F. F. Proctor - Vaudeville Pioneer

By William Moulton Marston

This vintage book contains William Marston's 1943 biography of Frederick Freeman Proctor, the famous variety entertainer of early twentieth century. Proctor was a vaudeville impresario who invented the method of continuous vaudeville. This fascinating and detailed biography is highly recommended for those with an interest in the life of this secretive theatrical legend. Contents include: "Top Billing", "Program Note", "An Acknowledgement to a Host of Contributions", "A Letter from Mr. George M. Cohan", "Enter: Freddie Proctor", "The Great Levantine", "King of the Vaudeville", "Building the Big Time", "Double Harness", "A Sterling Helpmate" "Ring Down the Curtain", et cetera. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with its original artwork and text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Press
• Release date: Aug 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781473340930

Book preview

C.

ACT ONE

Enter Freddie Proctor

Overhead the Maine sky had depths of blue that seemed an appropriate arch for the healthful world an eight-year-old boy knew at the end of the eighteen-fifties. He was on his way home from school. The great pine forests rose in splendor about him. The mighty ocean, beating against the shores he trod, built up the soul and heart of this Maine lad. These forests and this ocean seem to have purified and held in treasure the Maine air and sunshine especially for his lungs.

In time the strong will and stout limbs of this little Maine lad, whose sturdy ancestors had come over in the Mayflower, were to carry him into foreign lands, before crowned heads in capitals of Europe, under northern skies even bleaker than those of Maine, and under the warmer blues of the sunlit Mediterranean heavens.

In the years to come his strong limbs were to carry him into possession of great means, ease and comfort, and his hands, already strong on his homemade trapeze, would hold the reins of the Proctor theatrical empire. But the great qualities that characterize Maine and Maine men remained with him, even when his career took him far from the Pine Tree State. Throughout his life he remained, in sterling simplicity, integrity and idealism, the Maine boy who was returning from school that afternoon and going directly to the cellar of his home.

In that year 1859, the Civil War was brewing, but the greatest interest in his life was that boulder-walled room. His heart quickened as he descended the stairs and his nostrils snuffed eagerly the earthiness that clung in the delightful coolness of Dr. Alpheus Proctor’s cellar. Dr. Proctor was the country physician of the town of Dexter, Maine. Here he lived with his wife, the former Lucy Ann Tufts, and their five children. In later years his son was to remember pleasantly the place of his birth, particularly the basement he had converted into a boy’s gymnasium, and to reckon it a foundation for his entire life.

A well-worn tumbling mat covered the floor. Overhead hung a trapeze. Standing on end near the cellar wall was a small barrel with ends nailed up and sides beaten smooth by many midair performances at the tips of the youngster’s toes. In another corner were other devices the boy had seen in traveling shows and carnivals and had made the best he could from memory.

Young Proctor had haunted every itinerant show that passed through his town. Something far too big even for his well-developed frame seemed to yearn and stretch within him when he saw the troupes of the time unfolding their tents, spreading out the spangles they had carried over tedious trails once beaten by Indians, and readying themselves for the shows they gave. They were a hard-bitten lot, the men sinewy, rugged and always poised ready for emergency, and the women taut and daring, with a feline, slender grace and eyes filled with a worldly wisdom that takes the trials and triumphs of life in easy stride.

Young Proctor in his cellar would reach easily for his trapeze and draw himself upward, imitating the barnstorming acrobat who had thrilled the farmers and village folks the week before. The trying routine was not so hard, for he remembered the shouting crowds, the troupers’ indifference to danger and the romance of it all! Did not he recall watching some sideshow folding up in the moonlight after the performance, the band music still vibrant in the night? Could not he almost feel the starlight creeping down into the space abandoned by the departing show’s lanterns?

There wasn’t much more than that to tempt this boy. The show business was hazardous and seemed to offer little for those interested mainly in financial gain.

In 1851, the year Freddie Proctor was born, Stephen C. Foster gave the world Old Folks At Home. Six years earlier Foster had written a song that was such a favorite in the Proctor household that Freddie could remember all the words years later in the eighteen-nineties when he was discussing Foster with one of his stage managers:

UNCLE NED

There was an old darky;

His name was Uncle Ned;

He died long years ago.

He had no hair on the top of his head,

In the place where the wool ought to grow.

Chorus

Lay down the shovel and the hoe;

Pick up the fiddle and the bow.

There’s no mo’ work for poor Uncle Ned,

’Cause he’s gone where de good darkies go.

Almost every week, musical soirees were held in the Proctor living room, and the children listened spell-bound to spirited vocalizations by the near-great and plain home-grown baritones and sopranos and hard-to-classify singers who gathered around the piano. The walls would vibrate to the strains of the old favorite Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep (written in 1831), the Stephen Foster masterpieces and such martial airs of the war between the states as Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic, sung to the tune of John Brown’s Body; George F. Root’s Battle Cry of Freedom and Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching; and Henry Clay Work’s Marching Through Georgia.

Negro minstrelsy, which began in the eighteen-forties, was at its height in young Proctor’s boyhood. Boston was the place of origin for more burnt cork shows than the rest of the country combined, says M. B. Leavitt in his Fifty Years in Theatrical Management (1912), and the minstrel shows were popular in New England before any other part of the country—so we may be sure that young Proctor in Maine was acquainted with this thoroughly American form of entertainment which combined music, sentiment, dancing, humor and tall tales. It is well to remember that such great legitimate actors as the Booths and Jo Jefferson got their stage start (Jefferson’s at the age of four ‘jumping Jim Crow’) in blackface; that Dan Emmett’s Dixie originated as a minstrel-show walk-around; that Foster’s most famous songs were written for minstrels and were made popular by traveling troupes all over the country; and that Charley White’s variety show, combining minstrel acts, specialties and burlesque, was the link between the blackface of Proctor’s boyhood and the kind of entertainment he developed.

It was neither music nor minstrelsy that was young Freddie Proctor’s main interest—but juggling and acrobatics. As he lay on his back, kicking a barrel until, spinning and bobbing faster and faster, it made the air fairly hum, he would image himself in a perfected version of his act, surpassing all other performers. These dreams he confided to his father and mother. They were not show people, and they could not quite understand his avid liking for the show business. His own insatiable curiosity about show folks had brought him the discouraging knowledge that the best performers were sons and daughters of performers.

After a year of persistent efforts to lay the groundwork for his career, what seemed to be a still greater discouragement came to him. His father was stricken in 1860 and died that year. Freddie was only nine years old when his mother was left a widow with five young children. Not yet in his teens, he had to leave school and take on the responsibilities of life, and this very circumstance in life gave his ambition another push.

His mother was of hardened New England fiber, and she met emergencies bravely. She packed up her belongings and took her children back to the Tufts ancestral farm at Lexington, Massachusetts. Friendly neighbors welcomed them, and Freddie was shown the places where his father had courted his mother and the farm his grandfather had worked as a lad. He took readily to farm work, his chores were easy for him, and he was rapidly learning a good deal about life. He was proud in later years to remember that his mother had come from Lexington and that her great-grandfather had died in the battle fought there in April of 1775. He knew the exact spot where the old hero had died. His father’s family came from Concord,* where the embattled farmers first struck for freedom.

Freddie Proctor had his own way to make. He soon left Lexington for Boston. His first job there was with a millinery firm, wrapping packages all day, delivering them after the store closed, and getting a dollar a week. Within a few weeks, he found a better position with Browning & Jenkins, a drygoods house that was soon bought by two of the employees and became R. H. White & Company, the largest drygoods firm in Boston. Freddie’s income jumped to six dollars a month, and he worked his way from cash boy to bundle boy, wrapping packages all day and delivering them at night.

Hard work was agreeable to his muscular frame. The rudiments of business captured his respect for good order, and his later business success owed much to R. H. White’s store where he learned to think of management as a necessary part of all enterprise.

As he worked away behind a small partition, he could hear the talk of customers in the store. Boston then in its own opinion was the center of the universe, or at least the cultural capital of America. He heard tales of the progress of the theatre. He heard some of his own great heroes laughed at as backwoods provincials, for some folks in Boston did not realize that Horace Greeley was the greatest man who ever lived, though back in Maine no farmer or townsman ever made a decision without looking in The Weekly Tribune to see what Greeley had to say on the subject. He heard of the theatre and one day a clerk in the store said to him:

Listen, Freddie, if you really want to see an acrobatic show, go without dinner sometime and take in the Hanlon Brothers.

That night Freddie passed a few coins through a ticket office window and climbed the stairs to the balcony. It was an impressive show. High up in the dark crowd the little boy who was seeing the show at great personal sacrifice strained forward in his seat. The mold for his theatrical career was being cast.

The Hanlon Brothers, George, Alfred, Frederick and Edward, were from England, and they were famous. In January 1862, we learn from Tompkins’ History of the Boston Theatre, The Cataract of the Ganges was presented at Goodwin and Wilder’s Circus, with the Hanlon Brothers as an added attraction, featuring William Hanlon in Zampillaerostation, a word coined by James W. Lingard, manager of the Bowery Theatre, New York, for a trapeze act with no safety net.

After witnessing the Hanlon Brothers in Zampillaerostation, Freddie Proctor put R. H. White’s efforts to serve Boston in a second place in his life. In the basement of the store, he discovered a couple of packing boxes and a small barrel that he juggled now and then when he was alone. Each noon he carried his sandwich to the basement with him.

First, munching slowly, he would appraise the beams and the possibilities of a trapeze, and look for a clear space to do a little tumbling. Then, his sandwich gone, he spread out a few gunny sacks, lay on his back, and tried a medium-sized crate used for packing table cloths. It was a dangerous feat, for the wooden box might suddenly descend on him with the devastating effect of a wooden guillotine. The superintendent of the building, making his rounds from the other end of the basement, could not see the youngster lying on his back, as the rows of packing cases obscured the view, but he could see a linen crate bobbing around rapidly in midair. Curious to know what was going on, he edged closer and observed the bundle boy juggling a barrel and negotiating several other acrobatic stunts. The superintendent shook his head slowly and admiringly. What are you doing? he asked. I’ve seen juggling, but I’ve never seen such good juggling. What else can you do?

Why I can tumble a little, and swing on a trapeze.

Trapeze—of course, said the superintendent. That’s just what I need—exercise on a trapeze. Say, Freddie, I’ve got just the kind of rope we need. Listen. Come here tomorrow at noontime and we’ll have a first-rate trapeze. Now skadoodle. Your lunch hour is up, and if you don’t get back to your wrapping, I’ll report you for loafing. And he gave the youngster a friendly slap on the back to show him that he liked him.

The trapeze in White’s basement was a tremendous success. To Freddie’s consternation, for a time several other employees wanted to exercise there at lunchtime, but it was only a passing fancy for all but Freddie, and he soon was able to have the trapeze to himself for about twenty-five minutes every noon. In the other five minutes of the lunch period he ate his sandwich. At other times in the day he would find excuses to go to the basement. He seemed always to be running out of string or paper. On each trip downstairs he’d get in at least a few turns on the trapeze.

His skill won the admiration of all the boys in the store, and he became a leader in their gymnastics. When the weather was good, he led the youngsters to the green lawns of Boston Common, chose a thick grassy spot, and taught them the pyramids. They were soon organized into a skillful troupe, and had an appreciative audience awaiting them each noon.

Young Freddie’s addiction to the trapeze impressed the members of White’s management with his skill, but persuaded them that he wasn’t contributing much to their efforts as Boston’s leading merchants.

Freddie would rather turn over a trapeze than do anything in the store, the head secretary remarked.

He’s a likable lad, but maybe he would be happier elsewhere, one of the managers said. I hoped if he kept his nose to the grindstone he would soon be one of our best salesmen.

So it was decided that young Freddie Proctor’s stay with White’s had better be ended. This was a blessing in disguise for him and for the American theatre, for he was saved from the life of a merchant.

His married sister, Louisa Tufts Cummings, twenty years his senior, persuaded him to go back to school. He tried it, but after two months he decided he ought to be earning his own living and building a career.

The only memento he kept of these boyhood days was a letter he wrote to his mother when he was thirteen. It gives an inkling of the Yankee thrift in his character, and it exemplifies the brevity of his correspondence throughout his life. In a neat hand, he wrote:

March 21st, 1864.

DEAR MOTHER:

I suppose you think it is strange why I have not written before, but to tell the truth, I have not had time. My school is over and has been about two weeks. Uncle Bowen went to the examination. Noney is out of school now. I heard that Eler had been sick with some kind of fever. I am very sorry. I have got to get me a new cap. Do you think I had better send this pattern and let you send it up, or shall I come and get it when I come down to spend the Sunday? Does Alphey’s rubber boots turn out too small or not. I am sorry if they did, for it would almost be the same as if he had lost three dollars. That is all I can write now. So good bye. Give my love to all the folks. Write soon.

He didn’t bother to sign it when he wrote it, but, forty years later, attesting the sentimental value he attached to this early missive, he added the inscription: From Fred F. Proctor. I signed this at 53; was thirteen when originally written. His mother died in August 1893 at Windsor, New Hampshire.

In later years, shortly after the turn of the century, he invariably signed his love letters to Georgie Lingard, As ever, F. F. Proctor. When Georgie asked him, Is that a way to sign a love letter? he pleaded But, dear, that’s my style—I never sign my name any other way.

With his school days ended, he wandered up one tortuous Boston street and down another. He made careful note of all the theatres and especially the gymnasiums. While he had been at R. H. White’s his shows on Boston Common had drawn several managers and circus agents to look over his group of performers. Some of them had offered Freddie a chance to enter a theatrical career, but when he learned that they wanted only him and not his entire troupe, he turned down their offers. Later this same sense of fairness won him a sterling reputation as an employer.

One of the agents who saw his act gave him the address of the Tremont Club gymnasium and suggested that if he ever changed his mind he should come there to see him. Now Freddie joined this Tremont Gymnasium, which trained professional performers from all parts of the country to supply the ever-increasing number of traveling shows and circuses.

Freddie could not have dreamed of a better place. This gymnasium had professionally designed equipment, the very finest Indian clubs, dumbbells, cannon balls, etc. In the center of the gymnasium the instructors were helping the various students, men of all ages exercising with an avidness that stirred young Proctor. There was much lifting and heavy work with dumbbells weighing as much as a hundred and five pounds, forty-pound Indian clubs and cannon balls from eighteen to fifty pounds apiece. Every kind of trapeze was represented—there were flying rings, and single and double trapezes. Professor Du Crowe, the chief instructor, had been a slack-wire specialist with circuses in all parts of the country, and nearly all the feats he taught were for circus display.

Freddie tried out most of the apparatus, got a thorough warming up and then sat near the lockers watching the other performers. A sweaty athlete asked him: "Aren’t you the chap who used to give performances with