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Straight Cymbal Stand
Hope & Burns: Vaudeville's Last Survivors
(Ed note: The author was a script-writer for bob Hope between 1977 and 1992.)
George Burns began his 100-year career as an entertainer after dropping out of a New York public school in the third grade With his pals, he formed a singing group they called "The Pee-Wee Quartet," singing and dancing for coins on street corners. The group would later include comedian Georgie Jessel, future California state senator George Murphy and columnist Walter Winchell.
His initial experiences in vaudeville were largely negative as he struggled to find a style that would showcase his talents. (He told us he once spent a whole year touring under the name "Willie Delight" to dupe theater owners who had fired him.) He didn't strike paydirt until meeting Gracie Allen, a singer from San Francisco. They teamed up with a "boy girl act," but didn't click until George realized they got more laughs when he played straight to Gracie's unorthodox logic.
The stage success of Burns & Allen was soon followed by film appearances and their own radio show. Like Hope, George had a strong work ethic, remained a star his entire life, and after Gracie's death, rehearsed his act daily (though it hadn't changed in decades) with his longtime pianist Morty Jacobs. George Burns died in 1996 at age 100.
Hope's life changed the day a theater owner asked him to sub for the regular emcee who failed to show up. Introducing the first act, he tossed in a joke tha got a huge laugh. He was hooked and soon ditched his dance act to become a single.
As he worked his way up the ladder from dancer to dancer-emcee to comic-emcee to comic, his name became larger and more prominent on the marquee. Though he still had a way to go to reach household-name status, he was proud of his success every time the letters grew taller. Arriving in a new town, he'd check the marquee on the theater he was playing
even before checking into the hotel.
One day, he discovered the manager had misspelled his name! He rushed into the theater, sought out the manager who was adjusting curtains backstage, and said, "I'm Bob Hope, and you have my name spelled wrong on the marquee." "How did I spell it?" asked the manager. "Ben Hope," said Bob. The manager went back to what he had been doing and said, "Who'll know?"
In a 1978, for a Bob Hope special entitled "A Tribute to the Palace Theater," the studio at NBC in Burbank had been transformed into a replica of New York's Palace Theater, the Holy Grail of all vaudevillians. The special was produced by Sheldon Keller, a devoted vaude-afficionado (my word, but descriptive) and the lines throughout the show reflected his distinctive style. Keller's writing partners, Howard Albrecht and Sol Weinstein (a team I had worked with on the Dean Martin Roasts), also shared writing credit.
A vaudeville-born device used often on Bob Hope's specials was the "comedy duet," where, at several points throughout the number, the performers stopped singing to deliver jokes, usually in the familiar straightline-punchline format.The music of this duet performed by Hope and George Burns was written by Sol Weinstein. It's entitled "That's the Way It Was in Vaudeville", and I consider it a truly remarkable reflection of the spirit of the era it honors.
The set was a small-town railroad depot, circa 1928. The boys wore brown tweed suits and bowler hats. Each had a cane he would use throughout the number. As the gold-ltasseled red velvet curtain rose, they were revealed along with two large steamer-trunks, Hope standing and George sitting. When the music begins, they don their bowlers and move forward to center-stage.
(Music: up)
HOPE/BURNS: (Sing) Hat, cane, trunk, train... that's the way it was in vaudeville... (Softshoe) Song cue, softshoe, that's the way it was in vaudeville... They loved us in the cities, they loved us in the sticks, we didn't mind the vegetables, but when they threw the bricks...Laughs, frowns, tank towns, that's the way it was in vaudeville...
BURNS: Mamaroneck, Saranac, Scranton and Canton...
HOPE: Austin and Boston, Racine, yes I mean...
HOPE/BURNS: That's the way it was in vaudeville...
BURNS: Ashville and Nashville, Nogales and Dallas,
HOPE: Detroit and Beloit, Kankakee, don't you see?
HOPE/BURNS: That's the way it was in vaudeville.
HOPE: (Speaks) Vaudeville... what an era.
BURNS: But it wasn't all fun and games. Bob.
HOPE: I know what you mean. Remember some of those small town we had to play?
BURNS: You remember Zyszx, Nevada?
HOPE: Do I remember Zyszx? Just saying it used to clear up my sinuses.
BURNS: That town was so small, the trains only stopped there once a week... just to laugh.
HOPE: It was so tiny, the electric company was four batteries and a jar of fireflies.
BURNS: But what made vaudeville worthwhile was some of the unusual acts we worked with. Like The Great Maurice... half-manand half-woman. It was fine until one night he was arrested for making a pass at himself.
HOPE: I remember the case. At the last minute, he dropped the charges. But the most unique act of them all was "Knock-Knees Needleman," the original one-man-band.
BURNS: Yeah, nobody could follow him.
HOPE: He had a pair of cymbals strapped to his knees, a harmonica in his mouth, base drums on both hips, mallets on his elbows, and if that wasn't enough, he tapped danced on a Wurlitzer to the tune of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite."
BURNS: That kid had to belong to about six unions.
HOPE: (ad-lib) That's the longest straight-line I've ever had. But in his prime, the poor guy was struck by a bolt of lightning and died in the key of F.
BURNS: I remember his last request was to be buried dressed in his instruments. And while they were lowering him, a windstorm came up and he played at his own funeral.
HOPE: Where else but in a free America?
(Music up)
HOPE/BURNS: (Sings) The act was a dilly in Cleveland and Philly... we rocked ‘em in Brockton and Troy...What a joy, they went batty in old Cincinnati... They screamed in Moline, Illinois...
BURNS: We had 'em in Chatham...
HOPE: We killed 'em in Wilton. They raved in New Haavden...
BURNS: Hold it! Where the hell is New Haav-den?
HOPE: Somewhere near Conned-id-did-icutt.
HOPE/BURNS: That's the way it was in vaude...Listen every son and daughter... Aren't you glad that you have bought a... ticket to a good old vaudeville!
(APPLAUSE)
Sol Weinstein was the most talented song writer I ever worked with. A former jazz disc jockey, he wrote several songs recorded by major artists including "The Curtain Falls," heard for the first time on the Bobby Darin Show when Sol and Howard were on his staff in the sixties. Bobby used it to close his act, and it's sung by Kevin Spacey, as Darin, in his 2004 bio-film, "Beyond the Sea." Hope sang it at the conclusion of A Tribute to the
Palace Theater, and its lyrics conclude my book.
The comic duet took about an hour-and-a-half to tape. Both men had just returned from long road trips. But since we had the audience already in place for another number, they decided to go out and wing the duet without rehearsing it first.
Several problems were immediately apparent. Since it's an original song and not a familiar standard, it was more difficult to sing. And the words are alliterative — some difficult to pronounce. Also, the routine involved choreography. Singing unfamiliar lyrics while dancing proved to be a killer. And, most important, these guys had been around awhile — they claimed they met while appearing in the lounge on Noah's Ark. At the time, Burns was 83 and Hope was 76.
They had begun the number about three times when Keller told the director to keep the tape running even during the flubs. The audience,of course, loved being witnesses to the train wreck. Hope and Burns adlibbed throughout, ribbing each other while referring to mutual friends they had known in vaudeville.
When Burns drifted off camera, Hope stopped the track and said, "We've got to put a string on him. All at once, I was doing a single." After about ten unsuccessful attempts on the line "The act was a dilly in Cleveland and Philly," George looked at the audience and said, "The act was a dilly? The act was pathetic." The audience roared.
I replay the outtake reel for friends who often ask, "Why didn't you make an entire special out of this?" With both legends now gone, the tape is priceless.
Excerpted from THE LAUGH MAKERS: A Behind-the-Scenes Tribute to Bob Hope's Incredible Gag Writers (c) 2009 by Robert L. Mills and published by Bear Manor Media. To order: http://bobhopeslaughmakers.weebly.com
To order the book on KINDLE for $2.99:
www.amazon.com/dp/B0041D9EPO
To view photos in the book:
http://bobhopeshowbackstage.weebly.com
About the Author
A native of San Francisco, Bob Mills served in the Navy after high school, graduating from San Francisco State University in 1962 and the University of California Hastings Law in 1965. He practiced in Palo Alto, CA for ten years before moving to Hollywood to write for television. He worked on the Dinah Shore Show, the Steve Allen Show and the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts before joining Bob Hope as a staff writer in 1977. He traveled the world with Hope for the next seventeen years. In 2009, his book The Laugh Makers: A Behind-the-Scenes Tribute to Bob Hope's Incredible Gag Writers was published by Bear Manor Media and was named one of Leonard Maltin's "Top 20 Year-End Picks." To order: http://bobhopeslaughmakers.weebly.com
To order the book on KINDLE for $2.99:
www.amazon.com/dp/B0041D9EPO
To view photos in the book:
http://bobhopeshowbackstage.weebly.com
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