Clara Howard

Singing and comical lyrics in songs.

The men of the service in the theatre readily took to Miss Howard. They liked her work and her looks, and even if Miss Howard's hair did seem plaited down just a bit too much they didn't appear to notice it. It may have been the color that appealed, for red heads generally have the edge when with or among blondes and brunettes.

Then Clara Howarrd flashed, really flashed, on the stage with a gold cloth cape over a green and white dress and, in her red hair, made something of a picture. She left the cape behind after the first number, but remained in the same gown for the rest of the turn, which is a comedy one, with singing. Miss Howard is a comedienne. Her wedding song had some fun dialog, she told stories of children and kidded around, besides singing, but singing what she thought could be best blended with humor, adding "business" to each number for more or less value. Miss Howard became the hit of the show, though having to follow the comedy of the heavier women of Howard and Sadler, with the difference in the manner of working of the two, thereby sharply contrasted. Whereas Miss Howard should make her comedy more $2, meaning subdued and refined, the Howard and Sadler comedienne could help herself by roughening up even more. Clara Howard is in line as a vaudeville single. Just a bit more attention to the best effects to be obtained from her work and she's there for musical comedy. The best way it would seem for the best vaudeville audiences is the $2 way, high travesty or burlesque, without changing her present style or ideas of comedy. Once upon a time a red head wrote in with a neat pan, saying it was rough work to call a girl a red head, but it's not rough when the hair really is red, which happens so seldom, and it certainly is never a stage secret..

Variety, 53:8 (01/24/1919)