Press Clippings for the week ending
Saturday, 10 August 2002

A random selection of cuttings
from newspapers and magazines

* * * * * * * * Self and Lady at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, 19 September 1900; adapted from the French by Seymour Hicks 'A "new farcical comedy at the Vaudeville, Self and Lady, by Pierre Decourcelles." Why, I have seen it fifty times before. It is the good old French farce about marital infidelity - amusing perhaps to the French, but to the English mind only dull and silly when not repugnant. Mr. Seymour Hicks is as exuberant and unrestrained as ever as the erring young husband. Miss Ellaline Terriss does not show much advance in her art as his wife - though she is as pretty as ever. Mr. Cosmo Stuart plays the part of a heavy opera tenor (down at heel) with some skill, and Mr. Herbert Standing is unctuous as an elderly roué. I am pleased to see Miss Florence Lloyd (the best boy we have on the stage [a reference to her appearance as Lord Clanside in In Town, 1892/93/97]) back at work.' (The Sphere, London, 29 September 1900, p.403b/c) * * * * * * * * Mignonette Kokin, 'The Original Turkey Hop Girl' visiting England from the United States, 1913

Mignonette Kokin
(photo: unknown, probably USA, circa 1913)

'The portrait which appears above is that of Miss Mignonette Kokin, who is coming from the U.S.A. to show us how sundry measures, including the Turkey Hop - not "Trot," mark you - should be danced. Miss Kokin calls herself "The Original Turkey Hope Girl," and no doubt she is. 'It is pretty clear that the inventors of new dances are as hard put to find striking names for their measures as are the devisers of revues. The very latest dances in Paris bear such extraordinary titles as the "Sherlockinette," the "Bostang" and the "Chichigalpienne." The correct pronunciation of these extraordinary names after a fairly generous supper would seem to offer a certain amount of difficulty.' (The Pelican, London, Wednesday, 12 March 1913, p.5a) Ken Draganski has written (May 2003) to say that Mignonette Kokin (née Margaret), who was born in 1881 and died in 1947, was married in 1903 to his grandfather's first cousin, Charles Galetti. The latter was a member of the Galetti Troupe whose animal act, chiefly monkeys, flourished in the 1890s and the early years of the twentieth century, appearing in the United States and Europe. For a photograph of Mignonette Kokin by Daguerre of Chicago, circa 1916, see Performing Arts in America, 1875-1923: the Digital Library Collection of the New York Public Library * * * * * * * * Music-Hall Artists' Association London, 1886

(advertisement, The Optic, London, 1 April 1886, p.26)

* * * * * * * * Mlle. Aimée in opera bouffe, New York, 1873

(photo: Mora, New York, circa 1872)

'NEW YORK, Wednesday, September 24 [1873]… Mlle Aimee ceases to sing in opera bouffe at DALY'S BROADWAY THEATRE on September 27th. She has been heard in La Fille de Madame Angot, La Grande Duchesse, and La Perichole.' (The Era, London, Sunday, 12 October 1873, p.10b) 'Aimee, in order to flee from Paris which was then, characteristically, being besieged by the Prussians and in her anxiety to escape to America, the fabulous source of all wealth, risked her life in an adventurous balloon flight to reach the coast and board a ship. Her appearance in October, 1872, at the old Olympic Theatre on Broadway in La Périchole fully satisfied our curiosity about the ultimate success of the ascension. The lady obviously "arrived" and a very gifted lady she was - the most refined exponent of the bouffe school who ever visited this country. In her hands bouffe lost all of its nastiness; half of its vice. She had the rare talent of making improprieties seem proper without sacrificing any of the audience's interest. 'Being a creature gifted with chic and diablerie, Aimee presented her material in an early Irene Bordoni manner. All the rather hackneyed adjectives - "saucy," "piquant," etc. - applied very apty to her. But they should not discourage the reader because, combined with her sweet voice and her youthful personal appearance, they made for that indefinable something called "charm." The fact that Aimee reveled in her work and took delight in pleasing her public helped to make her the idol of Broadway.' (Edward B. Marks, They All Had Glamour, Julian Messner Inc, New York, 1944, pp.43 and 44)

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