Category: Times Square Tintypes

Times Square Tintypes: Broadway

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In this, the final chapter from his 1932 book, Times Square Tintypes, Broadway columnist Sidney Skolsky offers not one of the show-biz profiles that were his bread and butter, but instead details a day in the life of the Great White Way.

BROADWAY CHRONOMETER

9 A. M. illustration of a Broadway streetsweeperPeople who don’t belong walking over a sleeping body. The lights are out and the sun is shining. Stores are opening for business and porters are cleaning out the theaters. Programs are swept aside. Last night’s opening is now an old story. Working people are hurrying to their tasks. They’re going to make money to spend when the light flicker. Nobody along the Street thinking of amusement. They’ll sell you insurance, a suit of clothes, a cup of coffee, but never a laugh. If Broadway were awake it wouldn’t let these people on it. But the Street is only human. It must get some rest. There they go, not a real double-crosser, not a gangster, not an actor, not a guy hopped up with fake dreams. Merely real people. Walking up Broadway when it is asleep.

*      *      *

10:30 A. M. Broadway yawns. Actors in their sleep wake to rehearsals. Some poor nut has a song hit that no one will take off his hands. Ham and eggs at Childs’. Countless actors who believe that today their break may come. Press agents are going to what they call work. Broadway yawns again. Part of it goes back to sleep. The other part marches. They don’t make a dent. The Street still belongs to the foreign invasion. School kids and people out of work standing in line to get into the Paramount at the cheap morning prices. The afternoon papers begin to appear on the newsstands. Sounds of a jazz band practicing. It annoys the realtor two blocks away. In a couple of weeks he’ll pay to hear the same band and call it amusement. Dreary-eyed coryphées leaving side street hotels to hurry to rehearsals. The rouge and lipstick are the only thing genuine about them. They could put that on in their sleep. Don’t you worry, they’ll be repaid. Have their name in lights, get a husband, or else. Yawn, Broadway, but put your hand over your mouth.

*      *      *

2 P. M. Broadway is waking up. The light, the air, the sunshine is foreign. Matinée crowds now fill the streets. Actors are going to work. Why do they have matinées? You ought to see the same show some night that you saw in the afternoon. Where do people get the time to go to theaters in the afternoon? Why don’t they sleep? Actors are going to matinées. To see how they would have played the part or to applaud a fellow performer. A night club has a rehearsal in the cellar. Work all night and work all day. It’s a racket. Some people find heaven in a dive. Producers having their breakfasts. Big business deals written out on tableclothes. Do you know who’s in town? Four guys are spilling the same exclusive inside story. Gray’s is filled and Cain’s is making room for another show. Broadway is waking up. Theatrical folks are hurrying to their doctors. To their dentists. To take a sun-ray bath. Must keep in good condition. What’s the daytime for? The curtain’s going up. More jazz bands are rehearsing. Someone just signed a big contract and is going to get his name in lights. What the hell good is daytime? You can’t see your name in lights. Come on, Broadway, wake up. Get hot. Get dark.

*      *      *

7:30 P. M. It’s getting dark on old Broadway. Its getting hot on old Broadway. Actors answering the 7:30 call of the theater. Grease paint. Bring in that latest shipment through the back door, will you? She’s meeting him in front of the Rialto. It’s an opening night down the street. Maybe they’ll holler, “Author, author.” He’s invested everything in this one. Gee, I hope he clicks. He’s a nice guy. The critics. I’d like to see one of them write a play. Bernard Shaw? I mean a New York critic. Someone just cracked a gag. Lights are flickering. Someone else just cracked the same gag. Horns are tooting. Someone just had a reputation shattered. A new one tomorrow. The sky is beautiful. In some part of the world people are looking at the moon. It’s getting dark on old Broadway. It’s getting hot on old Broadway. No one can see above the electric light. Loan it to me and I’ll pay you back tomorrow. I haven’t got it myself. They’re all friends. All buddies. Just trying to do each other a good turn if it will benefit themselves. She’s with another guy tonight. Don’t know how she can keep up the pace. There goes the curtain. First nights. Glory seekers. Critics. Folks in search of amusement. Panhandlers. Bums. Noise. Lights. Greed. Backslapping. Tomorrow’s papers. What you’re doing now doesn’t count. The present is of the past. Pretty important, aren’t you all? Ever walk through a graveyard? All tombstones read alike. Broadway is getting hot.

*      *      *

AFTER
MIDNIGHT		 Broadway is Broadway. Broadway is making whoopee. Prohibition is only for the non-drinkers. Nobody knows what day it is. Hey, waiter, this table! Policemen standing in hallways. Long lines of cabs. We won’t get home ’til morning. Don’t talk like that to him. Want to get bumped off? Clubs banging on tables. That’s applause. Applause that’s life to an artist. I’m telling you it’s a sure in the third race at Havana tomorrow. Mr. Whoosis, I want you to meet Miss Whatsis. Now I’ve got a scheme. Some guys get all the luck. Broadway is making whoopee. Evening dress and gorgeous gowns. She was beautiful two hours ago. Legs. Arms. Eyes. Desire. Fill it up again, I want to forget. Tell me things, will you? I want to listen. Bad music. Bad gin. Whirling bodies. Isn’t this fun? We’re having a great time. I feel dizzy. It’s getting stuffy. You’re not used to it. People who are only eating sandwiches and drinking coffee in plain restaurants. Talking dreams. Giving the ego an outlet. A good listener is a good friend. Stray lights in an office building. Strays walking up and down as if they were going places. Couples window-shopping in dark windows. A practically empty street car darting through the night. Folks quarreling. Breaking their hearts. Giving it to Broadway so it can be paved. The street is practically deserted. But this is what the hick in the stick believes is the real Broadway. This is Broadway making whoopee.

Times Square Tintypes: Rudy Vallee

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In this chapter from his 1932 book, Times Square Tintypes, Broadway columnist Sidney Skolsky profiles crooner and bandleader Rudy Vallee.

AMERICA’S SWEETHEART

RUDY VALLEE was born July 28, 1901, in Island Pond, Vt.
Caricature of Rudy ValleeHis real name is Herbert Prior Vallee. Took the name of Rudy from Rudy Wiedoft, the saxophone player. His idol.
Curses like a stoker. Has a temper and when it is aroused he screams like a woman.
His father was a pharmacist and owned a drug store in Westbrook, Maine, until last summer. The father is a French Canadian. His mother is Irish. Has one sister, Kathleen Marie, and one brother, William, who goes to Fordham College and lives with him.
Doesn’t drink much. When he does he takes a rye highball. The taste of Scotch makes him sick.
When the war broke out he ran away from home to enlist in the navy. While in a training school, they learned that he was only fifteen years old. He was put in the hoosegow until his parents called for him. Stills thinks he was a sailor.
His boyhood ambition was to be a letter carrier.
Sleeps in gay-colored pajamas. He snores and grinds his teeth. Occasionally he has a hot-water bag in bed with him to keep his toes warm. Gets semi-nightmares and wanders in his sleep. Several times his brother pulled him back from walking out a window.
Can play only two instruments. The saxophone and the clarinet. He two-fingers the piano a bit. He is left-handed.
As a kid and a student at Yale he was unpopular with the girls. While at college he majored in Spanish. His desire then was to be a wealthy South American business man.
He pinches the lobe of his ear with his finger nails when he is nervous.
Smokes occasionally. It is an English brand of cigarettes. He has posed for pictures smoking a pipe but detests one. Often requests people not to smoke a pipe in his presence.
The kind of a woman who appeals to him the most is one of the Lenore Ulric type of beauty.
Can often be seen in Childs’ or in Thompson’s one-armed lunch place. His favorite dish is buckwheat cakes with plenty of butter.
While playing at the Rendezvous, he sang so low that Gilda Gray told him “to go get a megaphone.” He did. Now plans to use an all glass megaphone so people will be able to see his face when singing.
His blond eyebrows are not very prominent. Therefore for photographs and stage purposes he pencils in arched eyebrows.
Keeps all strings, bags and papers that he finds. His pockets are filled with bits of paper, cigarette crumbs, throat tablets and burnt matches. Buys every patent medicine that appears. He always carries at least three toothbrushes.
Whenever he takes a girl out to eat he tells her what to order.
Lets his clothes flop wherever he takes them off. Never bothers to hang them up. Is economical. Takes stains out of his suits with a home cleaning fluid.
While playing at the Paramount, two schoolgirls, watching him, decided that they had to meet him personally. Posing as interviewers from a high school paper, they were ushered into his dressing room. As a matter of courtesy, he offered his hand in greeting. One of the girls took it and fainted. The other fell back in a chair—exhausted. The house physician was called, and the girl was revived and escorted to the street. But not until the one who clasped Rudy’s hand let it be known that she was never going to wash the hand that touched her hero’s hand.
His great ambition today is to make one million dollars.
When reading he prefers Western stories. Believes the greatest book ever written to be The Guarded Heights, a story of college life at Princeton, by Wadsworth Camp.
Of all the songs he sings his favorite is “Deep Night.”
On May 11, 1928, he married Leonie Cauchois McCoy. The marriage was annulled the August of that year. He gives every girl the “Grey Dawn” test. Keeps them out until dawn, believing that if a girl looks good then she’ll look good any time.
Has two scars on his body. One is from an appendicitis operation. The other is a bit of gravel in his left knee cap. The result of a motor-cycle accident.
The one thing in life he fears is that some day he will be fat and bald.

Times Square Tintypes: Eva Le Gallienne

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In this chapter from his 1932 book, Times Square Tintypes, Broadway columnist Sidney Skolsky profiles stage actress Eva Le Gallienne.

IN GOD’S IMAGE

EVA LE GALLIENNE was born January 11, 1899, as the Bow bells of London were tolling seven. She is five feet four and weighs 128 pounds.
Caricature of Eva Le GallienneShe can do anything with her left hand that she does with her right.
Her father is Richard Le Gallienne, the poet. Her mother, Julie Norregaard, a journalist. After they separated she went to Paris with her mother. Lived there until the age of thirteen, when she returned to London and enrolled in Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree‘s Academy. It was here that Lyall Swete saw her and presently she made her London début in The Laughter of Fools.
At an affair she always requests the orchestra to play a tango.
She sews well. Love to iron her shirtwaists.
Left England for America to play in The Laughter of Fools for David Belasco. After two weeks of rehearsals the play was shelved.
Likes very sheer stockings and suéde shoes. Wears suéde gloves, always making it a point to buy them a size too large.
Her first appearance on the American stage was with Harrison Grey Fiske in Mrs. Boltay’s Daughter. Richard Le Gallienne, who hadn’t seen her since she was three, attended a performance. She had the rôle of a colored maid. Mr. Le Gallienne on seeing her exclaimed: “My God! Is that my daughter?”
She plays the piano, the guitar (gypsy and Spanish), the harp and the piccolo.
The members of her theatrical troupe call her “Saint Eva.” On the opening night of a play she sends every woman in the company a box of flowers. Every man receives a gardenia.
Her suits are short, while her evening dresses sweep the floor.
Whenever she goes to the theater she insists upon sitting in the first row.
Seldom touches hard liquor. Her taste is for wines. Prefers French cooking to any other style and eats almost a basketful of fruit a day. She adores ripe figs.
When eleven years old she made a copy of Mme. Bernhardt‘s memoirs in longhand. It required two volumes and a year’s labor. When Sarah Bernhardt heard of this she asked to see her and wrote a tribute on the flyleaf of the first volume. A copy of this now hangs in Miss Le Gallienne’s dressing room.
Former President Coolidge selected her as, next to Lindbergh, the outstanding person of 1928.
Her favorite cultivated flower is the camellia. She loves to pick wild flowers.
Has a wonderful collection of antique jewelry. Always wears earrings. One of her choice possessions is a cross made of emeralds. She wears this dangling from a silver chain which girdles her black velvet evening gown.
She owns a car and operates it herself. She gets a big kick out of driving in traffic.

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Times Square Tintypes: Jed Harris

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In this chapter from his 1932 book, Times Square Tintypes, Broadway columnist Sidney Skolsky profiles theatrical producer Jed Harris.

IN GOD’S IMAGE

He is Mrs. Horowitz’s little boy, Jacob. But in the bright lights of Broadway, it’s JED HARRIS.
Caricature of Jed HarrisFour years ago he knew where the Automat was but he didn’t have the nickel. Today he is worth over a million dollars. In the days when he didn’t have a penny he told everybody he could make a fortune whenever he was ready.
He wears only the top part of his pajamas.
Was born in Vienna and came to this country at the age of three. He has three sisters and one brother.
His personal appearance is a minor thing with him. He has had the same hat since he’s been in the show business. If it isn’t the same hat it looks the same.
Is, however, particular about his shoes. They must always look like new. Every other week he purchases a new pair.
The script of Broadway, originally titled Bright Lights, was rejected by almost every theatrical manager. George M. Cohan turned it down because he didn’t like the characters. William A. Brady because he couldn’t get Tex Guinan to play the hostess. A. H. Woods refused, writing these noble words across the title page: “Not with my money, sweetheart.” On a first reading even Jed Harris rejected it. Six months later, reading it for the second time, he bought it and became famous.
He carries very little money with him. Generally allows someone else to grab the check.
He hates to shave due to the fact that he has “tissue paper” skin. No matter how careful the barber is, his face always bleeds after a shave.
Seldom does he drink. He likes to pretend that he is drunk.
His ambition is to have his own ocean liner.
During rehearsals of a play he is a mad man. For the first couple of weeks he has no confidence in the script. After he has passed through that period he believes he has the greatest play in the world.
Every Friday evening he visits his parents and has noodle soup. They still live in the same house in Newark.
He plays the violin well and is quite adept at card tricks, which he learned from a vaudeville magician. At parties he entertains by reciting complete acts of his plays.
Does most of his work between midnight and four in the morning in the office.
His favorite meal is one consisting of beans, hash, pickles and near beer.
He was fired from the publicity job of a Jewish charity organization by a man who is now doing theatrical interviews for a leading metropolitan newspaper. He has issued a standing order that this man must never be permitted to interview him. He is careful, however, that this interviewer receives aisle seats for all his shows.
With the money he made from Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em he got married.
No matter who the author or star is, if he doesn’t like the play, he closes it out of town. He tried for two years to get Ina Claire to appear in a play for him. Then he closed that play, The Gaoler’s Wench, forty-eight hours before it was due on Broadway.
He possesses the intuition of a woman.
Once he talked a college chum into taking him to Europe. Quarreled with the chap in Paris. After bumming about London he worked his way back to America in the stokehole of a boat.
He is afraid of old age.
His favorite photograph is the one in which he is sitting on a table with his hands carefully folded in his lap. His shoulders are rounded and his eyes have that faraway look—like a genius.
He can talk anybody into anything.
Works on the script of every play he produces. Always suggests new situations to be written into the play. Twenty-four hours later he telephones the playwright to inquire if the suggested bit has been written. If it hasn’t he merely says: “If you’ll do that you’ll make me very happy” and hangs up.
Dreads the impact of cold water. Whenever he goes to the seashore he sits on the sand all day without going into the water.
He does everything in high gear. Worries about things. Delays doing them until he has worked himself into an emotional state. Then he is a tornado. Nothing can defeat him.
Lives in a duplex apartment in Sutton Place. His second ride in the elevator in that building cost him exactly $212.
Recently in a restaurant a waiter wishing to impress the people at his table pointed and said: “See that man. That’s Jed Harris. He shaves and it comes right out again.”
Noel Coward calls him “Destiny’s Tot.”
On the opening night of his plays he is home sleeping. Whenever he wishes to break an appointment or avoid a tense situation he goes to bed.
His favorite character in all history is Jed Harris.

Times Square Tintypes: Gertrude Lawrence

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In this chapter from his 1932 book, Times Square Tintypes, Broadway columnist Sidney Skolsky profiles actress Gertrude Lawrence.

MEET MISS LAWRENCE

The Woman Of It. GERTRUDE LAWRENCE.
Caricature of Gertrude LawrenceShe is always recognizing people she has never seen before.
Although fond of flowers and has plenty about the house she will never wear any.
Her father was a singer with a company of touring English minstrels. Her mother acted with the troupe. As a baby she was left in a clothes basket in the dressing room while they were onstage. At the age of four she sold programs in the theaters. Made her stage début when she was six, playing kid parts in England, Scotland and Ireland. Had cards printed reading: “Miss Gertie Lawrence, Child Actress and Toe-Dancer.”
Has a small beauty mark, difficult to see, on the right side of her chin.
Is a good tennis player and an excellent swimmer. In the summer she goes to the beach, in a very business-like way, to acquire a heavy coat of tan.
She avoids wearing a hat whenever possible. Loathes clothes except when she has to dress up. At home she walks about attired in pajamas. When retiring for the evening she dons a nightgown.
Her most expensive habit is buying automobiles. She owns three.
Has a mania for clocks. Has twelve in her apartment. No two of them ever register the same time.
She first set foot in this country on Christmas eve, 1923, when the company of the first Charlot Revue arrived here. No one was present to greet her. She and Beatrice Lillie sat on their trunks on that lonely dock for an hour. They cried and sang Christmas carols.
When talking to a person who uses an accent, she can’t help mimicking that person in conversation.
Her choice selections in foods are beef stew, kidney pudding, fruits out of season, greasy potato chips and ripe olives soaked in garlic. Buys things from pushcarts, like roasted chestnuts, and eats them while walking along the street.
Wears horn-rimmed glasses when she reads or wants to look dignified.
In Candle Light she played her first straight rôle in this country. In London she played the lead in Icebound. Over there she is also noted for her male impersonations.
She goes to fortune tellers and reads dream books, believing in them implicitly.
Her nicknames are “Squirrel,” “Peaches” (this one annoys her), “G” and “Dormouse.”
Lindbergh is her hero. In her press book, which contains every story and picture of her that ever appeared, she also has pasted the newspaper accounts of Lindbergh’s flight, reception and marriage.
Her two favorite games are poker and backgammon. She attends every prize fight, bicycle race and ice hockey game that she can.
Likes to talk in a husky voice and welcomes a slight cold because it enables her to do this.
She can fix a fuse, if one blows out, or repair mechanical troubles. For years she had a tiny French telephone, the type banned by the telephone company. Wherever she traveled, London, Paris, New York, she took it with her and installed it herself.
Prefers definite shades of color in her clothes. She looks best in either black or white.
She is most comfortable when sitting on the floor—and generally does.
Of all her songs, her favorite is “Watch Over Me,” from Oh, Kay. She takes a singing lesson every day and is now learning to sing in Italian.
Her secret ambition is to write a play. Every week she decides to become something else. Now she wants to be a sculptress. She bought some modeling clay, a smock, a book on how to make models life size in twelve easy lessons, and is now trying to do things.