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Some people in Alabama still remember their first visit to the Lyric, the magnificent old vaudeville and movie palace at Third Avenue and 18th Street North downtown, where MAE WEST once wowed the audience.
• • According to a local scribe Jesse Chambers: Built in 1914 when Birmingham, Alabama was a raucous young boomtown with a thriving entertainment district, the Lyric Theatre once played host to the greatest names in entertainment but is now all but forgotten — — in urgent need of both renovation and public rediscovery. . . .
• • The people of Birmingham get a rare opportunity to visit the Lyric and, perhaps, to experience the same thrill of discovery that Burrow did [i.e., Holly Burrow, Director of the new Hill Arts Center], this Sunday, December 7th, 2008, from 2 — 4 p.m., during the 2008 Christmas Open House at the Alabama, the Lyric, and the Hill Center. On hand to answer questions about the Lyric . . . will be Dan Liles, a former history instructor at Marion Institute who is now the unofficial historian of the Lyric and the Alabama. . . .
• • For event information, phone: (205) 252-2262.
• • Legendary theatrical promoter Jake Wells built the Lyric as a top-tier vaudeville house, with 1,200 great seats, magnificent acoustics and elegant decor, and it quickly became the premier venue in Birmingham. Vaudeville was the name used to describe the wildly eclectic, often bawdy variety shows that were the most popular form of entertainment in America before the coming of radio and sound films. All the greats played the Lyric — Mae West, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Buster Keaton, George Burns, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, Sophie Tucker, Billie Burke, and the Marx Brothers.
• • The good times for the Lyric, and for vaudeville, came to an end with the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. Wells lost his theatres, including the Lyric, to the mortgage company. The Schubert organization leased the Lyric and continued to present vaudeville, but the form was dying and, by the mid 1930s, the theatre was sold to the Waters family of Birmingham and became a second-run movie house. It closed in 1958 and has been largely unused since then. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "The voice of the theatre: Holiday open house to showcase the Alabama Theatre and the lovely Lyric"
• • Byline: Jesse Chambers
• • Published in: Birmingham Weekly — — www.bhamweekly.com/
• • Published on: 5 December 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST wowed the vaudeville thrill-seekers in Birmingham, Alabama — — and now a faded Southern beauty is getting a facelift. Learn more about the Lyric Theater. Here is an excerpt from the Birmingham Weekly's cover story.
• • Theatrical impresario Jake Wells built the magnificent Lyric Theater at Third Avenue North and 18th Street expressly for vaudeville in 1914, and there wasn’t another house like it in the city, perhaps in the Southeast.
• • Each of the 1,200 seats was a good one, whether a patron was on the main floor, in an opera box or in one of the two steep balconies.
• • The Lyric had remarkable acoustics. After all, there were no microphones in those days, and a comedian or singer on stage had to be audible even in the farthest seats.
• • The Lyric was elegant. The stage curtain was covered in gold leaf. Above the proscenium was a huge mural called The Allegory of the Muses, painted by local artist Harry Hawkins.
• • Best of all, the Lyric hosted the greatest names in entertainment, and people who would later become great names — Mae West, Will Rogers, George Burns, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, Sophie Tucker, Fanny Brice, and more. . . .
• • . . . The Lyric was part of a thriving entertainment district — “the likes of which nobody in Birmingham now could imagine,” according to historian Linda Nelson — that was located on Second and Third Avenues between 18th and 20th Streets North. “Every other building was a theatre,” Nelson says. “Lights and activity and crowds and noise. It was busy. It was brilliant. Lots of places to eat, see shows.”
• • Venues like the Lyric, and the loud, fast, often bawdy entertainment of vaudeville, fit perfectly in the raucous young steel city of Birmingham — a rough, tough, unforgiving boomtown with strict segregation and a rigid class structure, but also a tremendous energy, even a kind of wildness.
• • “Birmingham had so much vibrancy in the period from the mid-1880s up to the point of the Depression,” according to Marvin Whiting, curator of the Birmingham-Jefferson History Museum, scheduled to open in 2009. “Everything about the city was alive, whether it was alive with struggle between labor and capital, or a struggle between a servant class and an elite class. It was a period of remarkable growth and also of remarkable tension.”
• • Birmingham came to a full stop with the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Depression, which drastically curtailed production at the steel mills that had driven the growth of the so-called “Magic City.”
• • “The Depression hits, and where does the city have to go? No place,” Whiting says. “There was no smoke coming out of the smokestacks, out at Ensley or elsewhere.”
• • Another victim of the depression was Jake Wells, who owned dozens of theaters across the South but was overextended financially. When the crash came, he lost his empire, including the Lyric. He grabbed a pistol, went into the North Carolina woods and shot himself. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Bringing the Lyric back to life"
• • Byline: Jesse Chambers
• • Published in: Birmingham Weekly [Birmingham, AL 35205]
• • Published on: 3 July 2008
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST toured for years on the vaudeville circuit, honing her skills. Archivist Bill Kemp recalls the heyday of the Majestic Theatre in Bloomington, Illinois where the Brooklyn bombshell's name on a stage bill could draw crowds. Here is his intriguing article.
• • During the height of the vaudeville era, troupes of comedians, musicians, acrobats, and actors arrived in Bloomington, Illinois by train twice weekly, bringing with them carloads of sketch props, scenery, absurdly garish costumes, and trained animals. Vaudeville, it was said, was “big businesses with a bounce.”
• • The Majestic Theatre, located at the southwest corner of East and Washington streets, was Bloomington’s largest and most successful vaudeville house. Notable entertainers who performed on its stage included MAE WEST, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Roy Rogers, and others.
• • The theater opened on 18 April 1910, and its inaugural bill — — though it included no household names — — had plenty of vaudeville punch. Opening night performers included Carl Emmy’s “$5,000 animal act” and the Holmen Brothers and their “European sensational comedy act on the horizontal bars.”
• • Built of red vitrified brick, the Majestic could hold 1,400 on the main floor and two balconies. Its opening represented nothing less than “a great epoch in the histrionic phase of the city’s life,” declared owner Maj. Max Goldberg. The interior frescoing featured “delicate pea greens, gold and old rose tints.” The “ladies’ retiring room” (with “maids in attendance”) and “gentlemen’s smoking room” were on the mezzanine.
• • The extravagance, though, could not hide one ugly aspect of life in Bloomington, Illinois: Blacks were seated separately from whites in specially designated, segregated rows.
• • In an age of horrific theater fires (in 1903, the Iroquois Theater tragedy in Chicago claimed more than 600 lives), Maj. Goldberg stressed the Majestic’s “modern and up-to-date” design that offered “utter freedom from fire, danger and panic.” There were six ground floor exits, and the balconies emptied by separate stairs and exits, with a fire escape on the exposed wall along East Street.
• • By 1910, vaudeville cards often included short films, and the Majestic included a “moving picture machine” (dubbed the Majesticscope) to show “animated photography.”
• • During its early years, Majestic tickets ranged from a high of 25 cents for reserved boxes to a low of 10 cents for the cheap seats in the balcony (or about $5.50 and $2.20 today, adjusted for inflation). In 1911, acts included King & Brown, described as “two men and a pair of legs,” or “comedy monopede acrobats.” There also was Harry Thriller, “the lad on the tables and the chairs,” and Hector, the mind-reading dog.
• • The history of the Majestic includes sublime observations of life on the vaudeville stage. To save money, the Marx Brothers ate in their dressing room, preparing a dinner of goulash cooked over a Sterno-type stove. And there was the time when an overzealous stagehand turned a too-bright spotlight on fan dancer Sally Rand, leaving little to the imagination. The next day (or so the story goes), the line for tickets stretched from the box office all the way to Front and Main streets.
• • Even in its earliest days, the Majestic faced an uphill battle against the increasing popularity of movies. By 1915, there were several small nickelodeon-type theaters in downtown Bloomington, such as the Princess at 412 N. Main St. and the Scenic at 304 N. Madison St. That year also marked the opening of the Irvin Theater in the 200 block of East Jefferson Street. This “modern photo play house,” with its impressive screen and 1,000 seats, was the largest movie theater in town. By the mid-1920s, the Majestic was the only place in town to see regularly scheduled live entertainment.
• • In November 1937, the Majestic played host to Blackstone, billed as “the world’s most mystifying magician.” His roll call of tricks included “The Spanish Fantasy” and “Girl in the Auto Tires.” Interviewed by a local news reporter, the magician also recalled an appearance 15 years earlier when Jim Tucker, a veteran Majestic stagehand, misread a lighting cue and illuminated the “vanishing horse” before it had rightly “vanished.”
• • What had vanished by the late 1930s, though, was vaudeville, which was unable to compete against movies and radio. By the late 1940s to early 1950s, the Majestic stood empty and forlorn. “Darkened with the passing of vaudeville and grown ugly out of disuse,” observed The Pantagraph in 1955.
• • The theater finally fell to the wrecking ball in April 1956. Crowds gathered to watch the old vaudeville house come down in a shower of bricks.
• • “The pigeons have lost a good home,” cracked one sidewalk wit.
• • “The old vaudevillians lost theirs a long time ago,” was the comeback from Pantagraph reporter Bill Harris.
— — Source: — —
• • Article: "End of vaudeville spelled doom for Majestic Theatre"
• • Written by: By Bill Kemp — — Archivist/Librarian, McLean County Museum of History [Illinois]
• • Published in: The Pantagraph — — www.pantagraph.com
• • Published on: 7 June 2008
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
