Richard Rand, professor of engineering at Cornell University, offers these pages written by his late father, Al Rand, about his days in vaudeville.
An excerpt from "Autobiographical Notes" by Al Rand (1904-1996)
My partner and I learned tap dancing in the streets. We used to frequent dance halls in our teens, and became expert ballroom dancers at the ages of 15 and 16. At these dances we began to pick up the foundation of our knowledge.
The basic step in tap dancing is the time step. Learning this first step was to us like heroin to an addict. We just couldn't get enough of it. We sought out anyone that knew a little more than we did and begged them to teach it to us.
I remember standing on the sidewalk at 1 A.M. on a freezing 20 degree night outside of Laurel Gardens dance hall in East Harlem in 1919 and 1920, completely oblivious of the winds and the snow, practicing something new we may have learned that day.
After Jack and I had mastered enough of these steps to create a routine, we decided we were good enough to enter the amateur contests that were then prevalent in the local theaters. We never won any, but got enough experience to acquire a certain amount of stage presence. At one of these amateur shows we were seen by someone that needed a two-man tap dancing act for a "flash" they were putting together. That is how we ended up in Buffalo that fall of 1922.
Not knowing the processes of professional show business, my partner and I and the rest of the troupe were herded off the train that morning by the manager, who took us directly to the Shea Theater, where we rehearsed our dance numbers with the orchestra. Following this and not having been advised of anything more, we both decided to see what Buffalo looked like. You must remember that we were two East Side New York boys who had never been much further away from home than Coney Island or that one short summer on the farm.
We had no idea how long we had walked, but we were suddenly awakened by shouts coming from a passing taxi. "You stupid jerks! Where the hell have you been? Do you know that we go on in 15 minutes?"
We just couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. It wasn't until many performances later that we realized how much we must have worried them that morning; how "the show must go on" has always been such a strain on show people.
In that same first week I also learned to my consternation that you never whistle in a dressing room. The uproar I caused by doing so was frightening, but after being told to turn around three times in one spot and then walk right out of the room, I was forgiven. Fortunately the shows went smoothly that day or I most certainly would have been blamed.
On the strength of our good impression on that Buffalo date, our act was booked for a tour of the Delmar Time about 10 weeks through the Southeast.
A tour of this type usually consisted of 5 acts of vaudeville plus a movie in each town.
The show would usually open with an acrobatic act. A number two act consisted of a singing team. The middle act was in full stage, in the form of a dramatic one-act playlet. The stars of the show were on fourth, or "next to closing". Most often this was the comedy act. They were the top act or the so-called "stars" of this group and were given this spot so that the audience could be "warmed up" by the preceding acts. Our "flash" act was the "closing" act. We were the bright, noisy finish to the show. The movie followed, after which the whole thing started all over again.
There were usually three shows a day: A matinee, a supper show and the evening or night show. The supper show was usually the weak show done sometimes to a handful of people who did not have to go home for supper meals. We would loaf through that one. However, we gave our all to the 8:30 evening performance. Reviews would usually see us at the opening matinee. We hoped they would never see us at the relaxed supper show.
Most theaters had a large room backstage, known as the green room, where the acts usually killed the time between shows, playing cards and discussing their work and their problems.
A sort of camaraderie existed between show people who were on tour together. But I always felt a sort of "wall" between us, an aloofness that is a bit difficult to explain. After I left show business I thought about it and came to the conclusion that the world of show folk was truly a "small" world. Here, I feel, we had individuals so wrapped up in their own battle for recognition and survival in an extremely fickle field of endeavor, where failure is easy and success pays handsomely, that they just couldn't share their world with anyone else completely. I don't believe that actors can truly develop a sincere or unselfish relationship with anyone, until they leave the business and engage in work that is somewhat less theatrical than their own.
In 1929 and 1930 the stock market debacle caused a few theater operators to change their plans. Besides this, sound movies started their trend into theaters, in place of live entertainment. Contracts were broken. Theaters that had run a policy of five acts plus a movie were canceling the acts and paying the extra cost of the sound picture. Thus being practically forced out of the business for lack of theaters available for vaudeville, Jack and I split up.
He married a girl in Atlanta he had dated there, opened a dancing school and made it his permanent home.
I floundered for a year, using up most of my funds. I then started to teach children for an established dancing school in New York on a part time basis. I soon was teaching at three different schools, two days a week at each.
I taught at the Arthur Murray School for a year on 43 St. and Fifth Ave. I was hired by Mr. Murray to teach a dance called the "Lindy Hop" which was considered an off beat style by conservatives.
I had learned it through my contact with the young pupils I had been teaching. The Murray Schools were known for their conservative approach to the ballroom dance. However, to his credit, he quickly would broaden his outlook as soon as the demand arose.
About two months after Mr. Murray had seen the enthusiasm my pupils were showing, he asked me if I would object to his teachers learning the dance so they could teach it. I agreed, and was amused to see Mr. Murray off at the end of the line, trying to get the steps. Many times since then one of my staple remarks was "Well, I once taught Arthur Murray." A bit presumptuous, wouldn't you say? Mr. Murray was the most successful teacher of ballroom dancing of all time. His diagrammed dancing courses, mailed to buyers all over the country, were unbelievably successful. He and Katherine Murray were certainly two fine examples of American initiative.
what a dashing fellow! a wonderful story!
Posted by: Steffi Green | August 16, 2008 at 09:00 PM