For World P.R. Day: On Publicity and Vaudevillians

Today is World P.R. Day and believe it or not I have a post for that, too. These days P.R. has bad P.R. of all things, largely the fault of an industry which has done too much work on behalf of the devil. But I came to have respect and even love for the field from years as an arts journalist who deals with publicists (good lord, those people give me free seats!) and as a publicist myself for the New-York Historical Society, Coney Island USA, and other arts groups including my own damn shows Being a flack for shows? Awesome! Being a flack for, like, soulless corporations and crummy politicians, not so much!

Anyway, it occurred to me that I had something in my back pocket to mark today — a section of my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous that deals with this very t’ing. So here ’tis:

…The greatest vaudevillians were born publicists. Houdini was one of the greatest ever, up there with Barnum, Ziegfeld and Billy Rose. Will Rogers called him “the greatest showman of our time by far”. No other vaudevillian came close. The name young Erich Weiss devised for himself reveals his public relations genius, having symbolic resonance for both professional magicians and the public at large. First, the name “Harry Houdini” conjures up three of his illustrious predecessors: Robert-Houdin, of course; Harry Kellar, and a man named Pinetti (1750-ca.1880) from whom the tradition of adding an Italianate “I” to magician’s last names seems to have arrived.  The public doesn’t give a damn about any of that of course. The name works for them because it combines an earthy, American-sounding first name (adapted perhaps from “Ehrie”, his Hungarian nickname) with a “mysterious, Eastern” sounding last name appropriate for a magician. Freighted with all that subconscious meaning, it’s probably the best stage name of all time. He billed himself as “the Undisputed King of Handcuffs, and the Monarch of Leg Shackles”. To publicize his engagements, Houdini would visit the local police precincts in each town, summon the press, and arrange to break out of the jail. Soon he had police, press, lock manufacturers – -seemingly everybody – helping to publicize his appearances.

Magician Horace Goldin, who popularized the trick of sawing a woman in half,  is famous for his p.r. stunt of driving through town in an ambulance with a sign that said “in case the saw slips”. When Will Rogers arrived at a town he would help publicize his performance by riding down the main street on his horse with a sign reading “Will Rogers, the Lariat King”.

If you had the scratch, you could take out your own ad in Variety, like this one of Jolson’s: “Watch me—I’m a wow.” The smart acts branded not only their act, but themselves. The big acts all had a catchy handle. “Last of the Red Hot Mamas”, “the Perfect Fool”, or “the Corkscrew Kid” are not too far conceptually from “Good to the Last Drop.”

Some made their whole careers into p.r. stunts.

Lillian Russell’s off-stage peccadilloes out West had preceded her in the pages of the New York papers, no doubt fueled by some of the scandalously revealing costumes she had worn. From that day forward, whispers about her private life were as important to her career as her singing voice. She was married four times, divorced twice, annulled once, engaged several times more, and was frequently spotted in the company of Diamond Jim Brady over a period of forty years.

Eva Tanguay billed herself as “The Girl Who Made Vaudeville Famous”. If anyone embodies the spirit of vaudevillianism, of the triumph of personality, originality and sensationalism, not only over discipline and craft but even over beauty and talent, that person was Eva Tanguay. Carolyne Gaffin called her a “Circe of the force of advertising.”

After strutting her stuff in a show called Hoodoo, another chorus girl had the temerity to criticize her for her showboating, so she choked her until her face turned blue and she lapsed into unconsciousness. In her next show My Lady with Eddy Foy, one of the girls threw back a bun tossed onstage by a heckler. Afterwards, Tanguay knocked the girl’s head into a brick wall. Tanguay was now all of the papers, and filling theatre seats as a result. As such, she started getting good parts and salaries as befits someone the public recognizes – no matter how insane their reputation.

A bankable star could risk such behavior despite the managers’ strict behavioral codes for they knew they knew the countermelody to their loud hymns was a whispered dough-re-mi. In vaudeville, temperament was a sort of status symbol. It was something only the biggest stars could afford – or they’d be canned. A temperament was like a Rolls Royce, an entourage, a suite of rooms at the Waldorf and a gown by Erte. This was a great unspoken. Managers forgave “attitude” in general because these people were stars…box office…money.

Olga Petrova was the very warp and woof of vaudeville flim-flammery. Born a London cockney named Muriel Harding, she fobbed herself off to the public for her entire career as a Great Russian Actress. Furthermore she never dropped character. To her dying day, never dropped the accent, on or off the stage. She was one of the highest paid performers in vaudeville, at the peak of her career. The managers humored her every eccentric whim. In 1919 she was the toast of industry with her combination of sentimental songs, dramatic monologues and poetry recitations. Then, having hit the heights, she abruptly announced that she was saying goodbye to vaudeville. Seven years ago she had tanked at the Folies Bergere, she said, and she had only stayed in show business long enough to find out why. And the lesson she had learned was “what made good was a noisy fake.”

The theatre was founded on such fakery, but in vaudeville, where the artist was also his own producer and press agent, the fake was about business as much as it was about art.

Today there’s not a major public figure of any sort in any field — entertainment, professional sports, politics, even religion – who does not understand this principle and exploit it. It was invented in vaudeville.

For more on vaudeville historyplease consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, and pleasestay tuned for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.