Musical theatre memorables: the Gaillards

 

As you know, I enjoy scouting in e-bay land. It replaces my old hobby of scouring the old book shops, ephemera fairs and such like of England, France (especially Nice), Vienna and Australia. Alas, nowadays 'vintage' means 1960s, 'antique' book fairs are full of Barbara Taylor Bradford paperbacks ... and my vast collection of musical-theatre ephemera was long ago consigned to Harvard University and other American institutions. So I soulage myself on e-bay, where hopefully I help, regularly, some of the classier vendors by identifying their old photos and other items.

Spending, thus, plenty of hours a week on the site, I have noticed some curious things. The most curious is the perpetual reappearance of certain items, over and over and over ... for years and years ... doesn't e-bay charge? Obviously not. This one is my pet horror ...

Yes, its a perfectly nice (and very common) sketched card of Peter Paul Rubens. And it is labelled 'theatre, actor'. It is priced at $50 (plus $50 postage!). Is somebody crazy!  

Other photos, less persistent, turn up sporadically over a period of time. Occasionally I see a photo of someone whom I have featured on one of my blog posts years back make a reappearance. OK, dealer recycling unsold stock. Fair enough. Its mostly stuff of little interest. But who buys 'unidentified very famous actress ..'?

What prompted me to this little animadversion is the reappearance, after several years, of a pair of excellent portraits, correctly labelled, of a theatre couple of very definite interest and very rarely seen. Why have they lingered so long even at the price of even more than $50? 

Here they are. Husband and wife. 

 

Guess what! I can not only date these pictures pretty precisely. I can also tell all about the folk pictured. Because in my archive, I have a bundle of 20 year-old notes that I made when I was researching the life and times of Emily Soldene ...

Francis [Sylvestre] GAILLARD (b Savoie c1859; d Hackensack NJ 1939) was a Frenchman, the son of one Pierre Gaillard and he had at least one sister ... and that is all I know about the first twenty years of his life. Which is why I haven't published his life story before this time.

He left France for London around 1881. Whether he had worked on the stage before that is hard to tell as there were a number of Mons Gaillards about, as well as Mons Pierre [Samson] Gailhard (1848-1918) of the Opéra ... I spot one at the Théâtre de Verviers (1878) .. and one, in 1879 at the El Dorado playing Brisemiche in Chassaigne's La Demoiselle de Compagnie ... who knows?

The first time I spot him for sure, he is already in England. 19 March 1881 he appears in an end-of-season hotch-potch of entertainments labelled 'a Grand Combination of Talent, the Comic Art of All Nations' at Her Majesty's Theatre. Amongst the list of mostly unfamilar participants were the French duettists Bruet et Riviere, Alfred Vance, Ferdy Jonghmanns, Herbert Campbell and the exotic Algerian lady who called herself Kadoujda...  Francis was billed as 'from La Scala, Milan'. Oyyyyy ....

'chanteuse africaine'

'Signor' Gaillard was quickly on his way. On 16 May, he opened at the Oxford Music Hall, as 'Francisco Gaillard' topping the bill with Nelly Power, Fred Albert, J H Rowley, G H Chirgwin and a lady dubbed 'Fraulein Harriett' 'the beautiful Jewess who has fascinated St Petersburg, Leipzig and Hamburg' who sang German and Hebrew Chansonettes. He was acclaimed 'a great attraction ...this gentleman has a good presence, a good style and a splendid voice. In a very short time he has mastered the difficulties of the English language and it was with something like a thrill of delight the audience listened to his fine declamatory rendering of 'The Noble Six Hundred' ... also gave our old acquaintance 'Non e ver' in English ...'

Now, shortly before 'Francisco' started at the Oxford, census day came round. And at & Great Portland Street were to be found Francis (22), Jeanne? Gaillard (36 b Switzerland) and Alice Williams (22, b Bristol). A porky or two there. Francis, I am sure, is veracious. Jeanne is nebulous (mother? sister?). Alice chops a couple of years off her age, but also denies her birth name.  Oh, that name was going to be Gaillard a few weeks later, but for the moment it was Alice Mary JONES (b Bristol 20 February 1857; d Ridgefield, NJ 29 March 1946), daughter of Edward Jones, miller. Alice was vowing also to be an 'artist' and she may have been the 'Alice Williams' I spot singing operatic selections in Brighton in 1875, but she is not immediately obvious for the moment.

Gaillard 'the great French baritone' soon stopped pretending to be anything but what he was, Alice for a little while tried for a little while to be 'Alice Guglielmi' and follow an Italian operatic career, but the two soon found their niche. The baritone, understandably, before the contralto.

Francis went straight from the Oxford to his first appearance on the English stage, and got the role of his career. He was perfectly cast as Pippo, the peasant lover of La Mascotte (Violet Cameron), and since La Mascotte was to turn out to be one of the biggest hits of the era ...

The piece, and Gaillard's perormance in it, won top notch reviews, caught the public favour, and when the end of the hire of the Comedy Theatre came to an end, 15 April 1882, the production was transferred to the Strand Theatre for another three and a half months. 

Thereafter Francis was to be heard in the comncerts of the season (Faure's 'Charité', 'Non e ver') occasionally alongside Alice, who was now 'Mme Gaillard', or briefly 'Mlle Guglielmi', and it is from now I think that her photo dates. But what's with the tambourine?

The Strand's next production (after a pause for redecoration) was one of H B Farnie's pasticcio musical comedies from the French or Frenchish, an adaptation of the well-known Charlot aka The Follies of a Night set with music and songs from the French repertoire under the title of Frolique. Gaillard sang a Planquette song for the few months the piece held up, after which it was succeeded by seven weeks of a comic opera named Cymbia.

In 1883 (12 June) they appeared in a French concert at St George's Hall. Francis gave his 'Charité', 'Les deux amis' with Desmonts and acted in the little Le Diner de Madelon, Alice chose 'Nobil signor' and joined a Miss Carreras in the Semiramide  duet. At Christmas time she pulled her ambitions down a notch and went to play Fairy Queen in panto at Newcastle behind Hetty Chapman and W H Denny,

Hetty Chapman

In the meantime, Francis was at the London Alhambra playing Prince Florian of Floridea in the spectacular The Golden Ring. Three months did not an Alhambra success make.

He gave Offenbachian bits at the Alhambra and the Avenue, took part in a revival of La Mascotte with Florence St John ('as usual was picturesque in his appearance and gave much spirit and vivacity to the character .. in excellent voice') and it was announced that he had signed for three years at the Paris Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens. Allegedly to begin in Planquette's Nell Gwynne.

It didn't happen. Oh, the Gaillards left England: but they went the other way. America. Francis was hired for Grau's French opera company, star Louise Théo ...

Théo

Grau's companies were repertoire companies, and the Théo repertoire was large. From 8 September 1884, Gaillard played Annibale to her Madame Boniface, Pippo to her La Mascotte, François to her Fantine in Françcois les bas bleus, The Count in Madame L'Archiduc, Tromboli in Boccaccio, the Marquis in Les Cloches de Corneville, Robert in La Fille du tambour-major, Morzouk in Giroflé-Girofla, the Podesta in La Petite Mariée et al.

Alice, meanwhile, got a job with the W A Thompson Company playing Palmatica alongside A W McCollin in The Beggar Student, in replacement of Augusta Roche. When they were at the Blake Opera House in Racine their lodgings burned down (28 December 1884). Several company members died ... Alice was reported as 'demented' as a result.

In 1885, Judic visited America and Francis gave his Pippo to her Bettina, while Alice went for the summer at Schlitz Park, Milwaukee (Manette etc) ... and the decision was made and announced. The Gaillards were staying in America. And so they did.

The engagements proliferated. They played in Duff's Mikado Company (Pish Tush), 

Francis appeared as the Count in The Bridal Trap at the Bijo Theater and afters, Alice (Edwige) and then Francis (Boleslas) joined the McCaull Black Hussar/Falka troupe ... both of them were eminently employable. And versatile. Their Mc Caull summer engagement includes performances of Ruddigore, The Mikado, Der Feldpregier, Apajune der Wassermann, Don Caesar, The Crowing Hen, The Royal Middy, Lorraine, Der Bettelstudent, Das Spitzentuch der Königin ...

The list of their credits is immense. Alice played Peronellas and Palmaticas and even took over from Emily Soldene as Oudarde in Lorraine. They toured with McCaull, with Jennie Winston (Peronella in Boccaccio, Giroflé-Girofla, La Périchole, Fra Diavolo), with McCollin (François les bas-bleus, Beggar Student, The Merry War), with Duff  and Francis played Theotychides in the mildly successful The Lady and the Tiger at Wallack's Theatre, and they both featured in the San Francisco musical Said Pasha -- he in the title-role, she as Baiah Sojah ('encored three times') when it was played at New York's Star Theatre and sent on the road.

In 1890 they joined the company at the grand Tivoli Opera House in San Francisco. Soldene was chief lady, so when they did La Fille du tambour-major, Emily was the Duchess and Alice played the boy-part of Griolet. Francis, of course, played Robert. The house, of course, put on La Mascotte, Orphée aux enfers, Said Pasha, Indigo, Surcouf, Dorothy, Bettelstudent, Patience and I see Alice singing La Favorita! She also sang Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance, he sang Eriminio in Gasparone, Henri in Cloches de Corneville, she was Juana in Cocquelicot ... 

After their long stint at the Tivoli, they rejoined the Grau (Moritz) ranks -- The Gondoliers, The Black Hussar, Fra Diavolo, Fatinitza, Martha, Boccaccio, Giroflé-Girofla and more Said Pasha ..

''an artist of unusual ability both as actor and singer. His voice is rich and sweet and he manages it delightfully.  Alice Gaillard adds to a very attractive form a pure contralto voice of great power and sweetness ...'

It goes on and on. The Baker Opera Company, the Hagan Opera Company in St Louis (Spinola and Artemisia in The Merry War etc), more Tivoli (Alice as Katisha, Lalla Rookh), the Pyke Opera Company (The Beggar Student, Amorita, Caramello in A Night in Venice), the Boston Wolff Company at Castle Square (Alice in Fra Diavolo, Bettelstudent, Boccaccio, Dorothy, Black Hussar, Aurore and Pedro in Giroflé-Girofla, Petronella and Don Cristobal in Clover, Arnheim and Gipsy Queen in The Bohemian Girl, Falsacappa and Princess in Les Brigands, Francis as Henri in Cloches de Corneville). I see Francis playing Zou-Zou in Trilby and Alice replacing Rose Leighton as Mary Doodle in the Camille D'Arville Madeleine, both of them playing in Sydney Rosenfeld's The Bridal Trap (The Count, The Marquise), and at the Park Casino, Wheeling, the Oriental, St Louis .... before they tumbled into the company run by Emma R Steiner 'America's greatest woman director and composer'. They played Bombardo and Perpetua in Amorita, he was Corcoran and she Buttercup in HMS Pinafore, and they played in Ms Steiner's The Little Hussar.

In 1897 they went out with Fannie Rice in a version of Drei Paare Schühe (At the French Ball) ...

And so it continued. I see Alice got to play Azucena in Cincinnati in 1899 and the widow Frimousse in Wang. They also did Erminie, so I imagine that Alice also got to play the hilarious role of the Princesse Gramponneur.

But our couple weren't about to fade away. Highlights only (space required) of the next years ... 

Francis: 

1906 (7 September) Reading, Pa. A new musical Those Primrose Girls (Herman Perlet)

1907-8 Brewster's Millions as Mons Bargie and stage director.

1909 (25 January) Pontbichet in Kitty Grey at the New Amsterdam Theater

1909 Mons Louis Pinac in The Music Master with David Warfield

1910 Chicago: Duffault in musical The Sweetest Girl in Paris

1911 The Girl in the Taxi

1912 It Happened in Potsdam

1912 Generalissimo Bombastino in The Girl of my Dreams

1915 Comedy Theatre: Guiseppe Campolo in the Shuberts' Just One of the Boys

Alice;

1908 Montpe Park, Alabama

1911 Donna Paprika in Mutt and Jeff

1913-4 Mrs Oglesby van Dare in Firefly tour

1915-6 Princess Tralala

1917 Miss Springtime

Madame Cécile in Mlle Modiste

I'm going to stop there.  One day, I'll go back and fill out these old notes.

Oh, personal life. Yes, the Gaillards had two sons. Mario Ernest, born in London 12 August 1884 and apparently falsely declared to have died of scarlet fever as a child. He became a cigar clerk in a restaurant, married twice, and died 6 September 1936. Before his parents. A second son, Oscar, born at their home in Little Ferry, NJ 4 May 1894 died in the Somme in the great war. Alice visited his grave in 1929.

Now I can finally file this grand couple under 'done' after a quarter of a century!

And Mr 'You-can-trust-Alf' ... now you know who these folk are, maybe they'll fly out the window.

NB an 'Alice Williams' was credited with the lyrics to a song 'Reine de l'amour', music by Willie Fullerton, at the time Alice was sporting that pseudonym. Was it she?