Press Clippings for the week ending
Saturday, 27 September 2003

A random selection of cuttings
from newspapers and magazines

Maude Adams goes shopping in New York

Maude Adams (1872-1953), American actress

(photo: Sarony, New York, circa 1908)

'Maude Adams, back [in New York] from her tour of the smaller [United States] cities, set forth immediately upon a tour of the Fifth Avenue shops. Miss Adams isn't so dominating in her shopping as her acting, doubtless because she loves the acting and loathes the shopping. She walks upon the stage with a light but sure tread. The shop she enters with the lagging step of one uncertain. 'When the slim, apologetic figure, wrapped in an old brown travelling cloak and surmounted by a small and not unbecoming brown hat, stepped falteringly between the swinging doors of one of the finest dressmaking shops on the avenue, the lordly floorwalker person bowed only from his neck joint. To ponderous persons, velvet swathed and glittering, making portly entrance he bows from his middle. But why waste his vital force in an exaggerated obeisance to a little brown thrush sort of woman, one who had walked to his master's shop, too. Hadn't he seen her while he stood gazing, staring out into the street, turn the corner in the face of a hard north-east wind and fight a battle with her flying skirt and hair? 'To his surprise the little brown thrush looked at some good gowns, but not at all to his surprise she said she had no money in her purse, not even a check book. '"I hadn't intended shopping when I started for my walk," she said in a winsome way that would have penetrated a lesser hide. "Will you please send the gowns collect?" '"Really, ma'am. No, ma'am. We couldn't think of it, you know, not knowing you, you know." 'The floor walker bowed from his middle to a florid woman who weighted two hundred fifty. Then he turned with a curt gesture of dismissal to the small women in brown. '"I wish you would send them C.O.D.," persisted the small voice with its contralto note. "I'm Miss Adams." '"Of which Adams family, ma'am?" '"None in particular. I'm just Miss Maude Adams." 'Miss Adams achieved one of the greatest triumphs of her career. The haughty floor walker bowed to her from his middle, bowed even lower than he had done to the woman of weight. 'Floating with light, Adamsy step [sic] out of the dressmaker's shop, she bent her way in the Jaws of the north wind to a milliner's. There she bought a sable hat for which she paid fifteen hundred dollars. The rosy, large-eyed maid of sixteen, delighted with her large sale, said, "You are sure to like it, Miss Adams." '"I hope so. Try it on yourself, please." 'Surmounting the childish curls and drooping above the clear, youthful skin and baby eyes of the young saleswoman, the hat was a marvel. Miss Adams sighed. '"Child," she said, "If I looked as you do in it I would gladly pay another thousand for it."' (The New York Dramatic Mirror, New York, Saturday, 1 January 1910, p.4a/b) * * * * * * * * The Two Bobs and the Boom in Ragtime, London, May 1912

The Two Bobs

Bob Alden (d.1932) and Bob Adams (d.1948)
popular American ragtime duettists in England

(photo: Dobson Studios, Liverpool, circa 1919)

'Ragtime is back again, after a lapse of several years, in which time industrious American composers have endeavoured to keep the ragtime flag flying. The American nation suddenly succumbed to its lilting syncopation, and just as suddenly England caught the fever too. Some there are who say that "Yiddle on Your Fiddle" started it, but be that as it may, the fact remains that the men responsible for its development are unquestionably the "Two Bobs," the popular American comedians who sprung upon as "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and "Casey Jones." 'Now the whole country is engulfed in a ragtime swirl. Abundant evidence of the demand for ragtime music is the issue of a special supplement of Columbia-Rena records embracing four new ragtime hits – and this exclusive of the double record in the current monthly supplement which gives us the "Mysterious Rage" and the "Chanticleer Rag." The ragtime numbers on this special Columbia-Rena supplement include a band record of "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and "That Mysterious Rag," and a vocal record of the big ragtime number from which the Empire Theatre [Leicester Square, London,] takes its name, "Everybody's Doin' It." Opportunity is taken to enumerate all the previously-listed ragtime numbers on Columbia-Rena, and we may be sure that the dissemination of this timely supplement should serve to intensify the ragtime boom.' (The Talking Machine News, London, May 1912, p.279a) * * * * * * * * The 50th anniversary of Enrico Cecchetti's debut as a ballet dancer celebrated at the Alhambra, Leicester Square, London, 5 January 1922

'Maestro' Enrico Cecchetti (1850-1928)
Italian born former ballet dancer and dancing teacher

(photo: unknown, probably London, circa 1921)

'The Chevalier Enrico Cecchetti is one of the most famous teachers of dancing that the present generation has known. Born at Rome on the 21st of June, 1850, he celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his début as a dancer on January 5th last [1922], when for one night only he played his old part, that of the Wicked Fairy in The Sleeping Princess at the Alhambra [Leicester Square, London], when he was received with acclamations of affection and esteem both by the large audience and by his fellow artistes in the ballet. A product of La Scala, Milan, when that great School was at its best, he has been responsible for the technique of many of the most celebrated dancers of to-day, including Pavlova, Karsavina and Nijinski. He first danced in London in 1885.' (The Dancing Times, London, February, 1922, p.417) 'That was a wonderful night when Maestro Enrico Cecchetti celebrated his fiftieth year as an artist. I don't believe they had the correct date, as they had overlooked the fourteen days difference between the Russian and English Calendar, but that did not prevent the maestro giving a very finished display of miming as the Wicked Fairy. The audience rose at him, and when the curtain fell the artistes gave him their ovation. He asked me, when I saw him in his dressing room, surrounded with flowers and other tributes, if I would permit him to express his thanks, through these pages, to the countless friends and fellow artistes for the great welcome they had given him.' (The Dancing Times, London, February, 1922, pp.418b and 419a) * * * * * * * *

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© John Culme, 2003