Chapter 7. The Palace Theater and My Showbusiness Family
The Palace Theater in Manhattan, New York City, is located near Times Square and is where my grandparents met in the 1920s. It is a Broadway theatre located at 1564 Broadway at West 47th Street in midtown Manhattan. The Palace Theater attained legendary status among vaudeville performers in the early 1900s, with 1,610 seats spread over three levels. It remains one of the largest theaters on Broadway today. By 1932, the Palace Theater was renamed the "RKO Palace".
My mother, Thelma, was born in Greenwich Village in Manhattan in the 1920s, during the years that launched many talented jazz talents. Her mother was a singer and dancer in vaudeville at the Palace Theater until marriage at twenty years old, when she quit to raise a family. Mother’s father was a “top-notch trumpet player” there. She recalls that she was first “pushed onto the stage” at four years old.
Later in life, with her sister Bobbi, the two sisters formed the Baker Sisters act and recorded with Mercury Records. My uncle took another path in life in later years, not in show business, and had a wonderful large family. After my family left the United States when I was ten years old, Bobbi went on to have a career for over forty-five years as a comedienne on cruise ship lines all over the world. In Tokyo, Japan, mother continued a career singing in jazz clubs and concert settings also for over forty years. Some years ago, mother related her childhood memories below in an interview she did with the Tokyo Weekender Magazine in Tokyo, Japan.
“Where did all the talent, verve, and “joie de vivre” originate (in your family)?”
“My Pop (father) played the lead trumpet in the orchestra pit band at the Palace Theater, a job he had for years before the Great Depression put many musicians out of work and scuffling for a dollar. Pop was playing behind the top acts of the day in the pit from the very beginning when it was pure vaudeville. The two shows a day, Local 802. I remember sitting backstage, seeing all the stars of the day. Pop would take me down to the Palace (Theater) on weekends, sit me down on a trunk backstage, and say, “Now stay there.”
“The top stars on stage were Burns and Allen (George Burns and Gracie Allen), Jack Benny, and The Marx Brothers among others. I was not impressed with the big acts. I was a little girl, and I loved animal acts. Fink’s mules. O’Brien’s elephants. The seal acts. But the musicians hated them because of the animals’ “uninhibited toilet manners.” Pop and all the musicians would sit in the pit with newspapers over their heads, just waiting and hoping for the singers to return on stage.”
“During the Depression, the musicians were the first to hit tough times. Pop began teaching music to keep us together; my little sister Bobbie had come along by then. Pop’s bread (money) really came from blowing his trumpet down at Minsky’s Burlesque house. Later he played the Follies, and you know who the emcee was? Jackie Gleason (the star of the hit series “The Honeymooners”)! Pop wrote the arrangements for Jackie. Each big-time comedian had to have his own charts (written music) to get him on and off stage, and Pop did Jackie’s. Ten dollars for each (chart).”
“Where did we live in New York City? Mostly one jump ahead of the sheriff. It was very tough going, but we always had happiness and music in our house. We moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn because rents were cheaper. Bobbie was born there. We finally settled in Washington Heights in Manhattan (overlooking the Hudson River).”
“By the time I was 16 years old, I was really into show business. I got my first money for singing when I was five years old, singing in the RKO-Palace Theater circuit. Reta Donnelly was my coach and my dancing teacher. Everyone had to dance in those days – ballet, tap, and elocution lessons too. In the old days, I did part of an act with my Mom, but she gave up the entertainment business when we kids started growing up.”
“But then she (my mother) concentrated solely on my career – a real backstage momma – just like Judy Garland’s mother. My Pop would say “That’s enough Thelma! No more stage work for you!”. But Mom would never let up. All during my teens, I never made a decision for myself. Mom would sneak me into all sorts of singing contests for kids like me. Reta Donnelly’s husband Harry – he used to accompany Jimmy Durante (a famous comedian and actor in the day) – wrote an arrangement for me when I was younger “When the Red, Red Robin Goes Bob-Bob-Bobbing Along.” Wow, I wonder how many times I sang that “Turkey”.
“When I was 16, I entered an amateur singing contest, OK, so I had been a professional for a while. Who counts? My first (singing contest) was at the Apollo Theater in Harlem… I had curly hair back then, and was really skinny, a weird-looking “chick.” I sang “Melancholy Baby” up temp: Don Redman was behind me on tenor. And I won! This was broadcast over WHN (radio) from 11 to midnight. Mom heard me!”
“The Apollo was great in those days. They had this old tree stump on stage – the “Tree of Hope” they called it. They’d play this “trucking music” to get each contestant on stage (during the “Apollo Amateur Night”). Everyone would “truck” on stage and sort of give a kiss to this old tree stump which had been in Harlem for centuries, they said, “Tradition!”
Note: Originally “The Tree of Hope was an elm tree that stood in front of the Lafayette Theater near 137th street in Harlem, also known as “The Boulevard of Dreams”. In 1934, the tree was cut down to expand the street. The host of the Lafayette Theater Amateur Hour retrieved the tree stump of “The Tree of Hope”, shellacked it, and placed it on stage right at the Apollo Theatre when he moved the venue from the Lafayette Theater there. It is still there to this day.