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Imported from England
On November 29, 1902, Drury Lane Theater in London packed the
sets and costumes from it's 1901 Christmas pantomime of Mr. Bluebeard.
They sent them off on a ship bound for their new owner in New
York. Producers Klaw & Erlanger hoped to repeat the success of
its presentation the year before of Drury Lane's The Sleeping Beauty and the Beast.
Along with the shipment went two performers — Patrick
E. Dawe and William "Harry" T. Seymour, operators of two
mechanical characters in the production.
Categorized as "animal impersonators"
and dancing gymnasts, the men brought life to costumes
that became characters.▼1
One of the mechanical characters was a dancing two-man elephant
and the other a giant four-foot round head named Grant, operated
by Seymour. Newspapers did not report whether either mechanical
device survived, but it seems unlikely.
The elephant costume was made of fabric
and fabric-covered paper-mache and the
head of paper-mache and fur. If the fire at the Iroquois did not destroy them,
another fire nine weeks later at a salvage company did. Western Salvage
and Wrecking accepted a contract to save what they could
of the Bluebeard costumes and scenery but its
rented space
burned on March 8, 1904, earning Klaw and Erlanger a congressionally
awarded reprieve on duties.
Month's after the Iroquois Theater fire
Eddie Foy's Sister Anne and her elephant
were performing in other theaters, so it
was re-created but there would have been
no reason to make a new Grants head
Bet there are other photos of the men and their
Bluebeard characters in London that have not been digitized for the web.
For now, the images shown here are treasures.
Grant head's
lost
When the fire broke out at the Iroquois in Act II, scene 1, Dawe▼2 and Seymour
would have been waiting in the wings in their elephant costume.
Their act with Sister Anne (Eddie
Foy) was next up after the
moonlight scene in gardens at the
royal palace. Newspapers did
not report anything about the mens' escape from the theater
but they might have been among the first to leave the stage; the elephant costume would
have impeded both sight and mobility, making them vulnerable.
The men would have known that Mr. Bluebeard had been cancelled, to
be replaced by in two weeks by
Ben Hur and may have reasoned that the size of the fire made it
useless to save costumes. That said, I suspect Grant and the
elephant were more than just costumes to Dawe and Seymour.
The comical characters had brought them across an ocean and been their
companions and wards for many months. I am reminded of
Caroll Spinney who for fifty years gave life to Big Bird of Sesame
Street. There were multiple Big Bird costumes but had there
been only one, I think Spinney would have saved it in a conflagration.
Mechanics
One newspaper described it as a "trick elephant" without elaboration.
Others described dancing and that it was tame, suggesting it obeyed Sister
Anne, at least some of the time. The
elephant's unreliable obedience may have
been part of the skit but that's totally
conjecture. Short-statured Seymour, stood erect in the
front, with his neck bent to lower the height of his head while
he controlled the head and trunk movements with his arms and
hands thrust into the head. Dawe stood behind, bent at the hips,
gripping Seymour's waist, his legs splayed for stability.
Both positions sound uncomfortable.
The giant head Grant appeared in a skit in Act II scene 1 with a
drunken Irish Patshaw singing
Julie,
lamenting Sister Anne's rejection. Grant might have represented an
alcohol-induced hallucination but I don't know the significance
of the name Grant. Ulysses was too far in the past. Perhaps
there was a prominent Temperance figure of the time with that
name. Another possibility is that the head was named after a
well-known ventriloquist in London named Professor Grant, with
whom Dowe had worked. In the skit, when Patshaw
offers Grant a drink, a fifty-inch red
tongue shoots out to grab the wine
bottle, then Grant scurries from the
stage. The tongue might have been a
telescoping metal rod with a claw on one
end, or Seymour's outstretched arm,
wearing a close-fitting red sleeve and
glove.
One newspaper reviewer reported inaccurately that a young child wore Grant's
head and another that it was worn by a small chorus girl.
Several theater reviewers commented that the head appeared
to move as though hovering above the ground, without legs. The size and weight would
have made it unwieldy for a young child and the mechanism controlling
the facial expressions and tongue were complicated. Additionally, had
it been operable by a child, there would have been no need for
an adult performer to come from London. I think Harry wore the head while
crouched in a near squat, the beard hair concealing his ankles.
Scurrying while squatting would have taken substantial leg strength —
which Harry had. An 1895 newspaper mention of him while performing in
Boston with someone named Farnum stated that he had an impressive
standing jump.
Grant was one of several decapitated talking heads in Mr. Bluebeard.
Bluebeard's dead wives appeared as talking heads in the
forbidden Blue Room.
Patrick E. "Paddy" Dawe (1874–1932?)
Early in his career, in the 1890s, Patrick was billed
as Paddy Dawe, an Irish comic who sang humorous ditties.
A 1895 newspaper advertisement for a variety show in Belfast
described him as a "Great Serio-Comic and
Acrobatic Dancer." Two years later, while playing at
the Star Theater in Liverpool, he was sometimes
described as "an American comedian and dancer;"
suggesting that he had performed in the U.S. around
1896 —
though I failed to verify it in newspapers.
In 1900 he partnered with G. B. Dewar, a comedian
and dancer who was a master in animal roles, and
Patrick apparently learned enough from Dewar that by
1903 he was building a reputation as a comedic
dancer and animal impersonator.
A native of Ireland, he went by Patrick E. Dawe,
Patrick Dawe, P.E.. Dawe, Pat Dawe and Paddy Dawe.
When he traveled to the U.S. to appear in Mr.
Bluebead, Patrick was newly married to
pianist Frances M. Whight (1882–1974).
William "Harry" T. Seymour (? –?)
My information about Harry Seymour is next to
zilch.
The only two newspaper stories to give a special
mention to Dawe and Seymour's acts in Mr.
Bluebeard identified Harry as William T. Seymour
rather than Harry T. Seymour, but all other publicity
referenced him as Harry. I found no evidence of a second Seymour
involved with Mr. Bluebeard so am guessing
that Harry was William's nickname.▼3
There appear to have been several Harry Seymour's in
Vaudeville, none claiming a European birth. I chased
several but failed to verify they were THIS Harry
Seymour.
In the years after the fire
Immediately after the fire Dawe and Seymour returned to New York City
and for a short while performed the Sister Anne act with Eddie Foy
in variety shows.
Later in 1904 and on into 1905, the pair performed again with comedian Joseph Cawthorne
in another Klaw and Erlanger pantomime, Mother Goose.
Cawthorne rode a two-man horse, described by the San Francisco Call as
"paralyzingly funny." Donkeys were also among the cast in Mother Goose.
The Boston Globe remarked upon the anonymity of these highly
paid performers from Drury Lane.
Little is known of Patrick Dawe's life after 1904.
His wife Frances joined him in the states for a few
years and the couple had one child, a daughter named
Frances I. Dawe (1906–1980). In 1911 he
traveled to London where the marriage ended in
divorce. I think he spent the next twenty
years in the United States and returned to the U.K.
in 1932. Brief references in 1932 newspaper
reviews to Dawe's performances in variety shows in
and around London and Liverpool, including
engagements at the Argyle Theater with the Fred Hyde
company, ended in September that year.
Harry Seymour also seems to have remained in the
United States until at least 1931. A 1915 newspaper story about
a theater performance of Auto Girls remarked,
"The comedy is in capable hands, our little German friend, Harry
Seymour..taking care of the heavy end of it." He was a headliner
and co-producer then. In 1918-1920 Harry appeared with Manny King
in a burlesque show, Pacemakers. In
1921–1922 came Girl in a Bottle with the Cabaret Girls. His
act in 1923 was Harry Seymour and his Four Queens of Cabaret in
which his best song was Don't Forget the Eskimo Pie Man. In
1924 came Vanities.
The last engagement I found mentioned in newspapers was in
mid-1931 when he played burlesque at the Gayety Theater in
Baltimore.
Discrepancies and addendum
1. "Lambert and Gallagher" were credited for the
elephant and head tricks in some pre-fire newspaper
advertisements but I found nothing else to suggest such
an act existed before or after and suspect they were
stage names for Dawe and Seymour.
2. There are inconsistencies in reports about
who performed as the back half of Sister Anne's
elephant the
afternoon of December 30, 1903, leading me to
believe it was someone other than Patrick Dawe.
—In 1926 a Chicago
Tribune retrospective quoted two actors,
Frank
Holland and Charles Northrup (see below), who remembered the
performer in the back half of the
elephant. In their recollection, it was a young
Polish acrobat named Ludwig Francis Sperlinski
who went by Ludwig Francis Mazette (1884–1955) and Louis/Lewis Arthur Mazzette.
In Mr. Bluebeard he also played the role of Dunfor, one of Bluebeard's ugly
wives. According to Holland and Northrup, Mazzette
saw the drapery ignite and start the Iroquois
Theater fire. Mazzette went
on to have an active career in theater and
eventually settled in Lancaster, New York, married
to Melanie Metz (1887–1950). Melanie
performed with him in the 1920s as a comedic dancing
duo, Mazette and Lewis. She was the sister of
the Five Metzettes / Flying Metzettes acrobatic
performers, including one, Sylvestor Metz, who is
credited with performing the first quadruple back
somersault and went on to become Richard Talmadge of
Hollywood fame. Later in life he took up
farming. After decades on the stage, crops
might have seemed refreshingly quiet.
—Charles W. Northrup (1886–19__)
Seventeen-year-old Charles Northrup performed in the chorus but nothing
was reported as to which acts or roles. In
January, 1904, three weeks after the Iroquois
Theater fire, Chalres went to take a job at a
printing company in Chicago, Wagner & Hanson on 174
Clinton St, that was embroiled in a labor dispute
with the Franklin Union of Pressfeeders. As a crowd
looked on, he was beaten up by four men. One of
those was later arrested but Northrup was not the
last. Employees at Wagner & Hanson were still being
beat up a year later over union disputes, despite
fines and arrests for violence, finally drawing
Samuel Gompers in to the dispute. He used diplomacy
to restore order and bring Franklin Union No. 4 into
the AFL.
Charles continued to work in the
printing industry, going to work for R.R. Donnelley
& Sons in Chicago and staying for forty-five years
as a compositor.
—In 1938 a former Bluebeard cast member,
Harry Meehan,
was reported to have been scheduled to play the
role of the elephant's back end the afternoon of the
fire. In a 1904 interview, however, Meehan had
reported that when the fire broke out he was
straightening things in the dressing room where he
assisted Foy and
Harry Gilfoil. Meehan grabbed Foy's watch
and flew out of the theater without an overcoat.
Had he been performing in the upcoming Sister Anne
act he would have been waiting in the wings in the
elephant costume.
3. The Boston-based actor/manager/producer/director
named William H. Seymour, brother of actress May
Davenport Seymour, is not the same man as this
Harry. Nor is the Harry Seymour who was the brother
of actress Anna Seymour Santrey, nor song
composer, Harry Seymour.
Who did what in 1903 Mr.
Bluebeard
Iroquois Theater Mr
Bluebeard 1903 cast list
Pale Moonlight double
octet at Iroquois Theater
Other discussions you might find interesting
irqperformers
Story 2944
A note about sourcing. When this
project began, I failed to anticipate the day might come when a
more scholarly approach would be called for. When my
mistake was recognized I faced a decision: go back and spend years creating source lists for every page, or go
forward and try to cover more of the people and circumstances
involved in the disaster. Were I twenty years younger, I'd
have gone back, but in recognition that this project will end when I do, I chose to go forward.
These pages will provide enough information, it is hoped, to
provide subsequent researchers with additional information.
I would like to
hear from you if you have additional info about an Iroquois victim, or find an error,
and you're invited to visit the
comments page to share stories and observations about the Iroquois Theater fire.
