Evie Hayes
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Frank Neil - 'He Lived Show Business' (Part 5)
FRANK VAN STRATEN continues his exploration of the life and tumultuous times of one of Australia’s near-forgotten entrepreneurs.Part 5: In 1936 Frank Neil explained to an Argus reporter the magic of a Tivoli show: ‘It is a crazy quilt of dance numbers, interspersed with some satire from the comedian, and novelty “turns” by speciality artistes. It is very satisfying as entertainment.’
Frank neilset off on another overseas trip in June 1936. He had good contacts with leading booking agents—Charles H. Allen in New York, Sam Kramer in Los Angeles and Reeves and Lamport in London—and was widely liked and respected in the United States and Britain.
Stop Press and The Radio Paradewere notable not for their overseas headliners, but for the number of talented young Australians who filled out their programs: Among them were Al Mack, Fifi Banvard, William Perryman and Mercia George. And making their Tivoli debut were the Bridges Musical Trio. Siblings Clifford, Babe and Nancye Bridges were clever multi-instrumentalists with a melodic repertoire of light classics and popular songs. After Clifford’s departure, the act continued as the Bridges Sisters. In the late 1970s Nancye produced a popular series of nostalgic ‘Old Fashioned Shows’ at the Sydney Opera House. She also published evocative books on show business and the early days of radio.
When Stop Press reached Sydney in September 1936 several new local personalities joined the company: showgirl Dolly Mack (the future Mrs. Bob Dyer); Harry Abdy with Chut, his boxing kangaroo (Harry and Chut had had starring roles in the recently released Cinesound film Orphan of the Wilderness); dancers Carden and Francis (George Carden was destined to be one of musical theatre’s great choreographers and directors); and the Fiddes Brothers, a ‘knockabout comedy dancing duo’. Buster Fiddes, later with an extra ‘s’, would become a favourite Australian television clown. Towards the end of the season in Sydney a special edition called Flying High was mounted ‘in honour of Jean Batten’s historic New Zealand flight’. The show opened with William Perryman, supported by the ballet and showgirls, in a spirited presentation of ‘Flying Down to Rio’.
In September 1936, Roy Rene returned to the Tivoli for two revues, Laugh, Town, Laugh and Carnival Time. Roy was billed as ‘Australia’s Most Original Comedian, a Personality That Stands Supreme in Theatreland Today’ and, significantly, ‘The New Mo—Clean as a New Pin, and Twice as Funny’. With Mo were Sadie Gale, Marie Doran, Grace Emerson, Alec Kellaway and Morry Barling. It was in this season that Roy Rene stopped the show as the Virgin Queen in the sketch ‘In the Days of Good Queen Bess’, written for him by Fred Parsons.
Naturally Mo tended to overshadow the overseas members of the company, particularly notable among whom were the celebrated British harpist Carlos Ames and the banjo-playing funsters Morgan and Hadley. Wally Hadley was a noted musician from Perth, Western Australia. While working in Britain he had formed a riotous double act with American Freddy (sometimes ‘Freddie’) Morgan. Morgan later found his niche as one of Spike Jones’ anarchic City Slickers. He revisited Australia in the early days of television.
When Mo and company switched to Sydney, his place was taken first by Frank O’Brian and then by Jim Gerald, who starred in Cinderella, the Melbourne pantomime for Christmas 1936. In Sydney Frank O’Brian took the title role in Mother Goose. Fifi Banvard was Principal Boy, Al Mack was Squire Skinflint, Chick Arnold was Demon Diehard and Freda Bohning played Fairy Truelove. Dan McLaughlin and Bill Sadler were, respectively, the front and rear portions of the panto horse.
Neil returned to Australia in December 1936 He told reporters he had booked 86 new acts, totalling 200 artists, which would entail an outlay of £75,000 for salaries and more than £8000 in travelling expenses.
Early in 1937 the Melbourne Tivoli welcomed little North Country comedian Joey Porter back for his second tour. In March Roy Rene and Sadie Gale starred in The Song and Dance Show of 1937. With them were Jandy, the French musical clown, Cecil Scott, Gracie Emmerson and Morry Barling. In an outrageous Fred Parsons sketch called ‘The Great Lover’ Morry played Casanova with Roy Rene as his latest female conquest.
In April 1937 Tivoli programs carried the following excited announcement: ‘Frank Neil makes Theatrical History! Flying Direct to London! Sleeps in Eight Different Countries in Eight Days! The popular managing director of the Tivoli Circuit, Mr. Frank Neil, will leave Brisbane and fly by Qantas Empire Airways and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines direct to London in search of talent for the Tivoli. This will be the first occasion on which a theatrical manager has flown out of Australia in search of artistes. The route is via Cloncurry, Darwin, Surabaya (Java), Medan (Sumatra), Rangoon, Jodhpur (India), Baghdad (Iraq) and Athens. Mr Neil will do all his continental travelling by air, and also use the airlines in England on every possible occasion. Mr. Neil also intends to cross from England to America in the airship Hindenburg.’ Fortunately for Frank, Hindenburg made its fiery descent into history on 6 May 1937.
Frank Neil was in London for the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on 24 May 1937. In Melbourne the Tivoli celebrated with a coronation-themed revue, Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue. The first act finished with ‘The Fleet’s in Port Again’, ‘a tableau of Britain’s might at sea’, and the show concluded with ‘A Coronation tableau’ with the Tivoli Ballet in a patriotic ‘Dance of the Flags’.
Top of the bill was the world’s greatest wire walker Con Colleano. He was the first person to accomplish the forward somersault on the tightrope, a feat previously thought to be impossible. For the past fourteen years he had starred in the great circuses and variety theatres of Europe and the United States. Over the years he had considerably refined his act, adopting ballet-like movements and costuming himself in dazzling Spanish finery. This, his name, and his swarthy features, meant he was often presumed to be Spanish. In fact, he was Australian, and could trace his ancestry back to his great-grandparents, Lampet Saunders, a freed convict, and a Black woman apparently known as Julia.
Con Colleano shared top billing with Irene Vermillion and her four lady trumpeters, a glamorous and unusual act from New York. In the 1950s Irene and her husband, Kermit Dart, ran the elegant 85-room Vermillion Hotel, a landmark on Hollywood Boulevard. Another interesting import was Bob Parrish, a young Black singer who had been working as a lift attendant in Los Angeles when Frank Neil heard him humming a song, gave him an audition and booked him immediately. He became a headliner as a result of his Tivoli engagement, returned here several times, and became a favourite at the Latin Quarter nightclub in New York and the Bar of Music in Hollywood.
The featured comic in Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue was Charles Norman, in his Tivoli debut. Charles had worked for years with Fullers’, often in a double act with Chick Arnold. In 1934 he had played Leopold in the Australian premiere of White Horse Inn and two years later he was Billy Crocker in the Australian premiere of Anything Goes. Adding to the fun were Chick Arnold, Tommy Dale, Marie Doran and Sylvia Kellaway.
Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue went on to play in Brisbane and subsequently toured New Zealand. It was the first Tivoli show to carry the credit ‘Ballets and Ensembles by Ronnie Hay’. Ronnie Hay had been one of the hard-working ‘Con-Paul Boys’ in Mike Connors and Queenie Paul’s Haymarket days. He gradually replaced Maurice Diamond as the Tivoli’s resident choreographer. He remained in charge of the Tivoli’s ballets until 1960.
This allowed Maurice Diamond to concentrate his energies on his school of dancing which, at Frank Neil’s suggestion, he transferred to studios on the second floor of the Tivoli building in Sydney. Mercia George was his principal teacher. Diamond’s pupils appeared regularly in Tivoli pantomimes until well into the 1950s.
Another recruit at the Sydney Tivoli was scenic artist James C. Hutchings. Although K.V. McGuinness still designed and painted most of the Tivoli’s settings in the Melbourne workshops, Jim was based in Sydney. He was responsible for refurbishing the ever-more-elaborate sets when they arrived from Melbourne. He also supplied new sets when required: some acts, for instance, opened in Sydney, not Melbourne. Increasingly, too, shows were so big that the production load was spread between the two cities.
The Talk of the Town starred Cecil Lyle, ‘The Magical Milliner’. His act was documented by Charles Waller: ‘From nowhere he produces ladies’ hats and hat boxes. Plumes, miraculously travelling, attach themselves to other hats. I doubt whether Cecil could persuade even Mrs. Lyle to wear these magically made hats; still, it is a pretty and original performance.’ The company also included a great local double act, Dinks and Trixie. They had played featured roles in Neil’s production of Cinderella at Melbourne’s Princess in 1924, and had spent many years as bill-toppers in Britain.
A ten-member Canadian jazz band, the Americanadians, appeared at the Tivoli in Sydney around the middle of the year. They had been brought to Australia by Clarrie Gange, a Melbourne entrepreneur and musician. Their arrival displeased the Musicians’ Union which was anxious to protect its local members, many of whom were still suffering from the effects of the Depression and the introduction of talkies. The Americanadians had little success in Melbourne; they did better at the Sydney Tivoli and extremely well at the Top Hatters’ Club in Kings Cross—until there was a gunfight and murder there and the crowds evaporated. The Americanadians’ legacy to Australia was their percussionist, Sammy Lee, later to manage Australia’s first theatre restaurant, the Roosevelt, then the 47 Club and the Latin Quarter nightclubs in Sydney, the Storkclub in Melbourne and, of course, Les Girls.
Among the interesting Australians were comic Stan Foley; comedienne Neva Carr Glyn, just back from a successful stay in London; internationally acclaimed juggler George Hurd; and ventriloquist Clifford Guest. Born in Melbourne in 1911, Guest had gone to Britain in 1933 with a superb act combining ventriloquism and mimicry. Charles Waller commented: ‘In his imitation of an English fox hunt he is marvellous; and in his impersonation of an Australian sheep drover, complete with dog and sheep, one can almost smell the dust as it rises from the hot country paddock.’ During his 1937 Sydney season Guest married Mavis Kelly, a member of the Four Ks, an Australian musical act who were on the same bill. The couple returned to Australia in 1939 and Guest appeared frequently at the Tivoli during the war years.
Another local act making a bow in 1937 was Morton and Thompson—Tex and Harry—billed quaintly as ‘Australia’s Famous Hill Billys’. In fact, Harry Thompson, who was a singer and harmonica virtuoso, was Scottish, and yodelling singer and guitarist Tex Morton was a New Zealander, Bob Lane, born in Nelson in 1916. He came to Australia in 1932 and became a jack-of-all-trades with travelling shows. As Tex Morton he cut his first Regal Zonophone recordings in 1936; they swiftly established the popularity which continued throughout his lengthy career. Tex also excelled in verse reading, hypnotism, sharp shooting, feats of memory, acting and show promotion, but it was as a pioneer of country music that he made the greatest impact. Ralph Peer, the American country music guru, said, ‘Tex has single-handedly created and pioneered in Australia a country music industry which compared favourably with some of our best areas in America. He achieved in five years what took us in the States more than twenty. The people of Australia should be forever grateful to him. He is the Jimmie Rodgers of Australia.’ Thompson, too, had a long career, though it was not as varied and as unusual as Morton’s.
The next big show for 1937 was Hello Harlem, built around the considerable talents of the Black singer and actress Nina Mae McKinney. Miss McKinney had starred in the films Hallelujah! in 1929 and Sanders of the River in 1935, in the latter opposite Paul Robeson. She had also appeared on Broadway in the revue Ballyhoo of 1932 with an up-and-coming comic called Bob Hope. Her stay here was not a happy one. She suffered from homesickness, audiences failed to warm to her work, severe tonsilitis forced her early departure from the show, and she was sued for rent and damage to her Sydney flat.
Hello Harlem also featured Roy Rene and Sadie Gale. This was one of the few occasions when Roy did not get top billing. When he heard that he was relegated to Number Two dressing room, he raged, ‘I’ve been turned out of me room—for a Black sheila!’ Then, after Nina Mae McMcKinney fainted on stage, Roy was asked by the stage manager, Fred Parsons, to fill in. Dressed only in a striped dressing gown, Roy strode on and delivered a few arch impressions of Australian wildlife. ‘I went well, didn’t I?’ he asked Parsons, adding, ‘It’s a pity that Black sheila can’t faint at every performance. It’d improve the show.’
Parsons relates that shortly after this, Frank Neil told Roy that he did not intend to renew his contract. ‘This led to heated words and Roy told Frank what he could do with his theatre. Neil lost his temper and shouted, “You bloody comics are all the same! And you’ll finish up working in a shithouse!” With impeccable dignity, Roy replied, “When I do, Mr. Neil, you’ll be at the door, taking the tickets”.’ Later in the year Ella Shields was billed above Jim Gerald in Stars Are Here.
Hello Harlem opened and closed with a setting representing New York’s famous Cotton Club. It also included an incongruous, though exciting, Act One finale. The year 1937 was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the loss of the Titanic so Frank Neil came up with ‘An Epic of the Sea’, a ‘romantically sensational and thrilling realistic dramatic spectacle’ in which the Titanic sank on the Tivoli stage—twice daily, at 2.30 and 8—thanks to the combined theatrical expertise of scenic artist K.V. McGuinness and mechanist Alex Muir.
The year closed with Cinderella in Sydney, with Jim Gerald as the Dame and Neva Carr Glyn as Dandini.
The Tivoli Circuit was riding high. It was said 15,000 patrons visited the Melbourne Tivoli every week. In Sydney £30,000 was spent on refurbishing and air conditioning. The work was done under the direction an expert theatre architect, Charles Bohringer; it was he who had designed the Embassy cinema which had replaced Rickards’ original Tivoli at the other end of Castlereagh Street. When Frank Neil flew in from his 1937 trip, The Argus ran the following story:
‘In 1934 Mr Frank Neil, on behalf of Tivoli Theatres of Australia, pioneered a new movement in variety. The old days used to see straight vaudeville shows of from eight to twelve “acts”. Today the physical presentation is a crazy quilt of dance numbers, wheezes about sex and politicians, acrobatics, pageants, and song numbers, interspersed with some satire from the comedian and novelty “turns” by speciality artistes. It is very satisfying as an entertainment.
‘The variety show of 1937 endeavours to give something to everybody and does not rest its appeal on a few specific principles. It aims to relieve the patron of the necessity for intense concentration on the stage, a boon which alone should earn dividends, and operates on the theory that an audience pays its money to be amused and entertained. In terms of accomplishment, modern variety presentation has outdistanced any other theatrical project in offsetting talking pictures; and talking pictures, you will agree, have displayed a remarkable resistance to everything and everybody—including censors.’
The variety stage also challenged the censors. In 1937 the Fullers imported The Marcus Show,a seedy American touring revue. Its chief attraction was its scantily dressed showgirls, several of whom appeared bare breasted. Surprisingly, this innovation seems to have raised few eyebrows. Wallace Parnell urged Neil to follow suit, but Neil was reluctant. ‘Tits aren’t entertainment,’ he said. Nevertheless, he eventually agreed, and statuesque bare breasted beauties became a ubiquitous element of Tivoli shows. To protect the country’s morals, the girls were forbidden to move while on stage, although they were frequently ‘tastefully’ displayed atop slowly revolving pedestals.
Frank Neil’s new policy caused little press comment, though Sydney’s satirical Smith’s Weekly magazine couldn’t resist gleefully reporting on the Tiv’s Wonder Show of World Stars in March 1938: ‘No intelligent person objects to sophisticated wit or sophisticated beauty. It is only crudity which is offensive. Up until now, the Tivoli shows have been mostly bright and clever. Mr. Frank Neil would do well to ponder over his present program. Not that the blueness is entirely in bad taste. One of the most daring song-scenes, “Waters of the World”, offers a charming spectacle, and, incidentally, a background considerably nakeder than anything attempted by the Marcus company. A fountain plays mid-stage. Two girls stand in the middle, with water tinkling round their toes. Smith’s Weekly’s critic forgot to bring his field-glasses but, as far as could be observed, these girls are entirely nude. On a pedestal above them, a third show girl poses. She, too, seems to be quite unclothed, except for a transparent brassiere. The two girls under the pedestal each hold up one arm, to support urns overhead. Their other arms are providentially situated. But we couldn’t help thinking that if a fly had lit on one of those girls, and she’d slapped it with her free hand, the audience would have got more than their money’s worth. Prior to this part of the scene, a procession of showgirls marches over the stage in the scantiest costumes we’ve seen for years. Their brassieres, too, are completely transparent. Perhaps Mr. Frank Neil will emulate the publicity achieved for The Marcus Show, and invite some policemen along to the next performance?’
Early in 1938 Frank Neil installed a new, larger orchestra at the Melbourne Tivoli, and welcomed a new musical director. Replacing Martin Kett, who went to try his luck in Britain, was Hal Moschetti. Originally from Perth, Western Australia, where he had conducted the orchestra at the Ambassadors Theatre, he’d become a familiar figure leading the orchestra at the Palais de Danse in St Kilda. He stayed at the Tivoli until 1962. Through most of the 1930s the Sydney Tivoli orchestra was led by Wally Reynolds and Hal Vincer.
The first of Frank Neil’s really big stars for 1938 did not arrive until May. Billy Costello, who provided the screen voice for the cartoon character ‘Popeye the Sailor’ topped an otherwise undistinguished bill in Hello, Popeye. E.C. Segar’s comic strip hero had been brought to the screen by Max Fleischer in 1933. Costello, then better known as ‘Red Pepper Sam’, was chosen as Popeye’s voice largely because of his experience as a talking gorilla on radio. Unfortunately, success went to Costello’s head. He became temperamental and was fired. Costello also missed out on the Popeye radio series, which started in 1935. Nevertheless, he spent the rest of his career trying to cash in on his one claim to fame.
Later in the year the Frank Neil contracted another cartoon personality, ‘The Voice of Snow White’, Adriana Caselotti. Adriana was the daughter of a well-known Los Angeles vocal coach. Roy Scott, Disney’s casting director, had telephoned him in the hope that he could suggest a young singer to record the voice for the part of Snow White. Adriana, then nineteen, was eavesdropping. She began singing and talking in a child’s voice—and won herself the role. She was paid US$970 for the forty-eight days it took to record her part. The film quickly became a box office bonanza. She made a few promotional appearances, signed up with Frank Neil to appear in a pantomime production of Snow White, and sued Disney for extra remuneration.
Adriana arrived in Australia to find that Disney had warned Neil that he would not allow him to use the original film songs unless Adriana withdrew her claim. Neil was furious. ‘Who do they think they are?’, he asked a Truth reporter. ‘They might run the Australian picture game, but they’re not telling me how to run my stage work, and I’m not doing any dirty work for them either.’ Instead, Neil told Parnell to come up with a short original stage adaptation of the Grimm story, and asked his young musical director Harold Moschetti to supply a swag of suitable new songs.
The Tivoli’s Snow White was a highlight of the show Christmas Extravaganza, which opened at in Melbourne on 5 December 1938. Albert Chappelle played the Prince and seven of the smaller ballet girls were the dwarfs. For Sydney, this presentation was developed into a miniature pantomime, with seven ‘genuine’ dwarfs imported from the United States. Surprisingly, this was Adriana Caselotti’s only stage work. She ‘voiced’ a couple more films—and then retired. Each of her four marriages ended in divorce, and she died in 1997.
Frank Neil’s next headliner was Will Mahoney. One of America’s genuinely great vaudeville stars, Will had perfected a show-stopping act combining clever humour with a unique dance routine in which he tapped out a tune on the keys of a 17-foot-wide xylophone. He had not been an overnight sensation. As a teenager he’d honed his skills on the small-time vaudeville circuits of the United States and Mexico in a knockabout comedy double act with his half-brother, Frank. They even played in Australia for the Fullers in 1914, billed as ‘The Mahoney Brothers and Daisy’—Daisy was their trained dog. Will got his break when he premiered his xylophone routine in George White’s Scandals of 1924. From then on, his rise was meteoric. The prestigious Palace in New York became his second home, and he commanded US$5500 a week—the highest paid variety artist in America. He and his musical director, Bob Geraghty, decided to put together a revue company to tour Britain. One of the supporting acts they recruited was a glamorous young Californian singer called Evie Hayes, ‘The Velvet Voice of the Air’. The British tour went wonderfully. Will appeared in the special Silver Jubilee Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium in 1935. He and Evie were married in 1938. He was forty-three, she twenty-five. They jumped at Frank Neil’s offer of an Australian tour: it was a paid honeymoon!
Will, Evie and Bob Geraghty opened sensationally at the Melbourne Tivoli on 22 August 1938 in a show that took its title from Will’s catchphrase, Why Be Serious? Their success was repeated in Sydney, where they played to 143,207 people in their six-week season. Frank Neil renegotiated their contract, effectively guaranteeing them bookings for as long as they wished to remain in Australia. As well, Will was wooed by Ken Hall, chief of Cinesound Productions. Years later Hall recalled Will as ‘a talented, cheeky, very likeable little man, with a marvellous sense of fun. I was tremendously impressed with his skill in handling an audience, his communication with it, his great dancing and comedy talent. He used to climax his act by dancing on a xylophone—and getting fast tempo and completely understandable music out of the instrument by means of tap-hammers fixed to his dancing shoes. It was a showstopper.’ Will starred for Cinesound in Come Up Smiling, a genial comedy set in a touring carnival. It was later re-released as Ants in His Pants. Evie had a featured role as Kitty Katkin and Chips Rafferty made his movie debut as ‘man in crowd’.
Frank Neil dubbed Mahoney ‘The Imp Eternal’, while Evie became ‘The Velvet Voice of the Air’. They decided to settle in Australia and quickly became a popular part of the local show business scene. For a while Mahoney ran the Cremorne Theatre in Brisbane, and Evie played the ‘Ethel Merman’ roles in the Australian productions of the musicals Annie Get Your Gun and Call Me Madam. She and Will appeared in Funny Girl in 1966. Will died the following year, but Evie continued, coaching young performers and appearing frequently on television. She died in 1988.
Larry Adler was another star of undoubted international standing. The New Grove Dictionary called him ‘the first harmonica player to achieve recognition and acceptance in classical musical circles and to have elevated the instrument to concert status’. Larry himself preferred the term ‘mouth organ’. Born in Baltimore in 1914, he had risen quickly to musical fame. He had starred in London for Charles Cochran and was already well-known in Australia from his film appearances and his many gramophone recordings. His reputation failed to impress the Sydney Tivoli’s colourfully spoken mechanist, Alex Muir. During a rehearsal Adler asked for complete quiet. Alec threw his hammer onto the stage and shouted, ‘Everybody stop. This c... wants quiet. He must think he’s the bloody show! So we’ll all sit down and listen to Mr Adler play his mouth organ. You’ll get no bloody production ready for tonight.’ According to a possibly apocryphal story, Adler’s art was also lost on Roy Rene. ‘Take away his bloody mouth organ,’ said Roy, ‘and then see what he can do!’
Roy Rene was featured in International Merry-Go-Round, but the headliner was Emile Boreo, a Polish-born star of French revues such as the Chauve-Souris and the Folies-Bergère. He had also acted on stage and screen. His speciality, his stunning Toy Soldier routine, can now be enjoyed on YouTube. Jim Hutchings remembered: ‘On his opening night in Melbourne they put Mo on before him with his drum act, which used to eat them alive. After that Emile Boreo meant nothing. No one knew he was there! Mo said to me, “How much is the mug getting?” I said, “Sixty quid, I think.” “Gawd, strike me lucky! I’m carrying him!” In Sydney they changed the running order, and he went much better with Mo in a spot safely away from him.’
To be continued
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Frank Neil - 'He Lived Show Business' (Part 6)
FRANK VAN STRATEN concludes his exploration of the life and tumultuous times of one of Australia’s near-forgotten entrepreneurs.Part 6: Just months before his untimely death Frank Neil told Tivoli executives: “Boys, I now feel our combined efforts are beginning to show real results. Don’t ever forget that in the event of anything happening to me, things must go on just as usual. There must be no regrets.”
Towards the end of 1938 the renowned Chinese illusionist Chang appeared for the Tivoli. Charles Waller recalled: ‘He performed many small tricks and performed them well. His entertainment was pretty and appealing. In the illusion “King Kong”, where a giant monkey disappeared with the breaking up of a cage, high in the air, the ballet, suitably attired, executed a dance peculiarly simian in its activities.’
Sharing the bill with Chang was the extraordinary Black American one-legged tap dancer ‘Peg Leg’ Bates. At the age of twelve Clayton Bates had lost a leg in an accident. He subsequently taught himself to dance, developing a series of spectacular tap routines that proved popular in nightclubs and vaudeville and on television. He appeared twice before the British royal family, at least 22 times on The Ed Sullivan Show, and later in his life owned and operated a fashionable ‘interracial’ country club in the Catskill Mountains. His artistry is preserved in numerous YouTube videos.
Among the Australian acts working with Chang, Adler, Mahoney and the other star 1938 imports were John Dobbie, Jay Morris, Charles Norman, Morry Barling, Albert Chappelle and Hal Lashwood.
Hal Lashwood began at the age of sixteen as a dancer in J.C. Williamson musicals. His father, Joe, was ‘the world’s champion bone manipulator’ and his great uncle, George Lashwood, was ‘The Brummel of the Halls’, a distinguished looking, immaculately turned out ‘descriptive vocalist’ in the grand lion comique tradition. Lashwood had a long career on stage, radio and later television. He was president of Actors’ Equity from 1951 to 1976.
Another up-and-coming local act was Latona and Sparks. Born in Sydney in 1920, Joe Latona developed an energetic acrobatic dance act with Maisie Sparks and later added her brother, Les Warren. In London Joe formed another act, Latona, Graham and Chadell. Back in Australia he choreographed numerous Tivoli shows and taught and mentored many young dancers. Joe Latona died in Melbourne in 1989.
Realising that Tivoli shows and stars were rarely seen outside Sydney and Melbourne, canny Frank Neil came to an agreement with the Hoyts cinema chain to ‘lease’ them some of his imported headliners to appear on stage, mainly in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide, as part of Hoyts’ regular film programs. The parade was led by Billy Costello, who played a week at the Capitol in Perth, and Will Mahoney, who was the star attraction at the Regent in Brisbane. Many others followed.
The new year got under way with The Big Fun Show of 1939, headed by Ada Brown, ‘Harlem’s Empress of Rhythm’. A large lady with a belting jazz style, Ada had appeared on Broadway opposite Shelton Brooks and Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson in the 1930 musical Brown Buddies. Four years after her Tivoli tour she was cast with Bojangles, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Lena Horne and Katherine Dunham in the landmark Black musical film Stormy Weather. Incidentally, Ada was a victim of the Tivoli’s notoriously cavalier attitude to spelling, especially in regard to performers’ names. Programs and publicity consistently added an ‘e’ to her surname.
Neil flew back into Sydney on a Dutch airliner early in June. He told reporters he had booked 200 artists including Gracie Fields, Sandy Powell, Stanley Holloway and Fats Waller, adding, ‘It is the best line-up of top-notch stars that we have ever had. They will all appear here within 12 months.’ Of course, he was not to know that momentous changes were only a few months away.
The exotic Chinese-American film and stage star Anna May Wong arrived around the middle of the year. She had starred in the 1933 film version of Chu Chin Chow but was probably better known because of a notorious ‘limited edition’ topless photograph of her that had been distributed internationally by an over-zealous young publicity man at Elstree Studios. Her show, Highlights from Hollywood, commenced at the Melbourne Tivoli on 12 June 1939. Fred Parsons recalled: ‘She opened at a matinee singing several pleasant songs, including Noël Coward’s “Half-Caste Woman”, but went off to lukewarm applause because the audience had been expecting an actress, not a singer. Frank Neil was furious. As soon as the theatre was empty, he called the entire company back on to the stage. Standing in the front stalls he gave vent to a tirade of abuse directed against Anna May Wong. He called her “a has-been”, “a no-hoper” and “a faded old bag”. With amazing dignity and control, she stood there until he had finished. Then she said, very quietly, “Thank you, Mr Neil,” bowed low to him, and walked off. And the entire company applauded her. Wallace Parnell called me into his office. “We’ve got to do something to help Anna. Could you write a dramatic sketch for her?” I said I’d try.’
Parsons created a ten-minute playlet, At the Barricade, based on a recent incident in the Sino-Japanese war, which was raging at the time. In it Anna, as a Chinese woman captured by the Japanese, sacrificed her own life to save the village in which she lived. Parsons continues: ‘Parnell okayed the script, and Anna liked it. An American comic, Bugs Wilson, was pressed into service to play the Japanese officer. It was what audiences expected from Anna, and it went well. She thanked me very graciously, but the thanks were really due to Parnell.’ Incidentally, the Tivoli promoted Bugs Wilson as ‘The Original Voice of Grumpy in Snow White. He wasn’t. That credit belongs to Disney regular Pinto Colvig. It was just one more example Frank Neil’s predilection for embroidering the truth about his less noteworthy imports.
Highlights from Hollywood is also notable for being the first Tivoli show designed by Angus Winneke. In April 1938 Wallace Parnell had been impressed by an exhibition of the 27-year-old’s watercolors at the Stair Gallery in Collins Street, and persuaded Neil to engage him as the Tivoli’s resident designer. Winneke’s stylish costume and set designs were to grace the Circuit’s productions until 1965.
George Robey made his Australian debut at the Melbourne Tivoli on 17 July 1939. His visit had been a long time coming; now he was seventy and well past his prime. His wife recalled: ‘I didn’t tell him I’d signed the contracts and done all the bookings until about a week before we sailed. Then he saw a little activity going on with the packing, and said, “Where are we off to now?” and I replied casually, “Oh, Sydney.” He didn’t believe me at first and then he said, “Well, I’m not going to Australia, I don’t want to be so far away.” I didn’t tell him that the intention was to go on from Sydney to Melbourne and Adelaide, followed by New Zealand and South Africa! I thought one piece at a time was enough. I always used to tell him such news early in the morning, so he had all day to get over it, otherwise, it might have affected his show at night.’
Jim Hutchings remembers: ‘Robey had a marvellous sense of timing. He was a master at projection and delivery that carried to the back wall of the gods. He’d been schooled when there were no mikes and like all the old performers knew all the tricks to get his stuff across. Still, he was poorly received. It upset him immensely, as well as his wife. She used to say to me, “Go out front! You’re his best audience!” I never missed his show. He made me laugh every time.’
Robey was playing in Sydney when war was declared on 1 September 1939, but it was the night before that stayed in Fred Parsons’ memory: ‘I was stage manager. The show went very well up to interval, but when the audience went outside they were greeted with special editions of The Herald announcing that Hitler had invaded Poland. As the second half of the show began, I glanced through the peep-hole and saw no faces, just a sea of opened newspapers. It was an amazing sight. Hitler not only invaded Poland that night, he ruined a Tivoli show.’
When war was declared Nick Lucas was topping the bill in Melbourne. ‘The Singing Troubadour’ had shot to fame in the 1929 film Gold Diggers of Broadway in which he sang ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’. He continued to sing it through the rest of his long career. Nick had a soft, pleasant voice and accompanied himself on the guitar. His act benefitted from the Tivoli’s newly installed amplification system.
Microphones had been used at the Tivoli occasionally since the early 1930s. In London, the Palladium had amplification installed in 1933. The Melbourne Tivoli was an intimate house with superb acoustics and though the Sydney Tivoli was larger, audiences were used to sitting quietly and paying attention. Nevertheless, some inexpert artistes had trouble getting their acts across. Stanley Holloway recalled: ‘A lot of laryngitis went on, because people didn’t know how to produce the tone without straining.’ Many comics developed hoarse voices with a cutting edge to them, and throat and chest trouble were common when they became older. More recently actress Stephanie Beacham dryly referred to her stage appearances as ‘shouting every evening for a living.’
The microphone altered the styles of performance. Comics could no longer move around freely; now they were anchored to a bulky microphone at the centre of the stage. The mike also affected the relationship between the comic and the audience. Laurence Olivier lamented its introduction: ‘The entertainer or the single act has a weapon. No one can shout him down. He’s protected by it, almost shielded by it, and the whole spirit of gallantry and courage and temerity that was this medium’s great attraction disappeared in front of your eyes. It was the microphone that killed music hall.’ And if one act used it, all the others had to, or they sounded weak in comparison. On the other hand, the microphone did allow a more intimate style of comedy and song, and artistes who had made their names on radio and recordings could maintain their style in the theatre.
Frank Neil realised that the war would make the importation of artistes increasingly difficult, especially from Britain and the Continent. He also knew that the Tivoli would have a significant role to play in maintaining morale and assisting the war effort. It’s significant he decided to call the first Tivoli show to open after the declaration of war Business as Usual.
Business as Usualstarred the famous Black singing group the Mills Brothers. Their first recording, ‘Tiger Rag’ backed with ‘Nobody’s Sweetheart’, had been a million seller in 1931. Films and a national radio program followed. Their closely harmonised style was sweet and intimate and, again, ideally suited for the Tivoli’s new microphones. Today people listening to the Mills Brothers’ recordings find it hard to believe that the only instrument they used was a guitar; their imitations of trumpet, bass and other instruments were brilliant.
The comedy team in Business as Usualwas led by George Wallace, who reprised his immortal ‘Stanley the Bull’ monologue, assisted by Morry Barling. Act One closed with a stirring scena based on the song ‘There’ll Always be an England’. And an outstanding Australian novelty song-and-dance act, Rex and Bessie Lindsay, made their Tivoli debut. They had appeared extensively in Britain and would remain Tivoli regulars for years. In his later years Rex reigned over the stage door at the newly-opened Victorian Arts Centre.
Business as Usualalso introduced the sensational Lea Sonia to Australian audiences. Lea was the glamorous creation of a Danish-American female impersonator, Carl Wunderlich. Born in Copenhagen to a circus family, he started at the age of nine as a replacement for one of his six sisters in their speciality act. Although nobody spotted that he was not a girl, he was said to be ‘a handsome, manly figure in everyday life’. Still, it was as a provocative and titillating fan dancer that Lea scored his biggest success. ‘In drag he really looked like a female,’ recalled Jim Hutchings. ‘He outshone the showgirls. He had real hair wigs brought from England, beautiful fur coats, poise, voice, projection. Laid them in the aisles! As a star “she’d” get very temperamental. He had rough, common boyfriends who came around the stage door. “Is Lea there?”, they’d say. And Lea would poke “her” head out and say like a real showgirl, “I won’t keep you long, boys”.’
Percy Crawford remembered: ‘His act created such a furore that his visit of a few months extended well into its third year. On stage he appeared for all the world like a shapely, glamorous young woman and he sang in a beautiful soprano voice. But at the climax of his act he would remove his wig, revealing a head of close-cropped dark hair, and stride off the stage saying in unmistakable masculine tones, “Sorry to disappoint you, boys.” In Sydney he was engaged by the Maxine Club [in Oxford Street, Woollahra] and for the first time sang in male clothes. During this season Lea Sonia was killed. He stepped out of the brightly lit interior of the club, raced across a road to get a taxi, and was run down by a tram. By an ironic circumstance, the last number he was destined to sing was “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone”.’ Jim Hutchings tells the story this way: ‘The night he met his death he came up to the paint frame at the Tivoli and said, “I wonder if you could design a little tea-room for me. I want something island-ified.” I said, “How would you like a blue heron on the wing?” He said, “Heavens no! Don’t give me birds. They’re unlucky.” That night he had an argument with his boyfriend and threw himself under a tram near Centennial Park. Death was instantaneous. Another star went out.’ Lea Sonia was celebrated in Alex Harding’s 1988 Australian musical Only Heaven Knows.
November brought the Salici puppets to the Tivoli. The Salicis were a six-generation family of Italian puppeteers, and their act is still regarded as among the best of its type in the world. They used dozens of large marionettes and demonstrated an almost unbelievable skill in having them perform a vast range of activities, from playing a piano to singing opera, dancing, and lighting and smoking cigarettes. The Salicis, with Jim Gerald, Billy Kershaw and the juggler Elimar played in Mother Goosefor the Christmas season in Sydney.
Will Mahoney and Evie Hayes had followed their 1938 show with Laugh Round-Up early in 1939; if anything, they were even more popular than before, playing to 131,811 people in just five weeks in Sydney. Notable among the supporting acts was a handsome young ‘American Radio Singing Star’, Lawrence Brooks. In 1944 he created the role of Edvard Grieg in the Broadway premiere of Song of Norway. Will and Evie returned in December with a third show, Hat Trick. With them were John Dobbie, Scott Sanders, Cusko’s Dog, Monkey and Bird Circus, plus a pair of lively newly-weds, Max Reddy and Stella Lamond. Stella’s previous marriage to comic Joe Lawman had produced Toni Lamond, then a budding star and, eventually, mother of actor and writer Tony Sheldon. A year after her marriage to Max came yet another budding star, singer-actress Helen Reddy.
After Christmas this company presented matinees of Cinderellawith Will as Buttons, Evie as Prince Perfect, Stan Foley as the Dame, Stella Lamond as Dandini and Coral Macer as Cinderella. Coral found that her glittering golden coach had been originally built for the beloved Australian actress Nellie Stewart, who performed in Cinderellaat the turn of the century. While Neil’s version of Cinderella was true to age-old pantomime tradition, he must have felt that increasing public anxiety about the developing war should somehow be acknowledged. This would explain why, amid items like ‘Rainbow Land’ and ‘The Beautiful Butterfly Ballet’ he managed to squeeze an elaborate set piece called ‘The Sinking of the U-Boat’.
With Christmas shows launched successfully in Melbourne and Sydney, Frank Neil looked confidently towards the challenges of a new year with Australia at war. He was determined that under his guidance the Tivoli would be ready to play its part in providing entertainment and boosting morale. Neil spent the evening of Saturday, 30 December 1939 at the Tivoli. He left the theatre after the show, presumably to return to the Hotel Alexander in Spencer Street, where he was a permanent resident. A short tram ride or a pleasant walk from the Tivoli, the Alexander, built in 1926, was a large modern hotel, opposite Spencer Street railway station; it is now known as the Savoy.
At around 2 am Frank Neil was in Sturt Street, South Melbourne, near the Kavanagh Street intersection. That part of South Melbourne is vastly different today: it is the section of Sturt Street with the rear of Arts Centre Melbourne and its Theatres Building’s stage door stage door on the east side and the Australian Ballet Centre on the west. In 1939 there was no St Kilda Road overpass, and Sturt Street could be accessed from St Kilda Road via the Alexandra Avenue intersection. On the east side of Sturt Street was the rear wall of the Wirth’s Circus property; on the west was a motor garage and the YMCA. It was quiet and dimly lit. Not far away, the gardens at the corner of St Kilda Road and Linlithgow Avenue provided a meeting place for lonely men.
Neil was crossing Sturt Street near the YMCA when he was hit by a 1926 Dodge car. It was driven by Quartermaster Sergeant Arthur McMaster of the Sixth Division, Second AIF Service Corps, stationed at Puckapunyal Army Camp, some 114 kms from Melbourne. In the car with him were two friends, Harry Powell, an engineer, and Warrant Officer Arthur Martin. The car’s two left wheels passed over Neil and it pulled up some distance away. The tyres left no skid marks.
Frank Neil was rushed by ambulance to nearby Prince Henry’s Hospital. He was admitted at 2.20 am. A £1 note was found hidden in his shoe. Neil’s injuries were horrific: a compound fracture of the base of the skull, a fractured left clavicle, left forearm and pelvis, ruptured urethra, severely lacerated right calf, paralysed left arm and leg, abrasions and shock. His sister, Helenor Mary Urquhart and his brother John were notified. They were living in one of the flats in the front of the Melbourne Tivoli building. They, Charles Brandreth (the Tivoli’s company secretary) and a few close friends went to the hospital. According to one of them, Frank was injured so badly ‘they must have backed over him’. Neil rallied very slightly but never recovered consciousness. He died at 2.45 pm on New Year’s Day, 1940. He had turned fifty-three ten days before.
On 8 January hundreds of people attended his funeral service, and three cars were required to carry all the floral tributes, which included a wreath from the children in the Tivoli pantomime. On its way to the Fawkner Crematorium the cortege halted briefly outside the Tivoli, the Apollo (the former Palace) and the Princess theatres. The chief mourners were his were his sister, Mrs Helenor Mary Urquhart, and his four brothers, John, William, Arthur and Howard.
At the coronial inquest there was evidence that the Dodge’s brakes may have been ineffective, though it was said to having been driven at no more than 25 miles per hour. There was even a suggestion from Arthur Martin that Neil ‘appeared to hurl or jump in front of the car. I should say if the man wanted to avoid the car he would have stood still or stepped back’. Although Neil’s friends and family and many in the theatrical and gay communities believed that Neil’s death could have been the result of a homophobic crime, this was not mentioned in court ̶ probably a reflection of the attitudes that prevailed at the time. Instead, the Coroner decreed that death was accidental, and the case was closed.
A few months later, Frank Neil’s estate was valued for probate at £3761. There was £460 in an account at the Bank of New South Wales. The bulk of the rest of his estate was £478 due from the Tivoli in wages and director’s fees and £2816, representing 8666 fully paid £1 ordinary shares in the Tivoli Circuit, valued at 6s 6d each. Neil owned no real estate; he once had a large home at Warrandyte in the hills north-east of Melbourne. He had called it ‘Whoopee’ after the musical he had presented in 1929. It was destroyed in a bushfire in January 1939. His sister was his sole beneficiary.
It was a sad, inglorious finale for a man who had devoted his life to the fun and colour and glamour of popular entertainment.
In a piece published in The Sporting Globe in 1942, Tivoli publicist Percy Crawford paid this tribute:
‘I could write almost endlessly of the kindly actions and pleasant personality of Frank Neil. He always had time to listen. No matter what any patron, high or low, had to say, he was sure of a hearing from the Tivoli chief, and invariably went away with a great impression of Mr Neil. His spirit never contemplatedfailure, nor did his insatiable appetite for hard work ever weaken. His successes did not change him, and he was ever ready generously to give credit to others.
‘Possibly there was a touch of hidden melancholy in his soul, and perhaps he had forebodings death being not far off. On several occasions, in the evening talks with executives of the theatre, he would say, “Boys, I now feel our combined efforts are beginning to show real results. Don’t ever forget that in the event of anything happening to me, things must go on just as usual. There must be no regrets.”
‘He had a happy life, a busy life. A great worker and a kind-hearted man, he made a host of friends. He wanted to be remembered as he was, a bright sparkling personality. He had an acute brain for the show business and a thorough understanding of artists and their peculiarities. He had the happy knack of engaging in a serious argument one minute and being the best of friends the next. He never carried enmity or malice from any disagreements.
‘Frank’s tragic death is still fresh in memory. There were many regrets, and there is a blank in many places of the theatrical world. But Neil’s great work was well done, and, mainly due to his enterprise, ability, experience and judgment, “the show goes on”.’
Postscript
Wallace Parnell steered the Tivoli circuit through the Second World War, producing lively revues starring Roy Rene ‘Mo’, George Wallace, Bob Dyer and Jenny Howard. He left Australia in 1944 and tried to make fresh start in the United States, but his disastrous business and amorous adventures led to a grisly murder and his own sensational suicide in Los Angeles. Under the management of David N. Martin, his son Lloyd Martin and Gordon Cooper the Tivolis survived until 1966. The last show in the Sydney Tivoli was the revue One Dam’ Thing After Another. The title could not have been more appropriate.
Applause!
This exploration of the life and times of Frank Neil would not have been possible without the help received from:
Nancye and Babe Bridges
Peter Burgis
Dr Mimi Colligan
Gordon Cooper
Dr Clay Djubal
Dr Derham Groves
Graeme Haigh
James Hutchings
Elisabeth Kumm
Eddie McDonald
Valantyne Napier
Steve Rattle
Lady Tait
APAC