#hazel dawn

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Hazel Dawn

By Rufus Porter Moody (ca.1915)

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Silent movie actress Hazel Dawn on the cover of The Theatre magazine - January 1917

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GETTING GERTIE’S GARTER

1921

Getting Gertie’s Garter is a three-act farce by Wilson Collison and Avery Hopwood. It was originally produced by A.H. Woods and staged by Bertram Harrison. Hazel Dawn originated the role of Gertie.

The play takes place in a hayloft on the Darling Estate in Westchester NY.

The play was originally titled Come Up in the Haymow and (briefly) Gloria’s Garter. This previous version was produced at Cleveland Opera House (OH) on August 23, 1920 starring Enid Markley. It met with raised eyebrows and possible legal closure. Instead, authorities imposed censure:

"The lines must be changed. Now take this," the police inspector said, pointing an accusing finger to the line in the script where [Gertie] says: "I'm going to be compromised." "That won't do at all." The inspector took a stubby pencil from his vest pocket and rewrote the offending lines. He made the actress say: "I'm going to be talked about." Now members of the police force may visit the show without having their sense of decency shocked. "Mild as milk and just as sweet," say they.

In Cleveland, producer Woods saw the possibilities (after cautionary re-writes) and acquired the play for Broadway.  In the meantime, after Cleveland, it played Kansas, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania under the shortened titled Gertie’s Garter.

Woods put the revised and retitled play into rehearsals for Broadway at the end of January 1921. At around the same time, noted producer David Belasco predicted the demise of sex farces on Broadway. Ironically, the play actually performed at a Belasco Theatre on its journey to the Great White Way. 

The play was first presented at Woods Theatre, Boardwalk and Ocean Avenue in Atlantic City NJ on Saturday, February 19, 1921.  

Atlantic City’s Woods Theatre was originally known as the Savoy Theatre. It opened sometime between 1904 and 1907. Entrance to the theatre was through the Boardwalk entrance of the Dunlop Hotel. 

A review in the Atlantic City Press intimated that the play was too suggestive for the Boardwalk crowd, many of whom left at the first intermission. After a trip to Baltimore, where the title was abbreviated to Gertie’s Garter, the play moved north to the subway circuit, playing at the Shubert-Crescent Theatre in Brooklyn on February 28th. 

In March it traveled to the Shubert-Plymouth in Boston. In April, it moved from the Plymouth to the Wilbur. An expurgated version of the play was created for Beantown, a town known for conservative values. To promote the move, this item was released: 

“It must be known that the garter worn by Mrs. Gertie contains the picture of a young man, supposed to be a former sweetheart of the lady. While the audience never receives more than a fleeting glimpse of the article, the stage manager was a stickler for realism and insisted there should be a ‘real' picture on the hose supporter. Accordingly and therefore, the property man of Mr. Woods’ organization prepared four garters, so that, in case of the loss of one, another would be ready. Casting about for some photographs, he found four of a young man whose name didn’t interest him at all, the only necessary factor being that he was good looking, which he is. Nothing further was thought of the matter, and the garter was worn by Miss Dawn and also by Miss Mackaye until one night, when the ‘prop' was being examined, it was discovered that the portrait was that of Paul Kelly, who is the clever juvenile in ‘Honors Are Even,' now at the Park Square Theatre!”

Gertie closed in Boston on April 10th, taking the train to Chicago, where it took up digs at the Woods Theatre, naturally.  

Unfortunately, the Windy City wasn’t Garter friendly!  Luckily, Woods was the landlord. It closed in Chicago on May 21, 1921. It was whispered that the play was headed for the Eltinge on the Main Stem and that it would revert to a shortened version of its previous title: Up in the Haymow.   

On June 20th, it was announced that the play would go into the Theatre Republic starting July 25th and be known as Getting Gertie’s Garter.  The date was soon pushed to August 1st. 

As Getting Gertie’s Garter, the play finally opened on Broadway at the Republic Theatre (now the New Victory) on August 1, 1921. It was a success at the box office, running for 15 weeks with 120 performances on Broadway, then moving to touring companies.

"There is little use in retelling the plot of ‘Getting Gertie's Garter’, even if one could keep track of it. The title is, in itself, a complete scenario. The quest for the garter includes several badly confused sets of married couples, a comedy butler, a French maid, and a generous assortment of lines at which large ladies in the audience laugh hysterically and nudge their companions viciously. It is a curious thing that the Messrs. Collison and Hopwood will go as far as it is humanly possible, with the limits of the English language, to get a questionable line, but that they will permit no mention of the human leg, nor of the accouterments worn thereon. They do not even allow themselves the use of the word 'limb', preferring some much more circuitous reference, while the garter is described as 'something a girl must use to keep up her -- er -- appearances.'  It is discouraging to report that, despite the heroic work of its cast and the labor of its authors, ‘Getting Gertie's Garter’ remains far less depraved than those who have its success at heart could wish." ~ DOROTHY PARKER

Hazel Dawn (Gertie) found her role unsatisfying due to its similarity to her part in Up in Mabel's Room, an earlier sex farce produced by Woods. She left the production in September 1921 to take the lead in another Woods-produced farce, The Demi-Virgin.

The play was adapted as a movie three times:

Getting Gertie's Garter (1927), a silent film, opened in Atlantic City at the Virginia Theatre on March 28, 1927. It starred Marie Provost. It also featured Franklin Pangborn and Sally Rand. 

Night of the Garter (1933) was a British film that changed Gertie to Gwen (Winifred Shotter). It also featured Sydney Howard. 

Getting Gertie's Garter (1945) starred Marie ‘the body’ McDonald as Gertie. It opened in Atlantic City in December 1945 at the Apollo Theatre. The theatre was once one of the busiest new play incubators in Atlantic City, before becoming a cinema in the early 1930s. 

Radio’s "The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 30-minute adaptation of the movie on March 4, 1946 with Dennis O'Keefe and Barry Sullivan reprising their film roles.

[pluie-et-parapluies]

Hazel Dawn (1891 - 1988)

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Hazel Dawn, 1918

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THE SACRED BATH

1920

The Sacred Bath (aka The Winged God) is a play by Crane Wilbur. It was originally produced by A.H. Woods. 

It starred Hazel Dawn. Her sister Eleanor was also in the cast. There were four Dawn sisters in showbusiness, but Hazel was by far the most successful. She rose to fame in the 1911 Broadway production of The Pink Lady, which ran for over 300 performances and earned her the eponymous nickname. 

‘The Sacred Bath’ takes place on an uncharted island of Pukapuka in the South Pacific. When shipwrecked, showgirl Denise Kelly becomes the  goddess of a highly discriminating but simple race of Polynesians. She teaches the natives American slang and names them after favorite moving picture stars. 

The play was first mentioned in October 1919, when hospitalized Woods first read the script and acquired it from Wilbur. Rennold Wolf in The Morning Telegraph described the scene wherein the work was perused and purchased:

“Mr. Woods was in bed, propped up on his pillow, with a sixteen inch cigar in his mouth, and eleven cuspidors within range."

The play premiered in Atlantic City at the Woods Theatre (Boardwalk & Ocean Avenue) on July 5, 1920.  From there, it moved up the Jersey coastline to the Savoy in Asbury Park. There the “Bath” water was chilly - if not downright frigid. 

“Disgusted first nighters said ‘The Sacred Bath’ might be well enough if frankly called a summer burlesque and put on at burlesque prices with smoking permitted in the family circle. But to flaunt Miss Hazel Dawn in such a -- but why sputter about it? It is irredeemably poor and stupid.”  ~ ASBURY PARK PRESS

“Some shows have disappeared without leaving a trace, and for that matter, a regret. There was that atrocity, ‘The Sacred Bath,’ which went from the Savoy to the storehouse.”  ~ ASBURY PARK PRESS, SEPTEMBER 15, 1920

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Palette Challenge 03 - Spica (Palette 21, Pose 6C)

I had lots of fun with this one. This challenge is teaching me so much with each picture I do >> I’ve realized I can’t use my standard coloring technique since it doesn’t produce a very nice result, it forces me to experiment and it feels so cool :D