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STATE
Forms to be Filled out for Each interview
FOR';
Circumstances of Interview'
New York
Terry Roth
NAIE OF wONITA 47 W. 69th St., N.Y.C.
ATYCIFSf..1
DAIE
SnJECT
January 50, 1939
Folklore Of Stage Folk
1. Date and time c' interview
2. Place of interview
3. Name and address of informant
FOLKLORE
NEW. YORK
Monday evening, January 30, 10 to 11 P.M.
Gus and Andyts Restaurant
146 ft. 47th Street
New York City
Nagle
Miller
Renard
so
4. Name and address of person, if J491.11111rptantV'in
toun with informant.
5. Name and address of person,
r$94,SKIIPM1511, y 0 U
6. D eci*t f ,(14/0.R04),t k9li• r4rki41 ticAv.1% A later reports.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
STATE
N:\N,E OF WORKER.
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
MILLER
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
New York
Terry Roth
47 W. 89th St., N.Y.C.
January 30, 1939
Folklore Of Stage Folk
FOLKLOBE
NEI, YORK
Did you ever hear of fluffy and Sweeney? The:r were a wonderful
comedy act and this fluffy was a reel loveable guy. With a tremendous
talent. But he was always drunk. They were _laying the show in the
middle west one night and just couldn't cet a laugh out of that house
and Duffy was very aggravated and intolerant of the stupidity of the
audienoe. He tried every gag and trick to wake them up but nothing
doinl. So after the act was over he walked out on the stage and in
a very serious manner he started: "Ladies and Gentlemen, My Partner
and I have been playing here four days now and we haven't seemed to
be able to do something you would appreciate. Now we have something
we ;Ave never done in this town. My partner, Mr. Sweeney, will pass
among you with a baseball bat and boat the bejeestes out of you."
Duffy and Sweeney never played that town again.
Another real guy, and loveable like fluffy was Jack English who
had been banned from Keith's circuit, and one day he came into town
with his youngest son and starches into the waiting room of Keith's
office. When the girl tells him that Mr. Albe can't see him, he's
to.. busy, Jack says he'll wait there all day. But Albe always had
a weakness for him so he called the girl in and said he'd see English
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but just for a minute. When English came in he made a long speech
about knowing how busy a man Albe was and promised he wouldn't take
up more than two minutes of his time by the clock. Then he turned
to his son who was the youngest out of seven or eight and said.
"Look, Sonny, this is Mr. Alba." And then he turned to Albs. "Mr.
Albe, do you want my child to go on hating you as the man who made
us starve to death." And Albe took him baok.
Then there was Johnny Sanley. He cameo into a restaurant one
night drunk as usual. It was a place where we all hung out.
"Give Mb a hunk of apple pie" he said to the waiter.
"We haven't any apple pie."
That got Stanley, "What kind of a joint is this? Can't you
fake it?"
lie was always in trouble about his salary being attached and
he never could got his salary because the sheriff would be there
first. So he met Francis X. bushman who was as smart as they come
and always in trouble with sheriffs too, and Bushman puts him wise
to his awn way of getting his salary. Bushman would go up to the
manager's house early in the morning on pay day. Whe.11 the manager
opened the door, bushman would hand him a receipt for his salary
all made out. 'Sign this please," and with the other hand he'd
hand him a paokage, "Have some breakfast. I brought it for you,"
and that always broke them down and he'd beat the sheriff to his
pay that way. Someone was telling me about an agent that books
up girls these days in real cheap joints for two and three buoke
a night, rt.al buckets of blood. So he books a girl for a week
in one of these places and on the second night she gets hurt doing
an acrobatic and she's entitled to compensation so this agent wants
commission for the compensation and he holds out on her two buck's
salary. Can you figure a guy like that?
RENARD .3
had an act with a fellow, Joseph Egan, he's dead now. I
met him singing in a saloon in Coney Island and I asked him to
to in vaudeville. Be Was a waiter. We used to rehearse on the
beach and when the we'ther got too cold, we moved over to the
park on the East side at night and the oop on the beat used to
stand around and watch and keep the kids moving. We didn't have
a dime between us and the act required scenery so I borrowed 50
bucks from the policeman to buy soenery. Then we got a booking
for $10. But we had to have a trunk made for the seenery and
the trunk cost 12 so we had to borrow the two bucks from another
cop. Well, we worked on the road for a couple weeks for small
chance and finally got back to New York. In those days we lived
in a Turkish Bath when we were in town and when we got up the
next mornira we didn't have even money for breakfast. You know
haw it is at the baths. When you come in, you check your valuables
in a large envelope and when you leave you get it. As we went out,
we saw a hundred dollar bill in this basket where people threw away
the envelopes, and what do you think we did with the hundred dollars.
We bought a hundred dollar trunl:. And all we serried in it was a
bellhop suit which was my costume, and a cane for Egan, a little
makeup and the drop, but we sure ..ade an i:pression in every hotel
with that trunk, even if it loft us without a ,uerter.
After a while I had an act with Burns of Burns and Allen. My
name at that time was Fields. We went to Brooklyn for the matinee
and the manager takes one look at us and closes us. So about five
months later I deoide to do a single ac I book myself into the sane
house under a different name. In the mornint, the manager is watch
in;, the rehearsal from the back and he comes dawn the aisle. 'eren't
you here six months ago?* "No, net me." "Wasn't your name Fields?*
"No, Renard." He looks blank for a minute but ices back, and I
start signing my number and all of a sudden he rushes dawn the
aisle. "Get out, Fields." That was that.
Before that I did a three act when I lived on Second Ave.
une with two boys. The first booking was up on 107th Strc•et so
we used to walk up to do our show, the three of us. Sometime
all we had was a dime between us so we would buy about 3/ worth
of cigarettes, and a milk bottle full of vichy rater and a raw
eg_ for the tenor's voice.
And you couldn't exactly oall my first stage appearance a
success. I was fifteen and I got into an amateur night on the
Bowery. They gave me the hoAc before I could open up my mouth,
but that didn't discourwe me.
Right now I'm getting together a bunch of refugees and put-
ting on an act with nine genuine refugees. All of them were
stars in their own country, moAly from Germany, Austria, Czech-
oslovakia, and one concert Alier from Spain. One of the fellows
composes; he's written about 100 things but only on the other side.
The little Sanish girl left on enoount of the tumult of war and
she's very intelligent, but she doesn't speak much about it Her
family is still over re. They have a lot of confidence in me.
Most of them are over here two or three months, although one has
been here eight months. )oat of them can't speak our language
but a performer is a performer in any language he s eaks, if he's
good. I got them through ads in the German ;:apers and through
clubs. And believe me, they're very well educated. They sing in
all languages, and I have a commentator with them. We open Friday
at the R. K. O. theatres around town.
110
NAGLE
*This story I was offered a lot of money for at the Bronx
Boma Wows but it would have disturbed too maw homes in the Bronx.
This is wi4at hap2ened. I was a MAJOIAter of a theatre up in the Bronx,
it had reserved seats, the only one like thet in the borough, and I
had a doorman and he started to dress a little swell. I met him
there in a barroom one night and he's crackint around tens and
twenties, the best in the houso for the boys. We were selling out
every night, business was very impreusive and naturally I start
looking for a leek, I thought, "What is going on anyway that this
Willie should be iu the dough" so I asked him, *Willie, 'that the
hell's going on hare. You're not getting 418.00 and spending term
and twenties a night just like that. In fact a little explanation
is main to me." *Well, boss," he says, "as a matter of fact the
time's coming when I need your aid." So we sit down and here's the
story. Around the corner frost the theatre there's an alley. Ile's
going home one night and a woman is waiting in this alley and she
calls him. It was a Sunday night about 12, well after the night
performanoe. *Willie, have you got a program?" *No, but I can
get you one," so he went batik in the theatre and gets a program.
She slipped Lim a dollar. Now, she had Lean out cheating on her
husband and she needed an alibi, so when he asks her dearie where
you been all night, all she ha a to do is throw him the program,
give hxr the works about the show and he's satisified. She's so
satisfied too with the deal that she tells her friends about this
service and pretty soon it get:: around the Bronx and finally it
wound up this beoame an industry for Millie. I see that it needs
a little system, a fennacle technique, so I wont in with Millie
and organised it. I went around eo the speaks, it was in the
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to purposely get into all kinds of diffioulties and what could the
judge do about it. It used to start a lot of oommotion where ever
they went. Judge and lawyers brought up the question: supposing
one of them committed moider. The managers would be up in the air
because some night one of the twins got sick and couldn't appear,
and the other one couldn't be docked for his performance. Why,
do you know that after a case like this in Harrisburg it brought
on a discussion in the session of the city meetings as to what to
do about these twins, because everybody was always wondering about
what would happen if one of them committed mcider.
Another troupe that was troublesome was the Singer midgets.
They used to pile into a cab and then have fights with the driver
about the rates. The claimed that three of them sat in a seat for
one pers,m, and he said they were eight people and should pay the
limit. But the courts always cave the midgets the break.
There was another funny thing happened to me. You know Power's
elephants never left the Hippodrome after the show closed, they
stayed there 20 years until it closed bedause it's not like any
other act you can move around. Well, by that time the elephants
were pretty used to the place. Finally they were booked pp at
the Royal in the Bronx. The next morntng they walkedtp to the
Bronx. We had to find a place for
of looking around, I found a place
Street where the pushcart peddlers
them to stay and after a lot
under the El around 143rd
stabled their horses and
carts. After the night show the elephants were taken to the
stable. This is their
thing about elephants,
wont make a move until
first new home in 20 years and there's one
itt- that the leader of the hoid, the rest
he says O.K. The others get it somehow,
he transmits the message. The same thing happens there. They
wont go in that stable until he found out that it was all right.
He goes in there and finds all those fruits and vegetables and
begins eating. The rest of them get the message that everything
is Jake and they co right to it, they got right to work on all
them fruits ana tomatoes and cabbages. In the meantime the horses
run away and there was a riot all over the Bronx that night. The
next day the Borough President gives them a dinner on the lawn
of the hamber of Comaerce up on Tremont Avenue, with special
dimier menus for the elephants. It was some show to see all those
elephants march up those steps to the table where each elephant
had a bail of hay. They, the Borough President welcomes the ele-
phants to the Bronx, and the place is just nabbed with people.
And that was the worst week's businees we ever done in that
theatre.