We are all used to vendors posting things -- specifically photos -- on e-bay which are labelled falsely. Sometimes its as little as a misspelling or a mistranslation, faulty decipherment or a flagrant guess from a feeble pencil inscription ..
Sometimes its rather more than that.
Do folk actually buy photos with names declared by the vendor and no proof of the identification? I wouldn't.
Do folk buy a photo of 'famous actor, unnamed'? Really, then how do you know he is 'famous'.
Are we expected to take for truth a recognisable musical comedy lass labelled as 'opera singer'? Or a performer who never sang a note in his/her life, given the same description.
A gentle example to hand: "beautiful opera singer Silvano with mandoline".
Yet the photo is labelled clearly "Silvano in Prince Pro Tem". Prince Pro Tem was an R A Barnet musical which was produced at Taunton, Mass 1 September 1893, which played the Boston Museum first in 1893 (11 September, apparently for 167 performances), and toured for the next two seasons. It was revised and revived in 1899 and hung around in local productions till the mid 1900s. The piece was described as a 'comic opera' by it authors, Lewis Sabin Thompson et al: when I tell you the numbers included a blackface coon song ...
And a topical song about the 'New York Policeman', another about 'Tommy Tomkins' ...
you will see that the term 'comic opera' in those times meant little more than a playlet with songs! The authors quickly retrenched and described their piece as a 'musical fantasy'.
I can't find a program to discover who played the little role of Silvano (yes, he's a character not a performer) but I see the touring company included Annie Lewis, Fanny Johnstone, Josie Sadler as Wild Rosie of Yucatan, and Fred Lennox (Tommy Tomkins) with Alice Shepard, Rosalind Rissi, Mabel Stanley .. By January 1895 the supporting role of Silvano was being played by Miss Ellis L Ingalls. In 1900 it was Marjorie Winburn. It didn't really matter, because Silvano only sang in one sextette ('A Nice young man') ... Lennox and Miss Sadler ('If I could only get a decent sleep') were the stars. Lewis Strang recorded that it 'never had a decent run out of Boston'.
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| Josie Sadler as Ruby |
PS found, the original Boston cast included Lennox and Miss Sadler, Miss Rissie, Florrie West, a Miss Kenyon-Bishop from Dayton as the Princess replaced by Jenny Corea ... and the heavily-advertised Olea Bull ('daughter of..' as principal dancer). But still no precise identification!
Here's another. This one is labelled 'Circus Acrobat Francis J Gorsche San Jose signed rare'.
Well, there are those who would have considered that Francis Jerome Gorsche belonged in a circus, but he was actually a rather inept fellow who inherited some $200,000 and decided he knew how to deal in real estate on the Western Coast. And who clearly had fantasies ..
His father was Johan/John S Gorsche, born in Laibach (Ljubljana), Austria circa 1814 who died in 1891. He was of ample but undisclosed means. His wife was the Ohio-born Katharine Hul(c)zer. Now, the elders seem to have had four or five sons one of whom -- possibly the eldest -- born, it seems, Francis John (17 August 1856) was a little ummm ....
Anyhow he becomes a Man when, his brothers having died, then his mother, in 1896, he inherited the lot. Beautifed by his bounty, he was promptly, it seems, seduced by a young lady named Marie Knecht whom he married 4 June 1897. Then he sobered up, dumped her in Paris and fled back home.
The report in the press said he was 'of limited intelligence' especially when befuddled by drink. Looking at this photo, I can believe that.
Looking at the signature I can believe that. And yes, its the same signature as the on his passport application.
And there began a series of unfortunate deals in real estate, a number of court appearances ... I see him in 1910 being sued (for the second time) by his housekeeper-cousin and by a 'friend', maybe all after a bit of the cake ... while he seems to have been prone to a a bit of rather inept fiddling himself ... Well, in the end there wasn't any cake it seems ...
Then, in 1911, he got himself into the papers yet again by announcing that he was enrolling at University. He was, he said, of English birth and 40 years old. He had been eight times round the world, fought lions and tigers in India and Africa, cohorted with the apaches in Paris ... ahha! That's where the fantasy for this picture come from. Mr Gorsche is into whips and chains ...
I see he was still dabbling in real estate in the 1920s ... I wonder if he had actually managed to make something of his $200,000. Or how much of it was left ...
But he was never a circus acrobat.
If I had to sort those two out, other goodies recently have included some grand photos. A beautiful photo of British soprano Catherine LEWIS in The Royal Middy (unfortunately labelled 'Lillian Lewis')
And here's one that really would be rare
I don't know where that 'Colie' came from, but 'Flavia' is real. Flavia Louise BLANDY (b Buffalo 1865; d Albany 10 June 1891) had only a few years on the stage at the head of a little company named for her, touring Rhose Island and beyond. She married (10 April 1889) her comedian Robert A DUMARY, gave birth to a daughter, and died thereafter. There can't be too many photos of her about.
I particuarly liked this one. It's a scene from Henry Arthur Jones's megahit melodrama The Silver King (1882) featuring Osmond Tearle, Rose Coghlan and John Gilbert, labelled and left to speak for itself.
Here's another beauty. A very, very frustrating beauty. Her name is or was or pretended to be Rose BE[H]REND, and she has so far beaten not only me, but the whole world of Gilbert and Sullivan scholarship. For Rose by any other name was a member of the cast of the much-much-discussed Thespis. And she was said to have fabulous legs.
According to her, she was born in Birmingham circa 1846, and Berend was seemingly her married (and swiftly widowed) name. Well, she was 'Rose Berend' when she appeared in 1868 at the Pavilion Theatre as Emily Harewood in The Little Ragamuffin and in King John. She skipped to the Haymarket to play in Cymbeline, to Woolwich (The Waterman) and the Royal Artillery's Concerts (Victorine in The Seven Clerks) and then to the Globe where she took part (I've given my programme away!) in the very successful Cyril's Success, and then in Brown and the Brahmins, whence comes this photo ...
She joined Joseph Eldred's company for a bit, returned to the Opera Comique (Hit and Miss, The Chimney Corner, The Post Boy. The Bohemians, Nicholas Flam, Love in a Fix, Mars in the revived Ixion Re-wheeled, War to the Knife) and then I lose her.
For four years I lose her. Illness, marriage .... who knows.
But she returned. I see her in 1879 at Brighton and Nottingham, at the Olympic in School for Scandal and then at the Alhambra as Queen Orangehue then 'a magnificent Queen Camellia' in the remade Black Crook (1881) and as Melusine in the new Babil and Bijou (with a Matilda Behrens as chorine!).. and then, under whatever name, for whatever reason, age 35, gone.
OK. I have exhumed the reality of several like ladies. But I'm not sanguine about this one. Someone else have a go!
There are some lovely pix, of course, that have no name, or an indecipherable one, that have sat on my desk all week, but it is time to clear them off in the hope that someone just may be able to identify them ,,,
We've tried and tried on the last name!
Cocktail time. It's been a fun day!
Wonderful!
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