Earl Carroll | Cladrite Radio

Times Square Tintypes: Earl Carroll

In this chapter from his 1932 book, Times Square Tintypes, Broadway columnist Sidney Skolsky profiles Earl Carroll, theatrical producer, director, songwriter and composer.

THE LIFE OF THE PARTY

Earl CARROLL. He has a throne, a palace and a title. His throne is an antique Chinese chair. His palace is the theater bearing his name. His title is “The Earl of Seventh Avenue.”

He is extremely polite to everyone. Expects people to be that way to him. Nobody can really get close to him.

He suffers from insomnia.

Was born in Pittsburgh, September 16, 1892. Has two brothers, Norman and James, and one sister, Alice. The brothers don’t look like him or each other. The sister could pass for his twin. When a small boy he was dressed in a white sailor suit.

If he sees a pretty girl on the street he will stop her and ask her if she wants to go on the stage.

At the age of sixteen he stood in the center of Nanking Road, China, with only forty-five cents in his pocket.

His office is backstage of his theater. A rug, the color of pigeon blood, covers the floor. His desk is enclosed in a wall. The pressing of a button shoots it forward. He uses a sword for a paperweight. Has a statue of Buddha here. And a refrigerator with Chinese letters written on it. The letters spell—happiness. In the rear of the office there is a secret panel through which he can make a hasty exit.

He can’t wear a shirt with a collar attached. And all of his vests must be double-breasted.

Once wrote a song with Enrico Caruso. It was “Dreams of Long Ago.” Immediately after joining the army he wrote a song called: “When I’m Through with the Arms of the Army I’ll Come Back to the Arms of You.”

Always throws a party for himself on his birthday.

His favorite type of beauty for the stage is a tall blonde. His own personal taste, however, runs to slender brunettes.

During the war he was a lieutenant in the United States Air Service. He was the first man to land an airplane in Central Park.

While rehearsing a new show he wears a sand-colored smock. His shirt is minus collar and tie. He stands in the orchestra. Has a telephone operator’s apparatus on his head. Through this he gives instructions backstage, under the stage and in the electrician’s booth plastered on the back wall of the balcony. To his left is a small table. His secretary, Miss Ruth, sits here and takes memos. During all this he is continually drinking Poland mineral water and chewing gum.

Likes to use perfume. His two favorites are Caron’s Acaciosa and Gabilla’s Jasmin. He sprays his throat with perfume daily.

On April 10, he and his two brothers and sister always journey to Pittsburgh to visit their mother’s grave. On Mother’s Day he sends flowers.

Was the first man in New York to own a “Starlight Bungalow,” now known as a penthouse. His was located on the roof of 729 Seventh Avenue. He called it “Top o’ the World.” He likes to live high and now resides on the top floor of a tall apartment hotel.

09 Jan 12 | Tags: Broadway, Carroll Theatre, Earl Carroll, NYC, Sidney Skolsky, Times Square Tintypes, W. R. Edrington
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In Your Hat, pt. 13

In the 13th and final chapter of In Your Hat, the 1933 tell-all memoir by Hat Check Girl to the Stars Renee Carroll, she admits, after a dozen chapters spent glorifying the world of show business and the performers who populate it, that she finds the whole circus a bit depressing. It’s the has-beens, more than the wanna-bes, that sadden her, it seems, and she insists that she’s content to stick with the going concern that is her hat check concession. “I know that’s going to last,” Carroll writes.

She was wrong, of course. Hats have fallen mostly out of favor (though some of us still wear them), and many restaurants today don’t even offer a coat check service. But, for the most part, hats hung in there long enough for Ms. Carroll.

If you read to the end of this brief closing chapter, you’ll find some updates from throughout Ms. Carroll’s life, written in 1947 and 1951.

WELL, I’ve finished my fifth year at Sardi’s. The only thing that have increased are the measurements of my hips, the number of people I know, and the size of my tips! But I’ve never been happier in my life.

Broadway is a funny place. It means so many different things to so many different people. To those who had to fight their way up only to find, as the great Winchell puts it, “It’s easy enough to climb to the top of the ladder—the hard thing is to stay there”, Broadway is just a tragedy of shattered hopes. To those who are just starting out, with all their illusions still glittering brightly, Broadway is “the greatest community in the world.”

But to me, standing on the sidelines and watching the whole panorama unfold past my hat check cubby-hole, Broadway is just another street. It may have more mazdas, but it’s just as good a place to keep away from as the proverbial pool-room on the proverbial Main Street. It has its rewards, sure!—But so, too, have Broadway in Podunkville, and Metropolitan Avenue in Sqeedunk Hollow.

I wouldn’t swap my job for all the five-year contracts (with options) in Hollywood! I wouldn’t change places with all the girls Earl Carroll hopes he’s going to “discover” in the next five years! A few years of my face and figure might be enough for the theatre and movie-going public—but they’ll always want to have their hats checked. And as long as I don’t get their derbies mixed up, they’re going to need me. But show business—phooey! You fade quicker than a bleached blonde.

14 Sep 10 | Tags: 1933, Earl Carroll, Eddie Cantor, Joan Crawford, Renee Carroll, Sardi's
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Snapshot in Prose: Red Nichols

This week’s Snapshot in Prose captures cornet and trumpet player Red Nichols at a relatively early point in his career, though he had already made hundreds of recordings under a variety of band names. But, to a certain degree, the more traditional jazz he favored, with its Dixieland flavor, was on the verge of being replaced by the new swing craze.

But Nichols survived and even thrived, continuing to record and perform until his death in 1965. In this 1935 profile, Nichols looks back at his salad days in the world of jazz.

Who plays the red-hottest trumpet in captivity? Red Nichols! Who has the grandest, wavy red hair and come-hitherest laughing brown eyes? Red Nichols! Yet, this utterly charming and totally unaffected young maestro, who became famous from the hour “Red Nichols and His Five Pennies” lit on Broadway, is almost shy.

The day, recently, when this fascinating, slim young leader celebrated his thirtieth birthday, he was also congratulated upon having devoted a quarter of a century to the art of playing a trumpet!

The “veteran” is of medium height. He doesn’t tan tan but red, and his face retains its ruddiness from one season to the next. While Red is remarkably good-humored, he literally sees red when he has to do with chiselers and liars. For the big red haired boy is a square straight-shooter himself.

He was born thirty miles from Salt Lake City. He lists Brigham Young among the half-dozen greatest men in history. However, the Nichols family were not practical Mormons.

Red’s father, E. W. Nichols, was professor of music at Weber College, Ogden, Utah, and at the State University in Salt Lake City. When little E. Loring (Red, to us) was three years old he was running around with a silver-plated trumpet in his mouth. At five, he played “America” before Weber’s entire student body.

“I always loved the cornet best. My trumpet technique improved under the guidance of Captain O’Callaghan,” he told me.

The boy was a good student. He also excelled on the track, and at basketball. A military career loomed ahead. For strangely enough, Red’s parents strenuously objected to their son having a musical career, unless he would devote himself exclusively to the classics.

“I ran away from home, the summer I was sixteen, to join a dance band at Piquet, Ohio,” the affable leader said. “It was called the Syncopating Five. We got stranded in Indianapolis. There was no work. I wouldn’t go home. Washed dishes in a lunch room for three weeks for my food.”

“Then, with nothing at all, I got Ralph Dunkee, of the now famous Sisters of the Skillet and organized a cooperative dance band. In Lake James, Indiana, we found ourselves broke. Luckily, about that time along came the Syncopating Five, and asked me—” Red gave us one of those priceless, roguish looks, and went on, “or rather I asked them, if I could have a job again.

09 Sep 10 | Tags: Ambassador Hotel, Atlantic City, Casino Gardens, Dorsey Brothers, Earl Carroll, Eddie Lang, Indianapolis, Joe Venuti, Red Nichols, Red Nichols and His Five Pennies, Royal Palm Orchestra, Sisters of the Skillet, Syncopating Five
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Are You Having Any Fun?
Hey fellow with a million smackers
And nervous indigestion
Rich fellow, eats milk and crackers,
I'll ask you one question,
You silly so and so,
With all your dough...

Are you having any fun?
What you getting out of livin'?
What good is what you've got
If you're not having any fun?

Are you having any laughs?
Are you getting any lovin'?
If other people do,
So can you, have a little fun.

After the honey's in the cone,
Little bees go out and play.
Even the old grey mare down home
Has got to have hay. Hey!

You better have some fun.
You ain't gonna live forever.
Before you're old and gray, feel okay.
Have your little fun, son!
Have your little fun!

Why do you work and slave and save?
Life is full of ifs and buts.
You know the squirrels save and save,
And what have they got? Nuts!

Better have a little fun.
You ain't gonna live forever.
Before you're old and grey, still okay,
Have your little fun, son!
Have your little fun!
Are you havin' any fun?

---Sammy Fain (music) and Jack Yellen (lyrics), 1939

Times Square Tintypes: Earl Carroll

In Your Hat, pt. 13

Snapshot in Prose: Red Nichols

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