Radio: Back at the Palace

Vaudeville, long since pronounced dead, had never looked more alive. Last week, on the boards of its old stronghold, Manhattan’s Palace Theater (which surrendered to the movies in 1932), vaudeville was the star at the opening of the newest U.S. television station, American Broadcasting Co.’s WJZ-TV. The first show, from 7 o’clock until nearly midnight, featured all of vaudeville’s tried & true turns: a dog act, a comedy team of acrobats, tap and ballroom dancers, comedians, songbirds, straight men. Gus Van (of venerable Van & Schenck) did a tear-jerking ballad about the good old days; Ray Bolger danced a comic solo interpretation of the Joe Louis-Tony Galento fight; James (Tobacco Road) Barton played a drunk; Beatrice Lillie (who played the Palace in 1931 at $10,000 a week) sang There Are Fairies at the Bottom of My Garden.

The Palace’s S.R.O. audience stormily approved every bit of it. Sighed Carlton Emmy, maestro of the dog act: “It was like coming back to the old homestead . . .” Veteran Pat Rooney, who started in vaudeville back in 1890, said: “When I saw that audience I got that old feeling. Sure, television will bring back vaudeville. Vaudeville’s never died.” But it had changed a lot. Said Gus Van: “Years ago, you used to sit for an hour in the theater and make yourself up. Now a fellow with nice soft hands comes along and does it for you.” Ella Logan was not too enthusiastic: “People tell me I didn’t look bad. But usually, all the girls end up looking like Wallace Beery.” The exception was 50-year-old Bea Lillie, who appeared on the television screen to be both young and beautiful. Miss Lillie’s delicate moral reservation about television: “Isn’t it going to cause a lot of drinking in the home?”