Vaudeville Wars: How the Keith-Albee and Orpheum Circuits Controlled the Big-Time and Its Performers (Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History) [Hardcover]

Arthur Frank Wertheim (Author)

Book Description

Series: Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History | Publication Date: March 30, 2006

Vaudeville Wars illuminates the exciting and intriguing story about how the tycoons of the two most powerful circuits, Keith-Albee in the East and the Orpheum in the West, conspired to control the big time. To create their national network of hundreds of vaudeville theaters, B. F. Keith and Edward Albee and the Orpheum's Morris Meyerfeld and Martin Beck, used cutthroat tactics to suppress rival owners and to squash performers' rights and the White Rats union through strikebreaking and blacklisting. After the two circuits merged, Joseph P. Kennedy masterminded its takover through clever stock transactions and then linked the company to RCA to form Radio Keith Orpheum. When the big-time venues, including the famous Palace, became RKO sound movie theaters, the curtain descended on the vaudeville wars. Overall, the big time's heyday from 1890 to 1920 was a trade off--a legacy mixed with delights and duplicity, high points of artistic creation and low points of unending strife. Daring, ingenious impresarios left their mark on the history of show business by developing a coast-to-coast chain of luxurious theaters that presented an exhilarating popular amusement that appealed to a broad range of Americans. At their theaters thousands of talented vaudevillians were given the opportunity to appear on stage before crowds of adoring fans. Despite the battles between the performers and the circuit moguls, the vaudeville wars forged an electrifying entertainment that at its zenith brought joy to millions.

 

For more information visit http://www.vaudevillewars.com

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Wertheim gives us what is likely to be the definitive work on the business side of  vaudeville for a long time to come, offering countless details available nowhere else, well organized and completely comprehensive. . . . A valuable resource, one long needed." --American Theatre

 

"Vaudeville Wars offers the only thorough account of the vaudeville business from the ground up, centering on the roistering entrepreneurs who, within a generation, lifted their enterprise into America's leading diversion. Wertheim shows both the human side and the voraciousness of the moguls. Unraveling the business-end of show business from the motley fabric that was vaudeville, he demonstrates that when the enterprise faded, only a few of the founders were left to witness their lofty estimate of vaudeville's manic display ensconce itself in the national lore."--Leigh Woods, author Transatlantic Stage Stars in Vaudeville and Variety (forthcoming, Palgrave Macmillan)

"Until Wertheim's Vaudeville Wars, the men who created the institution of vaudeville had remained as inscrutable as official portraits. Wertheim drags away from their ledgers, telephones and mahogany desks the derby-hatted, cigar-smoking barons of vaudeville and places them downstage center under the spotlight. They emerge as human beings--some venomous, all ambitious and a few nearly decent. Wertheim has provided the most clear, entertaining and reliable history of the business end of vaudeville. Besides being an engrossing read, Vaudeville Wars makes a fine case study fit for any MBA program."--Frank Cullen, founder, American Vaudeville Museum, Vaudeville Times Quarterly

About the Author

Arthur Frank Wertheim has written several books on 20th Century American culture, including The New York Little Renaissance and Radio Comedy. He has also edited three volumes of The Papers of Will Rogers, Will Rogers at the Ziegfeld Follies, and American Popular Culture. A former American history professor at the University of Southern California and other universities, as well as an administrator at the University of California, Los Angeles, his awards include a Fulbright grant to teach at the University of Indonesia.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 360 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; First Edition edition (March 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403968268
• ISBN-13: 978-1403968265
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,704,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wertheim's Vaudeville Wars Explores New Ground., April 22, 2006

By 

Frank Cullen "Frank Cullen, American Vaudevil... (formerly Boston, MA and now Edgewood, New Mexico, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vaudeville Wars: How the Keith-Albee and Orpheum Circuits Controlled the Big-Time and Its Performers (Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History) (Hardcover)

This is the book that puts big time vaudeville in perspective.
Too often in chronicles of the golden age of vaudeville, the stars eclipse the movers and shakers around whom they revolved. Pastor, Proctor, Keith, Albee, Meyerfeld and Beck were among the vaudeville universe's few law-givers who dictated how brightly, how often and where the stars shone.
Until Wertheim's "Vaudeville Wars: How the Keith-Albee and the Orpheum Circuits Controlled the Big-Time and Its Performers," the men who created the institution of vaudeville had remained as inscrutable as official portraits. Wertheim drags away from their ledgers, telephones and mahogany desks and places the derby-hatted, cigar-smoking barons of vaudeville downstage center under the spotlight. He invests with personality the colorless B.F. Keith, the remote E.F. Albee, the inventive Proctor, the lesser known Morris Meyerfeld and the volatile yet discerning Martin Beck. They emerge as human beings--some venomous, all ambitious and a few nearly decent.
Arthur Frank Wertheim has thoroughly researched their machinations and provided the most clear, entertaining and reliable history of the business end of vaudeville. Besides being an engrossing read, "Vaudeville Wars" makes a fine case study fit for any MBA program.