Leonard and Haley
11 Mins.; One (Special Drop; Exterior) Fairly good harmony. Opening character song well received. Act diversified with girl’s whistling the closing number giving additional strength. Couple should thrive in the pop circuits.
Eveleen Dunmore
16 Mins.; One. Sixteen minutes of straight songs in “one” is a bit too much time for even the best in modern vaudeville to consume, and Eveleen Dunmore, with due regard to her splendid high soprano, is hardly strong enough for that classification. Three ballads and a medley of time-word melodies, complete the repertoire, with three costumes worn. The opening should be altered to eliminate the present conflict in numbers, two ballards around a similar theme, showing poor judgement in selection. ‘Pick Me a Rose” and “Killarney Rose” follow in the order named, with “Long Way from Home” and the medley coming next. A basket of flowers is distributed by the singer during the “Killarney Rose” number, Miss Dunmore wearing an Irish costume for both this and the succeeding number. The melody is long and, while well pieced together, stands up only through the vocal efforts of the principal. One number should be dropped with the total time not exceeding 10 or 12 minutes. Miss Dunmore’s voice is the sole attraction, her appearance running a distance second. She did quite well at the Colonial, but would have finished much better had she curtailed over offering to a reasonable length.
Florence Timponi
12 Mins.; One. Florence Timponi with fair personality and nice appearance, is following the beaten trail of singing single women. She wears a white ruffled dress throughout, appearing first in black hat and gold cap that is very attractive. The songs are of the usual run, excepting the last, a Hebrew comic, that should be dropped immediately. It is about “gin physics,” etc., not nice enough for the girl. The other numbers are handled acceptably. For the small time Miss Timponi should not find the going hard.
Elsie White
Elsie White is a young woman with a big heavy voice not very musical but good for rag singing. Miss White has four songs all rag hits. One of the number could be omitted for age. A white accordion pleated frock is a very dainty dress for this girl. Miss White should be able to get along.
Charlotte Leslay
9 Mins.; One. Charlotte Leslay is billed as being able to sing higher than Mme. Tetrazini. Well, Arthur Hammerstein should know but as far as big time vaudeville is concerned, who cares? The young woman has a soprano voice of some range, but it is not a voice of any timbre or quality. The singer spoils whatever chance she may have had with such billing by opening with a rag. Her second number is also popular, a ballad following. At the finish she sang “Falling in Love with Someone” and “My Hero.” The latter is, without doubt, the American flag to all sopranos and tenors. Miss Leslay is a lyric soprano, and as long as she clings to operatic billing, might better confine her repertoire to classical and semi-classical material. With an evening gown of dark material and a new selection of songs she should be a neat little single on small time.
Frostic, Norback and Evans
15 Mins.; One. This trio look as if they were from some quartet. They have the sameness characteristic of all male acts. Two of the boys sing straight, with the little fat chap doing a Scotch number that is a trifle long, but otherwise all right. A good singing aggregation of popular songs for the small time.
Hazel Cox
17 Mins; One (Special Curtain). Assisted by a pianist Miss Cox is offering three song studies that remind one very much of the English artiste, Wish Wynne, who favored us with her presence several years ago. Miss Cox is of statuesque proportions and makes a stunning appearance. She has a most likeable personality and a delightful voice. The latter she uses to distinct advantage in three numbers. All of her material has been especially written by her sister, Ray. Her opening is entitled “Mother’s Old Gown” and expresses a pretty bit of sentiment. It is costume. Her second is a recitative song. “The Tug-boat and the Yacht,” which she places over in a pretty fashion. The closing song is called “Day Dreams of a School Girl.” The idea is a novelty and the best of the three. Miss Cox dresses the last character very girlishly in a pink costume that is exceedingly pretty, and the manner in which she renders agreeably the little waltz strain and the few bars of “Butterfly” that have been woven into the [unreadable] of the offering that slows that she has a voice that will carry her far.
Nellie V. Nichols
This without the next-to-closing turn in the running and Nellie V. Nichols, tried and sterling performer, running below her grade. Miss Nichols followed two singing acts, but since there were six in a row almost every one did. Miss Nichols, however, followed several hundred, using material which in the main was trite and frazzled with wear.
At this day, in Chicago, a routine containing “Portuguese,” Moving Picture Ball,” “Wait Till You See,” and “Rose of Washington Square,” is handing out a lot of vets. In addition she did a special called “Don’t Let the Same Bee Sting You Twice” and a brief one incorporating the old gag about the Sunday school teacher talking about her twenty-one children and the stranger asking what part of Ireland her husband came from. She also did a Wop, in which Tony rhymed with macaroni and was from San Antonio. Miss Nichols holds an honored and established position in vaudeville; like an ambassador to a foreign capital, she should “support the position as befits.” She needs true, honest character songs and is big enough to have her own, with a popular one here and there, perhaps. If she does not want exclusive ones she might keep refreshing the ones she does want. She did not “go” as an artist of her caliber should.
Oscar Loraine
Oscar Loraine, with his fiddle, had them eating out of his hands when he stepped out, and before he was through they were howling. When he uncovered his plant in the box he proved a knock-out. And how that plant can sing, though she could do away with that shimmying with credit to herself and the act.
William Wehrlein
[New act] Straight singing. 12 mins; one. Male baritone solo’s “Road to Mandalay,” “Your Eyes Have Told Me So,” “Pretty Kitty Kelly” and “Mother Machree.” Good voice of evident cultivation. For vaudeville a comedy number could replace one of the two semi-classical numbers. Good act of its kind, but lacks variety.