Vaudeville in America

In this country the term “vaudeville” has almost never had the same connotation as it had in the original French. Instead, it was borrowed rather late to indicate an entertainment consisting of short, variegated acts, some musical, some comic, all offered on the same bill. Small olios (another term for this sort of entertainment) appeared early in American stage history, usually as divertissements on the extended bills offered in the late 18th and the first half of the 19th century even in the best legitimate theatres. Nonetheless, most see the real seeds of modern vaudeville in the “free concert saloons,” “free‐and‐easies,” and Western “honky‐tonks” that sprang up in the years just before the Civil War. To lure customers (almost exclusively male, except for prostitutes), these establishments provided a series of acts whose tilt, both in its comedy and lyrics and in the presentation of its occasional dancing, was rough and often salacious. In the 1870s and 1880s attempts were made to clean up the nature of the bills so as to attract a more widespread, higher class audience. Although several impresarios apparently began to incorporate such changes at about the same time, the most famous was Tony Pastor, who was hailed as the leader in the field and whose vaudeville house in New York was considered to offer the pinnacle in such entertainment. Like others, he banned the sale of intoxicating drinks, discouraged rowdiness, and removed any performer whose act was in any way offensive. About the same time, the term “vaudeville” began replacing the term “variety,” which had been accepted for several decades. (A similar transition was occurring concurrently in the British equivalent, the music hall.) The heyday of American vaudeville was the first quarter of the 20th century. The huge national circuit established by B. F. Keith and E. F. Albee was paramount in the field. Keith, like Pastor before him, carefully guarded the morals of his patrons, while his partner Albee established an often vicious near monopoly that frequently played havoc with competition and imposed salary and other dictates on performers. Other notable managers included Alexander Pantages, S. Z. Poli, F. F. Proctor, and Martin Beck. Beck built the Palace Theatre in New York, which quickly became two‐a‐day's most prestigious auditorium. Historian Don B. Wilmeth has noted that “at its height, ten people attended a vaudeville show to every one who patronized other forms of entertainment; as many as ten to twenty thousand vaudeville acts were competing for bookings.” For many people, vaudeville indicated modes of dress and established certain canons of behavior. Thus, while managers insisted on removing offensive acts, certain religious and racial stereotypes were allowed to persist since they were not perceived as truly offensive. Yet for all its tremendous popularity and despite the enormous salaries paid headliners, vaudeville was never to have quite the cachet that attached to the legitimate stage. As a result, many performers used variety merely as a stepping stone. Lillian Russell and Harrigan and Hart were among the earliest to leave the field to find even greater glory in the theatre. The loose structure of many musical comedies of the period allowed artists who were essentially vaudevillians to find occasional homes there. May Irwin, Marie Cahill, Blanche Ring, and, to a lesser extent, Eva Tanguay were all vaudeville headliners who found a welcome in book musicals. George M. Cohan moved from vaudeville to exceptional success on Broadway. The growth of the even more loosely structured revue proved a further lure. But traffic was not all one way. With the coming of his children, a leading musical comedy star, Eddie Foy, left book shows to create one of the greatest acts in two‐a‐day, Eddie Foy and the Seven Little Foys. Other legitimate stars used vaudeville to fill in between shows, while the genre afforded a haven for many fading stars who found the road receptive and loyal after more fickle Broadway audiences had lost interest in them. A few notable vaudevillians, such as Harry Lauder, never ventured afield. The coming of radio and then sound films, both major family entertainments, precipitated the demise of two‐a‐day. Most historians generally mark the showing of feature films at the Palace in 1932 as the end of traditional vaudeville, although it persisted, especially as Tab Shows were presented along with feature films throughout the 1930s in some large cities. Attempts to revive big‐time vaudeville at the Palace in the 1950s failed.