Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Fara Down And today's podcast
Speaker 1: brings together too unlikely bed fellows Josephine Baker and Harry Houdini.
Speaker 1: And that's because we're going to give you a brief
Speaker 1: history of vaudeville, which flourished from the eighteen nineties to
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties. And it all started with variety shows
Speaker 1: in the eighteen fifties and sixties. These were geared toward
Speaker 1: men and well, you know, let's think of today's buddy comedies.
Speaker 1: They're not generally known for being particularly high brow. You
Speaker 1: might describe them as vulgar or obscene. But we also
Speaker 1: have genres like burlesque and circuses, dine museums, medicine shows,
Speaker 1: and wild West shows, and all of these kind of
Speaker 1: come together along with European musical tradition, minstrel shows, and
Speaker 1: Yiddish theater. Vaudeville takes all of it, except of course
Speaker 1: for the burlesque, mixes it up, makes it family friendly
Speaker 1: and puts it on stage so the wife and kids
Speaker 1: could come. Now, along with the guy opening up all
Speaker 1: sorts of profits for the men who ran the business.
Speaker 1: And there's a fantastic notice to performers described by Edwin Royal,
Speaker 1: who was a vaudevillian. I keep trying really hard not
Speaker 1: to say vaudevillain. I'll keep trying in Scribner's in and
Speaker 1: here it is. You are hereby warrned that your act
Speaker 1: must be free from all vulgarity and suggestiveness in words, action,
Speaker 1: and costume while playing in any of Mr Blank's houses,
Speaker 1: and all vulgar, double meaning and profane words and songs
Speaker 1: must be cut out of your act before the first performance.
Speaker 1: If you are in doubt as to what is right
Speaker 1: or wrong, submitted to the resident manager at rehearsal such
Speaker 1: words as liars, slob, son of a gun, devil, sucker, damn,
Speaker 1: and all other words unfit for the ears of ladies
Speaker 1: and children. Also, any reference to questionable streets, resorts, localities,
Speaker 1: and bar rooms are prohibited under fine of instant discharge.
Speaker 1: Well son of a gun, Katy, let's get going, sir,
Speaker 1: that that's inappropriate. So the man who many consider the
Speaker 1: father of vaudeville, Tony Pastor, staged the first popular show
Speaker 1: of this kind in one in New York, and there's
Speaker 1: no liquor, of course, and he might even give you
Speaker 1: a ham if you come for the show, or some coal,
Speaker 1: so immediately family friendly. Yeah, I would be more inclined
Speaker 1: to go to a show of someone giving me a ham.
Speaker 1: There's an awesome website that's designed by Rick Easton of
Speaker 1: uv A, which you can easily find if you type
Speaker 1: vaudeville into Google. He's one of the first results. Um
Speaker 1: and he says that the guy we should be talking
Speaker 1: about as the father of vaudeville is Benjamin Franklin Keith,
Speaker 1: who started off his career with a museum featuring Baby
Speaker 1: Alice the Midget Wonder, but ended up being the man
Speaker 1: who really understood his American audience. You know, they wanted
Speaker 1: high and low. Yeah, they like this crazy circus stuff,
Speaker 1: but they also want real respected actors, somebody who they
Speaker 1: could maybe tell their friends, Oh, I'm going to see
Speaker 1: you know Mrs so and so the respected actor, and
Speaker 1: they get to see some strong men's stuff on the side,
Speaker 1: So like Snooky and Meryl Streep on the same stage.
Speaker 1: As I explained it to Sarah earlier, this brought in
Speaker 1: the respectable crowd, which one over Boston's Catholic Church, which
Speaker 1: was very much in control of the city, so don't
Speaker 1: underestimate their power. And they supported him because they wanted
Speaker 1: more of this clean entertainment rather than people going to saloon,
Speaker 1: family friendly stuff. Get the guys taking their wife and
Speaker 1: kids out to a vaudeville show instead of hanging out
Speaker 1: at the bar. So what is a vaudeville show. It's
Speaker 1: a dozen or so acts, none as longer than thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: And we've got all kinds of performers, magicians, strong men, acrobats, comedians, dancers, singers, jugglers,
Speaker 1: trained animals. And you know how much we love airs, monologuists, impressionists,
Speaker 1: actors performing one acts, contortionists. Honestly, it sounds really fantastic.
Speaker 1: I'd like to go to one. But what is it
Speaker 1: like if you're if you're one of these people, if
Speaker 1: you're a strong man or a contortionist or a dancer,
Speaker 1: and it's it's a hard life. You're basically singing for
Speaker 1: your supper. It was hard to break into show business
Speaker 1: then as it is now, and you show up for
Speaker 1: an open call, you do your best to try to
Speaker 1: stand out um auditioning for this impassive judge, and then
Speaker 1: you either make it or you don't, and it's a
Speaker 1: lot more likely that you don't make it. And maybe,
Speaker 1: if you're lucky, you have some sort of gimmick that
Speaker 1: makes you stand out, say seven chap dancing kids, and
Speaker 1: then you get your chance on stage, and if the
Speaker 1: audience likes you, you're in. They might book you again,
Speaker 1: and if they don't, you're starting again. The cane off
Speaker 1: or whistle from the wings and the experience as an actor.
Speaker 1: According to Mr Royal, you're saying it might be a
Speaker 1: little embarrassing for a respected actor to get on stage
Speaker 1: with circus freak, but uh, the money might win you over.
Speaker 1: You could sell your integrity for a little bit of up.
Speaker 1: It was also steady work. It was nice to be
Speaker 1: part of a company who arranged all your touring schedules
Speaker 1: for you and your care the logistic, Yeah, it took
Speaker 1: care of the business of traveling around the country performing
Speaker 1: at all these different theaters. You were essentially looked after,
Speaker 1: and you had a steady salary on the way, or
Speaker 1: at least a fairly steady salary. And we're also talking
Speaker 1: earlier about advertising, because of course you couldn't list twenty
Speaker 1: people on the bill who were performing, no one would
Speaker 1: even look at it. So you've got to pick a star,
Speaker 1: someone with name recognition, someone who's gimmicky and cool enough
Speaker 1: for people to want to come in um, someone like
Speaker 1: the gorgeous Lilian Russell perhaps, and that made that person
Speaker 1: the headliner on the posters, and fame followed if you
Speaker 1: were lucky and a darn goood salary. But many stars
Speaker 1: who we think of from later genres actually started off
Speaker 1: as fond billions. Fred A Stare, for example, starts at
Speaker 1: age seven, and it wasn't unusual for people to start
Speaker 1: that young, and it was very common for families to
Speaker 1: be on stage together. Whatever I think of performing families,
Speaker 1: the first to come to mind is always the Flying
Speaker 1: Wallenda's I think just because I like their name, stand
Speaker 1: out name. But there were a lot more than that.
Speaker 1: The Seven Little Boys were these seven top dancing kids
Speaker 1: of Eddie Foy Senior. Apparently I think my family missed
Speaker 1: out on a big opportunity because there's are six of
Speaker 1: us and none of us. Not too late, Katie sign
Speaker 1: them all up for topping maybe sometime soon. Some better
Speaker 1: known stars were the Three Stooges. Well, I guess only
Speaker 1: two of them were brothers, but we're going to count
Speaker 1: them and the Marx Brothers even if Gummo and Zeppo
Speaker 1: didn't really work out, and the comedians like the three
Speaker 1: stooges of the Marx Brothers are really big hits. Even
Speaker 1: though it's with all these rules, you know, no um,
Speaker 1: no slob, no damn non a gun um, it seems
Speaker 1: like it would probably be really really hard for them
Speaker 1: to make clean jokes. We can't have a Richard Prior
Speaker 1: on stand and I don't think the aristocrats really would
Speaker 1: have played there. And Royal had a good quote about
Speaker 1: that too. He said, from the artist who balances a
Speaker 1: set of parlor furniture on his nose to the academic baboon,
Speaker 1: there was one concentrated, strenuous struggle for a laugh. No
Speaker 1: artist can afford to do without it. It hangs like
Speaker 1: a solemn and awful obligation over everything. So consequently, because
Speaker 1: we can't have sexual jokes, we end up with a
Speaker 1: lot of race based jokes and including the use of
Speaker 1: black face like we mentioned, and many acts are done
Speaker 1: by two comedians who sort of play up comedic stereotypes.
Speaker 1: The Jewish boy, the fat boy. You know, they assume
Speaker 1: a role and run with it and insult to one another,
Speaker 1: and just as many comedians then stole each other's jokes
Speaker 1: as they do now. It was fairly notorious pitfall in
Speaker 1: the business. But there were a lot of other people
Speaker 1: who got their start in vaudeville UM, including the father
Speaker 1: of modern bodybuilding, strongman Eugene Sandow, caustic comedian W. C. Fields,
Speaker 1: the adored cowboy comedian which the title I enjoy, Will
Speaker 1: Rogers Um, Lillian Russell, like we mentioned our entertainment star
Speaker 1: Al Jolson, singer Bessie Smith, and Houdini. Of course, of
Speaker 1: course he's already talked about. Even though vaudeville was not UM.
Speaker 1: It was not the right Milia, No, it wasn't. It
Speaker 1: didn't highlight his type of skills. He was up there
Speaker 1: doing card tricks and and that's not what pain. That
Speaker 1: was before he understood showmanship. We've also got one of
Speaker 1: my personal favorites, Sophie Tucker, who was known as the
Speaker 1: last of the Red Hot Mama's and she started singing
Speaker 1: at the kosh Er Diner her family owned. She was
Speaker 1: actually forced to perform in black face when she started
Speaker 1: on Vaudeville. The oft repeated story is that her producer
Speaker 1: thought she was too fat and too ugly to be
Speaker 1: on stage without it, and when she lost her makeup
Speaker 1: at a gig, she appeared on stage without it, told
Speaker 1: the audience that before then she had been forced to
Speaker 1: perform in it, and people loved her. Yeah, we've also
Speaker 1: got The gold Bergs, which is notable because it becomes
Speaker 1: not only a huge radio success after Vaudeville meets its end,
Speaker 1: but the first major American sitcom and the one that
Speaker 1: sort of defines the sitcom genre. I also really love
Speaker 1: Eva Tanguay. I might be saying her name completely wrong,
Speaker 1: and there's a fantastic article about her by Jody Rosen
Speaker 1: on Slate called Vanishing Act in search of Eva Tanguay,
Speaker 1: the First rock Star, which you should definitely read. But
Speaker 1: the list of famous vaudevilliams is way too big to
Speaker 1: tackle in one podcast, So I think we're going to
Speaker 1: do follow up about some of our favorites, and we'd
Speaker 1: also like to know about some of your favorite old
Speaker 1: movie stars for a future podcasts, So write to us
Speaker 1: at History podcast at how stuff Works dot com and
Speaker 1: see if they make the cut. So We've talked about
Speaker 1: the performers a lot now about vaudeville, but talking about
Speaker 1: the business, it's a really, really big business. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is before this, before Hollywood, this is four TV.
Speaker 1: We have more than twenty five thousand performers in theaters
Speaker 1: in every community. This is the big entertainment for the country.
Speaker 1: And most vaudeville theaters were part of a circuit, which
Speaker 1: meant that one guy controlled a whole chain of theaters.
Speaker 1: The big ones where the United Booking Office and the
Speaker 1: Orpheum circuit. The United Booking Office had four hundred theaters,
Speaker 1: just to give you an idea of the scale of this,
Speaker 1: and this is why the companies are able to travel.
Speaker 1: And this is the benefit that comes from being in
Speaker 1: a vaudeville troupe, that you go to the four hundred
Speaker 1: theaters and everything's already worked out for you. Some of
Speaker 1: these theaters opened at breakfast and stayed open until quite
Speaker 1: late at night. Um that way they could give a
Speaker 1: few performances in one day, four or five. And if
Speaker 1: you owned a circuit, you could get tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of people in and out if you could sell out
Speaker 1: the house, and the biggest house of them all was
Speaker 1: the Palace Theater in New York City, and it was
Speaker 1: a huge deal to headline here. I mean you could
Speaker 1: compare it to maybe Math and Square Garden. Today we're
Speaker 1: bigger than that, I'm not sure. And the big men
Speaker 1: of the business where the afore mentioned Mr Keith and
Speaker 1: his partner Edward F. Albi, yes, the father of the playwright,
Speaker 1: and their partnership in eight five pretty much gave them
Speaker 1: a monopoly. Albie got his start in the circus and
Speaker 1: became basically a Vaudeville dictator. And Martin Beck was another
Speaker 1: biggie here. We've brought him up before in our Houdini podcast.
Speaker 1: But he builds the Palace and he heads the Orophum
Speaker 1: circuit Um and another one you've probably heard of, the
Speaker 1: William Morris Agency. Mr Morris himself wages this battle against
Speaker 1: Albion Keith to break up their monopoly. But Vaudeville, of course,
Speaker 1: didn't last. And while the video may have killed the
Speaker 1: radio star, the radio and the talkies killed Vaudeville. So
Speaker 1: vaudeville shows had begun screening little bits of movies, but
Speaker 1: before long the actual vaudeville acts were sidelined in favor
Speaker 1: of the film. So it was the movie that was
Speaker 1: starring with some vaudeville acts on the side. And soon
Speaker 1: people abandon vaudeville altogether for radio and movies. The Great
Speaker 1: Depression didn't help um and the New York Palace shut
Speaker 1: down in ninety four. That was the last big house
Speaker 1: that was left. They didn't know what they were doing.
Speaker 1: If they saw TV today, they might have changed their minds.
Speaker 1: But a lot of really huge film stars got their
Speaker 1: start in vaudeville. It was sort of a place to
Speaker 1: get some experience, make your presence know and maybe make
Speaker 1: a name. And well, when it was so cutthroat, if
Speaker 1: you were going to make it on vaudeville, you'd be
Speaker 1: able to make it make it in Hollywood. So we'll
Speaker 1: end with another note from vaudeville management. Gentlemen will kindly
Speaker 1: avoid the stamping of feet and pounding of canes on
Speaker 1: the floor, and greatly oblige the management. All applause is
Speaker 1: best shown by clapping of hands. Please don't talk during acts,
Speaker 1: as that annoys those about you and prevents a perfect
Speaker 1: hearing of the entertainment. So I think Verizon would be
Speaker 1: sponsoring this today or something we'd like to amend it
Speaker 1: so you can't take out your iPhone or BlackBerry and
Speaker 1: check your emails and texts. Uh. Consider that a public
Speaker 1: service announcement from the girls of stuff you missed in
Speaker 1: history class. And that brings us to today's listener mail.
Speaker 1: So this email is from jose who is writing us
Speaker 1: about our Nelly Bligh podcast and her stunt in the
Speaker 1: Insane Asylum. He writes, the building is now called the Octagon.
Speaker 1: This building was renovated not too long ago, and many
Speaker 1: of the residents say that they sometimes feel people following
Speaker 1: them where they can hear footsteps and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: And he goes on after this to write that I
Speaker 1: was walking to the lobby one day late at night
Speaker 1: and I felt a rush of wind on my face. Creepy.
Speaker 1: But as a side note, he writes that the building
Speaker 1: is totally green now is the first lead certified residential
Speaker 1: building in New York City, and it has the largest
Speaker 1: array of solar panels in New York City. So what
Speaker 1: an about face for this this disturbing building? And if
Speaker 1: you have something cool you'd like to tell us, you
Speaker 1: can email us at History Podcast at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. We've also got a Twitter at Missed in History,
Speaker 1: you should come and follow us and if you'd like
Speaker 1: to read more about one of the famous people we mentioned,
Speaker 1: we talk about Eugene Sandow and our ten Biggest Bodybuilders article,
Speaker 1: which you can find if you search on our homepage
Speaker 1: at www dot how stuff works dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and be sure to check out
Speaker 1: the stuff you missed in History class blogged on the
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com point page