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No Applause--Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous
A seriously funny look at the roots of American Entertainment
When Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin were born, variety entertainment had been going on for decades in America, and like Harry Houdini, Milton Berle, Mae West, and countless others, these performers got their start on the vaudeville stage. From 1881 to 1932, vaudeville was at the heart of show business in the States. Its stars were America's first stars in the modern sense, and it utterly dominated American popular culture. Writer and modern-day vaudevillian Trav S.D. chronicles vaudeville's far-reaching impact in No Applause--Just Throw Money . He explores the many ways in which vaudeville's story is the story of show business in America and documents the rich history and cultural legacy of our country's only purely indigenous theatrical form, including its influence on everything from USO shows to Ed Sullivan to The Muppet Show and The Gong Show. More than a quaint historical curiosity, vaudeville is thriving today, and Trav S.D. pulls back the curtain on the vibrant subculture that exists across the United States--a vast grassroots network of fire-eaters, human blockheads, burlesque performers, and bad comics intent on taking vaudeville into its second century.
When Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin were born, variety entertainment had been going on for decades in America, and like Harry Houdini, Milton Berle, Mae West, and countless others, these performers got their start on the vaudeville stage. From 1881 to 1932, vaudeville was at the heart of show business in the States. Its stars were America's first stars in the modern sense, and it utterly dominated American popular culture. Writer and modern-day vaudevillian Trav S.D. chronicles vaudeville's far-reaching impact in No Applause--Just Throw Money . He explores the many ways in which vaudeville's story is the story of show business in America and documents the rich history and cultural legacy of our country's only purely indigenous theatrical form, including its influence on everything from USO shows to Ed Sullivan to The Muppet Show and The Gong Show. More than a quaint historical curiosity, vaudeville is thriving today, and Trav S.D. pulls back the curtain on the vibrant subculture that exists across the United States--a vast grassroots network of fire-eaters, human blockheads, burlesque performers, and bad comics intent on taking vaudeville into its second century.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
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431 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
March 10, 2016
Have you ever read a book that was just so damn good you hugged it with joy when you were done ? Well that was this one for me. What a wonderful well-researched, witty, informative look at the great unique fascinating entertainment medium of Vaudeville which had been America's first major popular entertainment form during the late 19th and early 20th century. This book traces Vaudeville's history from the entertainment forms that preceded and eventually influenced it such as Concert Saloons, Dime Museums, Medicine Shows and Circuses to it's beginnings, glorious heyday, demise and the ways in which the medium lives on today from it's influence on television to modern day forms of variety entertainment. Along the way there are rich detailed descriptions, stories and anecdotes on the great legends of Vaudeville who went on to conquer films & TV and are still remembered today, Mae West, The Marx Brothers, Fred Astaire, Milton Berle, W.C Fields, Sophie Tucker, Houdini, Fanny Brice and many many others. You also meet performers who were top stars at their time but are not as well remembered such as Eva Tanguay, Fields & Weber, Harry Lauder & Bert Williams. There's also fun stories on bizarre oddities such as the tiny music hall dancer Little Tich, the cacophonically untalented Cherry Sisters & the conjoined entertainers the Hilton Sisters. This book inspired me to look many of the performers I didn't know up and YouTube which has many fine uploads of old Phonograph cylinders and early silent films featuring these great entertainers. Author Travis S.D is himself involved in current variety theatre and writes with wit, intelligence and a true passion for his subject. I couldn't put this down and am sad it's finished ! Truly truly great !
March 22, 2007
In comparison to most of the entertainment histories I've read, this one is a very casual, entertaining and occasionally hilarious read. At times it does get a bit repetitive and can often resort to just listing names of performers associated with different trends or styles. But it's a great introduction to a time and subject I'm interested to learn more about. It's given me a number of new names (or ones I've heard of but not been familiar with) to now research in more depth. I can't wait to buy some old-timey music!
January 22, 2021
I read the first edition, published in 2005 by Faber and Faber.
NO APPLAUSE - JUST THROW MONEY makes the case that vaudeville was an industry as tightly run as any other in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While it goes into detail about the stage personalities we've heard about and, in a surprising number of cases, have seen in movies and on TV, and on old radio shows, its focus is on the ways vaudeville was run. If you read a lot about entertainment, you probably have some idea of Hollywood's studio system in the twenties, thirties and forties. Well, there's a pre-history here. The machine-shop nature of golden age Hollywood was an imitation of, and often an off-shoot of, the machinery of vaudeville. As vaudeville, as an industry, weakened and wobbled until it collapsed, the owners of the theater chains began showing and commissioning movies. If you think audiences were glued to the TV set from the 1950s on, and that whole families went to the movies three nights a week in the thirties and forties, it shouldn't be incredibly surprising to you that, in almost every major to mid-sized city throughout the country from about 1900 about 1930, a vaudeville house was open from about noon to midnight. If you're dreaming that many of the acts were given a chance to shine at the last minute, you're essentially wrong. The performers had to fit a time-slot dictated by the bosses in New York, Chicago or Seattle, and they had to get off the stage at the exact time they'd been told to. That is, vaudeville was a centralized industry. If you were found to be an ill fit, the industry had someone to take your time slot. This was not haphazard. It was abusive, of course; but it was organized.
Trav S.D., in emphasizing the ways in which vaudeville was a conveyor belt of entertainment, tells us about American life at a time when this nation was a rising power. He is talking about a time when performers boasted of having a work ethic they actually possessed, were demonstratively patriotic without a hint of irony and who found nothing wrong in this attitude being demanded of them by those who owned the venues they played.
There are many colorful characters in this book, but the star is the industry itself. It is very easy for 21st-century readers to think of vaudeville as a a vast amateur night. But it was a job; a company job. Do you want to read about an amateur? Read about Emily Dickinson and the poems she wrote on the back of envelopes she sent to her friends. She didn't have an agent. Do you want to read about people who wowed 'em wherever they went? Then read this, and about the miserable accommodations they were given, and the restrictions governing their every move. You'll marvel at the fact that they SEEM as individualistic as they do. Trav S.D. will remind you that this was an industry filled with the corporate-minded. He'll also show you that the hardship we fetishize in the vaudevillians was a paradise compared to the monotonous, soul-crushing, body-breaking drudgery most people in the vaudeville industry, performers, stagehands and the impresarios themselves, had fled in order to endure it.
NO APPLAUSE - JUST THROW MONEY makes the case that vaudeville was an industry as tightly run as any other in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While it goes into detail about the stage personalities we've heard about and, in a surprising number of cases, have seen in movies and on TV, and on old radio shows, its focus is on the ways vaudeville was run. If you read a lot about entertainment, you probably have some idea of Hollywood's studio system in the twenties, thirties and forties. Well, there's a pre-history here. The machine-shop nature of golden age Hollywood was an imitation of, and often an off-shoot of, the machinery of vaudeville. As vaudeville, as an industry, weakened and wobbled until it collapsed, the owners of the theater chains began showing and commissioning movies. If you think audiences were glued to the TV set from the 1950s on, and that whole families went to the movies three nights a week in the thirties and forties, it shouldn't be incredibly surprising to you that, in almost every major to mid-sized city throughout the country from about 1900 about 1930, a vaudeville house was open from about noon to midnight. If you're dreaming that many of the acts were given a chance to shine at the last minute, you're essentially wrong. The performers had to fit a time-slot dictated by the bosses in New York, Chicago or Seattle, and they had to get off the stage at the exact time they'd been told to. That is, vaudeville was a centralized industry. If you were found to be an ill fit, the industry had someone to take your time slot. This was not haphazard. It was abusive, of course; but it was organized.
Trav S.D., in emphasizing the ways in which vaudeville was a conveyor belt of entertainment, tells us about American life at a time when this nation was a rising power. He is talking about a time when performers boasted of having a work ethic they actually possessed, were demonstratively patriotic without a hint of irony and who found nothing wrong in this attitude being demanded of them by those who owned the venues they played.
There are many colorful characters in this book, but the star is the industry itself. It is very easy for 21st-century readers to think of vaudeville as a a vast amateur night. But it was a job; a company job. Do you want to read about an amateur? Read about Emily Dickinson and the poems she wrote on the back of envelopes she sent to her friends. She didn't have an agent. Do you want to read about people who wowed 'em wherever they went? Then read this, and about the miserable accommodations they were given, and the restrictions governing their every move. You'll marvel at the fact that they SEEM as individualistic as they do. Trav S.D. will remind you that this was an industry filled with the corporate-minded. He'll also show you that the hardship we fetishize in the vaudevillians was a paradise compared to the monotonous, soul-crushing, body-breaking drudgery most people in the vaudeville industry, performers, stagehands and the impresarios themselves, had fled in order to endure it.
October 3, 2022
Reread for me. Shout out to my highschool library in South Dakota being pretty cool, acquiring this book when it came out. I read it again just now.
It’s so engaging how the author always relates things to the present and is also funny. You learn the subject and it’s not a chore to pay attention because there is so much writing variety while also guiding you right through with great organization, peppered with helpful present day comparisons and hilarious lines. He does it like that consistently- that is his style.
Why don’t more authors write like this? Probably because they don’t know as much about their subject and aren’t as great of a writer as Trav S.D.
It’s so engaging how the author always relates things to the present and is also funny. You learn the subject and it’s not a chore to pay attention because there is so much writing variety while also guiding you right through with great organization, peppered with helpful present day comparisons and hilarious lines. He does it like that consistently- that is his style.
Why don’t more authors write like this? Probably because they don’t know as much about their subject and aren’t as great of a writer as Trav S.D.
September 27, 2007
It's sometimes hard to get your head around just how big Vaudeville was for a period of 30 years or so around the turn of the century and after. Where today we might gather to tut-tut about the last episode of Lost or the new Simpsons Movie, the ordinary folk of that age were mesmerized (literally, I guess, in the cases of the hypnotists) by the singers, dancers, jugglers, acrobats and dog acts (not to mention sports stars, like Babe Ruth, wandering on stage and making a quick buck) appearing three times a day at their local Majestic, Olympic or Orpheum. This book delightfully captures the magic of what was, in truth, a relatively short-lived passion, before radio and cinema made the average comedy patter available to everyone, instead of something that could be recycled for 10 years for each successive audience at each successive stopover on the way from Kansas to California. The book tells its tale as real stories, an ideal representation of the medium, and not just about the acts themselves and their hard grinding lifestyles, but also about the ruthless owners and the ever-gaudier constructions designed to make the last theater look tawdry in comparison. Photos in the paperback are a little scarce, but cover a nice mix of characters. In the end it creates such a clear and friendly view of the medium that we almost wish it was still 1911, and we could stop off to see Eddie Cantor dancing and clapping before dinner. I went straight to the internet to find as many films and recordings of the period as I could, but they just don't do the period justice. This book, however, does. It sounded like fun.
February 28, 2019
One of the most unexpected books I've ever read - and one of the funnest, too.
This is the history of vaudeville, told from the perspective of a current vaudevillian. It's a loving look at the development of American entertainment in the hundreds of theaters across the country.
Vaudeville is one of two ways American entertainment developed at the turn of the 19th century - the other being burlesque. Vaudeville is the (barely) more acceptable version. From these roots come hundreds of comedians we know today - W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, and even Bob Hope started his career in vaudeville.
Variety shows also are born from those times, from the juggler to the Irish singer to the sketch comedian. In other words, everyone from Johnny Carson to Ed Sullivan to Saturday Night Live owes something to vaudeville.
Circuses? Also a bit of vaudeville involved - P.T. Barnum operated a theater that was linked to the entertainment ideal of vaudeville, too.
There are unfortunate episodes - the unthinking "blackface" and "Dutch" characterizations, the anti-Semitic jokes (told by primarily Jewish comics), etc. But this is of another time, and worth knowing about if only to be sure not to do this again.
By and large, this is a loving tribute full of fun stories and enlightening history.
More reviews at my WordPress site, Ralphsbooks.
This is the history of vaudeville, told from the perspective of a current vaudevillian. It's a loving look at the development of American entertainment in the hundreds of theaters across the country.
Vaudeville is one of two ways American entertainment developed at the turn of the 19th century - the other being burlesque. Vaudeville is the (barely) more acceptable version. From these roots come hundreds of comedians we know today - W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, and even Bob Hope started his career in vaudeville.
Variety shows also are born from those times, from the juggler to the Irish singer to the sketch comedian. In other words, everyone from Johnny Carson to Ed Sullivan to Saturday Night Live owes something to vaudeville.
Circuses? Also a bit of vaudeville involved - P.T. Barnum operated a theater that was linked to the entertainment ideal of vaudeville, too.
There are unfortunate episodes - the unthinking "blackface" and "Dutch" characterizations, the anti-Semitic jokes (told by primarily Jewish comics), etc. But this is of another time, and worth knowing about if only to be sure not to do this again.
By and large, this is a loving tribute full of fun stories and enlightening history.
More reviews at my WordPress site, Ralphsbooks.
June 9, 2015
Starting from the appalling pun name for Travis Stewart, this book descends, transcends and ascends the history of vaudeville. The author, real name Travis Stewart, traces the brief period of vaudeville's ascendancy from its roots in variety shows, saloon shows, and burlesque as a cleaned-up "two audience" (women and children as well as male) show.
The business of vaudeville is interestingly told as well, as a small handful of promoters and managers controlled hundreds of theaters and bookings for every artist to keep pay and costs down and increase the variety of acts, at the expense of the lives and lifestyles of the acts. Interestingly, he shows how four of the five early major movie studios grew out of this cabal of vaudevillian managers.
Vaudeville enjoyed barely a decade of unchallenged transcendence before radio, silent and then talking films, and finally economic Depression challenged and then "killed" it--but Stewart has something to say about that as well, showing how it lived on in early TV (think Ed Sullivan and Bob Hope), the street artistry of the 60s, and a current resurgence of "New"--but don't call it that--Vaudeville.
The business of vaudeville is interestingly told as well, as a small handful of promoters and managers controlled hundreds of theaters and bookings for every artist to keep pay and costs down and increase the variety of acts, at the expense of the lives and lifestyles of the acts. Interestingly, he shows how four of the five early major movie studios grew out of this cabal of vaudevillian managers.
Vaudeville enjoyed barely a decade of unchallenged transcendence before radio, silent and then talking films, and finally economic Depression challenged and then "killed" it--but Stewart has something to say about that as well, showing how it lived on in early TV (think Ed Sullivan and Bob Hope), the street artistry of the 60s, and a current resurgence of "New"--but don't call it that--Vaudeville.
December 16, 2014
Indispensable book for anyone that wants to know how live entertainment started in the USA. It is a guide to the lost world of vaudeville, its names, places, and dates. I had no idea the influence of vaudeville is so deep in popular entertainment today. Trav S.D. is a master presenter of fine research and stories. A must for anyone that loves theater and performing.
February 24, 2011
A fun non-fiction read about the history of Vaudeville. Best mental image is little Buster Keaton with a luggage handle sewn onto his coat in the middle of his back so his dad could pick him up and throw him into the orchestra pit or audience. Or a coma...
March 19, 2013
Lovely, and just what I needed. A lot of things I knew, being a geek for this stuff, but a new perspective changes the way one looks at things. Which is, I guess, what a "perspective" is.
January 7, 2020
No Applause—Just Throw Money blends the best of compelling storytelling with thorough, rigorous research. Author Trav S.D. (Donald Travis Stewart) traces the ancestry of Vaudeville-style entertainment from Antiquity, touching on the Middle Ages, the 17th and 18th centuries; and quickly into 19th-century America leading up to the official beginning of Vaudeville around 1880 (lasting from roughly the early 1880s to late 1920s). But it’s not a dry history text by any means. Quite the opposite, this story is a blaze of glory in American history that too few people know about.
The book nicely balances two fascinating areas of Vaudeville’s originality: 1. the massive escalation of talent that came from performers perfecting their act, and then after perfecting it, performing it for 10,000 or 20,000 times in hundreds of theaters across the country; 2. the unprecedented Business side (coining the term “Show Business”), the first time “Show Folk” were commoditized into a business, and worked a circuit, like a modern-day Chain store for acts. These two features were new and unique to Vaudeville, which differentiates it from the centuries of precursors, as well as from the types of show business since then.
The millionaire owners of the “Chain Stores,” or circuits as they were called, themselves were a colorful cast of characters. Several of them ran away with the circus as boys, and seized opportunities to advance into the business side. Those circus runaways invented the cash cow that became Vaudeville.
A salient feature of Vaudevillians, which Trav S.D. highlights very well, is that successful performers rarely banked on one ability, no matter how proficient and impressive. One-trick entertainers generally failed. A comedian would need top-notch material to keep the live audience in stitches, but also to be proficient in juggling, tap dancing, and piano, for example. It is hard to imagine this extreme of human development happening today, or ever again for that matter. There is simply no need for it anymore. TV and film do not require anything remotely close from its actors and performers. And for this level of relentless discipline and excruciating pain, no one is going to put themselves through it for no reason.
There has never been a time with more diverse and colorful characters erupting so rapidly onto one huge nationwide entertainment scene. Trav S.D. brilliantly portrays that veritable zoo of misfits and geniuses: they seem to have exerted more energy and demonstrated greater skill than in any great past movement, or any other era of human achievement. Nothing before or since approximates the upheavals of talent and drama that this brief generation witnessed.
The business side and the performance side equally climbed to the heights of madness and method, like a self-contained universe where anything can happen and the laws of physics were optional. The unbelievable diversity of crazy personalities all working together in this national factory of creativity make this labyrinthine spectacle pure, original, and unrepeatable. Trav S.D. generously shares the whole chaotic mess in crystalline organic structure that perfectly mirrors the subject.
Having thoroughly fleshed out the historical antecedents, and having traveled the actual heydays of Vaudeville, the author nicely tracks Vaudeville’s influences on what followed. The list of the famous mid- and late-20th-century stars who started in Vaudeville was often very surprising. For example, Burt Lancaster, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, and Barbara Stanwyck all started in Vaudeville. Not so surprisingly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, and George Burns started in Vaud. Then there’s Oscar Hammerstein, the Marx Brothers, Judy Garland, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Mae West, James Cagney, the Three Stooges, Abbot and Costello, and the list goes on.
This is a true scholarly work, drawing from about 200 sources deeply informed by those who knew the performers and experienced Vaudeville first hand, or in many cases by the performers themselves; and by extensive research into related channels that flow into Vaudeville. The result is a very full and clear picture of the 45-year phenomenon. Trav S.D.’s amazing accomplishment is how coherently he weaves together all the disparate threads into a beautifully unified expression of the era.
Reading experiences just don’t get any better than this (and I have a Master of Arts in literature and have read thousands of books including the classics). While reading the book, I felt like I was living in the time. Having read the book, I feel like I literally went back in time, not just figuratively, and now I’m remembering actual experiences at the Palace Theater.
The book nicely balances two fascinating areas of Vaudeville’s originality: 1. the massive escalation of talent that came from performers perfecting their act, and then after perfecting it, performing it for 10,000 or 20,000 times in hundreds of theaters across the country; 2. the unprecedented Business side (coining the term “Show Business”), the first time “Show Folk” were commoditized into a business, and worked a circuit, like a modern-day Chain store for acts. These two features were new and unique to Vaudeville, which differentiates it from the centuries of precursors, as well as from the types of show business since then.
The millionaire owners of the “Chain Stores,” or circuits as they were called, themselves were a colorful cast of characters. Several of them ran away with the circus as boys, and seized opportunities to advance into the business side. Those circus runaways invented the cash cow that became Vaudeville.
A salient feature of Vaudevillians, which Trav S.D. highlights very well, is that successful performers rarely banked on one ability, no matter how proficient and impressive. One-trick entertainers generally failed. A comedian would need top-notch material to keep the live audience in stitches, but also to be proficient in juggling, tap dancing, and piano, for example. It is hard to imagine this extreme of human development happening today, or ever again for that matter. There is simply no need for it anymore. TV and film do not require anything remotely close from its actors and performers. And for this level of relentless discipline and excruciating pain, no one is going to put themselves through it for no reason.
There has never been a time with more diverse and colorful characters erupting so rapidly onto one huge nationwide entertainment scene. Trav S.D. brilliantly portrays that veritable zoo of misfits and geniuses: they seem to have exerted more energy and demonstrated greater skill than in any great past movement, or any other era of human achievement. Nothing before or since approximates the upheavals of talent and drama that this brief generation witnessed.
The business side and the performance side equally climbed to the heights of madness and method, like a self-contained universe where anything can happen and the laws of physics were optional. The unbelievable diversity of crazy personalities all working together in this national factory of creativity make this labyrinthine spectacle pure, original, and unrepeatable. Trav S.D. generously shares the whole chaotic mess in crystalline organic structure that perfectly mirrors the subject.
Having thoroughly fleshed out the historical antecedents, and having traveled the actual heydays of Vaudeville, the author nicely tracks Vaudeville’s influences on what followed. The list of the famous mid- and late-20th-century stars who started in Vaudeville was often very surprising. For example, Burt Lancaster, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, and Barbara Stanwyck all started in Vaudeville. Not so surprisingly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, and George Burns started in Vaud. Then there’s Oscar Hammerstein, the Marx Brothers, Judy Garland, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Mae West, James Cagney, the Three Stooges, Abbot and Costello, and the list goes on.
This is a true scholarly work, drawing from about 200 sources deeply informed by those who knew the performers and experienced Vaudeville first hand, or in many cases by the performers themselves; and by extensive research into related channels that flow into Vaudeville. The result is a very full and clear picture of the 45-year phenomenon. Trav S.D.’s amazing accomplishment is how coherently he weaves together all the disparate threads into a beautifully unified expression of the era.
Reading experiences just don’t get any better than this (and I have a Master of Arts in literature and have read thousands of books including the classics). While reading the book, I felt like I was living in the time. Having read the book, I feel like I literally went back in time, not just figuratively, and now I’m remembering actual experiences at the Palace Theater.
November 13, 2014
Al Jolson. Mae West. Eddie Cantor. Bessie Smith. W.C. Fields. Eva Tanguay... Variety is the spice of life, a staple of late-night television, and (apparently) historically the dregs of the theater. Travis Stewart here serves up a heaping helping of the steaming goulash that drove American cultural life at the turn of the 20th century, tracing vaudeville-style variety from its theatrical antecedents in the ancient Greek and Roman empires through the various carnivals and festivals that pockmarked medieval Europe. His survey encompasses the traveling medicine shows, minstrel shows, sideshows, dime-store museums, concert saloons, and circuses built up and billed up by P.T. Barnum to Broadway and beyond, to vaudeville’s ultimate death by celluloid and the ultimate dispersal of its ashes across the cablescape of the internet.
In documenting the rise and fall of Vaudeville as a business model, Stewart focuses more on the managers than the performers, repeatedly name-checking the most influential (star) acts and glossing more than analyzing the material or its place in the zeitgeist. To be fair, the author makes clear that Vaudeville catered to no particular style or content, but rather encompassed all manner of “high” and “low” entertainment, ranging beyond jugglers, clowns, acrobats, and animal acts, to lectures, musical performances, demonstrations, and one-act plays. He thus moves rapidly away from consideration of variety show development so he can primarily focus on the operational logistics that emerged to establish vaudeville as the primary source of live entertainment in the US between the Civil War and the Great Depression, with time out to psychologically profile and synopsize the day-to-day reality of a typical trouper in that time period.
Vaudeville was ultimately a brief stepping stone in the overall evolution of show business. Because people are inherently social animals, live entertainment has and will always exist wherever people gather. Cultivating and harvesting enough revenue from audiences to sustain a living -- let alone garner celebrity and social prestige -- is another matter, however. Where society might look askance at the hat-passing vulgarity of vagabond-level acts (and their inebriate audience), the promulgation of so-called “polite” vaudeville and the theaters that were built to support it rendered these same acts universally accessible, in the process granting them credibility, longevity, and financial security.
According to Stewart, vaudeville consolidated and repackaged the various variety vehicles in a single entertainment innovation, one made possible by revolutions in transportation (railroads and steamships) and communication (telegraph and telephone) technologies. Specifically, and at its height, “continuous vaudeville” allowed proprietors to amortize the cost of theatrical real estate over a full work day (and evening) by recycling as few as three and as many as fifteen acts over multiple, regular shifts, with entire bills extending from 45 minutes to as much as three and a half hours. For their part, performers were interchangeable cogs that would run a week or so before moving on to the next theater or town.
Theatergoers could buy their tickets and drop into this context whenever they pleased and depart when they grew tired, or acts got tiresome, with the full knowledge that the next day might offer a completely different entertainment experience. Whether small-time “continuous” or big-time, prime time showpieces, with managers and theatrical companies who owned extensive circuits of theaters and theater complexes around the country, talent could be placed on a regular payroll and shipped ‘round like so much merchandise. Vaudeville was therefore a popularizer of songs before radio, an engine for mass consumption of scripted stories and schtick before television and film, an arena for athletic spectacle that anticipated the spirit and structure of professional sporting leagues, in all cases imposing nationwide standards for performance and audience expectations. Vaudeville gave us the hook, the star, the Bronx cheer and the slow clap (see, at p. 127), one which could at a moment celebrate or drive the actor from the stage.
“Was it possible to have a normal life under such conditions?” the author asks at p. 225, a passage representatively authoritative and glib.
Endings are always hard. While lapsing into incoherence in his last couple of pages, the author throws in an oddball coda lamenting the apparent lack of professionalism instilled by what he calls the rock-and-roll ethos: showing up late in street clothes with ill-rehearsed material, unready to go on when the curtain rolls up. However, the overall diversity of popular entertainment doesn’t really support such an overgeneralization, nor does it reflect upon the contemporary subject matter that is central to his book. Like it or leave it, the evolution of variety entertainment distribution continues steadily on, clean and dirty. Vaudeville may be dead, but anyone who lives within range of a public school auditorium knows that live performance is eternal, flourishing in as many gradations of quality, style, and taste as befits the polyglot. With respect to the F.F. Proctors, the B.F. Keiths, the Edward Albees, the Oscar Hammersteins, and their rapacious ilk, there’s mo’ business like show business. On with the show!
In documenting the rise and fall of Vaudeville as a business model, Stewart focuses more on the managers than the performers, repeatedly name-checking the most influential (star) acts and glossing more than analyzing the material or its place in the zeitgeist. To be fair, the author makes clear that Vaudeville catered to no particular style or content, but rather encompassed all manner of “high” and “low” entertainment, ranging beyond jugglers, clowns, acrobats, and animal acts, to lectures, musical performances, demonstrations, and one-act plays. He thus moves rapidly away from consideration of variety show development so he can primarily focus on the operational logistics that emerged to establish vaudeville as the primary source of live entertainment in the US between the Civil War and the Great Depression, with time out to psychologically profile and synopsize the day-to-day reality of a typical trouper in that time period.
Vaudeville was ultimately a brief stepping stone in the overall evolution of show business. Because people are inherently social animals, live entertainment has and will always exist wherever people gather. Cultivating and harvesting enough revenue from audiences to sustain a living -- let alone garner celebrity and social prestige -- is another matter, however. Where society might look askance at the hat-passing vulgarity of vagabond-level acts (and their inebriate audience), the promulgation of so-called “polite” vaudeville and the theaters that were built to support it rendered these same acts universally accessible, in the process granting them credibility, longevity, and financial security.
According to Stewart, vaudeville consolidated and repackaged the various variety vehicles in a single entertainment innovation, one made possible by revolutions in transportation (railroads and steamships) and communication (telegraph and telephone) technologies. Specifically, and at its height, “continuous vaudeville” allowed proprietors to amortize the cost of theatrical real estate over a full work day (and evening) by recycling as few as three and as many as fifteen acts over multiple, regular shifts, with entire bills extending from 45 minutes to as much as three and a half hours. For their part, performers were interchangeable cogs that would run a week or so before moving on to the next theater or town.
Theatergoers could buy their tickets and drop into this context whenever they pleased and depart when they grew tired, or acts got tiresome, with the full knowledge that the next day might offer a completely different entertainment experience. Whether small-time “continuous” or big-time, prime time showpieces, with managers and theatrical companies who owned extensive circuits of theaters and theater complexes around the country, talent could be placed on a regular payroll and shipped ‘round like so much merchandise. Vaudeville was therefore a popularizer of songs before radio, an engine for mass consumption of scripted stories and schtick before television and film, an arena for athletic spectacle that anticipated the spirit and structure of professional sporting leagues, in all cases imposing nationwide standards for performance and audience expectations. Vaudeville gave us the hook, the star, the Bronx cheer and the slow clap (see, at p. 127), one which could at a moment celebrate or drive the actor from the stage.
“Was it possible to have a normal life under such conditions?” the author asks at p. 225, a passage representatively authoritative and glib.
Since performers were on the road most of the year, any kind of family life was unlikely, unless the spouse and kids came along. The list of show-biz widows is long: the wives of Jimmy Durante, Groucho Marx, and Bob Hope spent their entire marriages waiting for their husbands to come home. The show-biz widower was not unheard of, either. Sophie Tucker bought her husband, Frank Westphal, a garage to occupy himself while she was away. However much you love cars, such an accommodation doesn’t take the place of the charms of the opposite sex. The fact that Sophie made him call it the “Sophie Tucker Garage” couldn’t have done much for his manhood, either. Before long old Frank was checking the headlights on some fairly nubile young sports models, and Sophie was minus one trophy husband.At page 293, the author describes vaudeville as “a transitional moment in the technological history of the performing arts, representing a midpoint between the era of the single hometown playhouse with a stock company and that of the global electronic entertainment Web,” a revolution that “we are still in the midst of.” Of course, inanimate objects require less upkeep than people, are more reliable during their respective lifespans, and far more portable. So it is not surprising that when technology made it possible to inexpensively mass produce, distribute, and showcase the content independent of the talent, the old distribution and booking system quickly became obsolete. Time marches on, and while touring acts have by no means disappeared, they no longer rely on a single, self-organized structure for support. Today, the networks of broadcast networks, record stores, and movie theaters that emerged to supplant itinerant live entertainment are themselves now supplanted by webcasts, downloads, and streams, each format ostensibly built over the skeleton of its predecessor. The content, not the container, is king.
Endings are always hard. While lapsing into incoherence in his last couple of pages, the author throws in an oddball coda lamenting the apparent lack of professionalism instilled by what he calls the rock-and-roll ethos: showing up late in street clothes with ill-rehearsed material, unready to go on when the curtain rolls up. However, the overall diversity of popular entertainment doesn’t really support such an overgeneralization, nor does it reflect upon the contemporary subject matter that is central to his book. Like it or leave it, the evolution of variety entertainment distribution continues steadily on, clean and dirty. Vaudeville may be dead, but anyone who lives within range of a public school auditorium knows that live performance is eternal, flourishing in as many gradations of quality, style, and taste as befits the polyglot. With respect to the F.F. Proctors, the B.F. Keiths, the Edward Albees, the Oscar Hammersteins, and their rapacious ilk, there’s mo’ business like show business. On with the show!
October 1, 2022
Trav S.D. is both a friend and longtime professional colleague of mine. When I read the book when it first came out (16 years ago, yikes!), I thought well enough of it, but I don't really think I read it very deeply. Sometime in the midst of Covid I re-read it, and read it slowly and gave it my full attention. And you know what: it's a great book! And I like to think I would say that even if Mr. S.D. and I weren't so well acquainted.
Some details: it's a fun, breezy, entertaining read, even though it takes its subject very seriously indeed. It's a dense, highly informative review of the history of vaudeville, from its beginnings thousands of years ago through its current/successor forms in film, TV, and on stage. It's loaded with delightful anecdotes about the players of vaudeville, people like Eva Tanguay, George Burns, George Jessel, Bill Irwin, and everyone in between. It provides an invaluable sense of what it might have been like to attend vaudeville shows in their various forms at various historical periods--a tremendous service to readers because so much of the history of this branch of entertainment pre-dates any of the media that bring permanence to modern entertainment.
Most important, though, is the theme that threads through this book, about the social/political atmosphere that surrounded/surrounds vaudeville and by extension all live entertainment. There are arresting chapters that deal with the relationship between producers and performers that remind us that entertainers, for all their special talents, have been taken for granted and exploited by capitalists along with every other kind of labor.
To be a successful vaudevillian always required remarkable courage and tenacity, and the respect that Trav S.D. brings to his subject(s), and the way he celebrates their achievements in the face of a society that all too often failed to value them at all, is what makes this book particularly special.
I was so glad to re-read it!
Some details: it's a fun, breezy, entertaining read, even though it takes its subject very seriously indeed. It's a dense, highly informative review of the history of vaudeville, from its beginnings thousands of years ago through its current/successor forms in film, TV, and on stage. It's loaded with delightful anecdotes about the players of vaudeville, people like Eva Tanguay, George Burns, George Jessel, Bill Irwin, and everyone in between. It provides an invaluable sense of what it might have been like to attend vaudeville shows in their various forms at various historical periods--a tremendous service to readers because so much of the history of this branch of entertainment pre-dates any of the media that bring permanence to modern entertainment.
Most important, though, is the theme that threads through this book, about the social/political atmosphere that surrounded/surrounds vaudeville and by extension all live entertainment. There are arresting chapters that deal with the relationship between producers and performers that remind us that entertainers, for all their special talents, have been taken for granted and exploited by capitalists along with every other kind of labor.
To be a successful vaudevillian always required remarkable courage and tenacity, and the respect that Trav S.D. brings to his subject(s), and the way he celebrates their achievements in the face of a society that all too often failed to value them at all, is what makes this book particularly special.
I was so glad to re-read it!
January 20, 2024
The best non-fiction I've read in a very long time.
Vaudeville was a uniquely American institution that laid the foundations for most modern entertainment. I grew up reading about vaudeville in the early chapters of a lot of celebrity memoirs, and I've always been fascinated by the strange and wonderful sounding acts - singing, dancing, acting and comedy of course, but also trained pigeon acts, families who performed by hitting punching bags, knife-throwers, jugglers, yodlers, and acts to bizarre to imagine today. Buster Keaton got his start in Vaudeville as a "human mop".
While No Applause describes a few of these acts, it is more a history of vaudeville's business model, which is shockingly more fascinating than I could have imagined. It presents another lens to view the late 1800s through the Great Depression that makes American History 8% more interesting than it is already.
I've been striking up conversations with strangers for the past two weeks, just to share strange and wonderful facts and passages from this book.
Vaudeville was a uniquely American institution that laid the foundations for most modern entertainment. I grew up reading about vaudeville in the early chapters of a lot of celebrity memoirs, and I've always been fascinated by the strange and wonderful sounding acts - singing, dancing, acting and comedy of course, but also trained pigeon acts, families who performed by hitting punching bags, knife-throwers, jugglers, yodlers, and acts to bizarre to imagine today. Buster Keaton got his start in Vaudeville as a "human mop".
While No Applause describes a few of these acts, it is more a history of vaudeville's business model, which is shockingly more fascinating than I could have imagined. It presents another lens to view the late 1800s through the Great Depression that makes American History 8% more interesting than it is already.
I've been striking up conversations with strangers for the past two weeks, just to share strange and wonderful facts and passages from this book.
May 11, 2019
Read for personal historical research. I found this work of some interest - number rating relates to the book's contribution to my needs. Well-salted with the corruptions so typical of those involved with the secular realms of entertainment.
Despite being liberally laced (some would say completely permeated) with agenda, opinion, and speculative interpretations, this work may provide a resource for the researcher and enthusiast.
Possibly... you may enjoy this book slightly more than I did.
Some other works may prove inspiring for those seeking first-hand accounts and broader historical overviews:
-Harpo Speaks! - by Harpo Marx
-Vaudeville Ventriloquism: A Practical Treatise, on the Art of Ventriloquism
-From the Greek Mimes to Marcel Marceau and Beyond
-Harlequin Britain: Pantomime and Entertainment, 1690–1760
-Marcel Marceau, master of mime
Despite being liberally laced (some would say completely permeated) with agenda, opinion, and speculative interpretations, this work may provide a resource for the researcher and enthusiast.
Possibly... you may enjoy this book slightly more than I did.
Some other works may prove inspiring for those seeking first-hand accounts and broader historical overviews:
-Harpo Speaks! - by Harpo Marx
-Vaudeville Ventriloquism: A Practical Treatise, on the Art of Ventriloquism
-From the Greek Mimes to Marcel Marceau and Beyond
-Harlequin Britain: Pantomime and Entertainment, 1690–1760
-Marcel Marceau, master of mime
April 21, 2022
I had a lot of fun reading this book. The history of Vaudeville is a recent fetish of mine and I have been looking for a good overview of the era. This was it. Now, admittedly, my interest arises because I inherited a scrapbook of my grand-uncle and his brother who were Vaudeville performers in the 1920s, and I'm doing research on their career. I wanted a book to give me a broader context and historical significance of the Vaudeville genre. This was perhaps the best book that well served that purpose. I found that even without the personal interest in Vaudeville, I would probably have enjoyed reading this romp through the 1880s to the 1930s. I learned a great deal about Vaudeville as an industry and it's intersection with culture of that time. So, if you like variety entertainment and want a lightly humorous narrative of that history, this book is for you.
August 31, 2017
But it didn't mention Cleveland! (Okay, so I'll have to go investigate genealogybank dot com to figure that one out!) Despite that omission, this is required reading for anyone interested in the vaudeville year and how they continued through the 1950s and to the present day. A great trip down memory lane for those who remember the "older" performers, but important for those who want to understand the development of everything from the Sonny and Cher Show to Saturday Night Live. And did I mention the Borscht Belt? It could only have been a better book with a live video of all of the performers mentioned... and don't be surprised when some current performers are linked to stars of the vaudeville stage!
February 23, 2019
Synopsis: This book is a biography of vaudeville in the United States. For a period of about 30 years, vaudeville was the main source of entertainment here in the USA. It's legacy lives on at halftime shows during major sporting events, America's Got Talent, traveling circuses and loads of shows in Vegas.
My Review: The book was definitely well-researched and well-written, I'm just not sure why I picked it up. For people who love reading about how the old-time stars got their starts (i.e. the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplain, Harry Houdini, Mae West, etc.), then you'll probably enjoy this book more than I did.
My Review: The book was definitely well-researched and well-written, I'm just not sure why I picked it up. For people who love reading about how the old-time stars got their starts (i.e. the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplain, Harry Houdini, Mae West, etc.), then you'll probably enjoy this book more than I did.
November 19, 2025
Densely packed, eminently readable, and highly entertaining! The world of vaudeville was unknown to me before I decided to tackle this tome (because an author I admire had liked it). I. Had. No. Idea. About this world.
While I found it challenging to hold onto the various strands of history that came sliding out of this book into my feeble brain in the way that a huge pot of boiling spaghetti would slosh into a colander, I happily slurped up the contents as best I could and came away with a deep appreciation and fondness for those who traveled this path. Giant kudos to Trav S.D. for bringing this genre to glorious, vivid life!
While I found it challenging to hold onto the various strands of history that came sliding out of this book into my feeble brain in the way that a huge pot of boiling spaghetti would slosh into a colander, I happily slurped up the contents as best I could and came away with a deep appreciation and fondness for those who traveled this path. Giant kudos to Trav S.D. for bringing this genre to glorious, vivid life!
February 9, 2019
We’ve all heard of vaudeville, but what was it, exactly? When was it? Is it truly dead? This book is a fun and informative look at the rise and fall of this iconic entertainment style. The author is clearly a fan, but he is not blind to faults or troubles as well as the strengths, implications, and just plain oddities of vaudeville.
March 2, 2019
There are some priceless stories and wonderful trivia and some infuriating commentary about current culture. I understand the value of trying to put vaudeville in the context of modern culture, in addition to the culture in which it took place. I often found his opinions on modern culture to be misguided and uninformed.
April 13, 2022
A very comprehensive and detailed history of vaudeville in all its incarnations. I enjoyed it mostly, it’s a good tale with great characters and there’s a lot of humour. Ultimately I got bored of the catalogue effect with so much detail and longed for a bit more depth on some of the people mentioned. Also way too much pontificating towards the end, needed a good chop.
May 31, 2019
Superb!
A superlative read and the best book I've come across this year! No hook for this book--Trav has given us the definitive history of vaudeville (and its offspring) in an engaging, highly enlightening and at times very humorous style. I greatly recommend it!
A superlative read and the best book I've come across this year! No hook for this book--Trav has given us the definitive history of vaudeville (and its offspring) in an engaging, highly enlightening and at times very humorous style. I greatly recommend it!
April 7, 2020
After reading multiple books about vaudeville by former stars and historians, this book really helped to bring it all in to focus. It is written in an easy to read style with great wit and insight. Highly recommended!
December 20, 2024
Well written, entertaining, and well rounded overview of the history of vaudeville. I especially appreciated the placement in historical and cultural contexts.
November 21, 2007
Fairly interesting & detailed - S.D. starts with a brief look at the history of theater/performing arts, then segues into the disreputable "saloons" of the mid 1800's in America. The influx of immigrants & the development of the middle class helped push the creation of "good, clean fun" = dime museums & then vaudeville, which celebrated its heyday from about 1881 to around 1932.
Vaudeville in particular and show business in general = melting pot microcosm. Blackface/minstrelsy allowed players to exaggerate the "startling behavior" of a foreign culture. Minorities were first the object of ridicule (Irish, African Americans), then they started playing themselves and eventually became just another part of the show.
As well as the sociological aspects of this part of the entertainment world, S.D. discusses the machinations behind the development of the circuits - Keith, Albee and other major players. He then examines how other entertainment technology took over & replaced vaudeville - phonographs & radio played a part, although movies and television dealt the final blow. Or did they? S.D. ends his book with examples of how the spirit of vaudeville lives on in variety show formats, children's programs and the New Vaudeville of performance groups like the Bindlestiff Circus and Jim Rose's touring group.
S.D. writes very entertainingly and knowledgably on this topic, liberally sprinkling in bits & pieces of modern pop culture; such as referring to the "vaudeville type" as belonging on the Island of Misfit Toys. There were a couple small sections of black & white photos (more, please!) and a decent bibliography.
Recommended to anyone with an interest in the history of show business or who wants to learn more about the home-grown art & industry of vaudeville.
Vaudeville in particular and show business in general = melting pot microcosm. Blackface/minstrelsy allowed players to exaggerate the "startling behavior" of a foreign culture. Minorities were first the object of ridicule (Irish, African Americans), then they started playing themselves and eventually became just another part of the show.
As well as the sociological aspects of this part of the entertainment world, S.D. discusses the machinations behind the development of the circuits - Keith, Albee and other major players. He then examines how other entertainment technology took over & replaced vaudeville - phonographs & radio played a part, although movies and television dealt the final blow. Or did they? S.D. ends his book with examples of how the spirit of vaudeville lives on in variety show formats, children's programs and the New Vaudeville of performance groups like the Bindlestiff Circus and Jim Rose's touring group.
S.D. writes very entertainingly and knowledgably on this topic, liberally sprinkling in bits & pieces of modern pop culture; such as referring to the "vaudeville type" as belonging on the Island of Misfit Toys. There were a couple small sections of black & white photos (more, please!) and a decent bibliography.
Recommended to anyone with an interest in the history of show business or who wants to learn more about the home-grown art & industry of vaudeville.
May 24, 2022
I found this book to be well-written and generally entertaining, though I did get the feeling the research could have gone deeper. As far as I could determine, it is mostly accurate, despite a few obvious errors (why is Bud Abbott's name consistently misspelled as "Abbot" throughout the book?) He spends a fair amount of time in discussing where vaudeville's influences are evident today, thus treating his story less as a history and more of a description of a living thing. I was put off by his numerous references to then (2005) contemporary performers. It may have seemed like a way of allowing his readers to feel connected to the older performers he is comparing them to, but, reading this in 2021, I often found I had only a vague idea of who these "new" personalities were and what they did!
August 13, 2008
A spirited and cheeky look at the history of vaudeville in America, with frequent references to these performers' contemporaries in Europe. I read this for research purposes, but I really got caught up in it. I particularly enjoyed Trav S.D.'s assessment and analysis of contemporary vaudeville in the final chapter. There's tons of historical information here, but it's never dry. A very entertaining read.
October 24, 2017
Second reading! This book is a non fiction look at the stars of vaudeville and includes some classic looks at routines that were performed before the advent of film and television. It was really interesting to read about live performers I had no idea existed as well as the theater impresarios who rules over the different performance circuits. The author did a really nice job. Now to read about early silent films by the same author!
January 30, 2017
This book is a goldmine of information about vaudeville, but just as importantly, it is exceptionally well-written. Trav S.D.'s style is brisk without being chaotic; detailed without being dull; witty without being self-indulgent. He knows his material backwards and forwards, but is never pedantic. For anyone who wants to learn about the history of vaudeville while getting a taste of what it was like as an experience, this book is perfect.
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