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As the double octet performed their Pale Moonlight skit on stage at the Iroquois
Theater, the energetic pair of dancers known as Young and de Voie may have been in their
dressing rooms above and on the south side of the stage.
They were commonly referred to as "soft shoe dancers" or "clog
dancers," terms describing early tap dancing, but acrobatics
were also part of their act.
In Mr. Bluebeard they performed to the music of
Clancy H. Kerr but I've failed to find the music online.
Their skit was scheduled for Act II Scene 4, five skits off.
By the time they were qued, the scene on stage would have changed
three times and they would emerge into Bluebeard's Palace Hall.
Frank's role was that of Abumun and Bessie's that of Korafai but
I've found nothing to indicate how, if at all, those characters
were worked into the story. They sometimes inserted dialogue
into their skit so may have talked about Bluebeard, Fatima or the
dead wives in the notorious Blue Room.
When the fire broke out, Frank and Bessie would have scrambled down
the spiral stairs or been among those
Robert Smith brought down on the elevator. They would have
exited out the stage door onto Couch Place alley or directly
onto Dearborn St. from
door #5. Nothing was reported about their escape so it is likely
they avoided injury.
With uncustomary effusiveness, the Detroit Free Press later
called them "the greatest dancing team in the business,
the embodiment of grace," with Young "a wonder on
his feet" and Bessie "one of the prettiest and most
graceful dancers on the circuit." I suspect one or
both performers were working publicity and networking almost as
hard as their hamstrings. They got to Mr. Bluebeard
on Broadway by way of an engagement in San Francisco with
Nat Goodwin, an established actor, who wired producer
Edward
E. Rice that they deserved a shot in the 1902 production of
Show Girl at Wallacks Theater. They applied for a
position as dancers but were given speaking roles. Goodwin reiterated
his opinion in letters of recommendation that they then carried
with them and presented to newspapers as evidence of their past
success and used to persuade other newspapers to quote from.
There were many dancing and singing duos on the
circuit that received less editorial mention. Someone, probably
Frank, was working all the angles.
During the summer between Mr. Bluebeard on Broadway and
the fall road tour, they were booked at the West End in in New Orleans where they
met with a reporter at the Times-Democrat newspaper
resulting in a blurb quoting Daily America (who had
perhaps run them as supplied by Frank): "From a song and
dance specialty in vaudeville to prominent roles in a Broadway
musical comedy is a long jump, and to fill these roles so
successfully as Miss Bessie De Voie and Frank C. Young of the
team of Young and DeVoie have done in the cast of the Show
Girl at Wallacks is a feat worthy of special mention."
Fortunately for those interested in forming a mental
image of their act, the newspaper was persuaded to give the team
yet another paragraph a week later, "Miss DeVoie, a dainty
little woman, goes through the many fancy steps with an ease and
grace that at once commands attention. Mr. Young is not only a
foot-shaker of considerable ability, but some of the acrobatic
stunts which he introduced to the lively ballet music were
applause getters of no mean order. One of them, a head
summersault, is an acrobatic feat which any circus wonder might
be proud of." And a week later, "Their dancing turn
is a rather unique thing inasmuch as every particular jig is
introduced with a short but cleverly arranged dialogue. An
acrobatic turn or so is also introduced in a rather startling
manner."
Though part of the Klaw & Erlanger's Mr. Bluebeard company,
Frank and Bessie's act was a plug-in, like the Pony Ballet and Grigolatis aerialist
dancers, given star billing status similar to cast members with
feature roles. It gave them a bankable act to take with
them after Mr. Bluebeard.
Their names were not included in newspaper stories about Bluebeard
cast members who struggled to find food and shelter until they
were allowed to return to New York, nor were they mentioned as
witnesses in the coroner's inquest. Frank was performing
within ten days of the Iroquois fire and the pair was promoting
a new duo within five months called "Dancing by Note,"
later changed to "Dancing by the Book." They joined up
with the Rogers Bros. for two seasons.
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Frank C. Young ( 1872–1910)
Frank Young was performing again within ten days of the fire,
at the Maryland Theater in Baltimore, in Under Southern
Skies. In June of 1905, however, after
suffering a nervous collapse when performing a
vaudeville matinee in Pittsburg at the Grand Opera House.▼1
He said that his emotional response was the
result of having been horribly burned at the
Iroquois Theater fire and hospitalized for
months. Two years later he was
institutionalized and declared insane,
suggesting that his behavior in Pittsburg
foreshadowed a bigger problem.
Frank had begun as Bessie's trainer, promoter and
mentor but the relationship was sometimes rocky.
He married another chorus girl, possibly around the
time that Bessie and Gould (see right) were becoming a steamy
duo. Her name was Georgia though some 1907
newspapers inaccurately reported his wife was Bessie.
In November, 1907 Frank was admitted into the Woodmere
hospital for the insane in Evansville, IN.
He imagined himself to be extremely wealthy and
suing the theatrical syndicate for $169,000.
It was reported that his mental condition was due to
his distress over breaking up with Bessie but it is
more likely he suffered from syphilis.
Connecting it to Bessie was part of a popular media
thirst then of femme fatales who bewitched men and
drove men beyond sanity. Another Bluebeard
actress,
Bonnie Magin, was similarly characterized in the
media when she too became involved with and was then
jilted by a wealthy man. As a result of
Bessie's romance with Gould, Frank's institutionalization
was highly publicized. Sad for an entertainer to
suffer such humiliation at the end of his life when his
behavior was likely beyond his control. He died
at age thirty eight, still a resident of Woodmere.
On the death certificate the cause of death was reported as
paresis which is cerebral atrophy, a symptom of
late-stage syphilis.
His parents were Adam and Katherine Young, residents of
Pigeon, Indiana near Evansville. His mother
bore ten children but by 1900 only Frank and a
sister survived. His mother died in 1908 and
his father in 1910. Have to wonder if syphilis
played a role in wiping out the family.
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Elizabeth Bessie VanDorn de Voie (c1882–1974)
Though various other birthplaces were reported over the years, Elizabeth Bessie VanDorn de Voie,
who sometimes went by Katherine, was most probably
born in Bedford, Indiana but raised in Henderson,
KY. She was the daughter of Robert and Mary A.
Peitche VanDorn and had two siblings. Bessie used her surname up until
at least 1898 and changed it to de Voie sometime
thereafter.
Her father
had been a locomotive
engineer who died in 1893 at age thirty-six in a horrific train
collision with cattle. The family was living in
Henderson and Robert worked on the Baltimore and
Ohio Railway. Around midnight one summer night
he was engineering a freight train near
Morganfield, KY when cattle ran onto the track.
The train derailed and all six cars, including
cars full of grain, piled atop the engine and
tender. Three of the five crew members were
killed, nearly incinerated by fire. The
gristly nature of their deaths meant that the
story of the accident was picked up and run in
newspapers around the country, every story
ending with, "burned to a crisp." Three
years later the family was still trying to sue
Ohio Valley Railway for $15,000. It was
reported that he left an $8,000 life insurance
policy to his wife and children. (About a
quarter million dollars in today's dollars.)
It is a certainty that a decade later at the Iroquois
Bessie thought about her father's terrible death
by fire, as did her
mother upon learning of her daughter's narrow escape.
In the years after the fire
In 1907 Bessie appeared as Winifred in Dairymaids, a two-act
farce imported from London and produced in the U.S. for Broadway by
Charles Frohman. Around 1908 Bessie became romantically
involved with the son of robber baron Jay Gould,
Frank Jay Gould. When his wife named her in a
divorce suit, Betsy denied the relationship but a year
later sued Gould for $200,000 to $250,000 for breach of
promise (various amounts were reported), as well as a
mutual friend, Edna Slayback, for $100,000. Bessie
accused Edna of slandering Bessie to Gould, resulting
in his changing his mind about marriage. Gould
denied there had been a proposal so she shared
letters with the press, purported to be from Gould.
When he and his attorneys continued to balk, she
shared more letters. It was suggested in the
press, a rumor possibly started by Gould's
attorneys, that the letters may have actually been
written by Frank Young but I doubt anyone involved
in the case believed it. Reportedly she
accepted a $10,000 settlement from Gould in exchange
for his letters, with which she was able to pay her
attorney's fees. The legal dispute carried
over into 1910. There was no mention that
Bessie attended the funeral of her former partner
and mentor, Frank Young.
Publicity from the Gould affair possibly contributed
to Bessie being offered more important theatrical
roles around 1912, such as Lousiana Lou, Our
Miss Gibbs and The Dairy Maids, but by 1920
it was all over. Perhaps her perky ingénue
appeal faded, and talkies became the dominant form of
entertainment, she qualified for few roles.
By age twenty-eight, her theatrical career was over.
She spent the last fifty years of her life in Norwalk, CT,
living with her mother and working as a saleswomen in
department stores until her retirement in 1962. I found
no evidence of marriage or children. Her obituary stated
she had no survivors.
In the newspaper notice when Mary's body was shipped to
Mattoon, IL for burial next to her husband, there was no
mention that she was the mother of a theater celebrity,
perhaps suggesting that by 1930 Bessie was not interested
in calling attention to her former stardom.
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