spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,544
Likes: 9,340
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Post by spiderwort on Dec 30, 2017 3:00:46 GMT
I don't know all the names of those with vaudevillian roots, but of the ones I do know, these are my favorites:
Judy Garland
Cary Grant (as Archie Leach)
Bob Hope
Fred Astaire
Charlie Chaplin
Bob Hope
Mickey Rooney
James Cagney
Buster Keaton
Will Rogers
Can you think of others who started in vaudeville? They don't have to be your favorites
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Post by petrolino on Dec 30, 2017 3:03:33 GMT
Here's some early footage of Eddie Cantor ....
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Post by bravomailer on Dec 30, 2017 3:12:20 GMT
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Post by petrolino on Dec 30, 2017 3:23:59 GMT
I've read about a famous vaudeville act that several actresses appeared with including Janet Gaynor, Dorothy Lamour and Judy Garland, but I can't verify any details having never seen their act. They were called Fanchon & Marco.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Dec 30, 2017 4:47:10 GMT
Baby Rose Marie performed in vaudeville as a headliner. One of the acts she appeared with was Edgar Bergen before his Charlie McCarthy ventriloquism act, when he was still a small-timer. A half century letter, when she appeared on Murphy Brown (1988), she told star Candice Bergen, "I worked with your father in vaudeville when he was doing a doctor sketch." When Bergen replied that she couldn't have played the nurse in the act as she was too young, Rose Marie told her that she was the headliner and he was her opening act. "She didn't care for that too much," Rose Marie remembered.  
She also appeared in vaudeville with Dick Powell, Rudy Vallee and Jimmy Durante, who mentored her. |
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Post by alfromni on Dec 30, 2017 5:10:34 GMT
spiderwort - The UK equivalent of "vaudeville" and /or "burlesque" is "music-hall". Take for example Charles Chaplin. He really began in music-hall. This from Wiki... "Chaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. As his father was absent and his mother struggled financially, he was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19, he was signed to the prestigious Fred Karno company, which took him to America."And so his legend began... 
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Post by BATouttaheck on Dec 30, 2017 5:25:48 GMT
Jimmy DuranteComedian, composer, actor, singer and songwriter ("Inka Dinka Doo") Jimmy Durante began his career as a Coney Island pianist, and organized a five-piece band in 1916. He opened the Club Durant with Eddie Jackson and Lou Clayton, with whom he later formed a comedy trio for vaudeville and on television. Jackson, Clayton and Durante   I remember them doing some of the vaudeville numbers on his TV show. FUNNY stuff.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Dec 30, 2017 5:40:39 GMT
" Stan Laurel came from a theatrical family, his father was an actor and theatre manager, and he made his stage debut at the age of 16 at Pickard's Museum, Glasgow. He traveled with Fred Karno's vaudeville company to the United States in 1910 and again in 1913. While with that company he was Charles Chaplin's understudy, and he performed imitations of Chaplin. On a later trip he remained in the United States, having been cast in a two-reel comedy, Nuts in May (1917) ..." Stan in lower right hand corner :  |
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Post by alfromni on Dec 30, 2017 7:36:22 GMT
Here is a short list of the better known (UK-wise) comics who all started in music-hall. Some (if not most) may be unfamiliar to US contributors, similarly as US ones are in the UK. Chesney Allen (1893–1982) Arthur Askey (1900–1982) Hylda Baker (1905–1986) Billy Bennett (1887–1942) Max Bygraves (1922–2012) Frank Carson (1926–2012) Roy Castle (1932–1994) Tommy Cooper (1921–1984) Jimmy Cricket (born 1945) Leslie Crowther (1933–1996) Les Dawson (1931–1993) Ken Dodd (born 1927) Charlie Drake (1925–2006) Norman Evans (1901 – 1962) Sid Field (1904–1950) Bud Flanagan (1896–1968) Cyril Fletcher (1913–2005) George Formby (1904–1961) Bruce Forsyth (1928–2017) Dickie Henderson (1922–1985) Jimmy James (1892–1965) Max Miller (1894–1963) Spike Milligan (1918–2002) Bob Monkhouse (1928–2003) Morecambe and Wise (Eric Morecambe 1926–1984; Ernie Wise 1925–1999) Des O'Connor (born 1932) Tom O'Connor (born 1939) Edmund Payne (1863–1914) Frank Randle (1901–1957) Ted Rogers (1935–2001) George Roper (1934–2003) Tommy Trinder (1908–1989) Vesta Victoria (1873–1951) Max Wall (1908–1990) Charlie Williams (1927–2006) Many more such as Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warris and one of my favouries...Robb Wilton: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robb_Wilton BTW ---I'd never even heard of Baby Rose Marie until now. Just one example of a lack of cross-Pond knowledge. I'm sure it's the same both ways. |
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Post by marshamae on Dec 30, 2017 10:22:34 GMT
June Havoc started as Baby June with her sister Gypsy Rose Lee
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Post by Matthew the Swordsman on Dec 30, 2017 14:55:55 GMT
George Burns and Gracie Allen come to my mind.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Dec 30, 2017 15:58:16 GMT
I've read about a famous vaudeville act that several actresses appeared with including Janet Gaynor, Dorothy Lamour and Judy Garland, but I can't verify any details having never seen their act. They were called Fanchon & Marco. Fanchon (Fanny Wolff) and Marco (Micheal Wolff) began in the first decade of the last century as a brother-sister dance team that worked its way up to headlining on the Orpheum Circuit. By 1915, they had moved into producing, first for nightclubs and eventually Broadway. Their most enduring fame arose from their association with the Fox theater chain, for which they began producing live entertainment in 1923 and, expanding to their own theater circuit, supplying "Fanchon and Marco Units" to dozens of cities across the U.S. in the '30s from their headquarters in Hollywood employing over 2000. Merging with the Meglin Studios in 1936, their little entertainment empire lasted to the mid-'50s.
Matthew the Swordsman mentioned George Burns and Gracie Allen; on their 1950's sitcom, George's monologues and one-liners often incorporated the names of actual Vaudeville acts, and more than once, coming upon Gracie and her friend Blanche (and sometimes their son Ronny and Blanche's husband Harry or announcer/sidekick Von Zell) scrambling to conceal from him whatever little plot they were hatching, George would say, "What is this, a Fanchon and Marco Unit?" |
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Post by teleadm on Dec 30, 2017 17:21:25 GMT
Lovely subject!
But I think we called it "buskis"
I wish the sound was better, dear Jimmy....
Most swedish actors has at one time played Vaduevill
Here is my avatar Sigge singing about loving young couples meeting and kissing on a old village road, he sings in swedish, in theatre Sigge did the Rudy Vallee role in How to succeed in Bussiness, that show was a long runner in Swedish theatres too
Sigge came from what you call Vadueville
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Post by Doghouse6 on Dec 30, 2017 17:39:44 GMT
A few I don't think I've seen mentioned:
W.C. Fields
Ginger Rogers (teamed with her first husband, Jack Culpepper, billed as "Ginger and Pepper")
Lon Chaney
Edward Everett Horton
Marie Dressler
The Nicholas Brothers
Charles Winninger
Edit for some others coming to mind:
Bert Lahr
Ray Bolger
Jack Haley
Buddy Ebsen (with sister Velma)
Jack Benny
Ed Wynn
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Post by Doghouse6 on Dec 31, 2017 17:10:20 GMT
Doghouse6 Earlier I was watching an American Masters about Bob Hope and there was a lot about his Vaudeville days in it. Brings to mind this exchange in The Cat and the Canary (1939): PAULETTE GODDARD: "Aren't you afraid of big, empty houses?"BOB HOPE: "Not me. I used to work in Vaudeville." |
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Post by BATouttaheck on Dec 31, 2017 19:01:40 GMT
WC Fields in Vaudeville (1903) pool cue and juggling will prove useful once he gets onto the screen.   Biography:  |
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Post by manfromplanetx on Dec 31, 2017 23:07:08 GMT
Harry Langdon was a veteran of vaudeville. Langdon began his theatrical career in the early 1900s in vaudeville shows often partnered with his first wife Rose. Around 1915, he developed an original sketch named "Johnny's New Car," on which he performed many comic variations. Langdon first appeared on film in 1923 aged 39, later joining Keystone Studios, he became a major star, one of the best comics of the silent film era... 
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Post by BATouttaheck on Dec 31, 2017 23:19:22 GMT
BURNS AND ALLEN A nice write-up about the life and career of Gracie Allen |
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Post by alfromni on Jan 1, 2018 19:59:18 GMT
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Post by petrolino on Jan 6, 2018 2:53:01 GMT
Jazz singer Kenny Lynch also worked in music hall and vaudeville, leading to a career in variety here in the U K. One of his sisters (he was one of 13 kids) was jazz singer Maxine Daniels. Some fun facts about Kenny ... Lynch's association with the Beatles is his best known. In 1963, John Lennon held up a portrait of Lynch with Rock N Roll Hall of Famers, the Beatles, while Lynch became the first person to cover a Lennon / McCartney composition when he recorded 'Misery'. He later appeared on the cover for 'Band On The Run' by Wings, photographed out at social functions over the years with Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Lynch co-wrote one of the breakthrough singles for Rock N Roll Hall of Famers, Small Faces. It's the infectious beat hit 'Sha La La La Lee' with its heavy soul infusion. It's generally said that P.P. Arnold was a friend of Lynch who suggested her to the Faces for 'Tin Soldier'. 'Tin Soldier' - Small Faces
Lynch joined stage star Barbara Windsor for her first single, 'I'm Not That Sort Of A Girl' (1962), in which Kenny sets his eyes of Babs. Cor! Lynch later appeared in the 'Carry On' series and contributed music.
Barbara Windsor
Lynch was a close friend of Cilla Black and hung with the Beatles' fellow Merseyside beaters The Searchers. He was also a good pal of Rock N Roll Hall of Famers, The Hollies, who were down the road in Manchester. In the early 1970s, Tony Hicks co-wrote a number of songs with Lynch, notably on the Hollies' classic album 'Distant Light' (1971).
'Blue In The Morning' - The Hollies
Cilla Black & Kenny Lynch
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