The Helen Morgan Page

Working actors, especially those who plied their trade a century ago, worked.

Whenever and wherever they could.

New York actors in the 1920s and ’30s often doubled, even tripled, into other venues while still playing eight performances a week on Broadway.

It was not uncommon for performers to double into radio, nightclubs, and films while a Broadway show was running. Some also augmented their income by modeling, personal appearances, recording, and playing private parties.

But perhaps the most unusual way Broadway-ites picked up quick coin back in the day was working the funny pages. Beginning in February 1927, the New York Daily News ran a daily comic strip. But instead of cartoon characters, Broadway actors acted out little blackout sketches, one panel at a time, staged, at least originally, by Mark Hellinger.

Everybody working the Main Stem at the time posed for these Broadway comics: Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, W. C. Fields, various Marx brothers, Bob Hope, Ethel Merman, Eve Arden, Buddy Ebsen, Harry Richman, and Helen Kane (just to name a few) played the series, which lasted until December 1934.

In addition to whatever the actors earned, the panels advertised the Broadway show in which the performers appeared. The lead time must have been fairly short, as sometimes acts playing the Palace also got in on the action.

Helen Morgan posed for the strips five times.

Enjoy.

This site serves as a companion to Helen Morgan: The Original Torch Singer and Ziegfeld’s Last Star, which was published on September 3, 2024.