep this show in town for a good run. Roseray’s body is whitened to make us believe she is a statue being adored by a worshipper. The much discussed undressed dance done by Roseray and Capella is handled so delicately it is art in all its dancing glory. Miss Roseray’s perfect form sports a rhinestone girdle as well as a tiny bodice. In another number she has a well-marcelled wig of gray with an accordian pleated little skirt held in place by a wreath of rosebuds and a white chiffon simple throw trimmed in these buds.’ The show carried on to packed audiences until early November 1926 when the dancers presumably returned to Europe.

In April 1927 the pair were invited to London by Albert de Courville, who had started to produce the cabaret shows at the prestigious Embassy Club in Bond Street. Their performance was nothing less than sensational and guests climbed on chairs and tables to see them and cheered and clapped. However, something happened after a visit of a police inspector and their performance suspended. There was allegedly a complaint about the brevity of their rather scant costumes and concern over the danger to the audience if Roseray should slip from her partner when they were conducting one of their acrobatic turns. In one dance Roseray spun horizontally her only grip being with her toes behind Capella’s neck. Roseray, aghast, exclaimed in her piquant French way ‘do they want me to dance in a fur coat?’

They re-appeared the following night and Capella wore an extra green singlet, Roseray was also less exposed and the tables were set further back from the dance floor than normal to give more space for their spectacular swing that was the final of the dance. Luigi, the manager of the Embassy said ‘I have been assured that there is no objection to the act now.’ Needless to say the press coverage certainly helped attendance.

From the Embassy, the dancers were due to appear at the Carlton Hotel, London, also under de Courville’s management but they had an argument and they returned to Paris just as de Courville married Edith Kelly, suffered a nervous collapse and seemingly went bankrupt. They were lured back to London almost immediately by the management of the Savoy who offered them $1,750 per week, Their debut in early June was called ‘a miracle of grace and strength’ and was once again a huge success.

‘Capella wore, if anything, rather less than a prizefighter while Roseray was clad in diamond bracelets. She also wore a snow white wig and when she came down into the ballroom she wore an opera cloak of Prince of Wales feathers over her shoulders. This she soon discarded.They began with plastic posing and very gracefully and artistically went through into a dance. A little later they came back and repeated their terrific dance that so shocked the Bond Street police, They wore rather more clothes, but the acrobatics were just as unrestrained and in the climax Capella swung Roseray around like a whirlwind with his foot somehow fastened to her neck. There was no sign of the police.’

As they packed them into the Savoy (capacity 1300 nightly) the critics raved about them. The Stage said they are ‘far above other acts of the same type in both their grace and acrobatic daring’ and Variety said they gave a ‘breathless and daring performance.’

By the end of June they were back in Paris and swiftly added to the Casino de Paris revue Paris-New York (launched at the end of May) that starred the Dolly Sisters and doubled in cabaret including the Florida club in November 1927.

By early 1928 Roseray and Capella were back in the USA to headline at the Casa Lopez nightclub. Casa Lopez (at West 54th Street) had been one of New York’s hottest nightspots since opening in October 1925 under the auspices of the famous band-leader Vincent Lopez and his business partner Gene Geiger. But for many months business had been slack and the booking of Roseray and Capella was the last stand as a make or break for the venue. After one week at the Casa Lopez in mid-February, business was still slow an over zealous PR man Irwin S. Strouse conceived various publicity ruses to stimulate interest. Roseray called off the suggestion of her accidentally losing an abdominal tunic which would have left her nude but agreed to another plan which was ‘… one of the best framed publicity stunts of this nature ever put over.’

Strouse planted stories in the gossip columns that Roseray was madly in love with Lopez and miserable because he was spending his time with two Ziegfeld girls. Roseray then allegedly attempted suicide early one Sunday morning by jumping into a rather cold Central Park lake due to the unrequited love of Lopez. She was ‘saved’ by Thomas Moore (25) a security company investigator.

The press fell for the story that was leaked immediately and it was printed everywhere in their Monday editions. It helped that Roseray was ill from exposure contracted as a result of her overlong immersion in the park lake and had spent the night in hospital. However, two reporters Mark Hellinger and Walter Winchell smelt a rat, uncovered the con and condemned the ‘suicide’ as a publicity hoax. It was also swiftly exposed that Thomas Moore, Roseray’s rescuer, was the brother of Joe Moore, the amateur ice skating champion who was Vincent Lopez’s most intimate pal and buddy. Lopez and Geiger were vilified and the word was that Lopez was finished and would not be mentioned in the papers for a least a year. On March 18, 1928, after a stormy disagreement with Geiger, the Casa Lopez closed permanently. Vincent was penniless and mired in debt and said ‘Broadway ain’t what it used to be.’

One significant story to come out of the subsequent coverage was that Roseray was in fact the mother of her dance partner Capella – an idea which an international showman who had known the team for many years emphatically denied. Clearly if such a story had been confirmed at the time it would have ruined their act and thus the denial not surprising. In later years Vincent Lopez confirmed the story in his autobiography.

The pair appear to have stayed in America for most of 1928 and kept themselves busy in vaudeville and in Publix stage shows through to November when they returned to Europe opening in a new edition of Playtime at the Piccadilly, the cabaret show at the Piccadilly Hotel, London in mid November 1928.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s big appearances seemingly slowed down. They were on the Riviera and performed in a Mimosa ball at the Hotel Bellevue, Menton in February 1929, then the Café de Paris in London (June 1929), the Chateau Madrid in Paris (July 1929), the Palladium, London with a third partner Sylvio (October 1929), the Olympia Cinema de Luxe in a stage show called The Altar of Love (October 1930) and the London Pavilion with Debelle in John Southern’s non-Stop variety show (October 1932). Thereafter, it is not known what happened to them.

Capella and Patricia, 1940s

Capella and Patricia, 1940s

However, much later, with the advent of the 1940s, Capella was dancing in New York in cabaret and while he was at the Rainbow Room, Walter Winchell was gossiping about his alleged romance with Anne Blanet, the Toledo heiress in February 1941. Shortly afterward Capella met Patricia Reynolds born in Detroit Mitchigan and a former New Yorker. She became his dancing partner and wife and for the next decade they became one of America’s most sought after ballroom dancing acts appearing as Capella and Patricia all over the country in cabaret and vaudeville such as the Bamboo Room of the Royal Palm, Miami (May 1942), the Smash Laff Variety Revue of 1943, Nixon Café, Pittsburgh (April 1943), Belmont Plaza, New York ‘Glass Hat ‘ show (August 1944), William Penn Hotel (March 1945), the Swank Brook Club, Miami (December 1945) and Chez Paree, Chicago (April 1946). They also made an appearance in the Universal film Moon Over Vegas released in April 1944.

By the 1960s they had retired and led a wonderful life based in New York, wintering in Palm Beach and returning to France regularly spending the summer in Monte Carlo.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

Part of a two-picture deal starring the American actress Betty Compson, The White Shadow (1924) was the second picture from British director Graham Cutts, following in the footsteps of the highly successful Woman to Woman (1923).

Betty Compson in The White Shadow

Betty Compson had accepted the role in Woman to Woman through the newly formed Balcon-Savile-Freedman team on condition that her contract should be for two films. She arrived in London 10th May 1923 and filming on Woman to Woman was complete within 3 months. The two picture deal proved to be a costly mistake because seemingly Graham Cutts and his team were so engrossed in the first production they had made few preparations for the second picture and had no other property ready to exploit for their expensive American star. As a result, shortly after completing Woman to Woman in the summer of 1923, they rushed into production with what must have been, a rather hasty adaptation by Alfred Hitchcock of another Michael Morton novel called Children of Chance.

The White Shadow, which had originally been called The Awakening and then The Eternal Survivor, was billed as the same star and same production team as Woman to Woman. Thus, besides being directed by Graham Cutts (assisted by C.N. Russell), the photography was by Claude McDonnell, scenario by Alfred Hitchcock and Dolly Tree designed the gowns.

The plot was extremely convoluted and was built around the tale of twin sisters (Nancy and Georgina Brent played by Betty Compson) who differed in temperament, character and disposition and suffer tragedy. Georgina was wistfully charming and self-sacrificing while the unrestrained Nancy was the devilishly fascinating idol of the Paris underworld. The story followed a man who falls in love with a girl who is then deceived by her twin sister into loving her so that her sister’s reputation may not suffer and then sacrifices the love she feels so that her now repentant twin may be happy. The implausible storyline featured mysterious disappearances, mistaken identity, steamy cabarets, romance, chance meetings, madness, and even the transmigration of souls.

Robin Field (Clive Brook) falls in love with Nancy Brent coming over on the boat from Paris. She is strong willed and intemperate, like her father, but she has a twin., Georgina who is entirely opposite. The existence of the sister is unknown to Field. One day Nancy runs away from home to Paris before her love from Robin matures, where she leads a wild life in the Paris. Her drunken father (A.B. Imeson) beside himself with grief at the disappearance of his daughter follows her to Paris. No news comes through of either of them and the mother (Daisy Campbell) prostrated with grief dies. Georgina inherits the estate, moves to London and presumably at this point has dealings with Herbert Barnes
(Olaf Hytton) who plays a lawyer in a conventional stage villain manner. To save her sister’s reputation she pretends to Robin that she is Nancy and finally falls in love with him.

One of Robin’s friends, Paris Art student Louis Chadwick (Henry Victor) sees Nancy in Paris and Robin begins to believe that Georgina is leading a double life. Georgina hearing of this goes to Paris and finds Nancy in a Paris cabaret and explains what has happened to her family. After this, thinking she has taken Robin’s love under false pretences, Georgina breaks down and goes to a sanatorium in Switzerland. Finally, she persuades Nancy to take her place there and so when Robin follows he finds the woman he first loved. Georgina dies and her soul passes into the body of her twin, this altering Nancy’s entire nature. Eventually, all ends happily after the deception is explained and Nancy’s father is rediscovered and restored to sanity.

Cutts started work on the preliminaries of The White Shadow in late June 1923 and by July was filming exterior scenes in rural Devon, London, Paris and Switzerland, before the bulk of the film was shot once again in the old Famous Players Lasky Studio at Poole Street, Islington.

In mid August, with Michael Morton as an absorbed spectator, filming of the Montmartre cabaret scene took place that was described as a big part of the picture. The set was apparently impressive and striking but far from gorgeous, implying that the cabaret was not meant to be one of the more salubrious Parisian venues but most definitely one that was off the beaten track.

It was a long gallery, opening onto a boulevards, with plain stairs descending to the main floor with a couple of refreshments bars in big alcoves beneath the gallery, unadorned boards on the floor and very ordinary furniture and fittings and mirrors, plate glass and marble featuring in the décor.

Crowds of various types (including Tom Waters as an ultra old bohemian artist, Harry Ashton in the guise of corpulent Frenchman and Dorine Beresford in a piquant dancing dress pirouetted by the piano for the delectation of the clients) occupied chairs around many small tables. The entire atmosphere was carefree and reckless with everyone chatting and sipping various drinks. It presented a wonderful picture ‘the Gallic irresponsible happy-go-lucky atmosphere had been wonderful caught’ and the scene was regarded as being more Parisian than anything seen in Paris!

Cutts with the energetic assistance of C.N. Russell directed some full-length shots. A harmless stranger – played by Bert Darley – entered from the street and descended the stairs, he shook off a woman sat on the stairs who gripped his foot, then a man stood up and noticed him, soon all the crowd rose and yelled ‘get out’. The intruder fled and then another visitor Louis Chadwick (played by Henry Victor) arrived and the same thing happened except this character treated everything as a joke and shouted back something rude and was welcomed by the throng. This was a precursor for several close up shots of Betty Compson in the cabaret.

When the film was given its trade show preview in February 1924, the three main reviews were all in accord criticising the story and the lack of continuity but praising the productions values.

Motion Picture Studio thought that although the central idea was a good one, there was a lack of excellence, an unconvincing theme without any real plausibility and that haste had something to do with the picture’s shortcomings in terms of the essential qualities of story and sincerity. As a whole the treatment was careless to the extent that the interest in the story practically ceased after the first two reels.

‘When a production is made in this country with the pick of British stars and the added commercial and artistic presence of a pretty and clever American screen actress of great box office repute one is entitled to expect a better result than The White Shadow…. If the picture had been the first effort of a modest little firm one could understand more readily some of the shortcomings and their causes’.

Further, they thought that the picture had been indifferently edited and titled with stilted sentimentality and bad phraseology. However, they also observed that there was plenty of evidence in the picture of expenditure and Claude McDonnell’s photography was deemed to be even better than in Woman to Woman and the technique of double photography splendidly done.

Kine Weekly thought that opportunities had been missed and the action instead of bringing character into play was mechanical and jerky. ‘There is a complete lack of conviction in the way in which the sisters are mistaken for each other, and no attempt at a coherent and well-proportioned sequence of events. Everything happened in a haphazard sort of way as though the plot had been evolved as the production progressed’.

They believed that although Cutts started the story well as soon as Nancy ran away to Paris the action proceeded in a disjointed way by being transported in rapid succession to Paris, back to England, to Paris again, then to Switzerland and finally back to England. There was no attempt to lead gradually to these changes – the changes in scene were too abrupt and happened too fast. They also thought that Betty Compson suffered from the lack of dramatic unity and since she was hardly allowed off the screen for a minute this gave little chance to develop the other characters.

Kine Weekly also took issue with the credibility of certain themes. They did not like the idea of the twins being mistaken for each other by Robin Field since so many characters had seen them together and they are so frequently in the same place, that his ignorance becomes unconvincing. The father’s madness was also affected in this quick-change manner. He disappears for the major part of the story and reappears by being knocked down by a car driven by his daughter and Robin; this occurs in a back slum so that the long arm of coincidence is palpably made to over reach itself.

However, they thought that the technical qualities were excellent and the scenic backgrounds both in England and Switzerland very picturesque and artistically used. To conclude Kine Weekly added ‘owing to the star’s popularity, the producers former successes and the excellence of the technical qualities, this picture will prove a stronger attraction than the story and construction warrant’.

Bioscope thought that no expense has been spared to make the production an entertainment on a lavish scale but also took issue with the story. Instead of taking advantage of the possibilities for realism and making an attempt at convincing characterisation the plot was ‘so confusing as to be at times bewildering’. As a result they thought that Cutts was happier when dealing with effective scenic backgrounds rather than in the handling of his artists.

They thought that the perpetual double photography depicting the twin sisters was ingeniously contrived but created a situation where it became tiresome trying to distinguish between the two characters and as a consequence there was in fact too much of Betty Compson on the screen. They also thought that this monopoly by one artist gave the other actors little chance to shine. For example, Clive Brook as Robin Field has little to do except shake hands. Equally, they found the rapid transition of the father (A.B. Imeson) from proud country squire to street scavenger far too swift and melodramatic to allow the actor an opportunity to make the character convincing.

In conclusion Bioscope thought that ‘the best part of the production is the magnificent settings, photography and lighting which are worthy of a better plot. As a whole the White Shadow makes fair entertainment as a conventional melodrama, admirably staged (both in the lavish interiors and unusual continental exteriors) and featuring a well-known American star.’

Seemingly The White Shadow was released in America as White Shadows via Selznick in May 1924 but it did not come out in the UK until October 1924. Although there was plenty of evidence of expenditure in the picture as it was staged effectively with first class sets and costumes which included a big Montmarte cabaret scene it was regarded as a rather ordinary production which fell drastically short of the essential qualities of good story, sincerity and continuity and had a rather unconvincing theme which was indifferently edited and confusing to follow. The White Shadow became a box office disaster and wiped out the profit from Woman to Woman, which basically spelt the end of Balcon, Freedman and Savile.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

[p2p type="id" value="429" text="Take a look at the page about Woman to Woman (1923)"]

Edmund Sayag’s first show at the newly renovated Café des Amabassadeurs was Lew Leslie’s all-black production Blackbirds of 1926. Direct from New York, Blackbirds capitalised on the success of The Revue Negre, featuring Josephine Baker, staged earlier in 1925 and was an instant hit.

A sketch of the Blackbirds show in the Ambassadeurs

The inauguration of the new Café des Ambassaseurs with the Blackbirds show was at a private midnight VIP party on 27th May 1926 and was the most fashionable function of the season. The restaurant was packed with an audience of smart Paris society along with American and French stage celebrities. Taking advantage of the champagne, fois-gras sandwiches and petits fours were amongst many others Josephine Baker, Dora Duby, Marion Forde, Sacha Guitry, Yvonne Printemps, Maurice Chevalier, Yvonne Valle, Jane Marnac, the Rowe Sisters, Argentina, Nikitina, Irene Wells, Antonia Adison and the Dolly Sisters.

The show, imported through Lew Leslie, who had made it such a success in New York at the Plantation club, starred Florence Mills and her troupe including the sensational dancer Johnny Hudgins, the Three Eddies and the Plantation Jazz Orchestra conducted by Shrimp Jones with Johnny Dunn, the crack trumpeter and ran for two and a half hours. From the outset all Paris was talking about the show, the performers and the music and it was being called ‘the fastest show in Paris.’

Florence Mills

The legendary Florence Mills made her first appearance by emerging out of a birthday cake carried onstage and sang her first song ‘Silver Rose’. She was regarded as a bewitching little figure, her dancing always graceful and her singing voice clear and high. She went on to sing ‘I’m a Little Blackbird’, ‘I Want Nobody But You’, ‘Dinah’ and toward the end she sang ‘Blackbird.’ The song ‘You Won’t Go to Heaven When You Die by the chorus was also greatly lauded. The Three Eddies were adored for their eccentric dancing, Jones and Jones were highly amusing in their ‘Weerie Willie’ sketch and Johnny Hudgins, the silent pantomime clown, entranced everyone with his whimsical steps.

The staging and costumes were highly admired especially in the Jungle Land, Jazz Came From the South, and the Pirate Den scenes. Dancing was also a big features with an exhibition of the Charleston by several dusky maids in seven different ways, a display of clog dancing and the negro parade of wooden soldiers with the effect of the drums given by the beating of the feet. The initial costumes were  all created in New York by the Brooks Costume Company. However, according to an interview in the Daily Mirror in early August 1926, the English designer based in London, Dolly Tree said she had completed 150 sketches ‘for the new cabaret show at the Ambassadeurs in Paris.’ Perhaps these sketches were for the revised edition staged in August.

One of Edmund Sayag’s innovative tactics was to continually change the programme to maintain interest and encourage repeat visits. Thus, in Early July, Paul Whiteman and his orchestra arrived with a supporting troupe that included Harland Dixon. They were to replace the Blackbirds show, but Blackbirds was far too popular. So, Sayag alternated their performances between the Ambassadeurs and the Champs Elysees Music hall for two weeks. On 16th July Sayag replaced Whiteman’s band with Irving Aronson’s Commanders, added the magnificent ballroom dancing team of Moss and Fontana at the Ambassadeurs and from the end of July included a ballet performance of La Vengeance Des Dieux at the Champs Elyees Music Hall. Later, in August, Florence Mills and her troupe, Paul Whiteman and Irving Aronson’s Commanders all played the Kursaal, Ostend. The troupe returned to the Ambassadeurs at the end of August for a final week with a revised show that was a try-out for the debut of the show in London at C.B. Cochran’s Pavilion Theatre in early September.

Shortly after the opening of Blackbirds at the Ambassadeurs in early June, there was a rather extraordinary altercation with American protests at a negro dancing with a white woman. A group of Americans objected to a coloured charleston dancer professionally called Frisco, dancing with a white woman and a general row was the result. The disturbance started during the imtermission of the Blackbirds show when Frisco, a supposed American but actually a British subject, made his way to the dance floor and danced with the white woman. The management requested he refrained from dancing. His refusal was countered by an order to the tango orchestra to cease playing. When this happened the Negro Jazz band with the show started to play and Frisco resumed upon the suggestion of the white woman’s husband. The Americans again protested causing a further disturbance. The husband complained to the police about the matter saying that Frisco was his guest and dancing with his wife at his personal request. The nationality of the husband and the wife was not determined but it was presumed they were French. Variety finished their report with ‘on the continent the coloured race is not discriminated against as a rule.’

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

The Lorraine Sisters (Edna and Della) were a glamorous American sister act who were vaudeville entertainers but found fame in Europe in the mid 1920s.

Lorraine Sisters in Paris

They were born Edna and Della Oits in about 1900 and by 1918 were appearing in a vaudeville act that was noted for being similar to the already famous Dolly Sisters. In mid 1921 Edna and Della were appearing on the Orpheum Circuit, and were then signed for Geroge M. Cohan’s show Little Nelly Kelly staged at the Liberty Theatre, New York from November 1922. After vaudeville engagements they appeared in the musical show Moonlight at the Longacre Theatre from January – June 1924 Further vaudeville tours followed including an appearance at Keith’s Royal Theatre in November 1924 assisted by Roy Sheldon and Billy Taylor.

Then in the summer of 1925 they were secured by the management of the Piccadilly Hotel in London for a new edition of the famous Piccadilly Revels cabaret doubling at the Kit Kat Club. They arrived in Liverpool on 26th July aboard Adriatic in time for the launch of the show on 7th August 1925. The cabaret featured Emile Boreo, formerly of the Chauve Souris company and the acrobatic dancing team of Nattova and Myrio. The Lorraine Sisters were described as ‘tall, slim and attractive dark haired girls’, they gave ‘simultaneaous whirls amid white feathers and frills’ and their graceful and clever dancing introduced ‘some of the best body bending and kicking, twists and twirls.’ Their stay was successful but brief and they returned to America in October.

They must have returned to vaudeville and began to feature in stage presentations at movie theatres, including a unit with the Castilian Serenaders at the Capitol Theatre, New York in the summer of 1926. Then, in early 1927 they were booked to appear in the new show at the Casino de Paris, Paris simply entitled Paris that had been launched in late November 1926 and starred Edmonde Guy and Van Duren. Whilst in the Casino de Paris show they also doubled in the adjacent Le Perroquet cabaret above the foyer of the Casino de Paris and one of the most fashionable nightclubs in Paris.

When the show came to a close in June after a six month run they departed for Deauville and a month appearing at the famous Casino, before opening at the Chez Nous cabaret at the Excelsior Hotel in the Lido, Venice from 25th July. They then moved to Berlin and were featured in Herman Haller’s spectacular revue Wann und Wo launched at the Admirals Palast on 2nd September 1927. The other stars of the show were Marcella Rahna (Parisian star), and the dancing of Helen Wehrle, June and John Roper and Earle Franklin plus the Lawrence Tiller girls. When the show closed in mid March 1928 it was transferred to the Apollo Vienna for a month.

For the rest of 1928, the Lorraine Sisters were back in the USA but seemingly returned to Europe in December 1928 but what they did at this time has proved elusive. For the rest of the 1920s and 1930s they continued touring in vaudeville shows in the USA.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

It would appear that several reels of the 1924 silent movie The White Shadow, starring Betty Compson have been found in New Zealand.

Story in the Daily Telegraph

Story in The Guardian

It is a shame that so many have heralded this discovery as a ‘lost Hitchcock’ movie. Although Alfred Hitchcock did work on the film and wrote the screenplay it was directed by Graham Cutts and should be reported as such. I am also disappointed at the negative comments about Graham Cutts, for example “There were also stories [that] the named director – Graham Cutts – of the film wasn’t the greatest.‘ He was in fact at the time one of the leading and most successful film directors in the UK.

On my post about Woman to Woman and The White Shadow I wrote ‘The director, Graham (Jack) Cutts had already made his mark directing two films starring Mae Marsh in The Flames of Passion (1922) and Paddy the Next Best Thing (1922) for Herbert Wilcox at the Islington film studios. He was a colourful character, pushing forty, with energy and stamina, and had quite the reputation as a womaniser. He was also the best director in London at the time with a great attention to detail and vision.’

It is also interesting to make clear the The White Shadow was a box office flop and although praised for its production qualities (for example all the gowns in the film were designed by Dolly Tree who had costumed the previous film Woman to Woman) there were serious questions about the story-line and what was called ‘a woeful lack of excellence.’

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

Read more about Graham Cutts and the films Woman to Woman and The White Shadow

The Café des Ambassadeurs was one of most fashionable and best-known summer venues in Paris situated on the Avenue Gabriel at the entrance to the Champs-Elysées near the Place de la Concorde. Named after the nearby Hotel Crillon that had become the residence of foreign ambassadors, it was founded in 1764 as a simple open air bar, a small pavilion was added in 1772 and it evolved into one of the most famous of the Parisian café concerts.

The café concerts of the Champs-Elysées were constructed in a very rudimentary way: a few yards from their frontage, planks were placed on trestles to form improvised stages on which perambulating singers took their stand. By 1840 the Champs-Elysées was lit up with gas lamps and the Cafe des Ambassadeurs became a more elegant place with a small stage. The following year the boards made way for the charming rococo edifice that was a centre of fashion during the Second Empire. A roofed bandstand was installed to protect the artists in 1848 but customers still sat in the open air. Every evening from 5-11pm a vocal an instrumental concert was held and every half-hour one of the artists would pass the hat around to gather payment. Some of the more famous singers included Fleury, a comic singer; Jules Moulin; Magne, the baritone; the Casirola family; the Piccolo family and Madame Piquet Wild who had a great reputation for delivering light songs. In 1846, the singer Darcier gained great popularity by singing Pierre Dupont’s famous song ‘Bread’.

In 1848 the Café Concerts in the Champs-Elysées were reconstructed and little pretty kiosks replaced the trestles. By 1861, the city of Paris decided to make the Champs Elysees a unique walk and endowed the café concerts (there were others nearby including the Pavilion d’Horloge, Folies Marigny and Café Morel) with delightful English gardens.

In 1867, Pierre Ducarre, who had made a name for himself by opening a magnificent restaurant at the Universal Exhibition, bought the Ambassadeurs. Under his leadership it became a centre of entertainment for the aristocracy and continued to flourish as one of centre of singing in Paris enduring to the beginning of the 1914 war. In the 1870s it was a regular destination of some of the best-known figures of art and the demi-monde. Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec portrayed numerous scenes of the nocturnal acitvities, Aristide Bruant performed there and Cheret designed a series of 26 famous posters.

A galaxy of songsters performed at the Ambassadeurs from 1870-1914: Fagette whose bolero jacket was embroidered with real diamonds; Kam Hill, who sang ‘L’Omnibus de la Prefecture and La Garde-Champetre Rose ; Bouligard who sang all his dongs with his trombone; Theresa who rose to prominence singing ‘Rien n’est pas sacre pour un sapeur and La Femme a Barbe; Yvonne Guilbert noted for her Chat Noir black gloves who for several season drew capacity crowds; a talented youngster wearing a straw hat called Maurice Chevalier and Mistinguett who sang about apaches.

In 1903 the trio of Pinard-Cornuche-Chauveau took charge of the Ambassadeurs. The pivotal partner, Eugene Cornuche, was one of the most influential businessmen in France and had just sold the world famous Maxim’s restaurant to an English syndicate and was looking for new business interests. To make the Ambassadeurs an even greater attraction he added an open air theatre and dance hall to the existing restaurant. Later, he would buy the Folies Marigny and build the Municipal Casinos in Trouville and Deauville. The new management hosted all the major stars: Polin, Felix Mayol, Max Dearly, Boucot and Dranem and staged a series of revues with Gaby Deslys (from 1909) and Maurice Chevalier (1910).

After a short period under the direction of Eugene Heros and then under Raphael Beretta and Leon Volterra the venue was taken over by Oscar Dufrenne and Henri Varna sometime in 1917. Oscar Dufrenne was also the director of the Concert Mayol, du Theatre Moncey, des Bouffes-Du-Nord-Concert and the Casino Municipal of Trouville. Under Dufrenne’s direction the Ambassadeurs staged a series of elaborate summer revues that included: Revue Schoking, (1919); La Revue Legere (1920); Paris En S’himmy’s (1921); Revue de la Femme (1922, with Edmonde Guy and Van Duren); Paris Sans Voiles (1923, starring the Dolly Sisters) and C’est d’un Chic (1924).

In early 1926 Edmund Sayag bought the lease from Dufrenne. Sayag was clearly intent on replicating his success at the Kursall, Ostend in Paris to reap an even great financial reward from the huge American contingent that regularly flocked to the Paris each night in growing numbers.

Sayag completely renovated the venue and turned it into more of a superior dining resort than a music hall. Before, the restaurant of the Ambassadeurs was run separately and there were only a few tables on the balcony at the back from which diners could see the show below. Sayag swept away all the stalls and boxes and converted the space into a cool and airy mix of an extravagant nightclub and sophisticated restaurant that had the advantage of being open air in the summer. Shallow steps connected the small stage to the dance floor in the centre of the auditorium for general public dancing and for performers who could interchange between the two surrounded by a myriad arrangement of little round tables with comfortable wicker armchairs.

On either side of the stage were silvery fountains in niches covered by a transparent screen and the orchestra’s (“tango alternating with jazz”) were also on either side of the dance floor. Trellis work covered the walls, columns and ceiling with a massed display of rose hydrangeas, yellow aburnam and wisteria. The décor and rosy lights created a perfectly luxurious ambiance.

Sayag produced four annual shows from 1926 to 1929 each summer. The inauguration of the new Ambassadeurs featured Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds staring Florence Mills, imported directly from New York. It was the most fashionable function of the 1926 summer season and firmly established the Ambassadeurs as the most important theatre-restaurant in the world. For the 1929 season Sayag created a new gambling room to accentuate his takings from his rich and famous clientele.

After the closure of the 1929 show, Sayag announced that the Ambassadeurs would be demolished. In its place was built two completely separate structures – a restaurant and theatre as the Parisian authorities ordered a thick wall, both fire and sound proof, to be built between them. The Theatre de Concorde was intended to be the home of smart revues and the adjacent Ambassadeurs restaurant was designed to be a duplicate of the Central Park Casino in New York.

Clement Hobson (who was part of the Englsh syndicate that owned and ran the Ciro’s restaurant chain) took the restaurant under a 27 year lease from Sayag who was the ground lessee from the city of Paris. The restaurant was a fine room that could hold 600, though this was far above the dining capacity. The stage was small with few possibilities for lighting effects and the dressing facitlities for the performers were slight and far from adequate. Nevertheless, Hobson carried on the tradition that Sayag had started and even though his floor shows were more modest still maintained the Ambassadeurs as the most prestigious venue in Paris.

After five years, Clifford Fischer took over the Ambassadeurs in late 1935 and staged his first show in the summer of 1936. Fischer had worked for the booking agency of William Morris and had helped Sayag book most of the talent for his shows in the late 1920s so was well placed to run the venue. He was also in the midst of expanding his activities with the French Casino project and venues and shows in Chicago, New York, Miami and London. Sadly, the management overreached themselves and the venues eventually failed and with the onset of World War 2, Fischer lost control of Les Ambassadeurs.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

Clearly inspired by the growing status of the Lido in Venice as a fashionable haunt of high society,the Lido on the Champs Elysees, Paris, opened its doors on 18th February 1928 and was a novelty being a unique combination of a swimming pool, cabaret and restaurant and was described as ‘the seaside resort of Paris.’

The Swimming Pool at the Lido, Paris

The location of the Lido mirrored the rise of the Champs Elysees in the 1920s that succeeded the boulevards and the Rue de la Paix as the centre of Parisian elegance. On opening it was regarded as the most luxurious and fashionable establishment that Paris had on offer.

The Lido was in the Lido Arcade building and a block long. Electric signs illustrated the way to an entrance, then to an elevator that descended to the basement and opened upon a magical underworld. Multi-coloured lights illuminated a vast hall that contained a bar, a tea-room, a ballroom and a restaurant. Along one side of this immense establishment was its main feature: the biggest and gaudiest swimming pool in Europe, which was about 150 feet long. Built of pink and blue marble, the water had a faint hyacinthine perfume. Skirted with impressive marble pillars the pool was meant to be a miniature lagoon, imitating that of Venice. There were also steam rooms, a Turkish bath and a beauty parlour.

The main ballroom - restaurant / cabaret / dancing

Many of the walls were decorated with paintings in the Venetian manner by an Italian painter featuring blonde venetian beauties after the fashion of Tiepolo figuring in the Venetian carnival. There were also portraits of Parisians in the groups of gay dancers in his friezes and it was reported that the artist scoured Paris to find models for the golden haired goddess who led the revels on the walls. For some the décor gave the impression of being in a lovely Moorish palace while others said it was possibly ‘even more Venetian than the original’ and even ever-so Romanesque.

The Lido was open from about 11pm to 3am for swimming, relaxing, supping, eating and dancing until dawn and a rather high entry fee separated the wheat from the chaff. It was not necessary to take a bathing suit as suits were on offer to hire and there were dressing rooms. A comfortable array of tables and chairs surround the pool where you could eat, drink, converse with friends and watch proceedings and there were couches for those who wished to doze. The first rate restaurant supplied dinner, supper, tea and cocktails and this could be taken in the restaurant, by the pool, in the tea room or in the luxurious bar that situated at one end of the pool.

The marble bridge over the swimming pool

On the other side of the pool was a dance hall or ballroom that was like a doge’s palace draped in heavy scarlet velvets and brocades relieved by gold and silver cords and tassels. The floor was of glass lit from underneath with a reddish light and an orchestra invited you to tango or foxtrot. When the moment arises you could slip on a pair of silk pajamas over your bathing suit and a pair of sandals and go dance.

Special fetes or gala nights with a cabaret were frequently staged and in July 1928 the Guy Sisters were the headlining act. In November 1929 the pool area was transformed into a set for a spectacular Venetian gondoliera aquatic tableaux and the cabaret featured the fabulous dancing of the Americans Fowler and Tamara with Don Parker’s jazz band.

There were also numerous private and exclusive parties staged at the Lido and one night in November 1929, for example, the daughter of an English baronet, married to a Russian prince, gathered all her friends around her for a soiree and all ‘the guests arrived in gorgeous fur coats covering bathing suits.’

In the summer of 1930, the Lido was waking up to the possibility of it’s unique combination of a swimming bath with cabaret and restaurant. At the time there was a ballet pantomime by Maurice Rostand entitled Casanova Chez la Doge which had a dreamlike quality in the appropriate setting reminiscent of Venice and an aquatic performance of a Loie Fuller ballet was staged thereafter.

By the summer of 1931, the Lido decided to invent its own sun and installed special electric lamps arranged along the marble strand of the emerald green water of the swimming pool.

In 1946, Joseph and Louis Clerico took over the Lido and transformed it from top to bottom to create a very special cabaret-restaurant that is still running today.

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent

A sketch of people enjoying the Lido, 1929

In the 1920s, acrobatic dance routines became extremely fashionable and the dances were either described as ‘whirlwind’ or ‘adagio’. But what does adagio mean?

It is in fact a rather ambiguous word and as far as I can see it means many different things to many different people. It is applied to both music and dance and so interpretations are varied and have also changed over time. Certainly in the 1920s, adagio dancing was slow, leisurely and graceful whereas Allegro (or whirlwind) was quick and lively. It was a sequence of well-controlled, graceful movements that was usually preformed by a man and women but sometimes in groups and demonstrated great control, poise and technical precision. Often a romantic type of dance, when done properly it was breath-taking, moving and beautiful to watch.

In 1925, Fred (Frederick) Easter and Ruth Hazelton, a self-proclaimed ‘adagio team’, who were also a ‘whirlwind acrobatic act’ gave an illuminating interview about ‘How to thrill an Audience’ and told a few professional secrets about adagio.

‘People usually think that dancers – and particularly dancers who do any form of acrobatic work – have been studying and training their bodies since they were little tiny tots. I have only been doing adagio work for less than 5 years’ said Easter.

Easter was a country boy who began his dance training by winning several prizes in ballroom dancing competitions in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he came from. He was strong because he was bought up in the country, was always athletic and did a lot of outdoor sports. He enjoyed dancing so much he went to New York to study and at Kosloff’s school met Ruth Hazelton who had been on the stage for many years and had started her career at the age of 5. They got on well and he was delighted to find that her tastes were similar to his. They also discussed a team doing adagio work and made some criticism. He asked rather audaciously ‘why couldn’t we be partners and do that sort of thing as we believe it should be done?’ She surprised him by agreeing.

They began to practice. He tried to pick her up but found himself exceedingly clumsy. So she climbed up on the bar and stepped into his arms. He balanced her for a second or two but the strain was so great he let her fall. They were determined to improve and so practiced for two hours every day for about a year ‘trying to achieve that perfect control and balance that would enable us to do the difficult and precise work of adagio.’

During this time he did not pick her up on the stage. When they got their first engagement their act opened with her in his arms and they arranged things so that they would dance into the wings when it was necessary for him to lift her.

Eventually, after much hard work, he was able to pick her up and hold her in any position and do the most intricate turns when lifting her. Her balance and muscle control became remarkable (and essential) so that eventually she could dive from an 18ft platform right into his arms. ‘She always lands in the same position, for if it should vary even a fraction of an inch and she were not properly balanced in my arms I could not hold her while we dance.’

Fred added ‘the secret of successful adagio is of course exact balance. To do this sort of work your muscle control must be perfect. You must be able to move slowly, for contrary to the popular notion, it takes greater control to move with extreme slowness than to do very quick work. To be more than a mere exhibition of strength, a dance of this type must be beautiful and interesting. Both dancers must remember that the same sense of proportion and beautiful flowing line must be preserved as in ordinary dancing. The lines of the two bodies must be in perfect harmony. There must never be the slightest indication of strain or effort, for the minute a dance of this sort loses its ease and spontaneity it loses all beauty.’

Since Fred was good at sport it is not surprising that he thought sport did provide good training for the male dancer. ‘Strength, of course is an important requisite of good adagio work. In addition to strength, balance and muscle power there must be a tie of sympathy and mutual interests holding the partners together. Unless they really like each other they cannot work together successfully.’

Ruth Hazelton said ‘you have to have a healthy nervous system to do adagio work.’ Once when they were over worked and tired they had an accident when they were doing one of the first appearances – a series of 20 ballets for Graumann’s Metropolitan Theatre in Los Angeles. Each Monday they put on a new dance – they supervised the costumes, planned the dances and arranged the music. One Monday they did a ‘snowflake’ number. The costumes were white and silver. The set was pure white. All delicate and lovely. The act started with a dive. She had to jump from a high platform into Fred’s arms. But instead of landing correctly she brushed against Fred and fell to the floor. Although she was not hurt she had broken Fred’s nose. The audience were oblivious to the accident because they improvised and carried on swiftly moving to the wings to bandaged himself up before continuing.

For Easter and Hazelton it was their mutual tastes in dance that first interested them in each other. Then a friendly understanding developed between them and this along with continued practise was the secret of their success. ‘Unless there is perfect understanding between partners they cannot do perfect adagio work.’

There were numerous dancing duos that performed and excelled at acrobatic whirlwind and adagio work but the most notable acts were: Mitty and Tillio (French), Roseray and Capella (French) and Baliol and Merton (British).

All images and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent