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30-460: Sleeping Acres is a 1921 American film starring Australian actor Snowy Baker . It was Baker's first American movie and was made for producer Willian N. Selig who specialised in adventure tales. A contemporary fan magazine said that " The Australian possesses a magnetic screen personality. His novel stunts, thrilling athletic feats, and superb horsemanship feature his American debut." The picture also features Wallace Beery . This article about

60-835: A Brisbane Tivoli in 1915, designed by Henry White . To compete with the Fuller Brothers and J. C. Williamson he imported international stars such as Gene Greene , Lew Fields , Ada Reeve , W. C. Fields (then billed as "the world's greatest silent comedian") and George Gee and expanded the Tivoli repertoire to include musical comedy with the vaudeville, pantomime, Lee White - Clay Smith revues and melodramas such as "The Lilac Domino". In 1920 he produced Australia's first musical comedy F.F.F. , written by Mildura -based dried fruit millionaire (and Tivoli shareholder) Jack De Garis with music by Reginald Stoneham . It failed to attract critical or popular support and may have been

90-405: A London hospital and was cremated. He could inspire great loyalty among his acquaintances. Nellie Stewart , in her memoirs, wrote "When I hear people talk slightingly of this big man I cannot bear it, for he was the most generous of men, and he was at all times far more likely to suffer from brigandage than to resort to it. He was of little less than medium height, broad in the shoulders, cheery in

120-779: A barman in Sydney in 1897, and began selling pies at sporting venues, by the age of twenty-six he was the owner of a catering company, then in an audacious leap that was to become a trademark, embarked on sports promotion. First it was cycle racing, notably seven-day events, while he was secretary of the League of New South Wales Wheelmen. He also secured a contract with the American World Sprint Champion cyclist Marshall Taylor that saw him race in Australia between 1903 and 1904. Then came boxing. McIntosh established

150-584: A company "Scientific Boxing and Self-Defence Limited", with himself as governing director. Hoping to capitalise of the presence of the US " Great White Fleet " in August 1908, he hurriedly built the huge open-air Sydney Stadium at Rushcutters Bay to stage a boxing match between local champion Bill "Boshter" Squires and World champion Canadian Tommy Burns . On Boxing Day 1908 he staged a world championship heavyweight title fight between Burns and Jack Johnson . He made

180-552: A factor in De Garis' eventual suicide. A transport strike caused him to lose money on an expensive production of Chu Chin Chow and he was forced to sell the lease to Harry Musgrove , though retaining his newspaper interests. The Musgrove venture failed, leaving the way open for J. C. Williamson ("The Firm") to take over running the chain. In 1927 he took a revival of the 1909 Edward Locke play "The Climax" to London, apparently

210-721: A good production, starring Dorothy Brunton , but in an inadequate theatre, and it closed after three weeks. In May 1916 he acquired the Sunday Times newspaper, which became the major advertising medium for his theatres. With his purchase of the Sydney Sunday Times , McIntosh acquired the sporting weeklies The Arrow and The Referee . In 1915 he started advertising his own theatrical weekly The Green Room Magazine , nicknamed "The Tivoli Bible", employing Zora Cross as drama critic. He sold his Sunday Times interests in 1929. J. C. Williamson Tivoli Theatres Ltd

240-459: A huge profit from seat sales and Cosens Spencer 's film of the bout, which he took to Britain and America. In 1912 be built an enclosed octagonal roofed stadium at Rushcutters Bay to a design by Thomas Pollard Sampson . The venue seated up to 12,000 people and at the time McIntosh said that the Stadium was "the largest roofed-in structure in the world". He sold his stadium business to his referee,

270-683: A major falling out, resulting in the latter stowing away to the United States. Having publicly denounced Darcy over his evasion of war service; when Darcy died in May 1917 from complications resulting from a botched dental procedure, many Australians blamed Baker for his death. It was this fall from grace in the eyes of the Australian public that would ultimately result in Baker's permanent relocation to California. Baker became Australia's darling of

300-511: A more colourful account of his early life. He claimed to have run away to Adelaide as a silversmith's assistant at the age of seven, to have worked for BHP at Broken Hill at nine, then a variety of occupations culminating in working for a surgeon at twelve. Certainly by seventeen he was a chorus boy in a Maggie Moore pantomime Sinbad the Sailor in Melbourne . McIntosh was working as

330-500: A number of silent film roles which showcased his horsemanship , including The Enemy Within , The Man from Kangaroo , and The Shadow of Lightning Ridge . In 1920, Baker left Australia for the United States, where he became known as an entrepreneur and stunt coach. He died in 1953 in Los Angeles , California , from cerebrovascular disease . Baker played 26 sports during his lifetime and excelled at most of them: Baker

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360-490: A short silent film is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Snowy Baker Reginald Leslie "Snowy" Baker (8 February 1884 – 2 December 1953) was an Australian athlete, sports promoter, and actor. Born in Surry Hills , an inner-city suburb of Sydney , New South Wales , Baker excelled at a number of sports, winning New South Wales swimming and boxing championships while still

390-522: A teenager. Playing rugby union for Eastern Suburbs , he played several games for New South Wales against Queensland , and in 1904 represented Australia in two Test matches against Great Britain . At the 1908 London Olympics , Baker represented Australasia in swimming and diving , as well as taking part in the middleweight boxing event , in which he won a silver medal. He also excelled in horsemanship, water polo, running, rowing and cricket. However, "His stature as an athlete depends largely upon

420-439: The 1920s. While residing there he acted in some films, managed a polo club and coached such actors as Douglas Fairbanks in horse riding. He taught Elizabeth Taylor , Shirley Temple , Greta Garbo and Rudolph Valentino how to ride, fence and swim. Hugh D. McIntosh McIntosh was born on 10 September 1876 to Hugh Fraser McIntosh a Scottish-born policeman and his Irish-born wife Margaret Benson in Surry Hills . At

450-493: The ABA, and had no part in the actual judging. Baker was a scrum-half who claimed two international rugby caps for Australia. His debut game was against Great Britain, at Sydney, on 2 July 1904. After his retirement from professional sport following a motor vehicle accident, Baker turned his hand to boxing promotion. Working with a dubious, larger-than-life character by the name of Hugh D. "Huge Deal" McIntosh , Baker became one of

480-543: The Olympic boxing competition, where he lost the final match against Johnny Douglas , winning a silver medal. Baker is the only Australian athlete to complete in three separate sports at the Olympic Games, and he did it all at the same Olympics. Supporters of Snowy Baker, later claimed that Douglas' father was the referee and sole judge, but Douglas Sr was there merely to present the medals, in his role as president of

510-788: The US, McIntosh made good his threat and successfully enlisted the assistance of several state governors to ban the Darcy fights. From 1914 to 1917 he sponsored the trophy "Hugh D. MacIntosh Shield" for the New South Wales Rugby League premiership. McIntosh, by 1917 had moved in to theatre, and headed a consortium that acquired the Harry Rickards Tivoli theatre chain, but was careful to retain Rickards' style (and company name: Harry Rickards Tivoli Theatres Ltd. ), but adding an Adelaide Tivoli, then building

540-744: The United States with Mrs Holman, was prominent in patriotic organisations the Vaucluse branch of the Red Cross Society , in hospital fundraisers, sporting circles, notably as longtime president of the New South Wales Ladies' Amateur Swimming Association and its 1932 Olympics Committee. She was also prominent in the English-Speaking Union His last years were spent in England, where he died in

570-443: The enormous range rather than the outstanding excellence of his activities; it was as an entrepreneur-showman, publicist and businessman that he seems in retrospect to have been most important." Baker retired from competition after being injured in a motor-vehicle accident, and became involved in boxing promotion, bringing a number of top fighters from North America and Europe to fight in Australia. During this time, he began to act in

600-467: The eye, hiding under a rattling loquacity the fact that he was shy as a girl, a man all aglow with enthusiasm like a happy boy. He was electric. He had the oddest happy knack of getting out of all his people the best that was in them." His 1903 import of the black champion cyclist Major Taylor for the Sydney Thousand competition was depicted in the 1992 TV mini-series Tracks of Glory , from

630-466: The famous sportsman Reginald "Snowy" Baker who, with John Wren , went on to develop a chain of stadiums. Author Peter FitzSimons asserts that McIntosh attempted to sign a US management deal with the Australian boxer, Les Darcy but, when Darcy declined, McIntosh threatened, in retribution, to prevent any fights Darcy might attempt in the USA. FitzSimons suggests that when Darcy made his controversial trip to

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660-606: The life-blood" from the Sunday Times. McIntosh successfully sued for libel but was awarded damages of just one farthing . In the course of proceedings it was revealed that he had transferred £66,703 from the account of Sunday Times Ltd, of which he was managing director, to Harry Rickards Tivoli Ltd of which he was governing director in an attempt to keep the Tivoli chain solvent. McIntosh championed NSW Labor Premier (also "bosom friend" and business partner  ) William Holman in his newspapers. He contributed generously to

690-516: The party (he was characterised by Jack Lang as "Holman's political fixer") and in 1911 was promised a seat in the New South Wales Legislative Council . This he was finally granted in 1917, but though using the honorific "MLC" in all his advertisements, he took little part in debates. In May 1932 McIntosh was forced, as a bankrupt, to relinquish his seat. In 1897 McIntosh married art teacher Marion Backhouse. She

720-509: The premier boxing promoters in Australia, bringing to the country many of the best boxers of the day from North America and Europe. Numbered among these was the New York light and welterweight Harry Stone . As general manager of Stadia Ltd in 1914, he led negotiations to bring Georges Carpentier to Australia. Baker was responsible for starting the careers of many of Australia's best pugilists, most notably Les Darcy . However, he and Darcy had

750-456: The screen when his silent movie career took off. His movies included The Enemy Within , The Man from Kangaroo , and The Shadow of Lightning Ridge . During this same time, he was also writing and editing a publication titled Snowy Baker's Magazine . For many years, until he settled in the United States, Baker was Australia's leading actor and matinee idol. He was called "Australia's first action movie star". Baker moved to California in

780-540: The time Surry Hills was a ramshackle suburb with a reputation for crime and vice among the largely Irish immigrant population. His father died when he was four. According to an obituary in The Argus in Melbourne he was educated by the Marist Brothers when they ran the boys school at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney from 1883 until 1910. In an interview for Triad (a show-business periodical) in 1925 he gave

810-496: The value of his assets shrank with the advance of the Great Depression . Hopelessly insolvent, Harry Rickards' Tivoli Theatres Ltd folded the following year. Mrs Shashoua's solicitor later admitted to helping engineer McIntosh's bankruptcy. In December 1930, Sydney "Truth", a weekly newspaper founded by John Norton, published an article on the life and loves of McIntosh, calling him an "erstwhile pieman" who had "drained

840-421: Was also prominent at polo, water polo, cricket and diving, and proficient in surfing, fencing, hockey, rowing, yachting and equestrian events. He appeared at the 1908 London Olympics , representing Australasia in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay , finishing fourth, and in the diving where he lost in the first round, coming seventh against the powerful Germans who dominated the sport at the time. He also took part in

870-607: Was losing money by 1929 and ceased rental payments to Harry Rickards Tivoli Theatres. Interest in the "talkies" was waning and McIntosh returned to producing revues for the (Melbourne) Tivoli and Princess, and the (Sydney) Haymarket and St James in a desperate attempt to generate an income. "The Follies of 1930" (with a cast that included Roy "Mo" Rene ), "Pot Luck", then "Happy Days" (with a young Robert Helpmann - billed as "Bobby Helpman, burlesque dancer") and "Sparkles", while trying to keep at bay creditors such as heiress Mrs Ben Shashoua (née Joan Norton, daughter of John Norton ) as

900-774: Was to remain at his side to the end, through financial crises and numerous infidelities, notably with actress Vera Pearce . He was life governor of many NSW hospitals and charitable institutions; he was a founder of the Australia Day Committee and the Sydney Millions Club and at one stage president of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia and a fellow of the Royal Empire Society . His wife also led an active social life. She travelled several times to

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