STAR AND GARTER Broadway Program MICHAEL TODD Hassard Short LAMBERTI Burlesque

Description

MICHAEL TODD'S STAR AND GARTER SOUVENIR BOOK
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Great illustrated souvenir book from Michael Todd's Star and Garter; Prof. Lamberti Cast of 100; Staged by Hassard Short.
Writing at rear cover / Edgewear /
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Star and Garter
is a 1942 American musical revue starring comedian
Bobby Clark
and produced by
Mike Todd
. The show, which opened at Broadway's
Music Box Theatre
on 24 June 1942, was a smash hit, closing on 4 December 1943 after 609 performances.
Hubert Edward Hassard Short
(1877–1956), usually known as
Hassard Short
, was an actor,
stage director
,
set designer
and
lighting designer
in
musical theatre
[2]
who directed over 50
Broadway
and
West End
shows between 1920 and 1953.
[3]
[4]
Theatre historian
Ken Bloom
called him "one of Broadway's greatest directors and lighting designers",
[5]
while theatre writer
John Kenrick
described him as a "groundbreaking director and choreographer".
[6]
After 25 years acting on stage and in films, Short turned to directing and designing in 1920. He made many innovations in stage lighting and design, including the first permanent lighting bridge (
Music Box Revue
, 1921) and first the use of a
revolving stage
in a Broadway musical (
The Band Wagon
, 1931).
[3]
[7]
He continued to direct until 1952.
Professor Lamberti
(birth name Basil Garwood Lambert) was an
American
vaudeville
and
burlesque
performer active during the early part of the 20th century. He was billed as "the world's daffiest
xylophonist
".
[1]
He was born January 9, 1892, in
Valparaiso, Indiana
.
[2]
At age seven he appeared in minstrel shows, at nine he was a boy juggler. By his teens he was appearing with the Henderson Stock Company and at 17 he joined the Adam Forepaugh circus as a wire artist and juggler. He later became a theatre musician playing drums and xylophone.
[3]
Lamberti's musical skills were good enough to get him work with the
Cleveland Symphony Orchestra
. But as he once said "You can't make a living out of the xylophone if you play it right." After fighting in
World War I
, he began appearing in vaudeville, honing a comic xylophone act that he used successfully for many years.
According to Lamberti, he was playing on a vaudeville bill in
Topeka, Kansas
when a magician's ducks escaped and wandered on the stage behind him. The audience went wild, and Lamberti decided that he would do well adding some comedy to his act.
[4]
Generally, his act would begin with Lamberti striding onstage pushing a xylophone proclaiming, "If you folks have been waiting for something lousy, here it is." Wearing an ill-fitting tuxedo, Lamberti would launch into a piece of music replete with mistakes, which were echoed on his face. As he got further into the piece, a young woman would appear behind and begin a striptease. As the audience encouraged the woman, Lamberti would mistake their excitement for encouragement of his playing. After realizing the presence of the stripper, Lamberti would chase her offstage with a seltzer bottle, thus ending the act.
Throughout the 1940s Lamberti appeared in nightclubs, and in 1942, he appeared in
Michael Todd
's production of
Star and Garter
with
Bobby Clark
and
Gypsy Rose Lee
.
[5]
In 1945 he performed his xylophone act in the musical
Tonight and Every Night
starring
Rita Hayworth
.
He died at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital,
Hollywood, California
, on March 13, 1950 at the age of 58. His wife Millie was at his side.
[6]
Michael "Mike" Todd
(June 22, 1909 – March 22, 1958) was an American theater and film producer, best known for his 1956 production of
Around the World in 80 Days
, which won an
Academy Award for Best Picture
. He is known as the third of
Elizabeth Taylor
's seven husbands and is the only one whom she did not divorce (he died in an accident a year after their marriage). He was the driving force behind the development of the eponymous
Todd-AO
widescreen film format.
Early life
[
edit
]
Todd was born
Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen
in
Minneapolis
, Minnesota, to Chaim Goldbogen (an
Orthodox rabbi
) and Sophia Hellerman, both of whom were
Polish Jewish
immigrants. He was one of nine children in a poor family, the youngest son, and his siblings nicknamed him "Toat" to mimic his difficulty pronouncing the word "coat." It was from this that his name was derived.
[1]
[2]
The family later moved to Chicago, arriving on the day
World War I
ended.
[2]
Todd was expelled in the sixth grade for running a game of
craps
inside the school.
[3]
In high school, he produced the school play,
The Mikado
, which was considered a hit.
[4]
(As Mike Todd, he would produce a jazz version of the musical on Broadway in 1939.
[5]
)
He eventually dropped out of high school and worked at a variety of jobs, including shoe salesman and store window decorator. One of his first jobs was as a
soda jerk
. When the
drugstore
went out of business, Todd had acquired enough medical knowledge from his work there to be hired at Chicago's
Michael Reese Hospital
as a type of "security guard" to stop visitors from bringing in food that was not on the patient's diet.
[2]
Career
[
edit
]
Construction
[
edit
]
Todd began his career in the construction business, where he made, and subsequently lost, a fortune. He opened the College of Bricklaying of America, buying the materials to teach bricklaying on credit. The school was forced to close when the Bricklayers' Union did not view the college as an accepted place of study.
[2]
Todd and his brother, Frank, next opened their own construction company.
[6]
His first flirtation with the film industry was when he served as a contractor to Hollywood studios, soundproofing
production stages
during the transition from silent pictures to sound.
[4]
The company he owned with his brother went bankrupt when its financial backing failed in early days of the
Great Depression
. Not yet twenty-one, Todd had lost over million (equivalent to approximately ,189,243 in today's funds
[7]
). Having married the former Bertha Freshman on February 14, 1927,
[8]
he was the father of an infant son and had no home for his family.
[6]
Todd's subsequent business career was volatile, and failed ventures left him bankrupt many times.
[9]
[10]
Theatrical impresario
[
edit
]
Todd owned a Theatre Cafe in Chicago's
Lake View
neighborhood in the 1940s that provided dinner with live presentations and music.
During the 1933–1934
Century of Progress Exposition
in Chicago, Todd produced an attraction called the "Flame Dance."
[11]
In this number, gas jets were designed to burn part of a dancer's costume off, leaving her naked in appearance. The act attracted enough attention to bring an offer from the Casino de Paree nightclub in New York City. Todd got his first taste of Broadway with the engagement and was determined to find a way to work there.
[6]
After seeing the
Federal Theatre Project
's Chicago run of
The Swing Mikado
, an adaptation of the
Gilbert and Sullivan
opera
The Mikado
with an all African-American cast conceived by Harry Minturn,
[12]
Todd decided to do his own version on Broadway,
The Hot Mikado
, despite protests by the FTP.
The Hot Mikado
, starring
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
, opened on Broadway March 23, 1939.
[13]
[14]
The subsequent success of Todd's production, at the expense of the Chicago production, contributed to the financial crisis and ultimate demise of the Federal Theatre Project unit in Chicago.
Todd's Broadway success gave him the nerve to try taking on showman
Billy Rose
. Todd visited
Grover Whalen
, president of the
1939 New York World's Fair
, with a proposal to bring the Broadway show to the Fair. Whelan, eager to have the show at the fair, covered Todd's Broadway early closing costs. Rose, who had an exclusivity clause in his fair contract, met Todd at
Lindy's
, where Rose learned his contract covered new forms of entertainment only. To avoid any head-to head competition, Rose quickly agreed to promote Todd's production along with his own.
[15]
First act finale from
A Night in Venice
The production was replete with a cast of 500 and fireworks.
[16]
Todd ultimately produced 17 Broadway shows during his career, including the immensely successful burlesque revue
Star and Garter
starring comedian
Bobby Clark
,
The Naked Genius
written by and starring
stripper
Gypsy Rose Lee
, and a 1945 production of
Hamlet
starring
Maurice Evans
.
[17]
His greatest successes were in musical comedy revues, typically featuring actresses in deshabillé, such as
As the Girls Go
(which also starred Clark) and
Michael Todd's Peepshow
.
Todd floated the idea of holding the
1945 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
in newly liberated
Berlin
. Although baseball's new
commissioner
Happy Chandler
was reportedly "intrigued" by the idea, it was ultimately dismissed as impractical. The game was finally cancelled due to wartime travel restrictions.
In 1952, Todd made a production of the
Johann Strauss II
operetta
A Night in Venice
, complete with floating gondolas at the then-newly constructed
Jones Beach Theatre
in Long Island, New York. It ran for two seasons.
[18]
Widescreen cinema and film productions
[
edit
]
CBS paid Mike Todd for the rights to cover the first anniversary celebration at
Madison Square Garden
for
Around the World in 80 Days
as a television special in 1957.
[19]
Todd and Taylor are seen here at home in a film clip which was used for the special.
In 1950, Mike Todd formed
Cinerama
with the broadcaster
Lowell Thomas
(who founded
Capital Cities Communications
) and the inventor Fred Waller.
[20]
The company was created to exploit Cinerama, a
widescreen
film process created by Waller that used three film projectors to create a giant composite image on a curved screen. The first Cinerama feature,
This is Cinerama
, was released in September 1952.
Before its release, Todd left the Cinerama Company to develop a widescreen process which would eliminate some of Cinerama's flaws.
[21]
The result was the
Todd-AO
process, designed by the American Optical Company.
[22]
The process was first used commercially for the successful film adaptation of
Oklahoma!
(1955). Todd soon produced the film for which he is best remembered,
Michael Todd's Around the World in 80 Days
, which debuted in cinemas on October 17, 1956. Costing million to produce (equivalent to approximately ,310,894
[7]
), the movie earned million at the box office. In 1957,
Around the World in 80 Days
won the Best Picture
Academy Award
.
In the 1950s Todd acquired the
Harris and Selwyn Theaters
in downtown Chicago. The Selwyn was renamed Michael Todd's Cinestage and made into a showcase for Todd-AO productions, while the Harris was renamed the Michael Todd Theatre and operated as a more conventional cinema. The facades of both theaters survive as part of the
Goodman Theatre
complex, although the interiors have been demolished.
A
William Woolfolk
novel from the early 1960s, entitled
My Name Is Morgan
, was considered to be loosely based on Todd's life and career.
[23]
Personal life
[
edit
]
Todd with Elizabeth Taylor in
Belgrade
Todd with daughter Liza and wife Elizabeth Taylor, 1957
At age seventeen, Todd married Bertha Freshman in
Crown Point, Indiana
, on
Valentine's Day
1927. He had been interested in Freshman since age fourteen, but needed to develop confidence before even asking her out.
[2]
[24]
In 1929, the couple's son,
Mike Todd, Jr.
, was born.
[6]
The death of his father in 1931 was a turning point for Todd; he decided to change his name to Mike Todd on the day of his father's death.
[6]
Todd's wife, Bertha, died of a
pneumothorax
(collapsed lung) on August 12, 1946 in
Santa Monica, California
, while undergoing surgery at
St. John's Hospital
for a damaged tendon in her finger.
[25]
[26]
[27]
[28]
Todd and his wife were separated at the time of her death; less than a week before Freshman's death, he had filed for divorce.
[27]
[29]
On July 5, 1947, Todd married actress
Joan Blondell
.
[30]
They were divorced on June 8, 1950, after Blondell filed for divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty.
[31]
Todd's third marriage was to the actress
Elizabeth Taylor
, with whom he had a tempestuous relationship. The couple exchanged vows on February 2, 1957 in Mexico and the ceremony was performed by the mayor of
Acapulco
.
[32]
It was the third marriage for both the 24-year-old bride and her 47-year-old groom.
[33]
Mario Moreno better known as
Cantinflas
was their witness. Todd and Taylor had a daughter, Elizabeth Frances (Liza) Todd, who was born on August 6, 1957.
[34]
Death
[
edit
]
On March 22, 1958, Todd's private plane
Lucky Liz
crashed near
Grants, New Mexico
. The plane, a twin-engine
Lockheed Lodestar
, suffered engine failure while being flown overloaded in
icing conditions
at an altitude that was too high for only one engine working under the heavy load. The plane went out of control and crashed, killing all four on board.
[35]
Five days before the crash, Todd flew on this plane to Albuquerque to promote a showing of
Michael Todd's Around the World in 80 Days
. The city is located 78 miles east of the crash site.
[36]
This ad for
Trans World Airlines
appeared in
Playbill
on February 10, 1958, about six weeks prior to Todd's fatal plane crash.
In addition to Todd, those who died in the crash were screenwriter and author
Art Cohn
, who was writing Todd's biography
The Nine Lives of Michael Todd
, pilot Bill Verner, and co-pilot Tom Barclay. When the plane's regular co-pilot did not show up, Barclay was his substitute.
[36]
Verner was a veteran military pilot who had flown heavily loaded
Curtiss C-46 Commando
cargo planes over
The Hump
between India and China.
[37]
Todd paid for the installation of two extra fuel tanks in his leased Lodestar aircraft; this made the aircraft weigh more than its official rating when all the tanks were full, without the flight crew, passengers or luggage aboard. Verner had flown the plane overloaded like this before without incident, including piloting Todd on trips over the Atlantic and around Europe. The tanks had been filled to capacity prior to the fatal flight.
[38]
Todd was on his way to New York to accept the
New York Friars Club
"Showman of the Year" award. Taylor, who had been given time off from the filming of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
for the event, wanted to fly to New York with her husband, but stayed home with a cold after her pleas to come along were overruled by Todd.
[39]
[40]
[41]
Just hours before the crash, Todd described the plane as safe as he phoned friends, including
Joseph Mankiewicz
and
Kirk Douglas
, in an attempt to recruit a
gin rummy
player for the flight: "Ah, c'mon," he said. "It's a good, safe plane. I wouldn't let it crash. I'm taking along a picture of Elizabeth, and I wouldn't let anything happen to her."
[42]
His son, Mike Jr., wanted his father's body to be cremated after it was identified through dental records
[43]
and brought to
Albuquerque, New Mexico
, but Taylor refused, saying he would not want
cremation
. Todd's mother, who was 91 and a sanitarium patient at the time of her son's death, was not told of the accident; it was felt that the shock would be detrimental to her fragile health.
[44]
Todd was buried in
Forest Park, Illinois
, at Beth Aaron Cemetery in plot 66,
[45]
which is part of Jewish Waldheim Cemetery.
[46]
[47]
In his autobiography,
Eddie Fisher
, who considered himself to be Todd's best friend, stated:
With
Frank Sinatra
, 1956
There was a closed coffin, but I knew it was more for show than anything else. The plane had exploded on impact and whatever remains were found couldn't be identified ... The only items recovered from the wreckage were Mike's wedding ring and a pair of platinum cuff links I'd given him.
[48]
In June 1977, Todd's remains were desecrated by graverobbers.
[49]
The thieves broke into his casket looking for a 0,000 diamond ring, which, according to rumor, Taylor had placed on her husband's finger prior to his burial.
[50]
The bag containing Todd's remains was found under a tree near his burial plot.
[51]
The bag and casket had been sealed in Albuquerque after Todd's remains were identified following the 1958 crash.
[43]
[52]
Todd's remains were once more identified through dental records and were reburied in a secret location.
[50]
Selected Broadway productions
[
edit
]
Call Me Ziggy
(Play, Farce, 1937)
The Hot Mikado
(Musical, Operetta, 1939)
Something for the Boys
(Musical, Comedy, 1943)
Mexican Hayride
(Musical, Comedy,1944)
Up in Central Park
(Musical, Comedy, 1945)
As the Girls Go
(Musical, Comedy, 1948)
[53]
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