Roy Rene

Frank Neil. State Library of Western Australia, Perth.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.

The Bridges Sisters

Frank Van Straten collection

Buster Fiddess

Frank Van Straten collection

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’.

Roy Rene as Queen Bess

Frank Van Straten collection

Freddie Morgan

Frank Van Straten collection

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.

Cover for Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue, Melbourne, 1937

Frank Van Straten collection

Con Colleano, the Toreador of the Wire

Frank Van Straten collection

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.

Charles Norman, 1938. Photograph by Melton Greene Studio, Camberwell.

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Cecil Lyle, the Magical Milliner and Royal Entertainer

Frank Van Straten collection

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.

Ronnie Hay

Frank Van Straten collection

Clifford Guest with ‘George’

W.G. Alma conjuring collection, State Library Victoria, Melbourne

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.

Americanadians: Swing is King with Canada’s Famous Band—with Sammy Lee on percussions. Frank Van Straten collection.

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.

Tex Morton, the yodelling cowboy

Frank Van Straten collection

Program cover for Hello Harlem, Sydney, 1937

Frank Van Straten collection

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.

The Sydney Tivoli, 1937. Photographer unknown.

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

Program cover for Wonder Show of World Stars, Melbourne, 1937

Frank Van Straten collection

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?’

Waters of the World, 1938. Photographer unknown.

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

Hal Moschetti. Photo by Harry Jay.

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

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.

Program cover for Hello Popeye, Melbourne, 1938

Frank Van Straten collection

Program cover for Adriana Caselotti, ‘The Voice of Snow White’, Melbourne, 1938

Frank Van Straten collection

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.

Sheet music cover from the Snow White pantomime

Frank Van Straten collection

Evie Hayes, 1938

Frank Van Straten collection

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 Mahoney features on the cover of Why Be Serious?, Sydney, 1938

Frank Van Straten collection

Advertisement for Why Be Serious?

Frank Van Straten collection

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.

Program cover for Swing It, Melbourne, 1938

Frank Van Straten collection

Emile Boreo, 1938

Frank Van Straten collection

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

In his lifetime Roy Rene was considered a comic genius, and as his stage character, Mo, he spread laughter for over fifty years; he was Australia’s undisputed king of comedy. In 1971, seventeen years after Roy Rene’s death, Peter Ryan, journalist with The Australian and a fan of Mo, wrote; ‘With dead-white face, appalling grease-painted five o’clock shadow, effeminate, affected adenoidal voice and lisp, he only had to step leering onto the Tivoli stage in long robes, and announce himself as “the Virgin Queen,” to start the audience bubbling. A couple of hours later it left the theatre aching and shaking and still almost helpless with laughter at the antics of one of the world’s great clowns and great artists. Mo’s humour never cut, it tickled, but it went on tickling till you roared. My wife would go to see Mo with me only on condition that our seats were far apart—that way, she could hear Mo above my laughter.’

Thirty three years earlier, in December 1938, Smith’s Weekly newspaper’s declared: ‘Mo, the—Uncrowned Monarch of “The Mob”’, reporting on the extraordinary reception Roy received at the Tivoli theatre in Sydney; ‘The noise made by the house at the entrance of Mo was like the noise made by the Reichstag today at the entrance of Hitler. In his profession, Mo is classified as a freak comedian, who can stand still without expression and without “business” and raise a howl of laughter. When the laugh had gone on long enough, he would silence it by his opening words, “Fair go, mob!”’

Harry Van der Sluice was Roy’s real name and he was born in Hindley Street in the city of Adelaide on 15 February 1891. His theatrical career began at age nine, singing arias at concerts around Adelaide along with his older sister Catherine. His professional stage debut was at age 13 at the Theatre Royal in the pantomime Sinbad the Sailor, billed as Little Roy, Boy Soprano. Reviews of the time noted that he had a lovely, sweet quality to his voice. Unfortunately, Roy’s father did not approve of him going on the stage; he wanted him to become a jockey or a bookmaker along with his older brothers Albert and Lou.

Roy Rene: ‘Working as a jockey didn’t suit me at all. In the first place, it interfered with my schooling, and it also interfered with my stage career. Besides I wasn’t any good. Mostly I just seemed to be sweeping the stables, and you know what that means.’

Mo—at four months

Boy Roy

In 1903 his family moved to Melbourne, Roy’s first appearance there was at the Gaiety Theatre in Bourke Street where he received good reviews. His boy soprano singing career ended when his voice broke at sixteen; it was then he decided to be a comic actor and change his name to Roy Rene. He began appearing at suburban theatres breaking in his new act. In an attempt to discourage him, his father paid stooges to heckle and blow raspberries during Roy’s turn. This did not deter young Roy, it made him more determined to be a success.

Roy Rene: ‘When I was a little boy and wasn’t working I took every scrap of my pocket money at every opportunity I had and went to Mr Harry Rickards’ shows at the old Opera House which is now the Tivoli. I watched all the big English and American artists he brought out, and believe me, I learned quite a lot from them. It was watching his players I learned the importance of polish, finesse, and finish, and believe me they were real artists in those days. Looking back I can appreciate them even more now than I did then when I was a raw youngster trying to become an actor.’

In 1910, Roy landed a role as one of the eleven jockeys in the hit spectacular racing melodrama that was touring the world, The Whip,presented by J.C. Williamson at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne.

Roy Rene: ‘We were responsible for those horses and, we had to take them to and from the theatre and then ride them in the race. The horses ran on machinery, the whole eleven of them. We opened in Melbourne, and when the show came to Sydney, I came with it, and when the season was over, I stayed.’

Mo—with Eton collar

Young manhood

Roy was 18 years old when he secured a booking at Balmain’s Town Hall with Harry Clay’s vaudeville circuit after months of trying. Impressed by Roy’s comedy act, and the enthusiastic reception he received, Harry Clay invited Roy to continue for the rest of that week. Proving himself popular with the crowd, he began making regular appearances at Harry Clay’s Bridge Theatre in Newtown.

Roy Rene: ‘After Clay, I was working with Jim Bain at the Princess Theatre, the Sydney one, when the cast kidded me into doing some imitations of Jordan and Harvey, and the famous Julian Rose. Jordan and Harvey, who were out here for Fuller-Brennan, were the first big Jewish team I’d ever seen. I was working as a corner-man, still in blackface, but I learned one of their numbers, “Yiddle on your Fiddle, Play Some Ragtime”, and did it. Then I did an imitation of Julian Rose in his act Levinsky at the Wedding.’

Always on the lookout for new talent for the Fuller-Brennan Circuit, Benjamin Fuller, impressed by Roy’s new act at the Princess Theatre, and realising his potential as a comic, booked Roy as a supporting act for the Jordan and Harvey tour. During the Sydney season the duo had a falling-out; Harvey walked out of the act returning to the USA leaving Jordan stranded without a comic feed. Benjamin Fuller instructed Roy to go on as Harvey’s replacement for the rest of the season. This turn of events was Roy’s big break, as well as being the very first time he applied what was to become his trade-mark beard. At Benjamin Fuller’s suggestion, Roy developed a Hebrew act and introduced the new character around the suburban theatres. Roy’s star was on the rise.

In Sydney Roy continued with Bain’s at the Princess theatre until March 1912, when he was offered a contract with the Fuller-Brennan circuit, Benjamin Fuller engaged him to join Albert and Maude Beletsoe’s revue company, presenting the latest trend from the USA, revuesicals—musical comedy revues. The revues were a hit with the public, the company toured Australia and New Zealand returning to Sydney 18 months later. In 1915 at the height of their popularity and success, Albert and Maude retired from the stage. Benjamin Fuller filled the void with Nat Phillips and his wife Daisy Merritt who had returned to Australia after several years performing in Europe and the USA.

The first Mo suit

The greatest comedy team in Australian vaudeville history—Stiffy and Mo

The inspired combination of Nat Phillips and Roy Rene as ‘Stiffy and Mo’ was an instant hit with the public, breaking box office records at every theatre they performed in. Stiffy and Mo became household names and major stars, for over sixteen years they kept Fullers cash registers ringing. They presented a variety of madcap revues that audiences could not get enough of. Every Christmas season they would also present a lavish pantomime. The Bunyip was their first and a departure from the usual European fairy tales. The Bunyip was a spectacular Australian bush-themed pantomime, written by Ella Airlie and produced by Nat Phillips; a magical show they would often revive. The cast included Queenie Paul and Mike Connors; both were to play a significant role keeping vaudeville alive in the 1930s. Stiffy and Mo would go on to appear in Mother Goose, Cinderella and Babes in the Wood, written and produced by Nat Phillips. By 1925, Roy and Nat parted as a team while in Adelaide. Now known as Sir Benjamin Fuller—he was knighted by King George V in 1921—Sir Ben gave both his stars their own company, Roy with Mo’s Merry Monarchs, and Nat Philips with Whirligigs. Roy left his Merry Monarchs in late 1925 to co-star with American Broadway actor, Harry Green, in a comedy play, Give and Take, opening at the Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne, prior to its interstate and New Zealand tours. Following Give and Take, Roy briefly teamed up with veteran comedian Fred Bluett for the Musgrove circuit performing their comedy routine titled, The Admiral and the Sailor; both men were also engaged by J.C. Williamson’s to appear in the pantomime, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp for the Christmas holiday season.

Roy Rene: ‘All the same, I must honestly confess that I was not happy on that season with Fred Bluett, because I was still missing my pal Stiffy. I hadn’t noticed it so much during Give and Take because of the novelty of being in a straight show, but I was feeling restless and unhappy, so you can imagine that when, at the finish of the season, I met Sir Ben and he asked me how I would like to go back to work with Stiffy again, I jumped at the offer.’

Poster advertising Mo’s only feature film

View scenes from the film on the NFSA website

Mo on the cover of Radio Pictorial, September 1941

 

Stiffy and Mo went on delighting audiences until their final breakup in New Zealand in 1928. The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed it saw many theatres go dark. By 1930 the Fullers vast vaudeville circuit was no more. Unconvinced that vaudeville was dead, Queenie Paul and Mike Connors invested their savings to resurrect it. They signed a 75 year lease for the old Opera House in Castlereagh Street and renamed it, the Tivoli, beginning a new era in variety theatre. In 1934 Roy took time out from vaudeville to star in his own feature film, Strike Me Lucky! directed by Ken G. Hall for Cinesound Studios, the title taken from one of his more famous catch-phrases, it was his one and only feature film.

Roy Rene: ‘It was the hardest work I have ever done, and I don’t thinkStrike Me Lucky could have been a very good picture, because if it had been I’d have gone on and made a lot more pictures. No, really, the truth is, there’s one thing I love, and that’s my audience, and I am not happy far away from the vaudeville stage, which is where I feel I belong.’

The public could not get enough of Mo; Smith’s Weekly observed: ‘The clowning which has such a remarkable grip on his public—he is regarded as the biggest draw in Australian show history—is more Australian than Jewish in flavour. Mo onstage is the tough local boy; the local boys in his audience rejoice to see him frustrate the same enemies they would like to frustrate themselves—the debt-collector, the mug copper, the bookie, and the wife. He ad-libs and improvises freely. As a rule he does not get his laughs by wit, but by timing, pantomime, and superb control of the shades of Australian idiom. In his mouth the word ‘sheila’ has astonishing overtones of unchastity.’

In the mid 30s, Hollywood producer Sam Goldwyn sent his representatives in Australia to talk terms with the Australian star, but Mo said flatly that it wasn’t much use talking terms. Bert Aza, one of Britain’s top agents and Gracie Fields manager, wanted to represent Roy and present him to London audiences, but no amount of money could tempt him. Roy had often been invited to perform in England and the USA, with the exception of New Zealand seasons he never played outside Australia, nor did he want to. When his sister tried to talk him into going to the USA. “Break it down, love,” he said. “Look what happened to Les Darcy and Phar Lap! Strike me lucky, they might make it a treble.”

Mo with Rita Pauncefort and Harry Griffiths

During the war years Roy continued touring with the Tivoli circuit, performing two shows a day as well as starring on radio with the ABC, and 2GB’s All Star Parade. He was also a proud and patriotic Australian lending his services for the war effort appearing at rallies selling war bonds. By the end of the war in 1945, his ghost-written book, Mo’s Memoirs, was published, and after 15 years with the circuit, Roy left the Tivoli. He continued on radio with the hugely successful national variety program, Calling the Stars, at 2UE with Colgate Palmolive as the sponsors.

Harry Griffiths: ‘Fred Parsons together with Alexander McDonald had an idea for Mo—why not adapt a stage sketch that Fred had written for Mo at the Tivoli—a little domestic situation about a ratbag family. Fred and Alexander showed the script to Ron Beck the producer. Ron beamed. He thought it would be great for Roy. “What are you going to call the spot?” he asked. “Oh”, said Fred, “McCackie Mansion.” The rest is history. This comedy spot, eight minutes in duration, the final segment in a one hour variety show ‘Calling the Stars’ became so popular that it was the first radio show to affect attendances at movie houses. The first night that Mo appeared in ‘Calling the Stars’ was as if he had been doing radio all his life. The walls of the auditorium shook with laughter. Roy Rene had been a star since 1913 and was about to win over another generation. Roy Rene entertained as many people in one night as he could in 5000 performances at the Sydney Tivoli.’

Mo and the cast of the Colgate-Palmolive Radio Unit, December 1950

National Library of Australia, Canberra

While the Colgate-Palmolive Radio Unit took a break for the 1948 Christmas holidays, Roy went on the road with his own show McCackie Mo-ments for impresario Harry Wren. The show opened in Melbourne at the King’s theatre in Russell Street, before transferring to the Theatre Royal in Adelaide. His next theatrical venture was the zany Broadway musical revue Hellzapoppin’,the show opened at the Empire theatre in Sydney in 1950, followed by a national tour. Hellzapoppin’ was to be Roy’s last appearance in live theatre. At the end of the season Roy was back on air as the star of a new radio program, The Atlantic Show, for 2GB.

By 1952 the Colgate Radio Unit was finished; radio was changing with the times. 

Harry Griffiths: ‘No more big radio variety shows, with big orchestras and loads of contracted stars, script writers, music arrangers and special staff to organise it - no more. The number of shows, dramas and series was getting fewer and fewer each week. If you ever feel nostalgic for the 20 years of radio drama and variety that was of a standard equal to those produced in England or the United States, and would like to hear some of the old shows again, just go out and rummage around for the original recordings at the St Peter’s tip. Because that’s where they’ve all been dumped.’

In May 1953, while enjoying a short holiday in Lismore, Roy suffered a heart attack walking up the stairs of the hotel where he and his wife Sadie Gale were guests, he was rushed to St Vincent’s Hospital in Lismore on Wednesday 20 May. The following day Sydney’s Daily Telegraph spoke to Sadie at the hospital; ‘My husband’s condition improved greatly today’, reported Sadie, ‘though he is very sick, he continues to wisecrack’. News of Roy’s illness made the newspapers around Australia. He was flown back to Sydney under instruction by his doctors to stay in bed and rest. A month later while still bedridden he received a touching letter from one of his devoted mob.

Dear Roy Rene, I am not in the habit of writing letters such as this, but when I read of your retirement in the Telegraph today, it seemed to me it would be only right to thank you for the years of laughter you have given me... for the laughter which left my sides sore and my eyes streaming half way through the next act. It goes back a long way; I must have been all of nine or ten when I used to scoot up the stairs to the gallery at the Bijou or Tivoli in Melbourne and hang over the rail to laugh. In the last few years it has been your voice, and I had to guess at the sardonic leer, the ingratiating grin and the petulant sniff because I had seen you so often that it was easy. I even brought the sponsors’ products because they made it possible for me to hear you! Fortunately, we did see you at the Empire theatre a couple of years ago, and my youngster all but rolled in the aisles as I used to do. And still talks about it. Much as your devoted public will regret your retirement, we know it would be selfish of us to have it otherwise. Those of us who know you so well can remember how generously you gave us laughter and escape from worry. The very mention of Mo makes us remember a score of the delicious caricatures you gave us, I quote Elizabeth and Essex because the very thought of that makes me howl with wicked joy.

You gave us laughter in a world which needs that more than it needs atom bombs or cars or anything else, and I have often reflected that if you had been appointed to a few international committees, the world would have been a happier place. It is not possible to think of grim things when there is uninhibited laughter echoing around a room at the lift of an eyebrow. For that laughter you have given me for thirty years, I am truly grateful. I’d like you to know that. I’d like you to know, too, that you will never be forgotten by your faithful public who may laugh at other, lesser comedians, but who will say: ‘Ah, yes, but you should have seen Mo …’ and who will feel superior because we did. For me, there will always be a leering grin hanging around the stages of the Tivoli, in Melbourne and Sydney—like the Cheshire cat, in Alice in Wonderland, and, the echo of a voice that cannot be duplicated by anybody. I am sorry you could not make one last appearance, just to let you know how much your public loved you. It would have been such as to make the other farewells sound rather weak and artificial. May your health improve with rest, and do be assured that you will always have your own place in our hearts and memories. There is only one Mo, and his place in our theatre can never be filled. With best wishes, yours sincerely... Marien Dreyer.

At one o’clock in the afternoon on the 22 November 1954, Roy passed away at home, he was 63 years old. His funeral was held the next day, and was interred at Rookwood cemetery.

Martin Sharp’s poster advertising Steve J. Spears’ play Young Mo at the Nimrod Theatre, Sydney, 1978

National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

1989 Australia stamp featuring Mo alongside Gladys Moncrieff

 

Roy was gone but not forgotten, in the decades that have passed since his death he has been the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, a play, Young Mo, by Steve J. Spears, and in 1996 a documentary, Strike Me Lucky! In 1979, the entertainment industry established the annual ‘Mo’ Awards, and in 1986, Mo appeared on the cover of Time magazine. The Performing Arts Museum, now the Australian Performing Arts Collection, mounted a tribute exhibition The Mo Show, which went on to tour Victorian regional centres in 1988. There have been tribute exhibitions at Performing Arts Centres in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.

The following year, Mo was featured on an Australia Post stamp.

Roy’s comedy writer from his Tivoli and radio days, Fred Parsons, published his own memoir in 1973 titled, A Man Called Mo,in the last chapter he states; ‘He never influenced the destiny of a nation. He never made decisions that affected the lives of millions, and there will never be a statue to his honour. But he will always live in the memories of those he made laugh—those millions of Australians who, collectively, were his mob.’

As the old saying goes, ‘never say never’, in 2010 the city of Adelaide unveiled a larger than life bronze statue of Mo by sculptor Robert Hannaford, it stands proudly in Hindley Street where Roy had been born, a fitting tribute to a great artist and a true blue Australian legend.

Sources

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 31 December 1938

Roy Rene, Mo’s Memoirs, Reed and Harris, Melbourne, 1945

Northern Star (Lismore NSW), 12 May 1953 & 23 May 1953

The Australian, 17 February 1971

Fred Parsons, A Man Called Mo, Heineman, Melbourne, 1973

Harry Griffith—Oral history                        

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