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 think Strike 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
available from Australian Scholarly Publishing for $39.95
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