Word: monologuist
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Each Fridolinons is rich in chorines, costumes, tunes. But what draws the crowd is Author-Producer-Monologuist Fridolin himself. The grubby get-up expresses one side of Fridolin's appeal-the wistful urchin, the Chaplinesque underdog who fights for causes that can never succeed, and makes love to girls he can never win. The slingshot expresses the other half of his appeal - the impudent nose-thumber who (at Bob Hope speed) lets fly at bingo, dance bands, radio advertising, women in war plants - and the Mackenzie King Government...
...fill out his vaudeville act. Afterward the pair started hoofing through the hinterland. In a shabby theater in New Castle, Ind. came the turning point of Hope's career. He was asked to announce the next week's vaudeville bill, gagged the assignment to furious applause, turned monologuist on the spot. As a "single" with a flip, fast delivery, he landed a one-week job in a Chicago variety theater, stayed six months. From then on "one triumph led to another and I soon found myself only $4,000 in debt." By 1930 he had reached...
...also a disappointment. For Miss Howe, a ranking monologuist, brings into fiction both the virtues and the faults of her art. She has a fine ear for the devilish ironies and self-betrayals of normal speech (or writing), and her whole book is nervous and vivid with them. But she has also the monologuist's weakness for overemphasis, for sacrificing psychological integrity in favor of a laugh or a sniff. Even so, The Whole Heart is an impressive, realistic piece of work...
...eyed Larry Adler blows the mouth organ with Pierian purity, can make it sound like an oboe, fiddle, horn, wawa trumpet. Paul Draper, son of Muriel Draper and nephew of monologuist Ruth Draper, was a stuttering misfit until he learned to dance. Now Paul Draper profitably applies ballet technique and good music to tap dancing, with such warmth and intelligence that many rate him the equal or superior of Fred Astaire...
...joined the Navy in 1917 did Benny realize that his forte was ingratiating patter. Then, while appearing in a revue designed to step up recruiting and make money for the Navy, he cut loose with a couple of gags, got such a hand that he resolved to become a monologuist. During his hitch in the Navy, Benny went under his real name, Benjamin Kubelsky. After the war he changed to Ben K. Benny, adopted his present name when people began to confuse Ben K. Benny with a fiddler named Ben Bernie. During the '20s Benny went onward & upward without...