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Kensico Cemetery, located in Valhalla, Westchester County, New York was founded in 1889, when many New York City cemeteries were becoming full, and rural cemeteries were being created near the railroads that served the city. Initially 250 acres (1.0 km2), it was expanded to 600 acres (2.4 km²) in 1905, but reduced to 461 acres (1.9 km²) in 1912, when a portion was sold to the neighboring Gate of Heaven Cemetery. Several baseball players are buried in this cemetery.
James John "Jim" Corbett was an American professional boxer and a World Heavyweight Champion, best known as the only man who ever defeated the great John L. Sullivan Despite a career spanning only 20 bouts, Corbett faced the best competition his era had to offer; squaring off with a total of 9 fighters who would later be enshrined alongside him in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Corbett introduced a truly scientific approach to boxing, in which technique triumphed over brute force, he pioneered the daily boxing training routine and regimen, which, being adopted by other boxers elsewhere, almost intact survived to modern days. A "big-money fighter," Corbett was one of the first athletes, whose showmanship in and out of the ring was just as good as his boxing abilities, also being arguably the first sports sex symbol of the modern era after the worldwide airing of his championship prizefight versus Robert Fitzsimmons popularized boxing immensely among the female audience, and did so in an era while the prizefighting was illegal in 21 states and still considered among the most infamous crimes against morality.
Lew Fields was an American actor, comedian, vaudeville star, theatre manager, and producer. He was part of a comedy duo with Joe Weber. He also produced shows on his own and starred in comedy films.
Primrose and West was an American blackface song-and-dance team made up of partners George Primrose and William H. "Billy" West. They later went into the business of minstrel troupe ownership with a refined, high-class approach that signaled the final stage in the development of minstrelsy as a distinct form of entertainment.
Charles Barney Hicks was an American advance man, manager, performer, and owner of blackface minstrel troupes composed of African-American performers. Hicks himself was a minstrel performer who could sing and play challenging roles such as the minstrel-show interlocutor or endmen. However, he was most interested in the business side of minstrelsy. Over the course of his career, he worked with most successful black minstrel troupes as manager, owner or both. The white-dominated minstrel market proved hostile to a black owner, and Hicks had to travel abroad or manage for white owners in order to make a reliable living. Nevertheless, both white and black rivals came to respect him. One observer in 1891 wrote, "This man Hicks was a dangerous man to all outside managers and they all were afraid of him." In 1912, Hicks was the sole African American listed on M. B. Leavitt's list of "best known advance agents during the last fifty years".
Louis Achille Hirsch, also known as Louis A. Hirsch and Lou Hirsch, was a popular composer of songs and musicals in the early 20th century.
The Rabbit's Foot Company, also known as the Rabbit('s) Foot Minstrels and colloquially as "The Foots", was a long-running minstrel and variety troupe that toured as a tent show in the American South between 1900 and the late 1950s. It was established by the African-American entrepreneur Pat Chappelle and taken over after his death in 1911 by Fred Swift Wolcott. It provided a basis for the careers of many leading African-American musicians and entertainers, including Arthur "Happy" Howe, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Bessie Smith, Butterbeans and Susie, Tim Moore, Big Joe Williams, Louis Jordan, Brownie McGhee, Rufus Thomas, and Charles Neville.
Fred Swift Wolcott was an American minstrel show proprietor and plantation owner who bought the Original Rabbit's Foot Company in 1912 after its founder's death, and operated it until 1950. The Rabbit Foot Minstrels or "Foots", as they were colloquially known, formed the leading traveling vaudeville show featuring African-American performers in that period, and gave a start to many leading blues, comedy and jazz entertainers.
Cornelius O'Brien may refer to:
George Evans known as "Honey Boy" Evans was a Welsh-born songwriter, comedian, entertainer, and musician active in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Lew Dockstader was an American singer, comedian, and vaudeville star, best known as a blackface minstrel show performer. Dockstader performed as a solo act and in his own popular minstrel troupe.
Luke Schoolcraft was an American minstrel music composer and performer. He appeared in numerous minstrel shows throughout the North after the American Civil War.
Leslie C. Copeland was an American composer and pianist. As a boy, he played in Lew Dockstader's minstrel troupe, the Lew Dockstader Minstrels. He later sold ragtime compositions to Jerome H. Remick and others. Some of his performances are preserved on piano rolls. He died in San Francisco, California.
Whiteface is a type of performance in which a person wears theatrical makeup in order to make themselves look like a white person, usually for comical purposes. The term is a reversal of the more common form of performance known as blackface, in which performers use makeup in order to make themselves look like a black person. Whiteface performances originated in the 19th century and today still occasionally appear in films. Modern usages of whiteface can be contrasted with blackface in contemporary art.
Black Vaudeville was based on performances that came out of the movement and style of African Americans. The vaudeville years were the early 1880s until the early 1930s. These acts were unique on the vaudeville scene because the performers brought in different experience that the white performers could not convey. Although African-American performers were mistreated, a Vaudeville gig was better than being a maid or farm worker. Vaudeville had what they called circuits to keep the show business at the time organized. It was difficult for a black performer to be accepted into the white circuit due to the racial issues of the time. Eventually, black circuits were created to give black performers more opportunities. Black Vaudeville made it possible for African Americans to enjoy entertainment through their own heritage.
George Francis Peduzzi, known professionally as Karyl Norman, was an American female impersonator who was popular in vaudeville, nightclubs and on Broadway in the 1920s.
Gus Hill was an American vaudeville performer who juggled Indian clubs. He later became a burlesque and vaudeville entrepreneur. Hill was one of the founders of the Columbia Amusement Company, an association of burlesque shows and theaters, and became president of the American Burlesque Association. He also staged drama and musical comedies. He launched a highly popular series of "cartoon theatricals", musical comedies based on comic strips or cartoons. At one time he was running fourteen different shows.
William J. Flannery was a vaudeville comedian and minstrel show performer. He also sang in operettas and musical comedies. He was a member of the National Variety Artists. He went by the stage name of Billy Gould.
The Leighton Brothers was the name of a vaudeville performance team consisting of brothers Frank Leighton and Bert Leighton.. They also composed various songs, most notably "Steamboat Bill," the tune used in the Disney animated short, Steamboat Willie.
References
- 1 2 "Neil O'Brien Dies at 85. Retired Minstrel Once With Primrose and Dockstader". The New York Times . January 14, 1954. Retrieved 2015-02-02.