Family Archive

Old Things

I've always been attracted to old things. There's something innately valuable about them.  They trigger a pleasure center by disrupting the context of the present world while providing insights into the future. Some people refer to this as history others might think its a form of escapism, still others call it nostalgia,  however you want to tag it, I'm drawn to it. Other than as decorations  what can you do with old things? How do you use them? learn from them? What are the factors that make  material  items evolve into new forms and make their predecessor old? Better technology. Is technology always better?  How is a passion for old things compatible with the current technological revolution and 2.0 world?  

I'm also intrigued and always pulled in by family stories and dynamics. People preserve their histories and legacies differently; heirlooms, lore, photographs, etc. But they're almost always handed down by way of the family. Sometimes they're simply given over by a parent or relative other times they can be discovered through  less traditional or expected paths.

These are my first thoughts and queries as I enter the blogging arena. A few years ago, I stumbled on a remarkable collection of personal family history  at the top of a closet in my parent's apartment. Some of my findings are over a century old and covered several different types of media. Since then I've immersed myself in this discovery and  figuring out how to "handle it"; to use the resources available to me to learn about, catalog, preserve, write about and ultimately pass it on to my kids and their families. 

In this space I hope to share the knowledge and insights I gained through this experience and hopefully get others to share their interesting family stories, discoveries and archives with me.

A Theatrical Photograph

From the very first time I saw this shot of Harry and Juliet it was always one of my favorites. For reasons unknown to me at the time it struck me differently than the others. It somehow felt more resonant and personal despite the fact that I knew very little about it.

Most photographs capture a moment in time. They are utilitarian. But on the rare occasion when everything is just so... the light is perfect, the photographer on his game, the composition organic and all the planets are perfectly aligned; a photograph can be so much more. It can be a narrative. It can be a novel. It can jostle your imagination and tell you a story. This photo was like that for me. It made my mind race to look at it and always made me smile. I created stories based on what I knew about it. But I wanted the true story, the details, the context. How do I make that happen?  

I created my own "punch list" of questions that helped me gather information and develop clues to learn more about it. My list included questions about the photo itself (the actual piece of paper): Where did I find it? What was it next to? What else was near it? Was there anything written on the back? And questions about the photographs content. Who is it of? Are there other people in it? Is there anything I recognize or that stands out (Location, objects, subject matter)? Does it remind me of other photos? Is anything unusual or out of the ordinary happening? Who might have taken it? When was it taken? Where are they? What are they wearing? 

Here are some interesting clues and deductions I made from my list of questions.

1.There was nothing written on the photograph but I found it in a box of family photos not with Harry or Juliet's photo collections, press books or scrap books even though it was definitely stage related.

2.They were both in full costume in the picture which meant they were performing together. This was very unusual. Harry wrote some of Juliet's material but they were both solo performers. I hadn't remembered ever reading or hearing of them working together in the same show or even on the same billing.

3.The costumes they are wearing were not from their Vaudeville routines. They were more like theater or movie costumes. He wore what looked like an Old Military costume (maybe Cavalry) and she looked like a mannequin of a Gypsy Princess.

5.I had seen enough photographs of my Grandfather to tell he was in his early 20s here. He was born in 1892 so that would put this picture somewhere between 1913-1917 (he went into the Navy during WWI in 1918.)

6.From the shadows you can tell that it was taken outside but there are no distinguishing landmarks or way of telling where it might be.

7.There were some interesting props and wardrobe pieces. He had a sword and wore riding boots and she had a long bead necklace and wore an unusually shaped tiara on her head.

Was this enough to figure it out? I went to the internet and started to search. Juliet had changed her name a few times and I wasn't exactly sure when she had changed it or how to search "Miss Juliet" or "Juliet?" so I thought a good place to start would be to search Harry Delf on the IBDB, the Internet Broadway Data Base, a fairly comprehensive collection of Theater and the people connected to the Theater through history. This search yielded 14 item but only 3 of them fell in the years from 1913-1917 so this was a starting point. I recognized all the different titles. The first 2 were from 1914 and the third from 1916. The third was The Cohan Revue of 1916. I clicked on it. I remembered seeing material from this show when putting together the archive. I remembered that Juliet had played a leading role but I had never known my Grandfather was in the show as well. On the site I learned Harry played a character named Billie Holliday. I looked down the cast and sure enough listed as Miss Juliet there she was. http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=8268. The George M Cohan Revue was one of the biggest Theater Productions of that year. It played at the Astor Theater in NYC. I went back to my archive and found what I had from the show. 

I found a few different Program/Playbills and a bunch of newspaper articles about the show. I knew I was on the right trail. I started leafing through the program and found this and I instantly knew that I had nailed it.

Look at it next to  the photo from above. Juliet is on the left side in the front. Her headpiece and the long string of beads were the important clues that this was the show where the photo was taken.The dress sealed it.

 

Ancestor Approved Award Acceptance

Thank You Evelyn for giving me an Ancestor Approved Award. There are so many different people I need to thank.....starting with my Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandmother and my Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather I'd also like to thank my Great Great Great Great.... what do you expect from a family historian whose relatives came out of Vaudeville!

Seriously, it is an enormous honor to receive this award and to be recognized by one of my favorite Bloggers Evelyn Theriault of http://acanadianfamily.com/ 

Here are 10 things I've learned about my ancestors that have enlightened, surprised or humbled me and in most cases all 3.

1. My Father and Mother are only 3 years difference in age. My Father's Mother died in the decade of the 1930's and my Mother's Mother is still alive today.

2. All of my Great Grandparents on my Father's side lived in NYC. 2 (possibly 3) were born here.

3. My Children are 5th generation NYC West-siders.

4. My Father's Mother's Father, my Great Grandfather came to NYC from Lithuania some time around 1880 and with little or no formal education built a successful paper and box company in NYC.

5. My Grandfather Harry on my Father's side was a songwriter. He attended the Townsend Harris High School in Queens at or around the same time as Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Adolph Caesar went  to the school. Townsend Harris school is still thriving today.

6. My Grandfather Harry was the Dean of the New York Friars Club during the '50's.The club was founded in 1904 for people in the performing arts. A memorial to him is still the first thing you see when you enter the club today.

7. My Father's Mother performed for the Queen of England and toured around Europe and the US chaperoned by her Mother, my Great Grandmother.

8. My Grandfather's sister, my Great Aunt Juliet started performing professionally at 15 years old right after the turn of the Century.

9. Juliet was playing the Palace, was given the top billing and got the most sought after spots on the Vaudeville Circuits doing impersonations and characterizations.

!0 My Sister and I were named Juliet and Harry for my Grandfather and his Sister.

The Rosenfelds

My Grandfather Harry and Great Aunt Juliet had a younger sister named Marjorie Rosenfeld. This is a photograph circa 1920 of my Great Aunt Marjorie with her parents, my Father's Grandparents, Sam and Sarah Rosenfeld. Unlike  her two siblings Marjorie was not a professional actress or in Show Business. Marjorie took  a different path. She married a dentist named DDS Irving Perlmutter, moved to the suburbs and had 2 daughters. As it turns out, she got married 5 days before my Grandparents in June of 1927.

In an old leather valise at the top of a closet in my sister's old bedroom I found reels and reels of 16MM film that my Grandfather had shot in the late 1920's and 1930's. As well as being an actor and a playwright Harry was also an Early filmmaker who owned a 16mm movie camera in the 1920's and did a fairly thorough job of documenting his life on it. I restored and put the films onto DVD's and I'm currently teaching myself how to edit this unique and extraordinary footage which includes the wedding of my Great Aunt Marjorie, the wedding of my Grandparents and my Grandparents honeymoon; all relatives  I never got the opportunity to meet, who passed before I was born.  

   

The Great White Way.

Here is a card from my collection for the 7th Ed. (light) Postcard Festival on A Canadian Family at http://wp.me/pp92w-850 . It shows New York's Theater district during the late 1920's. This was the time and the place where the entertainment world all came together. Theater, Vaudeville and Movies all shared this midtown neighborhood. The stretch of Broadway from 42nd street up to around 53rd street became known as "The Great White Way." On a site called Big Apple Corner I discovered how this phrase came into being and changed over time to become the defining title for the area.

"The Great White Way" was originally the title of a 1901 book about the South Pole. The term was applied to Broadway by Shep Friedman of the New York Morning Telegraph, after a snowstorm on Broadway in 1902 had turned the street into a "white way." Later, "white way" referred to the lights of Broadway. The term was used to describe the multitude of lights that were used to illuminate the NYC Theater district every evening during these formative years for entertainment.

Jeanne

My Grandfather Harry and Great Aunt Juliet were not the only Vaudeville performers in the family. Jeanne Densen (born in 1902 in New York City) was a stage actress who performed in Musical Theater and  Operettas in the early to mid-1920's. Harry and Jeanne were married on June 19, 1927. They had 2 children my Aunt Enid and my Father Harry Jr. After my Grandparents were married Jeanne left the Theater. I've uncovered only a few items from her stage legacy in my archive and found very little about her career on the internet, but I'm still hunting.

Above is an article from the Seattle Sun from the year 1926. My Grandmother, Jeanne is on the bottom right(5). She starred in an adaptation of Franz Schubert's "Blossom Time". I've done my best to protect the clipping using archival materials but the newspaper is disintegrating away. The article on the left below was from an issue of Variety, 1927. The article on the right I'm not certain which newspaper it came from.

  

 

Tap Into 2010

Happy New Year Everyone!

Uninspired by the speed of community building and frustrated that my blog hadn't gotten the traction I would've hoped for I spent the last Tuesday of 2009 feeling bitter and unable to even sit down to compose a year end post. I hadn't posted in a week or so and my stats and daily hits were plummeting. Was this going to be the moment I let my Blog slip down my priority chain, go on an indefinite hiatus and return to watching old reruns of Seinfeld at night? I've been at it for 7 months and I'm extremely proud of what I've turned out so far but I know myself well enough to know that if I put it down for too long its unlikely I'll be picking it back up again.

Then Wednesday something happened that's inspired me, clarified for me the incredible power of the medium and left me in a Frank Capra state of holiday renewal. I've been wrestling with it and thinking about the possibilities ever since. That morning I noticed on the "referring sites" page of my stats I had a bunch of hits from Google.cn. Overnight someone from China (via Google.cn) had translated my blog and all of my posts into Chinese. How cool is that! Someone on the other side of the world is interested in what I'm writing about. Could there be a market for my thoughts and stories in the Far East? I felt like Spinal Tap when they're on the verge of calling it quits and Nigel, the excommunicated lead guitar player, returns to tell the band that their single "Sex Farm" was on the charts in Japan. Reinvigorated it was the empirical evidence of the power and reach of the global medium of blogging and the internet I'd needed. The entire world is now a potential market for readership and language is no longer a barrier. I sat down and outlined my next ten posts.

Postcards

Thanks Evelyn for including me in your festival at http://acanadianfamily.com/. As I mentioned I've recently moved and my Archive is packed away in boxes and I'm not able to find everything but here are three black and white real photo postcards of my Great Aunt Juliet in descending chronological order that provide a brief sampling of her career in early entertainment.

The top postcard circa 1910 is from her early career on the Vaudeville stage. Amongst her many talents, Juliet did comic characterizations and impersonations on the Orpheum Circuit. The middle postcard, circa 1915, Is a promotional piece for her act. By this time she had changed her name to Juliet? as you will see on the middle card; the implication being that she was so skilled at mimicry nobody was able to tell for sure if the performer on stage was really her. The bottom postcard is from the late 1920's or early 1930 when she was touring internationally. I believe this is Venice.

Palace Vaudeville Lineup.

Normally I wouldn't post a newspaper article of this length to a blog for fear that my readers would get totally bored and turned off by it and just skip on to the next post in their reader. I know I would. But to me, this review written by Sam M'kee and taken from the March 31,1925 New York Telegraph, did such a remarkable job capturing a representative image of a Vaudeville lineup both from the perspective of the shows content and 1920's era journalism I wanted to include it and see what others thought.

From what I could extract from the article, the show proceeded as follows:

I Opening Act:  "Study in Nonsense" The Duponts

II "The Lovable Pup With his Gang"(Dog)

 1.Hector The lovable pup

 2.Hector's 19 year old Grandfather

 3.The Gang (15 others)

III Olgamayra and the Bittel Sisters (Dance)

  1."Black and Gold" Staged by Alan K Foster

  2.Olgamayra solo numbers

  3.Bittel Sisters Duet numbers

  4.Climax A rustic Russian flirtation number (all three)

IV "Ourselves" Dougie Leavitt and Mary Ruth Lockwood joined by Charles Bates (Comedy)

  They illustrate the sappy politeness preceding marriage and the nervous irascibility after the ceremony

V Nate Leipsig (Card Tricks)

VI Clifton Webb and Mary Hay (Dance Team) with Club Ciro (9 man Orchestra) conducted by Dave Bernie who splits time on the Piano. Featuring Dillon Ober and his Marimba Solo. BTW Yes it is the same Clifton Webb with 3 Academy Award Nominations and a Golden Globe Award for Razors Edge

    Dances  

   1.Rendevous

   2.Strolling

   3.Allez Up

   4.Charleston.

VII Miss Juliet AKA My Great Aunt (Impersonations and Characterizations)

VIII James Barton (Comedy/Dance)

   1."The Pest" assisted by Lew Christy and Charlot Allen

IX Charles King (Singer)

X Closing Act: Rose Irene Kress and her associate whirlers (Dancing Acrobatics on Roller Skates)

Searching Vaudeville

Discovered a Program/Playbill circa 1921 in my archive from another stop on the Orpheum Circuit, the Hennepin Theater in Minneapolis. On this bill, Harry Delf not only performed his notable comedy and dance routines but also wrote the headlining number, a "Dramatic Incident in Five Parts" titled "The Joker" featuring Silent Film star Ethel Clayton.

At the suggestion of a "Family Archive" reader in a comment to my post Continuous Vaudeville http://cityvoice.typepad.com/family_archive/2009/11/continuous-vaudeville.html I've made it my standard practice to search (Google, IMDB, IBDB and Wikipedia) the performers listed on these Program/Playbills that shared the stage with my Vaudeville relatives. As well as yielding many fascinating and unique stories, what I've learned from these searches has helped me put the Era into a broader historical context. While some of these performers haven't been household names for close to a Century, I would argue, they were the first generation pioneers and the origin of what we think of today as the Modern Entertainment Industry. Take Ethel Clayton for example from a quick search I learned: she was born in 1882 in Champaign Illinois. She started out as a stage actress eventually landing starring roles. She made her first film "Justified" a silent short in early 1909 and had 3 other credited roles that year. She was in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1911. The IMDB mentions her as having 189 credited and uncredited film appearances roughly 2/3 were in Silents. She made her last film appearance in 1947 in "The Perils of Pauline".

When you consider that Edison's "The Great Train Robbery", generally recognized as the first narrative film, came out in 1903 and Clayton's film career started in 1909 and lasted 38 years and that during this period she was performing on a stage with Fanny Brice and Bert Williams in the Ziegfeld Follies a few years after it was founded; for my money these seem like ample credentials to justify the status Pioneer of the Modern Entertainment Industry. 

 

The Bellhop

The bellhop or bellboy character is a timeless comedic classic. Could this cap wearing uniformed hotel porter's position have been created first for comic purposes and secondarily for the transportation of baggage? So many of the great American comics have taken a turn with the role both as bellhops and interacting with bellhops, I seriously wonder. Some particularly hilarious bellhop performances were given in 3 silent short films;The Bell Boy with Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton , Laurel and Hardy in Hop to it Bellhop and Bughouse Bellhops with Harold Lloyd. The first 2 Marx Brothers features The Cocoanuts(1929) and Animal Crackers(1930) included quality bellhop scenes. Even Donald Duck tried his hand at bellhopping in his 1942 short Bellboy Donald. Jerry Lewis reset the bar in 1960 with his feature film The Bellboy. Search your favorite comic actor and bellhop and see what you find. One of my favorite contemporary Bellhop scenes occured in the finale of the 4th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm entitled "Opening Night" where the bellhop is taking the notoriously paranoid and thrifty Larry David up to his room and trying to coax a tip out of him by explaining how to use the various amenities the high end hotel has to offer including how to use the room key, how to turn on the television and how to use the shower.   

Here is my Grandfather doing a bellhop routine at a Vaudeville show in Detroit Michigan circa 1915.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellhop