The Earl Carroll Vanities

This article is about the 1920s Broadway revue. For the 1945 film, see Earl Carroll Vanities (film).
This program was originally published by the New York Theatre Program Corporation in 1923.

The Earl Carroll Vanities was a Broadway revue presented by Earl Carroll in the 1920s and early 1930s. Carroll and his show were sometimes controversial.

Distinguishing qualities

In 1923, the Vanities joined the ranks of New York’s other popular revues: The Greenwich Village Follies, George White's Scandals, and The Ziegfeld Follies. At a time when Florenz Ziegfeld was hailed as “The Great Glorifier of the American Girl,” Carroll bragged that “the most beautiful girls in the world” passed through the stage door of his theatre. As many as 108 women were onstage in Carroll's show at one time.[1] Critics often insinuated that Carroll's performers were provocatively dressed.[2] Carroll frequently sublimated public scrutiny into free publicity.[3] Though Carroll boasted of presenting larger casts than his peers, his fare was frequently regarded as somewhat unsophisticated.[4] One critic in the New York Times described the show's comedy bits, which featured burlesque-styled dancers and minstrel-styled blackface comics,[5] as “The same old stuff”.[6] One of Carroll’s innovations was his “living curtain,” which featured scantily-clad models in striking stage pictures.[7] This wordless mise-en-scène was similar to the “ballad ballet” of The Greenwich Village Follies and the tableau vivant of The Ziegfeld Follies.

Editions

Earl Carroll giving instructions to the performers, January 26, 1925

The following chart shows the various editions of the revue:[8]

EARL CARROLL'S VANITIES
Year Opened Closed Perf. Theatre
1923 Jul 05, 1923 Dec 29, 1923 204 Earl Carroll Theatre
1924 Sep 10, 1924 Jan 03, 1925 133 Music Box Theatre/Earl Carroll Theatre
1925 Jul 06, 1925 Dec 27, 1925 199 Earl Carroll Theatre
1926 Aug 24, 1926 May __, 1927 303 Earl Carroll Theatre
1928 Aug 06, 1928 Feb 02, 1929 200 Earl Carroll Theatre
1930 Jul 01, 1930 Jan 03, 1931 215 New Amsterdam Theatre
1931 Aug 27, 1931 Apr 09, 1932 300 Earl Carroll Theatre/44th Street Theatre
1932 Sep 17, 1932 Dec 10, 1932 87 Earl Carroll's Broadway Theater
1940 Jan 13, 1940 Feb 03, 1940 25 St. James Theatre

Alumni

An ensemble number of the 1925 revue

Over the years, the revue proved to be a training ground for up-and-coming talent. In 1924, Sophie Tucker was Carroll's featured “chirper.”[9] W. C. Fields was credited as both a comic and an author in the 1928 show. Jack Benny made his Broadway debut in the 1930 edition. Burton Lane, who would later compose several other Broadway scores, contributed music to the 1931 edition. In 1932, long before he wrote “Over the Rainbow,” Harold Arlen composed “I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues” for Carroll.[10] The scenery and costumes that appeared in that number (and throughout the evening) brought a young Vincente Minnelli recognition.[11] Also in that year, the comic Milton Berle[12] played a number of eccentric characters, as he would frequently do in his television show three decades later.

Of course, not all of the revue's contributors went on to become household names; lesser-known alumni included Joe Cook, Lillian Roth, Ted Healy, David Chasen,[13] George Moran, Charles Mack, Peggy Hopkins Joyce, Kathryn Reed Altman, Faith Bacon, Will Mahoney, Frank Mitchell[14] Yvette Rugel, Geneva Duker, Jean Tennyson, and Beryl Wallace.

Actors’ equity

Propriety wasn’t the only scandal that plagued the production. Before the first edition ever opened, actors were under the impression that they had auditioned for a vaudeville-type show—free from the purview of Actors’ Equity. When they realized that they were rehearsing a revue, they demanded that Carroll either hire an all-Equity cast or join the Producing Managers' Association. Carroll fired the Equity members. In retaliation, around 150 Equity members refused employment with Carroll.[15]

Variations and legacy

By the mid-1920s, audiences were starting to crave storylines; Carroll took notice. With Murder at the Vanities (1933), he successfully inserted a revue into a book musical. The first edition of The Earl Carroll’s Sketch Book opened in 1929, but patrons surmised that it was merely the Vanities under a different guise. Carroll’s last attempt to re-stage his signature revue on Broadway closed after twenty-five performances.[16] Bankruptcy prompted Carroll to take his operation to Los Angeles, where his spacious theatre drew appreciative crowds, especially among soldiers on leave during World War II. The new venue, with its table-and-chair seating arrangement, had the cabaret atmosphere he had once hoped to achieve in New York, notably with the fourth edition of the Vanities.[17] In 1945, the Vanities inspired a musical film of the same title. Two other films inspired by Carroll's productions were Murder at the Vanities and The Earl Carroll Sketchbook.

References

  1. ^ “Carroll’s ‘Vanities’ Full of Vaudeville,” New York Times, September 11, 1924, p. 23.
  2. ^ Atkinson, J. Brooks. “The Play,” New York Times, August 25, 1926, p. 19.
  3. ^ Everett, William A., & Paul R. Laird. Historical Dictionary of the Broadway Musical, Second Edition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. p. 239.
  4. ^ Stempel, Larry. Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theatre. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2010, p. 214.
  5. ^ Atkinson, J. Brooks. “The Play,” New York Times, August 25, 1926, p. 19.
  6. ^ “Carroll’s ‘Vanities’ Full of Vaudeville,” New York Times, September 11, 1924, p. 23.
  7. ^ Green, Stanley. Broadway Musicals Show by Show. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Books, 1985, p. 76.
  8. ^ Internet Broadway Database
  9. ^ “Carroll’s ‘Vanities’ Full of Vaudeville,” New York Times, September 11, 1924, p. 23.
  10. ^ Bordman, Gerald. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 479.
  11. ^ Bordman, Gerald. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 479.
  12. ^ Smith, Bill. The Vaudevillians. New York: Macmillan, 1976, p. 73.
  13. ^ “Harbor Police Hunt for Missing Actors,” New York Times, August 11, 1925, p. 23.
  14. ^ Smith, Bill. The Vaudevillians. New York: Macmillan, 1976, p. 110
  15. ^ “Equity Retaliates on Earl Carroll,” New York Times, June 11, 1923, p. 16.
  16. ^ Bordman, Gerald. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 519.
  17. ^ “‘Vanities,’ Fourth Edition, Run Like a Night Club,” New York Times, December 29, 1925, p. 20.
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