[Vanishing Act – Memories of Vaudeville]

Will Clinger takes you on a whimsical trip through the glory days of vaudeville!

0:21Copy video clip URL The footage begins with archival footage of vaudeville acts. 

0:31Copy video clip URL An unseen narrator tells the audience what a “vaudeville show” is. 

0:42Copy video clip URL “Black and White” footage of a vaudeville comedy act featuring a midget actor and two taller actors, all dressed up as Enlisted US Navy Sailors, is shown. 

0:59Copy video clip URL “Black and White” footage of a crowded American city street circa the “Great Depression” era is shown. 

1:05Copy video clip URL “Black and White” footage of a trio of female vaudeville actresses performing on stage, while all dressed in male Enlisted US Navy Sailor uniforms, is shown. 

1:15Copy video clip URL “Black and White” footage of a nighttime scene of a major American city with copious amounts of neon lights in the early to mid twentieth century, is shown. 

1:18Copy video clip URL A montage showing classic, elaborately designed and decorated vaudeville theaters, is shown. 

1:28Copy video clip URL The “Uptown Theater” in Chicago, is shown in a decrepit, abandoned state. 

2:02Copy video clip URL A title card that reads, “Vanishing Act: Memories of Vaudeville”, is shown. 

2:13Copy video clip URL The exterior of the now gone “Schuleien’s Restaurant and Saloon”, is shown. 

2:18Copy video clip URL Footage of Clinger sitting and talking with a small group of elderly vaudeville actors in the restaurant, is shown. 

2:57Copy video clip URL Vaudeville actor Rudy Horn is introduced, and archival footage of him on stage during his acting days is shown. 

4:00Copy video clip URL Another vaudeville actor in the group, Al Stevens, is introduced – and archival footage of him performing his act is shown. 

6:26Copy video clip URL “Black and White” footage of the Chicago skyline – circa the nineteen-thirties, is shown. 

6:46Copy video clip URL Sam Lesner, formerly of the “Chicago Daily News” and who covered vaudeville shows in the city, is introduced. 

7:10Copy video clip URL “Black and White” footage of a vaudeville comedy act with one of the actors performing in “yellowface”, is shown. 

7:39Copy video clip URL One of the vaudeville actors sitting and talking with Clinger, a man named George Bruckman, says that he began as a vaudeville actor at eight years old. 

8:03Copy video clip URL Clinger asks and Bruckman clarifies, that the vaudeville act that he was part of in his youth was called, “The Five Newsboys”. 

8:33Copy video clip URL One of the vaudeville actors sitting and talking with Clinger, a man named Jay Marshall, is introduced. 

8:45Copy video clip URL A “Black and White” still of a sharply-dressed Marshall performing a vaudeville ventriloquist act, is shown. 

9:05Copy video clip URL A “Black and White” still of three sharply-dressed men in a midget vaudeville act is shown. 

9:20Copy video clip URL The rundown exterior to what was once the seedy and rough, but stylishly named “Tokyo Hotel” in Chicago, is shown. 

11:45Copy video clip URL Vaudeville actress and banjo player Fern Dale, is introduced. 

15:58Copy video clip URL A “Black and White” still of vaudeville actor Eddie Cantor in “Blackface”, is shown. 

16:17Copy video clip URL M. Anderson, a Black vaudeville actor and tap dancer, is introduced. 

21:15Copy video clip URL When Clinger asks the elderly vaudeville actors that he’s with, “what killed vaudeville?”, they tell him that “motion pictures”, and specifically “talkies”, killed vaudeville. 

27:19Copy video clip URL The footage ends.