That was entertainment ... vaudeville 1860s

 

This photo is a treasure. To me. To any really knowledgeable theatrical museum ...

Because it doesn't come from the brighter lights of the variety theatres Boston, Chicago or New York.  This is from one of the thousands and thousands of American variety houses which provided provincial patrons with their weekly entertainment, one week after another. The bread and butter of American entertainment. This comes from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Anyone heard of 'the Sheridan Brothers'? Nope, I hadn't. Were they really brothers? I severely doubt it. Was the surname of one or the other truthfully Sheridan? I doubt it. If you were doing and Irish act (which they did some of the time) it was a 'suitable' cognomen. So I didn't hold out much hope of finding out much about them, or either of them ...

Well, these photos were, so the verso tells us, taken in 1880. So, here goes...

I discovered that the 'brothers' were Willie/Billy/William and Frank. And that Frank was NOT the Frank Sheridan who was a notable character actor on stage and silent screen some years later. Unfortunately, the two Franks seem to overlap so I can't infallibly tell which is which after the boys split up. But their career as a double act only lasted from 1875-1880. 

My first sighting of the duo in action is at Maguire's, San Francisco in 1875. So I guessed that was where they hailed from. So there I hied ... and I found ..

FRANK Burt RICHARDSON b California 5 April 1858. There he is, I guess, aged 12, a student at Santa Clara .... and aged 2, son of Augustus Richardson, agent for California Stage Co, and his wife Mary née Poole. 

He married an English performer named Annie Granger or Forrest in 1891 .. after apparently divorcing a Sarah J, and after Annie had disposed of her partner/husband Budd Granger, who promptly died aged 35 ...      Frank had two brothers, but neither was a Willie. Oh, Annie née S(ch)wimmer (b 18 June 1864) brought an 1883 daughter, Lillie, to the marriage, and Frank supplied two sons, Lavender Birch (b 26 October 1892, d 1913) and Charles in 1894.

Happily, he turns up in the 1880 census, in a Fort Worth theatrical boarding house, listed as Frank Sheridan aged 21, accompanied by Willie Sheridan age 20. Next door is a brothel (heterosexual) staffed by 5 ladies of the night, and one bastard (sic) child. Both Frank and Willie are given as married, but none of their fellow boarderesses is labelled 'Sheridan'. Or Sarah. Or Ada. So ...

Yes, Ada. Or, alas, 'Ada'. Ada was allegedly Mrs Willie. And she was also the girl who broke up the act. Because Willie left Frank to team up with 'Ada Adair'. And promptly died. Leaving no trace that I can find as to his (or her) identity. Just a very brief and uninformative obit ...

Ada wrote to the press saying that 'yes' she was Mrs Willie ... but ... 

Ada came on the variety scene as a song and dance girl in 1877. '[Bob] Mulligan, [John] Weaver and Ada Adair'. 'The great triple Lancashire clog dancers'. Then Mulligan, Quinlan and Ada. Then just Bob and Ada 'sketches', 'lightning change artists'. Then Ada is a single. I see her on a bill with 'the Dutch (Harry and Leone) Mendels' (see funeral notice). And in July 1880 she appears with the Sheridan bros. She's still with them in early 1881 ... but by July it is just she and Billy. And 4 November he is dead 'of asthma'. At 'her residence' in Cincinnati. Yes, Cincinnati, where the Sheridan Brothers had played a good part of their career. And she is 'professionally known as'. Of course. Bah!

Ada played on (My Uncle's Pet), and then teamed up with a Ned Thatcher (1884-5-6) and his 'Mighty Magnets' ... who by January 1886 is claiming her as 'Mrs Thatcher', and that she is retiring from the stage through ill health. She didn't. And he writes to the press in August to say they have NOT separated... but Ada's off doing a single again! I don't know what eventually became of 'Ada'. She was playing Cincinnati in 1909. Last sighting 1910. But it doesn't help not knowing her real name. Ned's real name was Edwin E Webster, son of Henry and Ann, and he married Leona Eva Irish or Greer (Eva Williams) 11 June 1891, so ...  Ned died, aged 40, 14 June 1895, on stage in Wisconsin, in the midst of performing a sketch with his wife ..

I do know what became of Frank. He went on to a successful career, with his new wife, and died in 1917 (9 January).

Looks as if the act stayed pretty well the same, although it was advertised in a whole lot of different ways.

I have compiled a sizeable list of dates that the Sheridan Brothers played. Sometimes up the bill, sometimes down. Cincinnati features time and time again -- whether at Heuck's, the Adelphi, El Dorado, National Theatre, Coliseum, Canterbury Hall, John Street Garden or other venue -- St Joseph, Detroit, Toledo, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Troy, Buffalo, Cleveland, Baltimore and on a couple of occasions for Harry Miner in New York.

When they appeared in Detroit in 1880 the stage was lit for the first time by -- amazing -- electric light! 

Well, that's far from a finished answer. But, nevertheless, rather more than I expected to find. And it has been fun wandering in the unfamilar woods of American provincial variety ...

BLOGGER HAS DECIDED TO TAKE OUT ALL MY ILLUSTRATIONS.  I WONDER WHY?