141-490: Isaiah Edwin Leopold (November 9, 1886 – June 19, 1966), better known as Ed Wynn , was an American actor and comedian. He began his career in vaudeville in 1903 and was known for his Perfect Fool comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor, which continued into the 1960s. His variety show (1949–1950), The Ed Wynn Show , won a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award . Wynn
282-476: A MacArthur Fellow and Tony Award -winning actor, are frequently lauded as "New Vaudevillians". References to vaudeville and the use of its distinctive argot continue throughout North American popular culture. Words such as "flop" and "gag" were terms created from the vaudeville era and have entered the American idiom. Vaudevillian techniques can commonly be witnessed on television and in movies, remarkably in
423-480: A 12-year period, including the fast-paced Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In . With the variable quality of Kinescopes, networks looked towards alternative methods to replace them with a higher degree of quality. Programs originally shot with film cameras (as opposed to kinescopes) were also used in television's early years, although they were generally considered inferior to the big-production live programs because of their lower budgets and loss of immediacy. In 1951,
564-584: A Broadway show. This is when she began experimenting with improvisational comedy and quickly found her unique success, even taking her performances global with acts in the U.K. Sophie Tucker , a Russian Jewish immigrant, was told by promoter Chris Brown that she was not attractive enough to succeed in show business without doing Blackface, so she performed that way for the first two years onstage, until one day she decided to go without it, and achieved much greater success being herself from that point on, especially with her song "Some of These Days." Moms Mabley
705-873: A Torch Song (1933), and as a pot of jam in the Betty Boop short Betty in Blunderland (1934). He appeared as the Fairy Godfather in Jerry Lewis 's Cinderfella . His performance as Paul Beaseley in the 1958 film The Great Man earned him nominations for a Golden Globe Award for "Best Supporting Actor" and a BAFTA Award for "Best Foreign Actor". The following year he received his first (and only) nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Mr. Dussell in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). Six years later he appeared in
846-476: A backup reference copy of a program. Another occasional use of telerecording into the late 1980s was by documentary makers working in 16 mm film who wished to include a videotape-sourced excerpt in their work, although such use was again rare. In other territories, film telerecordings stopped being produced after the introduction of videotape. In Czechoslovakia, the first videotape recorders (Machtronics MVR-15) were introduced in 1966 but soon were replaced by
987-427: A brief, ad-libbed spot with Graham McNamee during an NBC experimental television broadcast. In the 1949–50 season, Wynn hosted The Ed Wynn Show , one of the first network, comedy-variety television shows, on CBS, and won both a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award in 1949. Buster Keaton , Carmen Miranda , Lucille Ball , Desi Arnaz , Hattie McDaniel and The Three Stooges all made guest appearances with Wynn. This
1128-514: A career change rather than retire. The comedian reluctantly began a career as a dramatic actor in television and films. Father and son appeared in three productions, the first of which was the 1956 Playhouse 90 broadcast of Rod Serling 's play Requiem for a Heavyweight . Ed was terrified of straight acting, and kept goofing his lines in rehearsal. When the producers wanted to fire him, star Jack Palance said he would quit if they fired Ed. (However, unbeknownst to Wynn, supporting player Ned Glass
1269-482: A characteristic white glow around black objects (and a corresponding black glow around white objects), which was a defect of the pick-up. Later vidicon and plumbicon video camera tubes produced much cleaner, more accurate pictures. In 1951, singer Bing Crosby ’s company Bing Crosby Enterprises made the first experimental magnetic video recordings ; however, the poor picture quality and very high tape speed meant it would be impractical to use. In 1956, Ampex introduced
1410-463: A commitment to entertainment equally inoffensive to men, women and children. Acts that violated this ethos (e.g., those that used words such as "hell") were admonished and threatened with expulsion from the week's remaining performances or were canceled altogether. In spite of such threats, performers routinely flouted this censorship , often to the delight of the very audience members whose sensibilities were supposedly endangered. He eventually instituted
1551-468: A film made using the process. Film recorders are similar, but record source material from a computer system instead of a television broadcast. A telecine is the inverse device, used to show film directly on television. The term originally referred to the cathode-ray tube (CRT) used in television receivers , as named by inventor Vladimir K. Zworykin in 1929. Hence, the recordings were known in full as kinescope films or kinescope recordings . RCA
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#17327824430541692-480: A form of entertainment. He incorporated them in his shows as early as 1902. Later, he entered into a partnership with the Famous Players–Lasky , a major Hollywood production company and an affiliate of Paramount Pictures . By the late 1920s, most vaudeville shows included a healthy selection of cinema. Earlier in the century, many vaudevillians, cognizant of the threat represented by cinema, held out hope that
1833-472: A handful of episodes , such as with the early television work of comedian Ernie Kovacs , and the original version of Jeopardy! hosted by Art Fleming . Another purpose of Kinescopes involved satisfying show sponsors. Kinescopes sometimes would be sent to the advertising agency for the sponsor of a show so that the ad agency could determine whether or not the sponsor's ads appeared properly. Due to this practice, some kinescopes have actually been discovered in
1974-464: A high-tech name (and avoiding the word kinescope) to distinguish the process from conventional film photography. Nonetheless, the advances in picture quality were, at the time, a major step ahead. By capturing more than 800 lines of resolution at 25 frame/s, raw tape could be converted to film via kinescope recording with sufficient enhanced resolution to allow big-screen enlargement. The 1960s productions used Marconi image orthicon video cameras, which have
2115-455: A higher quality result. For overseas sales, 16 mm film would be used, as it was cheaper. Although domestic use of telerecording in the UK for repeat broadcasts dropped off sharply after the move to colour in the late 1960s, 16 mm black and white film telerecordings were still being offered for sale by British broadcasters well into the 1970s. Telerecording was still being used internally at
2256-415: A launching pad for later careers. They left live performance before achieving the national celebrity of earlier vaudeville stars, and found fame in new venues. The line between live and filmed performances was blurred by the number of vaudeville entrepreneurs who made more or less successful forays into the movie business. For example, Alexander Pantages quickly realized the importance of motion pictures as
2397-535: A marketing strategy to attract many different audiences. As stated in Andrew Erdman 's book Blue Vaudeville , the Vaudeville stage was "a highly sexualized space ... where unclad bodies, provocative dancers, and singers of 'blue' lyrics all vied for attention." Such performances highlighted and objectified the female body as a "sexual delight", but more than that, historians think that Vaudeville marked
2538-530: A method of understanding different groups and their societal positions within their cities. The use of the greenhorn immigrant for comedic effect showcased how immigrants were viewed as new arrivals, but also what they could aspire to be. In addition to interpreting visual ethnic caricatures, the Irish American ideal of transitioning from the shanty to the lace curtain became a model of economic upward mobility for immigrant groups. The continued growth of
2679-420: A second time until recording methods improved. Eventually, telerecordings would be used to preserve a program for repeat showings. In the UK, telerecordings continued to be made after the introduction of commercial broadcast videotape in 1958 as they possessed several distinct advantages. Firstly, they were easier to transport and more durable than videotape. Secondly, they could be used in any country regardless of
2820-528: A serious actress but was advised to remain in comedy. She went on to star in a few films but again returned to vaudeville, her original career. Another famous vaudevillian actress was Trixie Friganza , originally born Delia O'Callaghan. She had a famous catchphrase: "You know Trixie with her bag of tricks." She began her career in opera, performing to help provide for her family. The oldest of three daughters, she wanted to help her family financially but had to do it secretly, as female performers were frowned on at
2961-572: A set of guidelines to be an audience member at his show, and these were reinforced by the ushers working in the theatre. This "polite entertainment" also extended to Keith's company members. He went to extreme measures to maintain this level of modesty. Keith even went as far as posting warnings backstage such as this: "Don't say 'slob' or 'son of a gun' or 'hully gee' on the stage unless you want to be canceled peremptorily... if you are guilty of uttering anything sacrilegious or even suggestive you will be immediately closed and will never again be allowed in
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#17327824430543102-459: A single (an individual male or female performer); next would be an alley-oop (an acrobatic act); then another single, followed by yet another sketch such as a blackface comedy. The acts that followed these for the rest of the show would vary from musicals to jugglers to song-and-dance singles and end with a final extravaganza – either musical or drama – with the full company. These shows would feature such stars as ragtime and jazz pianist Eubie Blake ,
3243-402: A single host introducing a series of acts became a popular television style and can be seen consistently in the development of television, from The Milton Berle Show in 1948 to Late Night with David Letterman in the 1980s. The multi-act format had renewed success in shows such as Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and The Ed Sullivan Show . Today, performers such as Bill Irwin ,
3384-659: A surprise to audience members when such beautiful women actually possessed talent in addition to their appealing looks. This element of surprise colored much of the reaction to the female entertainment of this time. In the 1920s, announcements seeking all-girl bands for vaudeville performances appeared in industry publications like Billboard , Variety and in newspapers. Bands like The Ingenues and The Dixie Sweethearts were well-publicized, while other groups were simply described as "all-girl Revue". According to Feminist Theory, similar trends in theater and film objectified women, an example of male gaze , as women's role in public life
3525-411: A taste for the risqué . In the 1840s, the minstrel show , another type of variety performance, and "the first emanation of a pervasive and purely American mass culture", grew to enormous popularity and formed what Nick Tosches called "the heart of 19th-century show business". A significant influence also came from "Dutch" (i.e., German or faux-German) minstrels and comedians. Medicine shows traveled
3666-496: A theatre where Mr. Keith is in authority." Along these same lines of discipline, Keith's theatre managers would occasionally send out blue envelopes with orders to omit certain suggestive lines of songs and possible substitutions for those words. If actors chose to ignore these orders or quit, they would get "a black mark" on their name and would never again be allowed to work on the Keith Circuit. Thus, actors learned to follow
3807-628: A time in which the female body became its own "sexual spectacle". This sexual image began sprouting everywhere an American went: the shops, a restaurant, the grocery store, etc. The more this image brought in the highest revenue, the more Vaudeville focused on acts involving women. Even acts that were as innocent as a sister act were higher sellers than a good brother act. Consequently, Erdman adds that female Vaudeville performers such as Julie Mackey and Gibson's Bathing Girls began to focus less on talent and more on physical appeal through their figure, tight gowns, and other revealing attire. It eventually came as
3948-584: A trained mule) shared a stage with acts more usually regarded as "highbrow" or classical entertainment (opera vocalists, classical musicians). B. F. Keith took the next step, starting in Boston , where he built an empire of theatres and brought vaudeville to the United States and Canada. Later, E. F. Albee , adoptive grandfather of the Pulitzer Prize -winning playwright Edward Albee , managed
4089-485: A typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals , magicians, ventriloquists , strongmen , female and male impersonators , acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs , jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels , and films. A vaudeville performer
4230-401: A unique ethnic interplay between Irish American use of self-deprecation as humor and their diverse inner city surroundings. The interactions between newly arrived immigrants and settled immigrants within the backdrop of the unknown American urban landscape allowed vaudeville to be utilized as an avenue for expression and understanding. The often hostile immigrant experience in their new country
4371-650: A warehouse in Los Angeles. Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions , the producers of such TV game shows as What's My Line? , had a significant portion of their output recorded on both videotape and kinescopes. These programs are rebroadcast on the American cable TV's Game Show Network . All of the NBC Symphony Orchestra telecasts with Arturo Toscanini , from 1948 to 1952, were preserved on kinescopes and later released on VHS and LaserDisc by RCA and on DVD by Testament . The original audio from
Ed Wynn - Misplaced Pages Continue
4512-505: A wide range of clientele. Many small towns had purpose-built theatres. A small yet interesting example might include what is called Grange Halls in northern New England, still being used. These are old-fashioned, wooden buildings with creaky, dimly-lit, wooden stages, which were meant to offset the isolation of a farming lifestyle. These stages could offer anything from child performers to contra-dances to visits by Santa to local, musical talent, to homemade foods such as whoopee pies. Some of
4653-464: Is Midnight, Dr Schweitzer , The Lady from the Sea and the opening two episodes of The Quatermass Experiment , although in varying degrees of quality. A complete 7-hour set of telerecordings of Queen Elizabeth II's 1953 coronation also exists. In the era before satellite communications, kinescopes were used to distribute live events such as a royal wedding as quickly as possible to other countries of
4794-570: Is listed on the National Archives of Australia website as a kinescope, while surviving episodes of the 1978 drama series The Truckies also exist as kinescopes, indicating that the technology was still being used by the ABC at that point. Until the early 1960s, much of the BBC's output, and British television in general, was broadcast live, and entire drama productions were performed live for
4935-494: Is often considered to have been the death knell of vaudeville. Though talk of its resurrection was heard during the 1930s and later, the demise of the supporting apparatus of the circuits and the higher cost of live performance made any large-scale renewal of vaudeville unrealistic. The most striking examples of Gilded Age theatre architecture were commissioned by the big time vaudeville magnates and stood as monuments of their wealth and ambition. Examples of such architecture are
5076-484: Is often referred to as a "vaudevillian". Vaudeville developed from many sources, including the concert saloon , minstrelsy , freak shows , dime museums , and literary American burlesque . Called "the heart of American show business", vaudeville was one of the most popular types of entertainment in North America for several decades. The origin of the term is obscure but often explained as being derived from
5217-518: The vau de vire origin, a truncated form of chanson du Vau de Vire ' song of the Valley of the Vire ' . Around 1610, Jean le Houx collected these works as Le Livre des Chants nouveaux de Vaudevire , which is probably the direct origin of the word. With its first subtle appearances within the early 1860s, vaudeville was not initially a common form of entertainment. The form gradually evolved from
5358-569: The BBC in the 1980s too, to preserve copies for posterity of programs that were not necessarily of the highest importance, but which nonetheless their producers wanted to be preserved. If there were no videotape machines available on a given day, then a telerecording would be made. There is evidence to suggest that the children's magazine program Blue Peter was occasionally telerecorded as late as 1985. After this point, however, cheap domestic videotape formats such as VHS could more easily be used to keep
5499-690: The MLB Network shortly afterwards. Early Australian television drama series were recorded as kinescopes, such as Autumn Affair and Emergency , along with variety series like The Lorrae Desmond Show . Kinescopes continued to be made after videotape was introduced to Australia; most existing episodes of the 1965–1967 children's series Magic Circle Club are kinescopes (per listings for episodes on National Film and Sound Archive website) Telerecordings form an important part of British television heritage, preserving what would otherwise have been lost. Nearly every pre-1960s British television program in
5640-734: The Marx Brothers , Jimmy Durante , Bill "Bojangles" Robinson , Edgar Bergen , Fanny Brice , Burns and Allen , and Eddie Cantor , used the prominence gained in live variety performance to vault into the new medium of cinema. In doing so, such performers often exhausted in a few moments of screen time the novelty of an act that might have kept them on tour for several years. Other performers who entered in vaudeville's later years, including Jack Benny , Abbott and Costello , Kate Smith , Cary Grant , Bob Hope , Milton Berle , Judy Garland , Rose Marie , Sammy Davis Jr. , Red Skelton , Larry Storch and The Three Stooges , used vaudeville only as
5781-522: The Pacific Time Zone . In September 1956, NBC began making color hot kines of some of its color programs using a lenticular film process which, unlike color negative film, could be processed rapidly using standard black-and-white methods. They were called hot kines because the film reels being delivered from the lab were still warm from the developing process. Even after the introduction of quadruplex videotape machines in 1956 removed
Ed Wynn - Misplaced Pages Continue
5922-671: The Tivoli Theatre are housed at the State Library of Victoria , Melbourne , Australia , with additional personal papers of vaudevillian performers from the Tivoli Theatre, including extensive costume and set design holdings, held by the Performing Arts Collection , Arts Centre Melbourne . The American Vaudeville Museum, one of the largest collections of vaudeville memorabilia, is located at
6063-659: The concert saloon and variety hall into its mature form throughout the 1870s and 1880s. This more gentle form was known as "Polite Vaudeville". In the years before the American Civil War , entertainment existed on a different scale. Similar variety theatre existed before 1860 in Europe and elsewhere. In the US, as early as the first decades of the 19th century, theatergoers could enjoy a performance consisting of Shakespeare plays, acrobatics, singing, dancing, and comedy. As
6204-457: The "Irwin Sisters". Many years later, their act had taken off and with performances in both vaudeville and burlesque at famous music halls, until Irwin decided to continue her career on her own. She then changed her approach to vaudeville, performing African-American-influenced songs, even later writing her songs. She introduced her signature in vaudeville, "The Bully Song", which was performed in
6345-425: The "big time" (possible remuneration of several thousand dollars per week in large, urban theatres largely patronized by the middle and upper-middle classes). As performers rose in renown and established regional and national followings, they worked their way into the less arduous working conditions and better pay of the big time. The capital of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre (or just "The Palace" in
6486-424: The 30 frame/s image to 24 frame/s, the standard sound speed of film cameras and do so in a way so that the image is clear enough to then re-broadcast by means of a film chain back to 30 frame/s. In kinescoping an NTSC signal, 525 lines are broadcast in one frame. A 35 mm or 16 mm camera exposes one frame of film for every one frame of television (525 lines), and moving a new frame of film into place during
6627-550: The Ampex 2" Quadruplex in 1967. Most of the programs, like TV dramas, were recorded on video, but only a few programs continued to be telerecorded onto 16 mm film. The last known telerecording was produced in 1971 and soon after, all programs were recorded on video only. Kinescopes were intended to be used for immediate rebroadcast, or for an occasional repeat of a program; thus, only a small fraction of kinescope recordings remain today. Many television shows are represented by only
6768-645: The Angels ". Serling, a longtime admirer, had written that episode especially for him, and Wynn later in 1963 starred in the S5 E12 episode " Ninety Years Without Slumbering ". For the rest of his life, Wynn skillfully moved between comic and dramatic roles. He appeared in feature films and anthology television, endearing himself to new generations of fans. Wynn was caricatured in the Merrie Melodies cartoon shorts Shuffle Off to Buffalo (1933), I've Got to Sing
6909-466: The BBC undertook color restoration work on the existing 16 mm monochrome telerecording of Room at the Bottom , a 1969 episode of the sitcom Dad's Army . Although this episode was originally produced and broadcast in color, the black and white film was the only surviving copy of the episode following the wiping of the original videotape. However, the telerecording process left color information in
7050-821: The Bible epic The Greatest Story Ever Told . Wynn provided the voice of the Mad Hatter in Walt Disney 's film Alice in Wonderland (1951) and played The Toymaker alongside Annette Funicello and Tommy Sands in the Christmas operetta film Babes in Toyland released in 1961. In Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), he played eccentric Uncle Albert floating around just beneath the ceiling in uncontrollable mirth, singing " I Love to Laugh ". Re-teaming with
7191-639: The Chinese, Italians, Germans and Jews utilized ethnic caricatures to understand themselves as well as the Irish. The urban diversity within the vaudeville stage and audience also reflected their societal status, with the working class constituting two-thirds of the typical vaudeville audience. The ethnic caricatures that now comprised American humor reflected the positive and negative interactions between ethnic groups in America's cities. The caricatures served as
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#17327824430547332-502: The Commonwealth that had started a television service. A Royal Air Force aircraft would fly the telerecording from the UK to Canada, where it would be broadcast over the whole North American network. Prior to the introduction of videotape in 1956, kinescopes were the only way to record television broadcasts, or to distribute network television programs that were broadcast live from originating cities to stations not connected to
7473-747: The Disney team the following year—in That Darn Cat! (1965), featuring Dean Jones and Hayley Mills —Wynn filled out the character of Mr. Hofstedder, the watch jeweler with his bumbling charm. He also had brief roles in The Absent Minded Professor (as the fire chief , in a scene alongside his son Keenan Wynn , who played the film's antagonist) and Son of Flubber (as county agricultural agent A.J. Allen). His final performance, as Rufus in Walt Disney's The Gnome-Mobile ,
7614-584: The French expression voix de ville ' voice of the city ' . A second hypothesis is that it comes from the 15th-century songs on satire by poet Olivier Basselin , "Vau de Vire". In his Connections television series, science historian James Burke argues that the term is a corruption of the French Vau de Vire ' Vire River Valley ' , an area known for its bawdy drinking songs and where Basselin lived. The Oxford English Dictionary also endorses
7755-423: The Irish becoming subject to discrimination due to their ethnic physical and cultural characteristics. The ethnic stereotypes of Irish through their greenhorn depiction alluded to their newly arrived status as immigrant Americans, with the stereotype portrayed in avenues of entertainment. Following the Irish immigration wave were several waves in which new immigrants from different backgrounds came in contact with
7896-453: The Irish in America's urban centers. Already settled and being native English speakers, Irish Americans took hold of these advantages and began to assert their positions in the immigrant racial hierarchy based on skin tone and assimilation status, cementing job positions that were previously unavailable to them as recently arrived immigrants. As a result, Irish Americans became prominent in vaudeville entertainment as curators and actors, creating
8037-567: The Pacific Time Zone. But as an article in American Cinematographer explained, In the beginning there was a very definite reason for the decision of Desilu Productions to put I Love Lucy on film instead of doing it live and having kinescope recordings carry it to affiliate outlets of the network. The company was not satisfied with the quality of kinescopes. It saw that film, produced especially for television,
8178-423: The United States and Canada and a large interest in two vaudeville circuits. Another major circuit was that of Alexander Pantages . In his heyday, Pantages owned more than 30 vaudeville theatres and controlled, through management contracts, perhaps 60 more in both the United States and Canada. At its height, vaudeville played across multiple strata of economic class and auditorium size. On the vaudeville circuit, it
8319-466: The United States and Canada, first for about three months in Emil Boreo’s Mirage de Paris followed by nine months in their own Ballet Caprice . After Jack quit the act near the end of 1927, Betty continued to manage the troupe and, with a new dance partner, toured throughout the northeastern United States for the next six months as Betty Felsen and Company. The final performance of Ballet Caprice
8460-918: The United States, and by 1955 that number had increased to 2,500 per week for CBS. By 1954 the television industry's film consumption surpassed that of all of the Hollywood studios combined. After the network of coaxial cable and microwave relays carrying programs to the West Coast was completed in September 1951, CBS and NBC instituted a hot kinescope process in 1952, where shows being performed in New York were transmitted west, filmed on two kinescope machines in 35 mm negative and 16 mm reversal film (the latter for backup protection) in Los Angeles, rushed to film processing, and then transmitted from Los Angeles three hours later for broadcast in
8601-553: The University of Arizona. Kinescope Kinescope / ˈ k ɪ n ɪ s k oʊ p / , shortened to kine / ˈ k ɪ n iː / , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor . The process was pioneered during the 1940s for the preservation, re-broadcasting, and sale of television programs before
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#17327824430548742-411: The archives is in the form of a telerecording, along with the vast majority of existing 1960s output. Videotape was expensive and could be wiped and re-used; film was cheaper, smaller, and in practice more durable. Only a very small proportion of British television from the black-and-white era survives at all. As the BBC has taken stock of the large gaps in its archive and sought to recover as much of
8883-1027: The business side of Vaudeville, like Amanda Thorpe, a white woman who founded a black theater in Virginia, and the Griffin Sisters , who managed several theaters in their efforts to create a Black Vaudeville circuit. Black performers and patrons participated in a racially segregated vaudeville circuit. Though many popular acts like Lewis and Walker, Ernest Hogan , Irving Jones , and the Hyers Sisters played to both white and black audiences, early Vaudeville performances for white audiences were limited to one Black act per show, and performers faced discrimination in restaurants and lodging. Entertainers and entrepreneurs like The Whitman Sisters , Pat Chapelle and John Isham created and managed their own touring companies; others took on theater ownership and management and created Black vaudeville circuits, as
9024-500: The chain to its greatest success. Circuits such as those managed by Keith-Albee provided vaudeville's greatest economic innovation and the principal source of its industrial strength. They enabled a chain of allied vaudeville houses that remedied the chaos of the single-theatre booking system by contracting acts for regional and national tours. These could easily be lengthened from a few weeks to two years. Albee also gave national prominence to vaudeville's trumpeting "polite" entertainment,
9165-540: The character King Candy in Disney 's animated film Wreck-It Ralph . Wynn was posthumously named a Disney Legend on August 10, 2013. In the graphic adventure game King's Quest VI , the character Jollo is based on his style. Vaudeville Vaudeville ( / ˈ v ɔː d ( ə ) v ɪ l , ˈ v oʊ -/ ; French: [vodvil] ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France at
9306-460: The cinematic footage made during the same event by Leni Riefenstahl for her film Olympia ), a number of Nuremberg Rallies , or official state visits (such as Benito Mussolini 's) were shot directly on 35 mm instead and transmitted over the air as a television signal, with only a two minutes' delay from the original event, by means of the so-called Zwischenfilmverfahren (see intermediate film system ) from an early outside broadcast van on
9447-420: The circuit's central office weekly, follow each act's description. The bill illustrates the typical pattern of opening the show with a "dumb" act to allow patrons to find their seats, placing strong acts in second and penultimate positions, and leaving the weakest act for the end, to clear the house. In this bill, as in many vaudeville shows, acts often associated with "lowbrow" or popular entertainment (acrobats,
9588-471: The comedian. According to radio historian Elizabeth McLeod, the failed venture left Wynn deep in debt, divorced and finally, suffering a nervous breakdown. Wynn was offered the title role The Wizard in MGM 's 1939 screen adaptation of The Wizard of Oz , but turned it down, as did his Ziegfeld contemporary W. C. Fields . The part went to Frank Morgan . Ed Wynn first appeared on television on July 7, 1936, in
9729-416: The countryside offering programs of comedy, music, jugglers , and other novelties along with displays of tonics, salves, and miracle elixirs, while " Wild West " shows provided romantic vistas of the disappearing frontier, complete with trick riding, music and drama. Vaudeville incorporated these various itinerant amusements into a stable, institutionalized form centered in America's growing urban hubs. From
9870-623: The daily five-minute syndicated series Les Paul & Mary Ford At Home in 1954–55), but with the introduction of a practical videotape recorder only one year away, the Electronicam system never saw widespread use. The DuMont network did not survive into the era of videotape, and in order to gain clearances for its programs, was heavily dependent on kinescopes, which it called Teletranscriptions. Attempts were made for many years to take television images, convert them to film via kinescope, then project them in theatres for paying audiences. In
10011-409: The daughter of a musician, she moved to the United States of America in her childhood. At just fourteen years old, she left home to begin her career, lying about her age and sending her mother half of her paycheck. Dressler found great success and was known for her comedic timing and physical comedy, like carrying her male co-stars. She eventually worked on Broadway, where she had a great desire to become
10152-505: The death of vaudeville. After all, when "small time" theatres could offer "big time" performers on screen at a nickel a seat, who could ask audiences to pay higher amounts for less impressive live talent? The newly-formed RKO studios took over the famed Orpheum vaudeville circuit and swiftly turned it into a chain of full-time movie theatres. The half-century tradition of vaudeville was effectively wiped out within less than four years. Inevitably, managers further trimmed costs by eliminating
10293-465: The early 1970s by which time programs were being videotaped in color. Most, if not all, recordings from the 405-line era have long since been lost as have many from the introduction of 625-line video to the early days of color. Consequently, the majority of British shows that still exist before the introduction of color, and a number thereafter, do so in the form of these telerecordings. A handful of shows, including some episodes of Doctor Who and most of
10434-483: The embarrassment of having a lowly comedian as a relative. Wynn began his career in vaudeville in 1903 and was a star of the Ziegfeld Follies starting in 1914. During The Follies of 1915 , W. C. Fields allegedly caught Wynn mugging for the audience under the table during Fields's Pool Room routine and knocked Wynn unconscious with his cue. Wynn wrote, directed, and produced many Broadway shows in
10575-401: The end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, while changing over time. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain ,
10716-487: The famous and magical Harry Houdini , and child star Baby Rose Marie . In the New-York Tribune ' s article about Vaudeville, it is said that at any given time, Vaudeville was employing over twelve thousand different people throughout its entire industry. Each entertainer would be on the road 42 weeks at a time while working a particular "Circuit" – or an individual theatre chain of a major company. While
10857-462: The few surviving DuMont kinescopes, with the UCLA Film and Television Archive having collected over 300 for preservation. In September 2010, a kinescope of game 7 of the 1960 World Series was found in the wine cellar of Bing Crosby. The game was thought lost forever but was preserved due to Crosby's superstition about watching the game live. The film was transferred to DVD and was broadcast on
10998-529: The first commercial Quadruplex videotape recorder, followed in 1958 by a colour model. Offering high quality and instant playback at a much lower cost, Quadruplex tape quickly replaced kinescope as the primary means of recording television broadcasts. In the late 1960s, U.S. television networks continued to make kinescopes of their daytime dramas available, many of which still aired live during that time period, for their smaller network affiliates that did not yet have videotape capability but wished to time-shift
11139-746: The first series of Adam Adamant Lives! , were deliberately telerecorded for ease of editing rather than being videotaped. In September 1947, Eastman Kodak introduced the Eastman Television Recording Camera, in cooperation with DuMont Laboratories and NBC , for recording images from a television screen under the trademark "Kinephoto". NBC, CBS , and DuMont set up their main kinescope recording facilities in New York City, while ABC chose Chicago . By 1951, NBC and CBS were each shipping out some 1,000 16 mm kinescope prints each week to their affiliates across
11280-578: The form of chroma dots in the frames of the film; using a specially designed computer program, these chroma dots were used to bring out the original color information, which as then applied to the film, allowing the color to be restored to the episode. The restored version of Room at the Bottom was broadcast on 13 December 2008, the first time it had been seen in color since May 1970. NTSC television images are scanned at roughly 60 Hz , with two interlaced fields per frame, displayed at 30 frames per second . A kinescope must be able to convert
11421-597: The incident is dramatized in Jack Rosenthal 's 1986 television play The Fools on the Hill . Some of the surviving live transmissions of the Nazi German television station Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow , dating as far back as the 1930s, were recorded by pointing a 35 mm camera to a receiver's screen, although most surviving Nazi live television programs such as the 1936 Summer Olympics (not to be confused with
11562-495: The instructions given to them by B. F. Keith for fear of losing their careers forever. By the late 1890s, vaudeville had large circuits, houses (small and large) in almost every sizable location, standardized booking, broad pools of skilled acts, and a loyal national following. One of the biggest circuits was Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit . It incorporated in 1919 and brought together 45 vaudeville theatres in 36 cities throughout
11703-430: The introduction of quadruplex videotape , which from 1956 eventually superseded the use of kinescopes for all of these purposes. Kinescopes were the only practical way to preserve live television broadcasts prior to videotape. Typically, the term can refer to the process itself, the equipment used for the procedure (a movie camera mounted in front of a video monitor, and synchronized to the monitor's scanning rate), or
11844-525: The kinescopes, however, was replaced with high fidelity sound that had been recorded simultaneously either on transcription discs or magnetic tape . In the mid-1990s, Edie Adams , wife of Ernie Kovacs, claimed that so little value was given to the kinescope recordings of the DuMont Television Network that after the network folded in 1956 its entire archive was dumped into upper New York bay. Today however, efforts are made to preserve
11985-427: The last of the live performances. Vaudeville also suffered due to the rise of broadcast radio following the greater availability of inexpensive receiver sets later in the decade. Even the hardiest in the vaudeville industry realized the form was in decline; the perceptive understood the condition to be terminal. The standardized film distribution and talking pictures of the 1930s confirmed the end of vaudeville. By 1930,
12126-563: The lower-priced cinema in the early 1910s dealt the heaviest blow to vaudeville. This was similar to the advent of free broadcast television 's diminishing the cultural and economic strength of the cinema. Cinema was first regularly commercially presented in the US in vaudeville halls. The first public showing of movies projected on a screen took place at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in 1896. Lured by greater salaries and less arduous working conditions, many performers and personalities, such as Al Jolson , W. C. Fields , Mae West , Buster Keaton ,
12267-535: The mid-1860s, impresario Tony Pastor , a former singing circus clown who had become a prominent variety theater performer and manager, capitalized on middle class sensibilities and spending power when he began to feature "polite" variety programs in his New York City theatres. Pastor opened his first "Opera House" on the Bowery in 1865, later moving his variety theater operation to Broadway and, finally, to Fourteenth Street near Union Square . He only began to use
12408-474: The mid-1960s, Producer/entrepreneur H. William "Bill" Sargent, Jr. used conventional analog Image Orthicon video camera tube units, shooting in the B&;W 819-line interlaced 25fps French video standard, using modified high-band quadruplex VTRs to record the signal. The promoters of Electronovision (not to be confused with Electronicam ) gave the impression that this was a new system created from scratch, using
12549-464: The missing material as possible, many recovered programs, have been returned from the 1980s onwards as telerecordings held by foreign broadcasters or private film collectors. Many of these surviving telerecorded programs, such as episodes of Doctor Who , Steptoe and Son and Till Death Us Do Part continue to be transmitted on satellite television stations such as UKTV Gold , and many such programs have been released on VHS and DVD . In 2008,
12690-609: The most familiar tag-lines of its time; a sample joke: "Graham, my uncle just bought a new second-handed car... he calls it Baby! I don't know, it won't go anyplace without a rattle!" Wynn reprised his Fire Chief radio character in two films, Follow the Leader (1930) and The Chief (1933). Near the height of his radio fame (1933) he founded his own short-lived radio network the Amalgamated Broadcasting System , which lasted only five weeks, nearly destroying
12831-485: The most prominent vaudevillians successfully made the transition to cinema, though others were not as successful. Some performers such as Bert Lahr fashioned careers out of combining live performance with radio and film roles. Many others later appeared in the Catskill resorts that constituted the " Borscht Belt ". Vaudeville was instrumental in the success of the newer media of film, radio, and television. Comedies of
12972-429: The need for hot kines , the television networks continued to use kinescopes in the double system method of videotape editing. It was impossible to slow or freeze frame a videotape at that time, so the unedited tape would be copied to a kinescope, and edited conventionally. The edited kinescope print was then used to conform the videotape master. More than 300 videotaped network series and specials used this method over
13113-636: The neighborhood character of vaudeville attendance had always promoted a tendency to tailor fare to specific audiences, mature vaudeville grew to feature houses and circuits specifically aimed at certain demographic groups. Black patrons, often segregated into the rear of the second gallery in white-oriented theatres, had their own smaller circuits, as did speakers of Italian and Yiddish (see below). This foreign addition combined with comedy produced such acts as "minstrel shows of antebellum America" and Yiddish theatre. Many ethnic families joined in on this entertainment business, and for them, this traveling lifestyle
13254-466: The network programming. Some of these programs aired up to two weeks after their original dates, particularly in Alaska and Hawaii . Many episodes of programs from the 1960s survive only through kinescoped copies. In Australia, kinescopes were still being made of some evening news programs as late as 1977, if they were recorded at all. A recording of a 1975 episode of Australian series This Day Tonight
13395-493: The network, or to stations that wished to show a program at a time different than the network broadcast. Although the quality was less than desirable, television programs of all types from prestigious dramas to regular news shows were handled in this manner. Even after the introduction of videotape, the BBC and the ITV companies made black and white kinescopes of selected programs for international sales and continued to do so until
13536-547: The new era adopted many of the dramatic and musical tropes of classic vaudeville acts. Film comedies of the 1920s through the 1940s used talent from the vaudeville stage and followed a vaudeville aesthetic of variety entertainment, both in Hollywood and in Asia, including China. The rich repertoire of the vaudeville tradition was mined for prominent prime-time radio variety shows such as The Rudy Vallée Show . The structure of
13677-610: The original production also portraying themselves (including Rod Serling and director Ralph Nelson ). Ed and his son also worked together in the Jose Ferrer film The Great Man , with Ed again proving his unexpected skills in drama. Requiem established Wynn as a serious dramatic actor who could easily hold his own with the best. His performance in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Also in 1959, Wynn appeared on Serling's TV series The Twilight Zone in " One for
13818-404: The promotion of black-face minstrelsy on the stage, purposefully used to place African Americans beneath the Irish in the racial and social urban hierarchy. Although the Irish had a strong Celtic presence in vaudeville and in the promotion of ethnic stereotypes, the ethnic groups that they were characterizing also utilized the same humor. As the Irish donned their ethnic costumes, groups such as
13959-540: The recent, worldwide phenomenon of TV shows such as America's Got Talent . In professional wrestling , there was a noted tag team, based in WWE , called The Vaudevillains . In 2018, noted film director Christopher Annino, maker of a new silent feature film, Silent Times , founded Vaudeville Con, a gathering to celebrate the history of vaudeville. The first meeting was held in Pawcatuck, Connecticut . The records of
14100-418: The same decade, the stage-trained Wynn insisted on playing for a live studio audience, doing each program as an actual stage show, using visual bits to augment his written material, and in his case, wearing a colorful costume with a red fireman's helmet. He usually bounced his gags off announcer/straight man Graham McNamee ; Wynn's customary opening, "Tonight, Graham, the show's gonna be different," became one of
14241-482: The short duration of a 16 mm film magazine, was that a large opaque frame had to be placed in front of the TV set in order to block out any stray reflections, making it impossible to watch the set normally while filming. It is not known if any recordings made using this equipment still exist. British broadcasters used telerecordings for domestic purposes well into the 1960s, with 35 mm film usually used as it produced
14382-459: The show was kinescoped for later rebroadcast for the West Coast. Per his contract, he would receive one copy of each broadcast, which he kept in his vault, and only released them to the public (on home video) shortly before his death in 1987. Milton Berle sued NBC late in his life, believing the kinescopes of a major portion of his programs were lost. However, the programs were later found in
14523-462: The show was originally broadcast on BBC TV it was 60 minutes in length and also included performances from Winifred Atwell , Evelyn Dove , Cyril Blake and his Calypso Band, Edric Connor and Mable Lee , and was produced by Eric Fawcett. The six-minute footage of Miss Hall is all that survives of the show. From the following month, the wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip also survives, as do various early 1950s productions such as It
14664-451: The silent nature of the "flickering shadow sweethearts" would preclude their usurpation of the paramount place in the public's affection. With the introduction of talking pictures in 1926, the burgeoning film studios removed what had remained the chief difference in favor of live theatrical performance: spoken dialogue. Historian John Kenrick wrote: Top vaudeville stars filmed their acts for one-time pay-offs, inadvertently helping to speed
14805-575: The site. According to a 1949 film produced by RCA , silent films had been made of early experimental telecasts during the 1930s. The films were produced by aiming a camera at television monitors – at a speed of eight frames per second, resulting in somewhat jerky reproductions of the images. By the mid-1940s, RCA and NBC were refining the filming process and including sound; the images were less jerky but still somewhat fuzzy. By early 1946, television cameras were being attached to American guided missiles to aid in their remote steering. Films were made of
14946-468: The slang of vaudevillians), built by Martin Beck in 1913 and operated by Keith. Featuring a bill stocked with inventive novelty acts, national celebrities, and acknowledged masters of vaudeville performance (such as comedian and trick roper Will Rogers ), the Palace provided what many vaudevillians considered the apotheosis of remarkable careers. A standard show bill would begin with a sketch, follow with
15087-448: The songs that were popularized onstage by white singers, and paved the way for African-American musical theater . In addition to vaudeville's prominence as a form of American entertainment, it reflected the newly evolving urban inner-city culture and interaction of its operators and audience. Making up a large portion of immigration to the United States in the mid-19th century, Irish Americans interacted with established Americans, with
15228-539: The stars and producers of the Hollywood-based television series I Love Lucy , Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball , decided to film the show directly onto 35 mm film using the three-camera system , instead of broadcasting it live. Normally, a live program originating from Los Angeles would be performed live in the late afternoon for the Eastern Time Zone and seen on a kinescope three hours later in
15369-413: The storage areas of some of these older advertising agencies or in the storage areas of the program sponsors themselves. Certain performers or production companies would require that a kinescope be made of every television program. Such is the case with performers Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle , for whom nearly complete program archives exist. As Jackie Gleason's program was broadcast live in New York,
15510-462: The studio TV cameras had built-in 35 mm film cameras which shared the same optical path. An Electronicam technician threw switches to mark the film footage electronically, identifying the camera takes called by the director. The corresponding film segments from the various cameras then were combined by a film editor to duplicate the live program. The "Classic 39" syndicated episodes of The Honeymooners were filmed using Electronicam (as well as
15651-504: The subsequent decades, and was known for his silly costumes and props as well as for the giggly, wavering voice he developed for the 1921 musical revue The Perfect Fool . Wynn became a very active member of The Lambs Club in 1919. In the early 1930s, Wynn hosted the radio show The Fire Chief , heard in North America on Tuesday nights, sponsored by Texaco gasoline. Like many former vaudeville performers who turned to radio in
15792-456: The television broadcasting standard, which was not true of videotape. Later, the system could be used to make black-and-white copies of color programs for sale to television stations that were not yet broadcasting in color. The system was largely used for black-and-white reproduction. Although some color telerecordings were made, they were generally in the minority as by the time color programs were widely needed for sale, video standards conversion
15933-560: The television images they transmitted for further evaluation of the target and the missile's performance. The first known surviving example of the telerecording process in Britain is from October 1947, showing the singer Adelaide Hall performing at the RadiOlympia event. Hall sings " Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba (My Bambino Go to Sleep) " and " I Can't Give You Anything But Love ", as well as accompanying herself on ukulele and dancing. When
16074-410: The term "vaudeville" in place of "variety" in early 1876. Hoping to draw a potential audience from female and family-based shopping traffic uptown , Pastor barred the sale of liquor in his theatres, eliminated bawdy material from his shows, and offered gifts of coal and hams to attendees. Pastor's experiment proved successful, and other managers soon followed suit. The manager's comments, sent back to
16215-627: The theatres built by impresario Alexander Pantages . Pantages often used architect B. Marcus Priteca (1881–1971), who in turn regularly worked with muralist Anthony Heinsbergen . Priteca devised an exotic, neo-classical style that his employer called "Pantages Greek". Though classic vaudeville reached a zenith of capitalization and sophistication in urban areas dominated by national chains and commodious theatres, small-time vaudeville included countless more intimate and locally controlled houses. Small-time houses were often converted saloons, rough-hewn theatres, or multi-purpose halls, together catering to
16356-509: The time equivalent of one field of television (131.25 lines). In the British 405-line television system , the French 819-line television system and the greater European 625-line television system , television ran at 25 frames—or more correctly, 50 fields—per second, so the film camera would also be run at 25 frames per second rather than the cinematic film standard of 24 frames. Therefore, in order to maintain successful kinescope photography,
16497-690: The time. She worked largely in comedy and gained acclaim and success due to her willingness to step into other's roles who had fallen ill, and were otherwise unable to perform. In her acts, she often emphasized her plus-size figure, calling herself the "perfect forty-six". Friganza was also a poet and writer. She used many of her performances as ways to raise money to support the poor or disenfranchised and went on record publicly numerous times to support these social causes. Friganza also spent much of her life fighting for women's equality and pushing for self-acceptance for women, both publicly and within themselves, as well as their rights in comparison to men. Betty Felsen
16638-600: The vast majority of formerly live theatres had been wired for sound, and none of the major studios were producing silent pictures. For a time, the most luxurious theatres continued to offer live entertainment, but most theatres were forced by the Great Depression to economize. Some in the industry blamed cinema's drain of talent from the vaudeville circuits for the medium's demise. Others argued that vaudeville had allowed its performances to become too familiar to its famously loyal, now seemingly fickle audiences. There
16779-478: The vaudeville stage, Irish Americans became interpreters of immigrant cultural images in American popular culture. New arrivals found their ethnic group status defined within the immigrant population and in their new country as a whole by the Irish on stage. Unfortunately, the same interactions between ethnic groups within the close living conditions of cities also created racial tensions which were reflected in vaudeville. Conflict between Irish and African Americans saw
16920-529: The winter of 1923 Betty began a partnership with Jack Broderick. From then until the end of 927 Broderick & Felsen performed on the B.F. Keith and Pantages vaudeville circuits throughout the U.S. and Canada. Their act evolved from a simple dance act to one with over twenty dancers, an orchestra, and elaborate costumes and sets. From 1925 to 1926 they played for 20 straight weeks at the huge Colony Theater on Broadway in New York City. In 1926 and 1927, they starred in two spectacular musical productions, touring across
17061-486: The years progressed, people seeking diversified amusement found an increasing number of ways to be entertained. Vaudeville was characterized by traveling companies touring through cities and towns. A handful of circuses regularly toured the country; dime museums appealed to the curious; amusement parks, riverboats, and town halls often featured "cleaner" presentations of variety entertainment; compared to saloons, music halls, and burlesque houses, which catered to those with
17202-603: Was a comedienne who got her start in Vaudeville and the Chitlin circuits in the 1920s, and ended up with mainstream success in the 20th century. Other 20th century women performers who started in Vaudeville included blues singers Ma Rainey , Ida Cox and Bessie Smith . Women-led touring companies like Black Patti's Troubadours , the Whitman Sisters and the Hyers Sisters were popular acts. Other women worked
17343-623: Was accepted to be a member of the Chicago Opera’s Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet corps de ballet. From December 1920 until the fall of 1922 Betty was a ballerina soloist and performed with them throughout North America. Under the name Buddye Felsen, Betty landed a starring dancing role in a new show at Fred Mann’s Million Dollar Rainbo Room in the Rainbo Gardens . The show, Rainbo Trail , directed by Frank Westphal , opened on 15 December 1922, and ran until 1 March 1923. In
17484-664: Was an American ballerina, vaudeville star, and teacher. She was born on 9 June 1905, in Chicago, IL Betty began taking lessons at a local Chicago ballet school when she was eight years old, and often performed solo dances in shows presented by that school. Just before her tenth birthday in 1916, her parents enrolled her as a ballet student with the Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet School within the Chicago Opera Association. Then, in 1919 Betty
17625-653: Was born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , to a Jewish family. His father, Joseph, a milliner , was born in Bohemia . His mother, Minnie Greenberg, of Romanian and Turkish ancestry, came from Istanbul . Wynn attended Central High School in Philadelphia until age 15. He ran away from home in his teens, worked as a hat salesman and as a utility boy, and eventually adapted his middle name "Edwin" into his new stage name, "Ed Wynn", to save his family
17766-460: Was easier and higher quality and the price of videotape had become much reduced. Before videotape became the exclusive recording format during the early to mid-1980s, any (color) video recordings used in documentaries or filmed program inserts were usually transferred onto film. In the 1950s a home telerecording kit was introduced in Britain, allowing enthusiasts to make 16 mm film recordings of television programs. The major drawback, apart from
17907-433: Was expanding. These expectations for women in the 19th century played a big role in the compelling aspects of vaudeville. Through vaudeville, many women were allowed to join their male counterparts on the stage and found success in their acts. Leila Marie Koerber, later Marie Dressler , was a Canadian actress who specialized in vaudeville comedy, and eventually won an Academy Award for Best Actress later in her career. Being
18048-716: Was finalized on March 1, 1955. Wynn was a Freemason at Lodge No. 9 in Pennsylvania. Wynn died on June 19, 1966, in Beverly Hills, California , of esophageal cancer , at the age of 79. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale . His bronze grave marker reads: Dear God: Thanks... Ed Wynn Red Skelton , who was discovered by Wynn, stated: "His death is the first time he ever made anyone sad." Wynn's distinctive voice continues to be emulated by countless actors and comedians, including Alan Tudyk for
18189-474: Was granted a trademark for the term (for its CRT) in 1932; it voluntarily released the term to the public domain in 1950. The General Electric laboratories in Schenectady, New York experimented with making still and motion picture records of television images in 1931. There is anecdotal evidence that the BBC experimented with filming the output of the television monitor before its television service
18330-494: Was his secret understudy in case something did happen before air time.) On live broadcast night, Wynn surprised everyone with his pitch-perfect performance, and his quick ad libs to cover his mistakes. A dramatization of what happened during the production was later staged as an April 1960 Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse episode, The Man in the Funny Suit , starring both senior and junior Wynns, with key figures involved in
18471-516: Was no abrupt end to vaudeville, though the form was clearly sagging by the late 1920s. Joseph Kennedy Sr. in a hostile buyout, acquired the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theatres Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theatres across the United States which had begun showing movies. The shift of New York City's Palace Theatre, vaudeville's center, to an exclusively cinema presentation on 16 November 1932,
18612-498: Was now used for comic relief on the vaudeville stage, where stereotypes of different ethnic groups were perpetuated. The crude stereotypes that emerged were easily identifiable not only by their distinct ethnic cultural attributes, but how those attributes differed from the mainstream established American culture and identity. Coupled with their historical presence on the English stage for comic relief, and as operators and actors of
18753-413: Was on 4 June 1928, at Broadway’s Palace Theater in New York City. Another famous comedienne, one who brought in thousands of audience members with her signature improvisational skills, was May Irwin . She worked from about 1875 to 1914. Originally born Ada Campbell, she began her life on the stage at thirteen years old following the death of her father. She and her older sister created a singing act called
18894-701: Was released a few months after his death. In addition to Disney films, Wynn was also an actor in the Disneyland production The Golden Horseshoe Revue . Wynn was married three times. He first married actress Hilda Keenan on September 5, 1914. They eventually divorced on May 13, 1937, after twenty-three years of marriage. Together, they had a son, actor Keenan Wynn . He married his second wife, Frieda Mierse, on June 25, 1937, but would divorce her only two years later on December 12, 1939. He married his third and final wife Dorothy Elizabeth Nesbitt on July 31, 1946. She filed for divorce from Wynn on February 1, 1955, and it
19035-440: Was rivaled only by churches and public schools among the nation's premiere public gathering places. Another slightly different aspect of Vaudeville was an increasing interest in the female figure. The previously mentioned ominous idea of "the blue envelopes" led to the phrase "blue" material, which described the provocative subject matter present in many Vaudeville acts of the time. Many managers even saw this scandalous material as
19176-565: Was said that if an act would succeed in Peoria, Illinois , it would work anywhere. The question "Will it play in Peoria?" has now become a metaphor for whether something appeals to the American mainstream public. The three most common levels were the "small time" (lower-paying contracts for more frequent performances in rougher, often converted theatres), the "medium time" (moderate wages for two performances each day in purpose-built theatres), and
19317-460: Was simply a continuation of the circumstances that brought them to America. Through these acts, they were able to assimilate themselves into their new home while also bringing bits of their own culture into this new world. White-oriented regional circuits, such as New England 's "Peanut Circuit", also provided essential training grounds for new artists while allowing established acts to experiment with and polish new material. At its height, vaudeville
19458-431: Was suspended in 1939 due to the outbreak of World War II . A BBC executive, Cecil Madden , recalled filming a production of The Scarlet Pimpernel in this way, only for film director Alexander Korda to order the burning of the negative as he owned the film rights to the book, which he felt had been infringed. While there is no written record of any BBC Television production of The Scarlet Pimpernel during 1936–1939,
19599-984: Was the case for Sherman H. Dudley and the Griffin Sisters Later, in the 1920s, many bookings were managed by the Theatre Owners Booking Association . African-Americans challenged the prevailing Blackface stereotypes played by white performers by bringing their own authenticity and style to the stage, composing music, comedy and dance routines and laying the groundwork for distinctly American cultural phenomena like blues , jazz , ragtime and tap dance . Notable Black entertainers in Vaudeville included comedians Bert Williams , and George Walker , dancer/choreographer Ada Overton Walker , and many others. Black songwriters and composers like Bob Cole , Ernest Hogan , Irving Jones , Rosamond Johnson , George Johnson , Tom Lemonier , Gussie L. Davis , and Chris Smith , wrote many of
19740-701: Was the first CBS variety television show to originate from Los Angeles, which was seen live on the West Coast , but filmed via kinescope for distribution in the Midwestern United States and the Eastern United States , as the national coaxial cable had yet to be completed. Wynn was also a rotating host of NBC 's Four Star Revue from 1950 through 1952. After the end of Wynn's third television series, The Ed Wynn Show (a short-lived situation comedy on NBC 's 1958–59 schedule), his son, actor Keenan Wynn , encouraged him to make
19881-492: Was the only means of ensuring top quality pictures on the home receiver as well as ensuring a flawless show. The I Love Lucy decision introduced reruns to most of the American television audience, and set a pattern for the syndication of TV shows after their network runs. The program director of the DuMont Television Network , James L. Caddigan, devised an alternative – the Electronicam . In this, all
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