News From VHSource, LLC Vol 2 February 2015 Herbert and Ziegfeld the first time anyone in the New York entertainment Creating A Dream Team business had actually attempted to put together a “dream team.” Even more importantly, there was a ime to examine a relationship that is rarely hint of a shadowy power struggle swirling around mentioned and certainly almost never actually underneath the whole endeavor. Let’s look first at the Tdiscussed. It involves two giants of the early years primary players. of the twentieth century. Victor Herbert (1859-1924) the composer went to work for Florenz Ziegfeld (1867-1932) Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., the primary initiator of the the showman producer in 1916. The title of the work was project, was a native of Chicago. He had attended the The Century Girl and it opened on November 6, 1916. It same high school that Harry B. Smith had once certainly was not a normal production in any way. It was attended. His father was in the cabaret/night club created under the auspices of the Century Entertainment business in Chicago and sent a 26 year-old Ziegfeld to Corporation, a company formed by the 49 year-old New York in 1893 looking for new undiscovered Florenz Ziegfeld, the creator of The Follies and the 48 talent to bring back to Chicago. After a rather year-old Charles B. Dillingham, the elegant seasoned discouraging trip, he found himself in the Casino th theatrical producer. It had two composers: the 57 year-old Theatre (Broadway and 39 ) taking in a rather tired Victor Herbert at the top of his career and the 26 year-old production of an old chestnut, Adonis, first produced Irving Berlin, at the very beginning of his career. It opened in 1884. Its long time star, Henry E. Dixey, was at in a 2300 seat theatre which had been built for drama, and least slim but Adonis he was not, being in 1893 far was located almost a mile north of the relatively new removed from his Times Square theatre district. While the librettist hired initial success in the was Henry Blossom, one of New York’s best story tellers, burlesque from the production was billed as the first ever “All Star 1 8 8 3 - 1 8 8 5 . Vaudeville” production. It was a smash hit that lasted for Z i e g f e l d ’ s 200 performances. discouragement only deepened until The Century Girl was followed exactly one year later by the curtain rose a second production Miss 1917, utilizing the same after the moldy old structure with the exception of replacing Berlin with musical on a Jerome Kern (1885-1945) and Blossom with P. G. strongman act - the Wodehouse (1881–1975) and Guy Bolton (1884–1979). five foot, eight and Kern, Wodehouse and Bolton had formed a team in 1915 half inch, 220 with Very Good Eddie, produced by the Shuberts. With pound glory known even bigger stars than The Century Girl, Miss 1917 was as Eugen Sandow a tremendous financial flop staggering to make 48 (born Friedrich performances and bankrupting the Century Entertainment Wilhelm Müller in Corporation. These two productions were quite possibly Körnigsberg in Hazel Dawn as The Century Girl 2 News From VHSource, LLC Vol 2 February 2015 1867), showing far more skin than was legally allowed in son George M. Cohan (1878-1942) took his family to 1893. Where Dixey had been a faded “Adonis,” here in New York and never looked back, developing a brand stark contrast was a beautiful, slim-waisted chiseled new genre, musical comedy, as he stretched his vision. Ziegfeld wasted no time, signed his first family’s vaudeville sketches into full length evenings. management contract that night and took Sandow back to Chicago. Soon the new manager had his supremely Florenz Ziegfeld went to work for the Syndicate in handsome physical specimen 1896. In the summer of that same year Ziegfeld went performing in a classy club and to Paris to discover new talent and met Anna Held allowing Chicago society ladies to (1872-1918), a professional Parisian born in Indiana. go backstage to feel the new born She was elegant, sensual and frivolous in a naughty star’s muscles. Edgy for 1894, but French postcard sort of way. Married at twenty to a Ziegfeld was on his way to wealthy middle-aged Uruguayan, that lucrative but glorifying his first human body, unsuccessful marriage seems to have simply drifted albeit male instead of female – away by 1893 so that when she met Ziegfeld in 1896, that would come later. It would Anna certainly did not feel encumbered. She knew not take long for Ziegfeld to see how to flirt and he knew what he wanted. He would beyond Chicago, leave his bring her to America, manage her, bed her, treat her as The great Sandow brothers to assist his father, and his wife until they divorced in 1912, even though they take Sandow on a three season had technically never married. tour of the country. After Sandow decided to return to England with his wife, Ziegfeld landed in New York It would be Anna who looking again for the undiscovered. The year was 1896. It suggested in 1907, that happened to be the same year the Syndicate was born. Flo create a “revue like we love in Paris.” The On August 31, 1896, three sets of managing partners set Syndicate, Klaw, about controlling the theatrical touring companies of the Erlanger and Frohman, entire country. Such companies encompassed everything thought it a fine idea and from minstrel shows to theatre works (melodramas and made Ziegfeld an offer plays). Up until this moment there were hundreds of he could hardly refuse. independent companies doing their own bookings and This is where the story collecting their own money. gets interesting. Oscar Hammerstein I owned the On this fateful day, Charles Frohman and Al Hayman; biggest vaudeville house Samuel F. Nixon and J. Fred Zimmerman; and Marc in New York City - The Klaw and Abraham Lincoln Erlanger met in New York Victoria, built in 1899. Anna Held in 1902 at the Holland House on Thirtieth and Fifth and decided The theatre sat on the corner of 42nd and Broadway at that it was time to simplify the system. Nixon and the base of what was then known as Longacre Square. Zimmerman controlled a huge number of theatres in the Hammerstein and his son Willie had devoted the Midwest and West. Frohman was a major producer and theatre totally to vaudeville in 1904 and managed to Klaw and Erlanger controlled a significant slice of the land the single most lucrative agreement ever created talent in New York. Frohman would produce and Klaw in the entertainment world. Hammerstein convinced and Erlanger would be the booking agents. Instead of all the principal vaudeville managers led by Benjamin the little guys doing their own bookings, they could all go Franklin Keith (1846-1914), Frederick Freeman to work for these six gentlemen. The organization they Proctor (1851-1929) and Tony Paster (1837-1908), formed became known as the Syndicate, partly we’re sure that he and he alone would produce vaudeville in New because of the strong-arm tactics involved, and it changed York City from 30th street north to 96th Street. The the face of America’s touring industry forever. They forgot managers agreed to such a preposterous arrangement to ask if anyone minded. Fascinatingly, it would force a simply to keep Hammerstein from joining forces with certain family out of the touring business entirely. Eldest one or the other of them and driving the rest out of 3 News From VHSource, LLC Vol 2 February 2015 business. Such was the power of Oscar Hammerstein I in major step above vaudeville. He hired fellow 1904. Chicagoan Harry B. Smith (who had already written 8 of Herbert’s first 18 theatrical works) to write a sort of script that would pattern the production after the Folies Bergère in Paris. The focus was to be on beautiful women in all sorts of situations. Ziegfeld wanted big and thus hired Julian P. Mitchell, (1854- 1926). Mitchell was the first real American stage director as we know the term today. As such he had made a huge reputation with both the 1902-03 extravaganzas Wizard of Oz and Babes In Toyland. NOTE: An extravaganza is a musical production marked by a loose structure, a frivolous theme, and elaborate costuming and staging. Mitchell just happened to also have directed 4 of Herbert’s first 18 works. Thus, both the writer and director who were asked to create the first Ziegfeld Follies of 1907, opening July 7, 1907, had a working relationship with Victor Herbert. Hammerstein’s Olympia in 1895 Flash forward to 1907. Longacre Square was now Times This situation would continue with the Follies of Square, renamed in 1906. The Syndicate was a huge power 1908, 1909, 1910 and 1911, all at the Jardin de Paris. controlling the entire country with theatrical bookings, Each Follies evolved more and more into what we ruling with an iron hand and the use of blacklisting. “Work now come to expect, with the 1910 being the first to for us or don’t work at all.” They had taken over the failed showcase major stars regularly. It’s fascinating that vacant Hammerstein Olympia theatre (the block long these early Follies coincided almost exactly with the entertainment complex between 44th and 45th streets built life of the Manhattan Opera Company. Whether in 1895 which faced Times Square) and renamed it The Ziegfeld was truly aware or not, the Syndicate was New York Theatre.