by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Tammany Hall politician Big Tim Sullivan and Seattle “box house” proprietor John W. Considine went into more legitimate entertainment pursuits whey formed a partnership in 1906 and quickly formed a chain of vaudeville theatres around the nation, including, two years later, their acquisition of the Los Angeles (formerly the Casino and Hotchkiss) Theatre on Spring Street north of 4th Street.
As part one of this post observed, the venue, which opened in 1903, went through a series of operators and problems during its first half-decade of existence, but found a measure of stability and success under Sullivan and Considine and it was renamed the Empress, a moniker for most of the duo’s theaters, on 12 June 1911. By the time we get to the period in which the highlighted object from the Museum’s holdings, a program for the week of 9 September 1912, was printed, the theatre, managed by Dean B. Worley, was enjoying no small amount of prosperity.
Several days prior to the program’s issuance, an interesting short article in the Los Angeles Times of 4 September commented that,
The Empress Theatre is safe—that is, safe from the strong arm of the censor.
For some time past, as the time of the appearance of Billie Burke’s Models of Jardin de Paris drew nearer, grave fears were expressed for Manager Deane [sic] Worley and the Sullivan & Considine emporium of popular-priced vaudeville.
Manger Worley evidently took notice, for there is nothing particularly shocking; in fact, he went so far as to mask a dozen pair of shapely pink tights behind a filmy white skirt.
Compared to modern standards, the production by the actor best known as being Glinda the Good Witch from the classic film, The Wizard of Oz (1939), surely must have been more than modest, so it is notable that this came up, especially given Considine’s early theatrical presentations, much less Sullivan’s machine politics background. In any case, the Times concluded that the presentation was “most interesting and entertaining throughout and seem to be attracting audiences of overflowing proportions to the Spring-street house.”
The Los Angeles Express of 7 September highlighted two unusual aspects to the upcoming program, including “motion pictures, showing the fire which practically destroyed Ocean Park,” an area that became part of Santa Monica,” earlier in the week, as well as the headlining Travilla Brothers, Ford, Guy and Jack, who largely were raised in San Bernardino and who were champion swimmers who could hold their breaths below the surface for extended periods. The siblings developed an act with a seal dubbed Winks and who was advertised as “The Seal With the Human Brain” as it interacted underwater with the Travillas. The paper added that,
This is probably the most unusual “tank” act known to the vaudeville world. They have scored a distinct hit in all of the biggest vaudeville theaters in America. The performance under water is given in a big glass tank always in full view of the audience. They eat and drink and do many other things under water in company with the seal. They have a record of a full three minutes’ endurance at the bottom of the tank.
A notable tangent is that Travillas had a sister, Sybil, who took the stage name of “Seely,” perhaps a nod to her brothers’ co-star, and was the leading lady of Buster Keaton in several films after signing to Mack Sennett’s studio. She married Jules Furthman, screenwriter of such later film classics as Mutiny on the Bounty, The Big Sleep and Rio Bravo and Sybil retired to raise a child and stay at home.
Another featured performance from the duo of Arthur Sullivan (no relation to the famed light opera legend or the Empress co-owner) and Charles Bartling in “A Spotless Reputation.” The piece, as explained by the paper, was “a story of political corruption” and “comes with the reputation of being one of the best one-act plays on the circuit.” One wonders what Big Tim thought about the inclusion of this work on the program!
The Express of the 11th had a separate feature on another performer on the bill: Leona Guerney, who was advertised as the “Siberian Songbird.” It was stated that she was from Russia, though migrated to the United States as a child and “when but in her teens she attracted much attention with her voice.” She struggled, however, to get a foothold on the stage until a friend told her to get enough nerve to go the offices of theater managers and, on her third try, was able to secure a slot on a program. The singer was known for being able to effortlessly move from a coloratura soprano to a baritone in what was dubbed a “double voice.”
In its somewhat brief review on the 10th, the paper, noting that a major encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans organization of the Union Army from the Civil War, was underway in Los Angeles, noted other acts on the bill, including “The Sombreros” and their skit, “Fun in a Millinery Shop” (get it?), which involved lots of juggling and plenty of comedy.
Also mentioned were what the program called “The Lively and Magnetic Lads,” Leo Curry and Fred Riley, who were “the cabaret feature of the bill” with “a good line of piano noise” and well-received songs. Lastly, there was “Genteel Entertainer” Will H. (Billy) Rogers (no relation to the famed comedian) who sang, did “clever imitations.
In all, the Express expressed satisfaction with the full run of the bill, which also included the theater orchestra, led by “The Rag-Time Kid,” Edwin Michael, and performing pieces by Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan and others, as well as a slide show from Underwood & Underwood of national and international events and “The Laugh-O-Scope” with four short films accompanied by music published by the well-known firm of Jerome H. Remick and Company.
In the Times of the 11th, Julian Johnson wrote approvingly of “A Spotless Reputation,” which “has biff, bang, brevity and an absolute reality that is startling. The tale concerned a governor running for reelection and a boxer who presents evidence that the politician wronged a woman in the past and seeks a payoff. After the chief executive resigns, it is learned that the woman is the wife of the prizefighter and Sullivan and Bartling were given plenty of kudos by the critic.
Johnson also praised Curry and Riley and their time-tested act, which was performed “in such jovial and youthfully enthusiastic fashion that they enthuse the whole house,” while the Travillas and Winks, in their second local engagement, offered “still the same brisk, brainy, splashing, comical seal. The Ocean Park fire images and panoramas taken the following morning were also feted, while the critic remarked on “the hustling displays of other moving-picture men, also on the job with their crank cameras.”
Not so well received were “The Sombreros” whose offering was considered “a very mild skit,” while Guerney “forces a long voice through three of four octaves” and, though Johnson called this technically “phenomenal,” it was “hardly entertaining,” so he advised the the vocalist “had best stick to one register.” On the 13th, the Times reported that the Travillas and their seal reprised their act at a large tank at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, among whose members were many of the Angel City’s elite business and political figures—unfortunately, Winks refused to enter a strange tank and, presumably, the performance tanked!
As to later events, the Times of 9 February 1913 ran a brief description of acts appearing at the Empress and the name “Fred Karno” drew attention, though the reference to the “splendid company of London comedians” omitted one Stanley Jefferson, later Laurel of the famed duo of Laurel and Hardy, while mention was made of “the famous ‘souse’ [drunkard character] Charles Chapman” in The Wow-Wows where “Chapman” played Archibold, whose treatment by other characters provided “enough fun to measure up to all of the specifications of a laughing riot.” After the engagement at the Empress ended, “Chapman” met some film actors and soon conquered the world under his actual name: Charlie Chaplin.
Also tanking in short order was the partnership of Sullivan and Considine, at least in terms of the active involvement of the former. Purportedly because of the deaths of his wife and a brother, Sullivan sank into a deep depression as well as began acting paranoid. A trip to Europe was followed by a stay in a sanitarium, then a move to a brother’s house. In September 1913, his body was found in a railyard, nearly severed in two, but he remained unidentified and was about to be buried in a potter’s field, when a police officer recognized him. It was said 20,000 went to a viewing prior to burial.
Considine carried on, but, in late July 1914, sold the Empress to Marcus Loew, an associate of long standing, with Joseph M. Schenck, later a powerful film studio executive, and the venue was known as Loew’s Empress. Massive losses, though, followed during tough economic times and, in under a year, Considine resumed control of the venue.
The return was short-lived and in July 1915, the Empress was closed. A month later, the venue was renovated into a motion picture theater under the management of Worley, who came back. Yet, boxing matches were also held there as part of an “Empress Boxing Club” in an attempt to improve the financial picture and remained part of operations for several years.
At the end of 1915, a group of chorus girls appearing in some of the live acts at the theater brought a criminal complaint against their employer, T.J. White, who might well have been the same T. Jeff White mentioned in some detail in part one of this post. A report in the Times of 4 December noted that the authorities were searching for White and it was not learned what the result of the incident was.
In April 1916, John A. Quinn, who came to Los Angeles seven or so years prior and operated several theaters, took over the Empress, but, within three months, another ownership change took place, with the Los Angeles Record of Independence Day reporting that Claud E. Halsell, who ran the Grand and Lyceum theaters, assumed the lease. The first feature to be shown under the new management, The Eye of God, starred Lois Weber and Tyrone Power, this latter being the father of the later superstar.
A fire burst forth from the Empress early in August 1917 and damaged it and adjacent buildings owned by Mary A. Jauch, White’s aunt and adopted mother who was also discussed in part one, though boxing matches soon returned. The next month, Walter Snyder took the venue over and another renovation was to be undertaken to make it “an absolutely first-run photoplay palace” with new décor and “a mammoth new pipe organ” installed. One of the upcoming pictures was The Right of Possession starring Antonio Moreno, who went on to great success during the Twenties.
Snyder’s management was also brief and, in early 1918, live performance returned with the Horace Martin stock company offering “a big repertoire of mellow dramas and vaudeville stunts,” while actor Myrtle Selwyn was featured in a photo run by the Times of 27 January to announce the latest iteration of the venue.
The next transformation of the theater was when it was acquired by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and, in June 1918, turned into Biola Hall, dubbed “an evangelistic center” and which was to be part of “an aggressive campaign” for prayer meetings and gospel services. It was added by the Express of the 29th that “the former theater is being remodeled and fitted up for its new work” to accommodate 1,000 persons.
Notably, the head of the Institute, the Rev. Thomas C. Horton, stated that “we will endeavor to reach the ‘up and outs’ instead of the ‘down and outs’ who are already ministered to by the missions already established,” meaning “busy business people” as well as military personnel part of the American Expeditionary Force fighting in Europe in the last days of the First World War. Featured pictorially in the piece was the Irish evangelist, the Rev. William Nicholson.
Biola’s operation at the venue lasted about a year or so and it hosted wrestling matches in the latter part of 1919. By April 1920, yet another change took place with it becoming the Novel Theatre, but with a new angle as the showcase, for example, of “America’s Greatest Psychic,” Edward K. Earle and his “The Spiritual Temple,” offering such presentations as “Do The Dead Return?” Earle also specialized in “demonstrating independent slate writing, physical manifestations, sealed questions answered, etc.” The Novel was hardly that and it soon folded.
In February 1921, Lasky’s Capitol Theatre was opened, with yet another remaking “to meet the many requirements of a modern picture house,” but it was soon operated by the Gore brothers, Abraham and Michael. It retained the Capitol name for most of the rest of the Roaring Twenties, including a brief period as Teatro Capitol with Latin live and filmed entertainment, reflective of the burgeoning Spanish-speaking population of the Angel City.
In 1928, the Capitol was hosting music performances by Latin artists, including Spanish actor and singer Maria Tubau in a joint recital with the young violinist Xavier “Cougat,” actually Cugat and raised in Cuba though a native of Spain. Cugat was well-known locally for his tenure at the Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel, but who went on to great fame at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.
Late 1928 found the venue being leased by Morris Waxman (1876-1931), a well-known Yiddish actor from Poland who migrated as a teen to London where his father was a cantor at a synagogue (his grandfather was a rabbi). Waxman started a Yiddish theater group in England, but also toured in Europe, South America and the United States.
The Express of 26 April 1929 reported that,
An interesting addition to the dramatic fare of Los Angeles is taking form in a humble but spacious theater . . . where Morris Waxman, actor-manager, is preparing to present “The Dybbuk” for the first time here in English. Waxman has been producing and starring in Yiddish plays at the Capitol—now renamed the Waxman—since December . . .
The Dybbuk, by S. An-sky, the pen name of Solomon Z. Rappoport, was first staged in 1920 in Yiddish, and concerned the possession of a spirit (the titular entity) on the day of her wedding which proved to be an Hasidic scholar who died on learning of her betrothal and initially refused to leave her body by exorcism. When finally persuaded to do so, the woman died and their two souls were eternally united.
As with so many uses over the prior quarter century, that of Waxman was for only a very short time and there was also a “Mexican Chautauqua” at the theater “to enlighten local Mexicans on the value of proper diet and physical training” in April 1929. The venue soon closed and the structure was razed, apparently in 1930, and the site has long been a parking lot.
As this post shows, it seems very likely that no Los Angeles theater of that period went through so many iterations and transformations as this one and this is well outlined in its entry in the Los Angeles Theatres blog.