As long as I'm on the subject of names and specifically stage names, I found my Grandfather's business card from when he was first getting his start in Show Business. From my research I'd discovered that Dr. Deluxe in the year 1911 was his breakthrough performance. It certainly didn't hurt him either that Juliet? was his sister, by this time she had already become a full blown star and was headlining on the Keith/Albee circuit. At 19 Harry was discovered and given the role of Kid Romeo in Dr. Deluxe playing across from one of the comedic legends of the day named Ralph Herz.
On his business card his name reads Harry T. Delf. My name is Harry Delf III and my father is Harry Delf Jr. I'd recently discovered that my last name was concocted as a stage name by my grandfather(see PS 68 post).What about this middle initial T. I got back on the phone and called my dad but this time he had no idea what this middle initial T stood for. Vaudeville performers had a tendency to change their names as often as they changed their socks so to figure out what the T stood for I pulled out all of the materials I could find from my archive dated around 1911. There were several newspaper clippings and after reading through a bunch I discovered that the T. stood for Tecumseh. Was his real name Harry Tecumseh Rosenfeld or was Tecumseh part of his concocted stage name? I wondered if this new information effected my name? Was I still Harry Delf III?
The only thing I was sure of was that if I had known my Grandfather's middle name when my son Michael was born there would've been a Tecumseh Delf I.
