Family Archive

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.

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. 

 

Chic Sale

This has been bugging me since it happened and I'm trying to recoup something out of it. I did the antique store equivalent of whistling when you've got cards in a Poker game or what Joe Mantegna called "cracked out of turn" or "crumbed the play" in House of Games.

Earlier in the month I was up in Portland Maine visiting some friends and getting out of the city for awhile with the kids. My friend is the Director of the Portland Art Museum so one rainy morning we went downtown for the private tour. Before going into the museum I noticed an appealing looking antique store across the street. When our tour was done we had some lunch and did some shopping at the LL Bean Outlet store. We were on our way back to the house as the weather appeared to be clearing up and I asked the kids if they would mind taking a short detour past the store and started reciting the standard issue speech about not breaking anything. Something was pulling me in there. 

I've always liked collecting things and since I learned of my family's early entertainment roots I've started collecting vintage postcards of old Vaudeville Theaters from around the country. I asked the proprietor if they had any of these postcards and he told me that they didn't but they had a few old Vaudeville photos somewhere around and he continued on with his business. After a few minutes I asked him about the photos he had mentioned and he started looking for them. With a look on his face like he was straining to remember he said to me "I think his family name is Sale. Do you know anything like that?" This is where I cracked.....My Grandfather was writing and directing talking movies right when talkies first started. A few weeks earlier I'd been reading all about them. One of the stars of his earliest 2 reel films was a Vaudeville comic named Chic Sale. I just couldn't contain myself. I said to him "Sure I know a guy named Chic Sale" and  started spouting off every last detail I could remember with such relish and confidence that a huge smile started forming on his lips. 

He walked to the back and whispered something to his partner who looked around for a minute or so and found a few photos sitting on an old trunk covered in dust. He handed them to me and sure enough  there he was as his signature "Granpa" character in full garb with a hand written note and his name Chic Sale signed on the bottom. I tried backtracking but the damage was done. I made some stupid comment about how obscure these really were. Finally,  I asked him what he wanted for them and it was way more than I could justify spending. I tried bargaining but he had played his hand well. I asked him if I could buy one but he told me he couldn't break up the set. My only move for now was to walk and try something else but he had me. He gave me his card and told me to think about it.

Now 2-3 weeks have gone by and I'm still thinking about them. Lesson Learned!