Word: rothafel
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...wanted to bring Harlem and the ballet together. While dancing and directing ballets at Roxy's Theatre in 1935, he explored upper Manhattan, dived into nightclubs. He found their dancers all too light, too sophisticated. "I want them black, black, all Negro," said von Grona. Samuel ("Roxy") Rothafel agreed, said "the blacker the better." Von Grona advertised, offering scholarships, and got hundreds of applications. He picked 20 of the blackest applicants and started to rehearse his ballet. The neighbors complained. Hollywood tried to lure him away. But von Grona stuck...
...Skouras Brothers' Missouri Theatre in St. Louis. He called them the Missouri Rockets. When Broadway clamored for the troupe, Markert changed their name to the American Rockets and took them East. They danced in Publix theatres, in the Greenwich Village Follies. The late Producer Samuel ('Roxy") Rothafel signed them up for his Roxy Theatre as the Roxyettes. When Roxy went to the Rockefeller Center Music Hall in 1932, the Roxyettes went with him. When he left two years later, they became the Rockettes and stayed on at Rockefeller Center...
...late Samuel Lionel ("Roxy") Rothafel began a weekly broadcast called "Roxy and His Gang." Purpose was to promote the Capitol Theatre, huge Manhattan cinemansion of which Major Edward Bowes was part owner. In 1925, Rothafel left the Capitol to direct the new, plush-lined Roxy Theatre, took his "Gang" idea with him. The Capitol's program continued as "Major Bowes's Capitol Theatre Family," with Bowes acting as an unctuously friendly master of ceremonies in the Roxy manner. In 1934, a veteran at the microphone, Major Bowes began an "Amateur Hour" over New York's small Station...
...cleared the way to City Hall. Bumbling Mayor O'Brien was out. Said Annie: 'I ain't going to wait. I'm just as Irish as he is." She had tea with caviar in a swank restaurant, dined with Showman Samuel L. ("Roxy'') Rothafel, saw a preview of Lady For A Day. Taken to a farewell supper, she waltzed, drank, acted as if her Day were to last forever. At midnight Apple Annie vanished from the ball. The pressagents gave her $25 and the clothes she wore, dropped her at her dingy flat...
Showman Samuel Lionel ("Roxy") Rothafel: The entertainment business needs good taste and a finer personnel. The showman doesn't know and the public doesn't know what the public wants. My idea is to be creative and present new things...