Beatrice Lillie – A New Yorker State of Mind

Legitimate Nonchalance

Above: W.C. Fields was a well-known juggler and vaudeville performer decades before he became even more famous in the movies of the 1930s.

William Claude Dukenfield was a vaudeville juggler who distinguished himself from other “tramp acts” by adding sarcastic asides to his routines. Internationally known for his juggling skills, by the turn of the century the man who billed himself as “The Eccentric Juggler” would become much better known by another name: W.C. Fields.

In the first of a three-part profile, Alva Johnston pondered the secret behind Fields’ genius, an “inborn nonchalance” that he considered “the rarest of gifts.” Johnston surmised that some of that genius derived from the volatile relationship Fields had with his father, and the street-smarts he gained as a runaway at age eleven. It is no surprise, however, that these childhood stories of hardship were significantly embellished by the great wit himself.

A STAR IS FORMED…Clockwise, from top left, **W.C. Fields** in his youth; Fields was an internationally known juggler, seen here in his vaudeville days in the early 1900s; Fields made his screen debut in 1915, seen here in his second film, *Pool Sharks* (1915); Fields with **Carol Dempster** in Sally of the Sawdust, a 1925 silent comedy film directed by D. W. Griffith. (Pinterest/YouTube)

Johnston also described Fields’ acting style and demeanor, noting that the actor’s asides were likely inspired by his mother, Kate Spangler Felton, who was known for her doorstep witticisms.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE WAS A GOOD YEAR for W.C. Fields, who starred in *It’s a Gift* (right), released the previous December, and in the 1935 screen adaptation of **Charles Dickens’s** *David Copperfield*, as the character Wilkins Micawber. (MGM/IMDB)

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Macabre Diversions

In the days before television and the internet, folks got their dose of the sensational and macabre from the tabloids, or, on occasion, in real life. Before crime or accident scene investigations became more sophisticated, it was not uncommon for crowds to mob grisly death scenes, including the car containing the bullet-riddled bodies of notorious bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Their Ford automobile, pocked with 112 bullet holes, became a popular traveling attraction at fairs, amusement parks, and, in February 1935, at a car dealer’s showroom in Missouri. E.B. White explained:

BEFORE THE INTERNET, folks got their ghoulish thrills by rubbernecking at famous crime scenes. At left, a crowd gathers around the bullet-riddled car belonging to Bonnie and Clyde. According to one account, at the scene of the police ambush on Louisiana State Highway 154, nearly everyone collected souvenirs including shell casings and bloody pieces of clothing from Bonnie and Clyde. One man even tried to collect Clyde’s left ear with a pocket knife; at right, unidentified man standing next to the “death car.” (KXAN/unt.edu)

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Saar Kraut

Janet Flanner mused on the recent plebiscite in the Saarland, which following World War I was seized from Germany and placed under the governance of a League of Nations commission. Much to the dismay of the French, the majority German population voted to return the Saar region to Germany, and its Nazi leadership.

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Over the Rainbow

In a previous column, Lois Long took aim at the Rockefeller Center’s new Rainbow Room, dismissing it as a tourist trap filled with interminable strains of organ music. In her latest column, Long retracted some of that vitriol, finding the entertainment (and, one supposes, the food) more to her liking.

THE ‘INCORRIGIBLE’ **Beatrice Lillie** (left) delighted Lois Long and audiences in the Rainbow Room on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center; at right, ballroom dancers **Lydia** and **Joresco** take to the floor in the then newly opened Rainbow Room, 1934. (Pinterest/#rainbowroomnyc)

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From Our Advertisers

As Lois Long mentioned in “Tables for Two,” British actress and singer Beatrice Lillie was appearing at in the Rainbow Room on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center; according to the ad below, also featured were ballroom dancers Lydia and Joresco and bandleader Jolly Corburn…

…at first I though this was Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne shilling for Luckies, but the resemblance isn’t quite there, plus I’m not aware of the Broadway legends ever endorsing any product, let alone cigarettes…

…the folks at Hormel continued to feature notable Frenchmen who were known to enjoy French onion soup, although this particular image doesn’t do much for one’s appetite…

…the Bermuda Trade Development Board continued to feature colorful ads that enticed New Yorkers away from the late winter blahs…

…this ad for Schaefer is a bit odd…I guess the artist wanted to suggest a handbill, and therefore tilted the image it at an angle, unsuccessfully, one might add…

…The Theatre Guild once again called upon the talents of James Thurber to advertise their latest production…

…which segues into our cartoons, with Thurber once more…

…Al Frueh did his part to promote the stage with this illustration for the theatre section…

…Otto Soglow offered his spin on pairs figure skating…

…Gardner Rea explored the world of art appreciation…

…Helen Hokinson aptly supplied this cartoon for Lois Long’s fashion column…

…Whitney Darrow Jr. showed us the consequences of classified advertising…

…Barbara Shermund clued us in on the latest gossip…

…and we close with Peter Arno, and one butcher’s cold greeting…

Next Time: A Decade of Delights…

The Grand Garbo

Joan Crawford was an MGM star by the 1930s, and according to many critics, an absolute scene-stealer in 1932’s Grand Hotel. However, The New Yorker’s film critic John Mosher saw Garbo, and only Garbo, in this Academy Award-winning pre-code drama.

April 23, 1932 cover by **E.B. White**. Although White’s friend and early office mate **James Thurber** had been contributing drawings for more than a year, it was White who would land the first cover—his only one (Thurber’s first cover would come in 1936). **Maria Popova** (brainpickings.org) shares this excerpt from a 1969 *Paris Review* interview, during which White explained to **George Plimpton**: “I’m not an artist and never did any drawings for *The New Yorker*. I did turn in a cover and it was published. I can’t draw or paint, but I was sick in bed with tonsillitis or something, and I had nothing to occupy me, but I had a cover idea—of a sea horse wearing a nose bag. I borrowed my son’s watercolor set, copied a sea horse from a picture in Webster’s dictionary, and managed to produce a cover that was bought. It wasn’t much of a thing. I even loused up the whole business finally by printing the word ‘oats’ on the nose bag, lest somebody fail to get the point.”

Greta Garbo’s previous films hadn’t exactly wowed Mosher, but the gossip he was hearing even before he screened Grand Hotel suggested it was not to be missed. Mosher touted the unseen film (in the April 16 issue), expressing his hope that the rumors would prove true—he feared Garbo would quit the business altogether and leave the country if she didn’t land a hit. His fears were laid to rest:

Adapted from the 1929 German novel Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum, Grand Hotel is considered the first all-star epic. The brainchild of MGM’s production head Irving Thalberg, the film proved a triumph for director Edmund Goulding, who somehow managed to direct five leading roles into one film classic.

GRAND OPENING…The April 12, 1932 opening of *Grand Hotel* at Broadway’s famed Astor Theatre was much anticipated by critic John Mosher and pretty much everyone else. (ny.curbed.com)

STELLAR CAST…Set at a luxurious Berlin hotel, *Grand Hotel* brought together the stories of five seemingly unrelated lives. Clockwise, from top left, crooked industrialist Preysing (**Wallace Beery**), trades innuendos with an ambitious stenographer, Flaemmchen (**Joan Crawford**); Baron Felix von Gaigern (**John Barrymore**), a once wealthy man fallen on hard times, supports himself by stealing from vulnerable marks like the depressed ballerina Grusinskaya (**Greta Garbo**), and also teams up with a gravely ill accountant (**Lionel Barrymore**, John’s real brother, not pictured here); hotel entrance from the film; MGM movie poster deftly juggled the film’s five big stars; advertisement from the April 16, 1932 *New Yorker* made much of the film’s star power. (Wikipedia/IMDB)

THE OTHER BIG STAR in *Grand Hotel* was the luxurious Art Deco set created by **Cedric Gibbons.** Centered on the hotel’s reception desk, the set allowed filming in 360 degrees. (IMDB)

And let’s not forget that it was in this film Garbo famously uttered “I want to be alone” — it ranks number 30 in AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes. In 2007 Grand Hotel was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

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She’s Back

Lois Long aka “Lipstick” turned in yet another “Tables for Two,” even though she had abandoned that column as a regular feature two years earlier. Unlike those earlier columns, Long seemed to have had her fill of the night life, but occasionally she found a diversion or two worth mentioning. She also offered her thoughts about the decline of civilization, indicated by such behaviors as dining at the early hour of 7 p.m.—”rawboned” she called it…

NIGHT LIGHTS…Singer **Kate Smith** and comedic performer Beatrice Lillie managed to keep **Lois Long** awake in the wee hours of nightclub entertainments. (katesmith.org/The Poster Corp)

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Notes, and More Notes

Despite his cover contribution, and his continued presence in the “Notes and Comment” section, the year 1932 is regarded as one of E.B. White’s leanest as a full-time writer for The New Yorker. According to Scott Elledge in E.B. White: A Biography, White published only a few “Talk” pieces or signed contributions. With a toddler about the house (Joel White had just turned 1 the previous December), White and wife Katharine enjoyed what Elledge describes as perhaps “the happiest of their years together, “able to enjoy fully their professional and private lives in the city they both loved.” So perhaps that explains this particular “Notes” entry for the April 23 issue. Still, it’s good stuff:

(Note **Otto Soglow’s** Tammany-themed spot cartoon — the political machine was still chugging along, but its days were numbered)

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From Our Advertisers

We begin with this colorful ad from McCutcheon’s to brighten our day…

…the Franklin Automobile Company responded to competition from other luxury car makers by introducing its own 12-cylinder model, the only American car to be powered by a 12-cylinder air-cooled engine (according to the H.H. Franklin Club)…

…introducing a 12-cylinder luxury car was not a good move in 1932—one of the worst years of the Depression—and the company folded by 1934…but what a swell-looking car…

…one innovation that would stick around, however, was the lighted refrigerator, something to brighten those dim days of 1932, that is if you could even afford an electric fridge…

…named to evoke the luxury automobile, the British-made Rolls Razor made its debut in the back pages of The New Yorker with this panel cartoon ad featuring a hapless suitor and his girlfriend’s nosy kid brother…

…the razor came in a rigid case enclosed by two detachable lids; one carried a sharpening stone and the other a leather strop. When a lid was removed, the razor’s oscillating a handle drove a shaft along the frame, pushing the solid, hollow ground blade forward against the stone or dragging it against the strop…

…and here’s an ad you don’t see often in The New Yorker…one featuring children…

…on to our cartoonists, we have more kids via William Steig’s Small Fry…

…James Thurber continued to ply his cartooning craft with one of his favorite subjects:

…here is a more detailed look at the above…

…John Held Jr. continued to take us back to those saucy days of yore…

…Gardner Rea sketched this hereditary pratfall…

…E. McNerney gave us a woman whose beau was in alliance with architecture critic Lewis Mumford…

…Alan Dunn looked in on the fast-paced world of business…

…and Leonard Dove takes us out on a droll note…

Next Time: The Quiet Man…

Modern English Usage

The fourth anniversary issue of the New Yorker gave every indication that the magazine had arrived as a cultural force.

Fourth anniversary cover, Feb. 23, 1929, by **Rea Irvin.**

Rich in content, the issue’s offering’s ranged from the famed humorous short “You Were Perfectly Fine” by Dorothy Parker, a profile of famed maestro Arturo Toscanini, and various accounts on the romance between Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow. The issue also featured this “organization chart” drawn by Julian de Miskey:

The little door marked “Tony’s” in the bottom right-hand corner referred to a celebrated speakeasy operated by Tony Soma. It was a second home to many New Yorker staffers, and was patronized by hard-drinking actors and writers including Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley, and also a young actor named Humphrey Bogart.

Another notable item in the Feb. 23 issue was this contribution by James Thurber in which he lampooned H.W. Fowler’s Modern English Usage, a handbook that New Yorker Editor-in-Chief Harold Ross considered to be the last word in matters of punctuation and grammar. Thurber would write a dozen entries in this series, including the following (click to enlarge):

The New Yorker could never get enough of Charles Lindbergh, even though his personality was every bit as wooden as that of the former President Calvin Coolidge. The Feb. 23 “Talk of the Town” speculated on “Charlie’s” affections for Anne Morrow, and the woe that would befall anyone who challenged the famed flyboy for those affections:

COME FLY WITH ME…**Anne Morrow Lindbergh** and **Charles Lindbergh** shortly after their marriage in May 1929. (Bio.com)

SON-IN-LAW…Charles and Anne visiting Anne’s parents, **Elisabeth and Dwight Morrow**, in 1931. Charles met Anne during a visit to Mexico when Dwight was served as ambassador to that country. (kaiology.wordpress.com)

A second item in the Feb. 23 “Talk” section took a closer look at Charles’ courtship habits, or lack thereof…

Even Howard Brubaker got in a word regarding the Lindbergh-Morrow courtship in his column, “Of All Things”…

As we know, Brubaker had it wrong. Rather than pining away at home, Anne would become one of the 20th century’s most beloved writers, a leading feminist voice, and an accomplished aviator in her own right.

SORRY CHARLIE…As one for the most beloved writers of the 20th century, **Anne Morrow Lindbergh** would go on to match and even eclipse her husband’s fame. (PBS)

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Little Yehudi

Yehudi Menuhin is known to classical music lovers as one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. But as this “Talk” item suggests, he was once a little boy, more or less…

STILL IN SHORT PANTS…A young **Yehudi Menuhin** poses with conductor **Bruno Walter** in Berlin, 1931. Just two years after this photo was taken, Walter would flee Nazi Germany and eventually settle in the U.S. (Wikipedia)

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More Fun With Lois

Although Lois Long devoted most of her ink to her weekly fashion column, “On and Off the Avenue,” she continued to write her nightlife column, “Tables for Two,” though somewhat sporadically. Which makes sense because around this time Long was also either pregnant (she was married to New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno) or was now the mother of a daughter, Patricia. The reason I’m not sure is that I have birth dates from both 1928 and 1929 for Patricia, depending on sources. At any rate, Long was taking in the nightlife in a big way, moving from club to club and assessing the quality of their various acts:

At the Lido, Beatrice Lillie sang “for the edification of devoted admirers”…

AT THE LIDO you could see British actress, singer and comedic performer **Beatrice Lillie** light up the stage. (vintag.es)

…Long also commented on the arrival of French entertainer Maurice Chevalier, who promised to inject some life into the Paul Whitman Orchestra performing at the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic…

Flyer announcing **Maurice Chevalier’s** upcoming performance at the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic.

THANK HEAVEN…**Maurice Chevalier** in a 1929 publicity photo. He is mostly known today for his appearance in the 1958 film *Gigi* and his rendition of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” (thefamouspeople.com)

As for the rest of the New York nightlife, Long hoped that in the end it was all for fun, and that there was no “deep meaning” behind the frivolity:

SHALLOW WATERS…Eddie Jackson, Jimmy Durante, Lou Clayton performing their act in the motion picture *Roadhouse Nights*, 1930. (digitalcollections.nypl.org)

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Something In the Air

The “On The Air” column noted that NBC had made a brave attempt at rebroadcasting the music of the London Symphony Orchestra from Queen’s Hall and had “succeeded in coaxing a section of Rachmaninoff’s E Minor Symphony across the Atlantic.” It was also reported that the General Electric Company of Schenectady, in its ongoing research into television, had successful sent an image of famed film director D.W. Griffith across the country to California. In a separate item. “The Talk of the Town” also reported on the achievement…

…and advances continued in motion pictures, the “talkies” quickly overtaking the silents and even resorting to such tricks as lip-syncing:

SORRY DEAR, YOU’VE BEEN DUBBED…**Betty Compson** with **Richard Barthelmess** in Weary River. While Barthelmess’s character sings and plays the piano throughout the film, Barthelmess himself did not sing or play the piano. Frank Churchill played the piano and Johnny Murray sang into a microphone far away from Barthelmess while he lip-synced and played a piano which had strings deadened with felt. (TCM)

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For the anniversary issue, and for old time’s sake, the New Yorker tossed in this little filler joke from its first issue, a joke that was repeated ad nauseam in subsequent issues:

This riddle, told backwards, appeared to be a mistake, but it was most likely an attack on two-liners found in humor magazines of the day like Judge and Punch.

From Our Advertisers

Advertising was booming for the New Yorker in 1929, the magazine recording nearly $2 million in ad sales that year (compared to just $36,000 in their first year, 1925). Now on to the ads…

In a recent post we followed the mostly wealthy New York snowbirds down to Palm Beach, Florida, which during the 1920s grew from a quiet village to a resort for the rich and famous. For those who couldn’t make it, they could install “Vita Glass” and bring Palm Beach to Park Avenue…