Found 7 collections related to Vaudeville -- United States

Joe Smith and Charlie Dale were a well-known vaudeville duo known as Smith and Dale who performed around the United States for over seventy years. The collection contains an extensive run of scripts for Smith and Dale sketches, material reflecting the later life and career of Joe Smith following Charlie Dale's death, and early material relating to their other comedy team The Avon Comedy Four. less

Actor, writer, director, vaudevillian, and broadcaster, Bert Bertram began acting as a teenager in his native Australia. He emigrated to the United States in 1923 with his first wife, the actress and dancer, Rubee Raymond, and enjoyed a long career on stage, film, radio and television. The scrapbooks contain photographs and clippings documenting the acting careers of Bertram and Raymond. less

Ewing Cherry was an American stage actor with years of touring experience. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Ewing Cherry (sometimes billed as V. E. Cherry) made his stage debut in WITHIN THE LAW in Chicago in 1916. Soon afterwards Cherry was working in vaudeville in a skit called OUT OF LUCK. He went on to play juvenile leads for various stock companies in such shows as MRS. WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH and THE LITTLE SPITFIRE through the 1910s and 1920s. His Broadway credits include WHAT PRICE GLORY?, SKIDDING with Glenda Farrell, THE NIGHT BEFORE with Franchot Tone, and MARCHING MEN (1930) with Leon Ames. Cherry also acted in radio drama. After a period of retirement, he returned to the stage for a role in the Off-Broadway production of Sean O'Casey's RED ROSES FOR ME (1961), then appeared in O'Casey's MOON SHINES ON KYLENAMOE and in Nikolai Evreinov's THE CHIEF THING (1963), his last professional credit. Ewing Cherry died in New York City on March 30, 1969. The Ewing Cherry papers span 1916 to 1962, and consist of letters to Ewing Cherry from employers and friends, a number of contracts securing Mr. Cherry's services as an actor for various stock companies between 1917 and 1927, three booklets (1920-23) introducing the members of the Gene Lewis-Olga Worth stock company, photographs of Ewing Cherry in a variety of characterizations, playbills for a dozen plays in which Ewing Cherry appeared, press releases, fliers, telegrams to and from Ewing Cherry, and clippings of reviews which mention his performances. less

Joe Smith and Charlie Dale were partners in one of vaudeville’s most famous and successful comedy acts, later translating many of their most popular sketches to other media, including radio, motion pictures and television. The Smith and Dale Papers include contracts, correspondence, photographs, scripts and other professional material from the team, as well as clippings documenting their joint career and Smith’s activities after Dale’s death. less

The Breen family was one of the popular performing families of American show business, playing the stages of America, Australia, and elsewhere during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Patriarch Thomas D. Breen, born of Irish immigrants in Massachusetts in 1868, fled his hometown as a teenager with a travelling medicine show. After a brief spell as a blackface minstrel, Breen honed his juggling skills and began touring the vaudeville circuits of the United States and the music halls of Europe. Breen and his first wife had four children, and, after her death, he remarried and had five more, one of whom died in infancy. Seven of the surviving Breen children joined their father in his stage act, either juggling, dancing, doing acrobatics, playing a musical instrument, or some combination of these skills. After the family act broke up around 1921, the younger Breens formed a number of specialty acts, either solo or with partners from outside the family, and continued performing in vaudeville, musical comedy, nightclubs, movies, and in the circus. Consists of a bound typescript written by Charles Breen (b. 1908), the youngest and only non-performing member of the Breen Family, accompanied by a portfolio of photographs of the various Breens. The typescript was apparently written during the late 1980s/early 1990s, completed in 1993, then privately bound under the title MEMOIRS AND STUFF. The text is divided into two sections, the first of which, entitled "The Show Business Breens," gives a general history of the Breens' professional careers, as a group and as solo performers. The first section is 75 pages and ends with a Breen family career chronology. In Book 2, "The Maverick," Charles Breen explains why he chose not to join the family act, and details his own career, first as a jazz musician, later as an electrical engineer. This section consists of 164 pages plus one errata slip. The portfolio of photographs includes pictures of all the performing Breens, and also includes a photo inscribed to the Breens by silent film star Ramon Novarro. less

The George DeMott papers consist of correspondence, some diaries/appointment books, contracts, photographs, and scrapbooks. This material is almost all business related, and there are no significant personal papers. The papers are divided into two distinct parts, with some overlap: items such as contracts and correspondence that relate to the career of Mr. DeMott, and items such as posters, brochures, etc., that he collected, and placed into scrapbooks. The section of the DeMott papers devoted to Booking Agencies and Agents (Series IV) is divided into 18 sub-series, and contains a great deal of correspondence detailing the difficulties George DeMott and his wife Fanny faced booking their act into schools. The scrapbooks comprise the bulk of the collection and contain a variety of items, including clippings, posters, brochures, correspondence, handbills, fliers, photographs, and programs. The oversized material includes a poster and a road map. less