Word: minstreling
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Some of the lines in Five Star Final are unbelievably bad. At one point two colored characters engage in such minstrel show chatter as: "What am a suicide pact?" And a bogus air enters during the scenes in which disillusioned reporters tell each other their troubles. The play has undeniable vitality, however, and provides a good deal of technical information on the inner workings of a gum-chewer sheetlet. Arthur Byron is masterful, makes completely credible the part of a tough, dogged newsman...
...courteous, unimpressed reviews. It was clear that it was not yet fit for the big time and Actress Barrymore repeatedly refused to have her picture taken in blackface. This was probably due to the fact that she was fussing with her makeup, making it lighter and lighter, going from minstrel-show black to high brown. Also, the dialog was being freed from much of its unintelligible verbiage...
...also ''a social type, loving people, laughing much, leading out in song. He had a rich and golden voice. He was fond of charades and wrote execrable poetry, affected anagrams. There was never any sadness where he was." Wherever Stuart went he took Trooper Sweeny, onetime minstrel, to play the banjo. But he never touched liquor and he stopped all Saturday dances at midnight, for he "had serious ideas about Sunday." During the long, hopeless war (which he would never admit was hopeless) he saw his young wife seldom; when they brought him into Richmond...
...ventriloquist, a female impersonator and some more singing, performed before a splendid example of early American opera-house curtain which bore advertisements for a patent electric belt, a dry goods store, and Mike's saloon. By far the best act in the Olio was not in the oldtime minstrel tradition, but bore the stamp of the modern night club. It was provided by Messrs. Sidney Easton and Bert Howell, whose trick improvisations on ukulele, violin, and portable organ brought loud applause even from those who wanted their minstrelsy atavistic...
Deep-voiced Andy is Charles J. Correll, 40. He is shorter than his partner, thickset, pompadoured. He was born in Peoria, Ill., sold newspapers, worked with his family's construction company, played the piano in a cinemahouse at night. He won local dancing contests, sang in minstrel shows, acted in neighborhood dramas. Finally he too became a professional coach. One of his assignments was in Durham, N. C., where he had to teach the business to a neophyte named Freeman F. Gosden. For six years they staged musical shows, plays and circuses for such organizations as the Elks, American...