Here are 10 things you should know about Victor Mature, born 111 years ago today. He enjoyed success in pictures and radio and even had a moment on Broadway.
Tag: Gertrude Lawrence
Times Square Tintypes: Gertrude Lawrence
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.
She 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.
Fridays with Rudy: Vagabond Dreams Come True, Ch. 16
In Chapter 16 of his 1930 memoir, Vagabond Dreams Come True, Rudy Vallée recounts his earliest experiences in the recording studio.
IT’S IN THE WAX
MAKING phonograph records always had a great fascination for me. My first thrill of hearing my voice in song or saxophone in solo came when i was at the University of Maine in 1921.
The authorities of the University of Maine were interested enough in my musical efforts to allow me the use of some of the buildings on the campus for my practice. The agricultural part of the college had a large building known as Agricultural Hall where one learned all the science of the soil and animal life of the farm and barnyard. High up on the fourth floor were large classrooms that were empty at night. In one of these I used to practice certain very disagreeable sounding exercises. For instance, for the development of saxophone tone I started with the lowest note on the sax and held it as long as the deep breath I had just taken would permit. I have held certain notes of the saxophone for two minutes.Of course nothing could be more monotonous or unpleasant to hear than these long tone exercises since it took me one hour to come up the scale, holding each note as long as possible. Therefore, to avoid driving others to insanity, I sought complete isolation where I had the comfortable feeling that I was disturbing no one and likewise would not be disturbed.
In some of the various offices on this floor were Ediphones, or dictaphones, as they are more commonly known. Since a letter dictated into one of these could be reproduced for the stenographer’s ear, I saw no reason why I could not likewise reproduce music; and so I recorded on these round dictaphone cylinders several simple melodies on the saxophone, announcing them very much in the fashion the old Edison cylinders announced the name of the record.
Although the dictaphone is perfected for the recording of speech in letter form, it is far from perfect when one attempts to record a sustained musical note on it. The rotation of the wax disc upon which a musical sound has been recorded must be absolutely perfect and the tube, or horn, which leads the sound to the needle that scratches upon the wax disc must be of a certain type and size to catch all of the notes being reproduced. The dictaphone being imperfect in this respect proved to be quite unsatisfactory for perfect reproduction of my musical efforts.
However, it still gave me some idea of phrasing, style and tone. I still have several of these old dictaphone cylinders stowed away and prize them very highly, perhaps as highly as some of our Victor records that today are so popular.
Easter vacation, 1922, saw my first chance to really record a saxophone solo The Victor Company had written me, in response to my letter inquiring about the possibility of recording a saxophone solo, that they had their saxophone artists and saw no opening for me.
However, the Edison Company, having no great saxophone artist, promised me an audition and a test recording.
The Columbia Phonograph Company maintains what is known as a Personal Record Department which will record, for the sum of fifty dollars, any vocal or instrumental sounds which can be recorded on a ten inch record, that plays for three minutes. This recording is done in the same room that the greatest of their artists use, on the same machines and with the same experts that devoted to these artists. Then they allow you the choice of one of two proofs, as in the case of proofs of photographs, and the one selected can be purchased singly at one dollar or in lots of 500 at fifty cents each.
It was worth fifty dollars to me (although that seemed a lot of money then), to go to New York and do this. So, I arranged a day during my Easter vacation of 1922 to perform a simple solo. I left Bangor, Maine, with three great objectives: first, to see and hear Paul Whiteman‘s orchestra at the Palais Royal, second, to meet Rudy Wiedoeft personally (as his manager had promised me an appointment) and third, to make my first solo record.
As the train stopped in New Haven for a few minutes and I saw those young college boys, dressed in the height of college fashion, I never dreamed that I would some day be on that same station platform, likewise a Yale man, and wearing the same type of clothes.
In New York, I realized every one of my ambitions. It was my first visit to the metropolis and I was duly impressed, as every small town person probably is.
In Your Hat, pt. 2
Here’s Chapter 2 of In Your Hat, the 1933 tell-all memoir by Hat Check Girl to the Stars, Renee Carroll:
I DON’T claim that Ziegfeld missed a bet when I decided to become a hat check girl, but I fill a spoke in the wheel, and most of the boys want to go around with me.
Honestly, though, I can’t say I hate it when for no good reason at all Buddy Rogers kisses my hand as publicly as if we had been on the Roxy stage. Two girls who were squashing their noses against Sardi’s window well-nigh swooned when that happened, and I’d be fibbing if I said I was far from pulling a faint myself. Only a few weeks before I had been standing at the stage door of the Paramount Theater waiting to catch a glimpse of America’s Boy Friend, reveling in the usual girl’s thoughts about swinging in a hammock with Buddy Rogers at my side, or is it paddlin’ a canoe or listenin’ to the moon? I’d heard lots of people call the tall dark boy Bloody Rogers in jest, but it isn’t fair.
Well, anyway, he came into Sardi’s, handed me his hat, and then, inquiring after my health in a most solicitous manner, touched his lips to my hand. Maybe it’s true that a couple of the Broadway wise boys who were sitting in the restaurant did make noises that sounded suspiciously like Bronx nose blowing, but it was a dream of a moment. For a second I forgot that I was supposed to be sophisticated.
And Bob Montgomery, before he became what he is, and you know what that is, was just another of the nice Broadway gang. He was one of my “promissory nuts”, as I called the boys of that class, who were always promising things for the dim future.
In Bobby’s case, it was always the generous tip he was forecasting because he didn’t have even a dime in his jeans to leave for checking. Not that I minded at all, but business must be on the level. And whenever he’d pick up his hat, after unsuccessful attempts to land some work by being seen at Sardi’s during lunch, he’d say: “Put it on the cuff, Renee.” Unfortunately, I wear no cuffs except mental ones, and I keep remembering little things like that.
Especially I’ll never forget the little fellow who was so near-sighted that he once tipped me a penny, certain that it was a dime. And ever afterward, recalling his mistake, he would come into Sardi’s every day and say: “You remember me, don’t you, young lady? I’m the man who gave you a cent by mistake!” As if I’d ever forget a penny tip!
Tipping is a great art if you know how, and getting the tip—particularly from a celebrity—is even a greater one. Getting a man to tip without his being conscious of the amount is the most delicate and subtle operation in the world. Some day I’m going to write a book on “The Technique of Tipping.”
I’ve been talking a lot on this subject to professional waiters. I don’t mean the boys who are helping Mother along by taking up the table as a sideline, but those whose front handles are usually Oscar or Fritz, and in whose families waiting has been a profession for centuries. One of our waiters was so proud of his serving lineage he claimed that one of his ancestors served spaghetti on the Santa Maria!
People naturally hate to tip, especially when they have a Gallic strain in them. Generosity is not usually governed by economic conditions. Even when a man who tips a good amount ordinarily is almost broke, he will not let this be a factor in keeping him from tipping his usual amount. It’s the habitual tightwad who’ll skimp on service and then go out and let his girl friend rook him for some matched sables.
One day Walter Donaldson, the songwriter, drove up to the restaurant with Maurice Chevalier. It was summer, and as Chevalier came out of the auto, he took off his hat and threw it on the back seat. Donaldson kept his on.
I believe in the equal distribution of wealth, and when the two approached my booth, I stopped the inimitable Maurice.
“Mr. Chevalier,” I began. “I paid a dollar to see your newest picture last night.”
“Oh yes? And how did you like it?”
“I thought it was fine,” I told him.
“Thank you very much.”
“But, Mr. Chevalier, after I paid a dollar to see your picture, do you think it’s fair for you to leave your hat in the car to save a dime?”
I knew it wasn’t the nicest thing to do, but it worked like a charm. The Frenchman ran out into the street, retrieved his hat and deposited it with me.
“It will never happen again!” he assured me as his famous underslung lip curled forward in its traditional smile
“Merci, mille fois.” I told him in my best French. He tweaked my cheek and marched on. Walter Donaldson thought it was a riot and didn’t stop laughing for two days.
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