The Helen Morgan Page

… 1920, the Frivolities of 1920 closed, and with it went Helen Morgan’s first job in a revue with a Broadway pedigree.

G. M. Anderson is best remembered as film pioneer “Bronco Billy.” He appeared in Edwin Porter’s 1903 The Great Train Robbery. In 1907, with George Kirke Spoor, he founded Essanay Studios. A decade later, Anderson became a Broadway producer and acquired the Longacre Theatre, where he produced four undistinguished plays between January 1918 and February 1919. Deciding that plays were not his ideal medium, he jumped on the bandwagon of those wishing to cash in on Ziegfeld’s Follies blueprint. With William Anthony McGuire to direct and write the sketches and, making his Broadway debut, William B. Friedlander to handle the score, Anderson readied his Friviolities of 1919 for a fall production.

Even in the most capable of hands, a revue of this size would be a daunting task, but for the three neophytes, the growing pains were excruciating. The 1919 Equity Strike of August-September 1919 put the production behind schedule and a late October tryout confirmed that the concoction was half-cooked. Anderson brought the production back into New York for more rehearsals … and for his writers to generate better material.[i]

On December 8, Anderson tried again, at the Boston Opera House.[ii] Critical and audience reaction was stronger than it had been in October, and, still called the Frivolities of 1919, the show opened at the 44th Street Theatre on January 6, 1920.[iii] The combination of bad reviews, an influenza outbreak, and a blizzard forced the production to shutter on Broadway after only seven and a half weeks.

With its box office momentum shattered, the production went to the road. A three week stand in Philadelphia was followed by one-week jumps throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes cities throughout May.

So certain that the Democratic National Conventioneers would want a break from the action to ogle the girls, the Blake and Amber Agency sent several to join the company in Salt Lake City on June 10 to augment the line before the show arrived in San Francisco and the convention.[iv] Although in later years, Production Manager Frank Hill remembered scrambling in Chicago to fill the ranks of his chorus prior to the Broadway opening, more than likely, his faulty memory concerned this push to back-fill his back line. In any event, one day a girl trio auditioned. The Morgan girl seemed too shy to be a successful chorine, but, with so many spots to fill, in desperation, Hill hired her anyway.[v]

Between Salt Lake and San Francisco, the show played a profitable week in Los Angeles. It was lucrative for the girls as well, as they spent their daytime hours appearing with Jimmy Aubrey and Oliver Hardy in a Vitagraph short.[vi] The Frivolities made money on the Barbary Coast. Anderson added an additional performance to lure conventioneers at a time when they would be expected on the floor, but in he end, the stand was not the goldmine he had banked on. However, when he did not pay his choristers for the extra performance, complaints were filed with Equity[vii] Specialty dancers Joseph Cole and Gertrude Denahy were also added to the Frivolities while in San Francisco. The couple debuted on July 6, were given a few requests for changes, but when they returned the following night, they were informed they had been cut from the show. When Anderson refused to pay them for the one performance, they sued, and Anderson, claiming there was no contract and he was merely offering the dancers a tryout, was arrested.[viii] By point of contrast, the Barr Twins (specialty dancers) left the show just prior to the exodus out west. One sister claimed to be ill. Perhaps, but a month later, the sister act was back on Broadway in the Shubert revue Cinderella on Broadway. Anderson sued them for the oddly precise sum of $4700.

In August, the production returned to San Francisco for an additional two weeks … but at reduced prices. After Labor Day, business dried up and money problems haunted the production. While in Oakland, the Gille Show Print Company attached the production for an outstanding bill of $700. No sets or costumes were permitted to leave the theatre until the bill was settled.[ix] Beginning August 29, the company endured fourteen weeks of (almost exclusively) one and two-night stands as the tired production inched its way back to the mid-west. If Helen did not join the company on the trip out west, she joined later in the fall.

In December, things began to look up for the company as it settled back into full-week stands, but business in St. Louis was so bad, the production transferred to Kansas City C.O.D. The advance in Kansas City was adequate, but the press panned the production, which effectively dried up business for the remainder of the run. With no hope for payment, chorus girls Kittie Kelley and Marion Taylor appealed to a free legal aid society, claiming they had not received a penny in two weeks. Then …

The production was stored in the Kansas City Convention Hall until May 1921, when Equity sold the collection, valued at $160,000 … for $7,000. It is unclear just who ended up with the Frivolities production, although in September, Anderson himself announced plans to produce a Frivolities of 1921, based on his original production.[x] In any event, a tabloid production with a new and unknown cast played two performances a day well into 1922.[xi] 

Equity made good on their promise to the company, many of whom had been subsisting on apples. One girl, who had threatened to quit a month or so before the contretemps was told she could walk back to Chicago if she didn’t like how she had been treated.[xii] Among the claims for back payment came one note for $95 … from Helen Morgan.[xiii]

Part of Anderson’s cash-flow problem was his new production, a west coast revival and tour of his last Longacre production, Just Around the Corner.[xiv]The production broke in at San Francisco’s Savoy on October 18 and, again, played one and two-nights stands anywhere west of the Mississippi where Anderson could find a booking. Business was no better and this company had also gone two weeks without payment when Anderson, on his own terms, closed the production on Christmas night at the Pueblo Opera House. Equity, once again, stepped in and wired money to the company to get back to San Francisco.[xv] 

Below is the Frivolities schedule, from its Broadway premiere to its eventful closing night, one hundred and four years ago.

1920   Jan 8 – Feb 28	44th Street	New York
Mar 1-20	Chestnut St. Opera House	Philadelphia
21-27	Poli’s	Washington, DC
Mar 29 – Apr 3	Auditorium	Baltimore
Apr 5-10	Playhouse	Wilmington, DE
12-17	Globe	Atlantic City
19-24	Sam S. Shubert	New Haven, CT
Apr 26- May 1	Tech	Buffalo
May 3-8	Royal Alexandra	Toronto
10-15	Colonial	Cleveland
17-22	Sam S. Shubert	Detroit
24-29	Alvin	Pittsburgh
30-31	Oliver	South Bend, IN
Jun 1	Englert	Iowa City
3-6	Broadway	Denver
7	Burns	Colorado Springs
9	Orpheum	Ogden, UT
10-12	Salt Lake	Salt Lake City
14-19	Mason Opera House	Los Angeles
Jun 21 – Jul 17	Loew’s Casino	San Francisco
Jul 22-23	Cline	Santa Rosa
24	Hill	Petaluma, CA
25-26	Victory	San Jose
27	T&D	Stockton, CA
29	Modesto Theatre	Modesto, CA
31	California	Turlock, CA
Aug 2-14	Columbia	San Francisco
15-17	Clunie	Sacramento
18	Victory	San Jose (return engagement)
19	Monterey	Monterey
20	T&D	Watsonville, CA
21	Casino	Santa Cruz
22-28	Liberty	Oakland
29	T&D	Stockton (return engagement)
30	Theatre Visalia	Visalia, CA
Sep 1	Bakersfield	Bakersfield
3	T & D	Hanford, CA
5-6	Orpheum	Fresno
8	Majestic	Chico, CA
11-12	Page	Medford, OR
14	Grand Opera House	Salem, OR
16-17	Tacoma	Tacoma, WA
18	Liberty	Centralia, WA
20-21	Royal Victoria	Victoria, BC
22-23	Avenue	Vancouver, BC
Sep 28 – Oct 1	Auditorium	Spokane, WA
Oct 2	Liberty	Missoula, MT
3	Margaret	Anaconda, MT
4-5	Colonial	Idaho Falls, ID
6-7	Broadway	Butte, MT
8-9	Grand	Great Falls, MT
10	Marlowe	Helena, MT
12-13	Babcock	Billings, MT
14	Auditorium	Bismarck, ND
15	Opera House	Jamestown, ND
16	Grand Opera House	Fargo, ND
18	Rex	Chippewa Falls, WS
19	Grand Opera House	Eau Claire, WS
20	Grand Opera House	Winona, MN
21	Grand Opera House	Dubuque, IA
22	Waterloo	Waterloo, IA
23	Odeon	Marshalltown, IA
24	Grand Opera House	Ottumwa, IA
25	Grand Opera House	Burlington, IA
26	Grand Opera House	Keokuk. IA
27-28	Burtis Opera House	Davenport, IA
29	Greene’s	Cedar Rapids, IA
30-31	Clinton	Clinton, IA
Nov 1	Academy of Music	Sterling. IA
2	Al Ringling	Portage, WI
5	National	Racine, WI
6	Rockford	Rockford, IL
9	New Plumb	Streator, IL
10	Gayety	Ottawa, IL
12	Chatterton	Bloomington, IL
13	Chatterton	Springfield, IL
16	Pattee Opera House	Monmouth, IL
20	Grand	Burlington, IA
21-24	Brandeis	Omaha
25-27	Lyceum	St. Joseph, MO
29	Grand	Topeka, KS
30	City Theatre	Junction City, KS
Dec 1	Brown Grand	Concordia, KS
2	Marshall	Manhattan, KS
3-4	Crawford	Wichita. KS
6-11	Shubert-Jefferson	St. Louis
12-18	Shubert	Kansas City. MO

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

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[i]       Variety, October 10, 1919, p. 14, October 24, 1919, p. 17 and October 31, 1919, p. 15.

[ii]       Boston Daily Globe, December 9, 1919.

[iii]      Frivolities of 1920 (January 8m 1920, 44^th Street Theatre) The cast boasted the services of Edward Gallagher, just prior to his reteaming with Al Shean.

[iv]      Variety, June 11, 1920, p. 16.

[v]       Soanes, Wood. “Curtain Calls” Oakland Tribune, October 15, 1936, p. 27. The whole quote is:  “[This is] the same youngster I hired for the line in Chicago one time with G. M. Anderson’s Frivolities. We’d had to get a few girls and I send (sic) the stage management out to rustle up some local talent. A trio showed up and one of them was a black-haired youngster who seemed altogether too shy to be a chorine. I hired her in desperation and she went on to New York with us. Always minded her own business and never showed up around the office except on pay nights. Somebody told me that she had tried out for opera but couldn’t cut the buck. Well, we finally folded, as you know, and I never saw her again until tonight.”

[vi]      The Portsmouth Times, August 29, 1920, p. 18. identified this short as Paradise Alley.  According to Richard M Roberts, “Paradise Alley” was the nickname for the Vitagraph tenement/slum set. Perhaps the short was His Jonah Day.

[vii]     Variety, July 23, 1920, p. 13.

[viii]     New York Clipper, July 28, 1920, p. 5.  – Anderson apparently felt he could engage any act on a trial basis, contract or no contract. Saxi Holtsworth and his Jazz Band were promised 6 weeks employment at $300 per on October 18, 1919, but on November 4, 1919, while the show was back in New York for repairs, they received a letter stating their services were no longer required. They sued for the remaining four weeks of salary promised them. Variety, February 13, 1920, p. 13.     

[ix]      Variety, September 10, 1920, p. 9.

[x]       The Billboard, May 21 and September 18, 1921

[xi]      Indianapolis Star, May 5, 1922, p. 9.

[xii]     New York Dramatic Mirror, December 25, 1920.

[xiii]     Variety, December 24, 1920.

[xiv]     Just Around the Corner (February 5, 1919, Longacre)

[xv]     New York Clipper, December 29, 1920.

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