Niles Marsh

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Niles Marsh was a female impersonator who began his career on the Broadway stage and then, from the early 1920s to the mid-1940s, rose to become one of the best known drag performers on the American vaudeville and nightclub circuits. He was one of many such artists who, during that period, encapsulated what was known as the Pansy Craze.

Broadway theatre class of professional theater presented in New York City, New York, USA

Broadway theatre, also known simply as Broadway, refers to the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats located in the Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Along with London's West End theatre, Broadway theatre is widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.

Vaudeville genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s

Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 18th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a kind of dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent.

Nightclub entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night

A nightclub, music club or club, is an entertainment venue and bar that usually operates late into the night. A nightclub is generally distinguished from regular bars, pubs or taverns by the inclusion of a stage for live music, one or more dance floor areas and a DJ booth, where a DJ plays recorded music. The upmarket nature of nightclubs can be seen in the inclusion of VIP areas in some nightclubs, for celebrities and their guests. Nightclubs are much more likely than pubs or sports bars to use bouncers to screen prospective clubgoers for entry. Some nightclub bouncers do not admit people with informal clothing or gang apparel as part of a dress code. The busiest nights for a nightclub are Friday and Saturday night. Most clubs or club nights cater to certain music genres, such as house music or hip hop. Many clubs have recurring club nights on different days of the week. Most club nights focus on a particular genre or sound for branding effects.

Contents

Performing career

On Broadway

According to a programme biography from the 1940s, Niles Marsh "was a child prodigy and started his career as a boy soprano, touring for four years". [1] A producer who heard him sing immediately cast him in a Broadway show, playing a female role. By his own admission, Marsh subsequently performed several seasons on Broadway, although the actual productions have yet to be identified. [1]

Cross-gender acting

Cross-gender acting refers to actors or actresses portraying a character of the opposite gender. It is distinct from roles where transgender characters, or characters who cross-dress, are portrayed.

Vaudeville Circuit

By the 1920s, Marsh had become a performer on the lucrative vaudeville circuit. Typical of his early appearance was one that opened at the Strand Theater in Modesto, California, on January 1, 1924. One of four acts to perform in a continuous show from 2pm to 11pm, Marsh was singled out by the local press as "the one which is going to prove a real sensation... This act has a great volume of scenery and changes costume several times. Niles Marsh will prove one of the cleverest acts to visit Modesto in some time". [2] He performed at the same venue again a year later, in March 1925, in what was billed as "a novel surprise." [3] In July 1927, Marsh appeared at the Liberty Theatre in Benton Harbor, Michigan, in a dance revue entitled Stepping Along. As the local press noted, he and another artiste, Doral Mack, "impersonate flappers in a highly diverting comedy number in which these fashion pirates offer singing and dancing of the highest type." [4]

Modesto, California City in California

Modesto, officially the City of Modesto, is the county seat and largest city of Stanislaus County, California, United States. With a population of approximately 201,165 at the 2010 census, it is the 18th largest city in the state of California and forms part of the Modesto–Merced combined statistical area. The Modesto Census County Division, which includes the cities of Ceres and Riverbank, had a population of 312,842 as of 2010.

Benton Harbor, Michigan City in Michigan, United States

Benton Harbor is a city in Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan which is located southwest of Kalamazoo, and northwest of South Bend, Indiana. In 2010, the population was 10,038 according to the census. It is the smaller, by population, of the two principal cities in the Niles–Benton Harbor Metropolitan Statistical Area, an area with 156,813 people.

By his own account, Marsh not only toured the vaudeville circuit in United States but also its equivalents in Australia, England and Africa. [1] His Australian tour is known to have taken place during 1929, where he appeared for several months at Melbourne's Tivoli Theatre. Credited as a female impersonator, Marsh first performed there on June 22, 1929, alongside English comedian Jack Edge, film actor Horace Kenney, and ventriloquists David Poole and Johnny Green. [5] A month later, he participated in a special farewell season at the same venue, when he was billed as "an experiment in femininity." [6] Marsh appeared at the Tivoli again in September, as part of a revue entitled The Vanities, impersonating the Italian opera singer Amelita Galli-Curci. [7]

Tivoli circuit

The Tivoli Circuit was a successful and popular Australian vaudeville entertainment circuit which flourished from 1893 to the 1950s. The circuit suffered a catastrophic decline in popularity after the introduction of television in Australia in 1956, and the last Tivoli show was staged in 1966. The only original Tivoli theatre still standing is Her Majesty's Theatre, Adelaide.

Amelita Galli-Curci singer

Amelita Galli-Curci was an Italian coloratura soprano. She was one of the most popular operatic singers of the 20th century, with her recordings selling in large numbers.

Returning to the United States, Marsh continued to perform on the vaudeville circuit (and especially the Orpheum Circuit) despite the fact that, after the advent of talkies in 1929, the popularity of live variety theater was starting to decline. Nevertheless, he still made regular live appearances, often as the opening act before a feature film. During this period, Marsh is known to have appeared at:

Sound film motion picture with synchronized sound

A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures were made commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923.

Victorian burlesque theatrical genre

Victorian burlesque, sometimes known as travesty or extravaganza, is a genre of theatrical entertainment that was popular in Victorian England and in the New York theatre of the mid 19th century. It is a form of parody in which a well-known opera or piece of classical theatre or ballet is adapted into a broad comic play, usually a musical play, usually risqué in style, mocking the theatrical and musical conventions and styles of the original work, and often quoting or pastiching text or music from the original work. Victorian burlesque is one of several forms of burlesque.

Ebell of Los Angeles building in California, United States

The Ebell of Los Angeles is a women's club housed in a complex in the Mid-Wilshire section of Los Angeles, California. It includes a clubhouse building and the 1,270-seat Wilshire Ebell Theatre.

By his own account, Marsh also spent five years as a regular performer at the De Luxe Picture Theater in New York City. [1]

Nightclub Appearances

By the mid-1930s, vaudeville was effectively dead, so Marsh turned instead to the booming nightclub industry, which had burgeoned following the end of Prohibition. In 1935, he headlined the gala floor show at the Blue Ribbon Night Club in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was described as "America's foremost female impersonator, presenting his famous impressions in dazzling gowns." [13] During a subsequent nightclub appearance, Marsh was seen by Mrs. Eve Finocchio, wife of the proprietor of a new drag nightclub in San Francisco, which had just opened in June 1936. Marsh was soon signed as a regular performer at Finnochio's and remained "one of the highlights of the show" for at least the next eight years. [1]

During this period, Marsh also appeared in other nightclubs around the country. In August 1942, billed as "vaudeville's greatest satirical artist," he headlined Karyl Norman's All American Male Revue at the Castle Farms Night Club in Lima, Ohio. [14]

Later life

Virtually nothing is known of Niles Marsh's later life.

In the early 1980s, Blue Pear Records, a Florida-based record label that specialised in cast recordings from obscure Broadway and off-Broadway musicals from the 1960s, released a series of theatre-related LPs with liner notes attributed to Niles Marsh (or someone using his name). [15] In a 1987 article in the Los Angeles Daily News, this Niles Marsh, described as a "theatre historian and record annotator" expressed his dissatisfaction with the then-popular fad of using well-known opera singers to make new cast recordings of classic stage musicals such as My Fair Lady and West Side Story . [16]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Finocchio's: America's Most Unusual Night Club, theatre programme, circa 1940s.
  2. ↑ "Strand offers all day vaudeville for tomorrow," Modesto Evenings News, December 31, 1924, p 3.
  3. ↑ "Society and Club News," Modesto Evenings News, March 14, 1925, p 3.
  4. ↑ "Barrymore is superb in Don Juan," News-Palladium, July 15, 1927, p 2
  5. ↑ "Amusements" [advertisement], The Argus, June 22, 1929, p 32.
  6. ↑ "Dora Maughan at the Tivoli," The Argus, July 23, 1929, p 17.
  7. ↑ "Tivoli Revue," The Argus, September 2, 1929, p 12.
  8. ↑ "Charlie Chan Picture tops Capitol Bill", Hartford Courant, April 18, 1931, p 8.
  9. ↑ "Frankenstein is horrendous and startling," Oakland Tribune, December 31, 1931, p 14c.
  10. ↑ "The Greatest Show ever seen in Fresno" [advertisement], Fresno Bee-Republican, April 22, 1933, p 3C.
  11. ↑ "Grace Hayes featured on Orpheum programme," Deseret News, September 9, 1933, p 6.
  12. ↑ "Eddie Conrad will head Ebell Vaudeville," Los Angeles Times, December 7, 1934, p 15
  13. ↑ "Blue Ribbon Night Club" [advertisement], Albuquerque Journal, August 31, 1935, p 11.
  14. ↑ "Castle Farms Night Club" [advertisement], Lima News, August 2, 1942, p 3.
  15. ↑ Marsh, Niles. Sleeve notes for LP The Crystal Heart, Blue Pear Records, BP1001 (c.1983).
  16. ↑ "Experts not always lyrical about Broadway shows by Opera Singers", Los Angeles Daily News, November 11, 1987.
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