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New YorkLetterWCm YORK—Among the m«superstitions of the show worldone concerning the renaming ol playhouses. The legend goes that hard luck and misfortune trail certain names.) So it happens that there is much wonderment along the Broadwaytrail at the nerve of the music shownroducers who took over the oldHammerstein theater and announced that it would become the Manhattan Theater next season. Such bravado is unique! For the old Manhattan became a “jinx” to the “pro-fesh,*Hammersteln’s large and elaborateplayhouse folded up during the pastwinter, following the flop of a mostexpensive production. And the name of Hammerstein, so long connectedwith the stage, temporarily blinked out. Its huge hulk has stood throughthe summer, presenting a depressing* ly deserted front to the passingcrowds.Then came word that Schwab and Mendel, successful producers of gay girl shows, would move in, and that henceforth it would be the Manhattan. The first Manhattan Theater occupied a corner at Sixth Avenue and Thirty-second Street, when show’ houses were moving up fromthe downtown district. At first it looked like a successful house, since Henry Miller went in with “D'Arcv of the Guards.” which was a great success. But a couple of years later, the old theater wasn't getting the right attractions and closed its doors. The next Manhattan Theater toaopear was under the management of William J. Gane. Gane was afirst-class showman who is credited with originating the idea of mixing a vaudeville program with motion pictures. The novelty “caught on at once and cau.sed a quick scurrying among other showmen. Loew, Proctor and others came running up with double-billed shows and, again, a Manhattan Theater found itself in trouble. Now still another Manhattan Theater comes on the scene, and the superstitious shakedubious heads.• • *But they have shaken their heads before, sometimes with good reason. Theaters tliat were supposed tobe jinxed frequently surprised byturning suddenly into hit houses. The old Empire, for instance, was said to be “too far down town.” 'Hie oig street had kept moving northward and skeptics viewed the old location with suspicion. Yet the Empire has housed one of the season's outstanding hits, “The Barretts of Wimpole Street,'* with Katherine Cornell. And it has had several excellent starts before that!One of the more amusing of Broadway's recent tales concerns the ex-chorine who married a young millionaire and immediately went “highhat.She moved at once into a $100suite in one of Manhattan’s ritziest spots and began referring to elevators as “lifts.” All coffee, even the breakfast our*, became a “demi-tasse.” And all steak was identified as “flet mignon This, among other things, wascredited with giving the young millionaire a large pain and contributing to the eventual splitup. The young man had been accustomed to the swankiest Southampton and poloset society, where only climbers might be found given to affectations. Playing at being “tony” is one ofNew York's more prevalent sports. Chorus girls, one week removed from backstage, frequentlv are heard trying to affect a Norma Shearer accent, whereas the real debutantes might be heard talking a snappy slang lingo usually identified with the chorine.The hotsv-totsier women behave in miblic. the further removed from socie’- ci-cles they are likely to be.
Newspaper Details
Brownsville Herald
Brownsville, Texas, US
Sun, Aug 02, 1931
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 24 Jun 2020
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