Newspaper Page Text
■■■■
/
HEARS'!'S SUNDAY AMKKU AJN, ATLANTA, 1IA., SUMIJAY, .MAY 25, ll»13.
The
of the Property
General
‘Goat’
House
I've hern a policeman and bellhop
I've hern a lady'* maid,
I've played the ice man and the manicure gii
I've led a pirate'* raid.
I make the storm and the thunder,
I make the birdie* sing,
1 irave my hand and the snow falls,
1 ran do 'most anything.
I’ve morn tight* and a mother hubbard,
I’ve morn a flunky’* coat.
Because, you tee, I’m the property man,
And everybody'* goat.
N O other human being, probably, has as many experiences
as the property man of a vaudeville theater. No other
man must possess a talent so versatile. Glenn Smith, now for
instance, has done more things than Theodore Roosevelt. His
work demands that he “supe” for the actors, and in so doing
fill every role imaginable. He must be policeman, {Reman,
animal trainer, nurse-girl, piano-mover, in fact, everything.
He must supply the properties—-that is, the material and set
ting for the acts—it makes no difference what is required.
Naturally, many funny things happen to the property
man or come under his observation. Glenn Smith is chock-
full of stories.
“A million things happen to the property man, he said.
“They’re funny, I reckon, to anybody else, but sometimes
they’re mighty serious to me. Listen!”
And here are some of the things he told. To the property
man himself, his life must be as full of joy as an undertaker’s.
• • •
rpHE big day is on Monday, when the week's show first
I comes on. My, but it's strenuous. You just ought to
have been here last Monday, when 1 was bitten by the dog in
the animal act. cussed by the owner of the act because I shut
the dog in the cellar, sent out to get the most impossible list of
properties that you ever heard of for the whole show, and then
given a dozen jobs.
•lust as I had turned around twice that morning, to sort
of get my bearing, one actor came to me.
•• I want you to play a waiter for me," says he. That was
and I promised. Half a minute later came in the next
act.
“Say,” he said, “you goiter do a dance with my wife at
the finish of my first song. ’
I looked at him.
“For the love of monkeys,’’ I said, “I’m no Eva Tan-
guay.”
“I know you ain’t,” he said. “The bummer the dance,
the better for the act.. That’s why I want you."
Now what d’you think about that? That's adding insult
to injury, but I’m used to that, being just a property man.
Then the next act came along.
“Sav, 1’rops." said he to me, “when 1 drop this book, you
Kinks In
3ii
,o
By Glenn Smith, of
the Forsyth Theater
Handy Man and
at the Vaudeville
Tells Some of the
Sorrows of the ‘Props. ?
He Does It in Both Verse
and Prose.
HERE PROPS’—
TH' STORM'S OVER’
you're th' Butler
IN MV ACT -SUP
INTO THIS COAT
/““props' carry
MV TRUNk UP TO
my dressing*-Room
WHEN you COME
OEP _
I2L
f§< ~
K• © O • • *'
HI
■§i
HE'f PROPS'*
QET A YVIQCrU&
ON WITH MY
TRUNK’
/BED iTTT
TTl OBJ
IP
prrar
Unn? ptt7?
HURRY U P WITH
that BaBY- &u<tQY ;
D'you WANTA CRAB
my act? VVHY DON'T
CHA READ MY PROP
LIST?
STAGE
DOOR-
make a noise like a baby, see.
That’s my job.
And then caine some more.
S'
'OMETIMES I get the cues mixed up. How can a fellow
help it, when lie’s got to watch the stage and the prop
erty, and then play like he was a $1,000 a week actor all at the
same time. The other night, for instance, 1 went wrong.
It was all fixed for me to ring the telephone bell when
1 he lights went out. Hut my head wasn’t working that night.
When the lights went out, I slid up to the door. Inside, the
man was sitting by the fireplace, all tragic like. The stage
was dark. The audience was looking for something startling
to happen. The telephone, as I remember, was to tell him that
liis wife and seven children were dying. But I came on, all
mixed up, and knocked at the door.
“Ice,” I hollered. 1 thought it was the next act, when I
was to be the ice man. 1 hate to think now what happened
then.
# # #
VTf TE'VE got to get the props. Lots of things the actors
V V don't tarry with them, and it’s up to us to find them
somewhere. Gas ranges, for instance, or flower pots. Some
of them make out lists of what they want, early Monday of
the week they are on, and send us out to get the things. And
we have got to gt I them, because the act depends on it.
If the list gets lost, Lord, I'd hate to think about that.
1 ike the baby carriage 1 had to get once. How I came to
overlook that baby carriage I don't know even yet. But the
time came for the Monday afternoon show, and no baby car
riage. The actors were dressed and ready for their cue. They
were third on the bill. The second act was almost over when
Number Three begins to holler for her baby buggy. And there
we were, nothing doing.
But a baby carriage had to he got, and got quick, anil
there was nothing to do but to go out and get one. Which I
did. As luck would have it, a very black negro girl was wheel
ing a kid along the street near the stage entrance. The kid-
napefs of Charlev Boss didn't have a tiling on me when it
eame to quick work. The kid was sitting on the sidewalk in two
seconds, and the negro girl was petrified with a scare that
nearly turned her white. But 1 had the baby carriage, and
was inside the house with it before she could yell.
I heard her veiling later, and saw the prison bars mighty
plain. But when the act was over, I sneaked the carriage out
on the street again, and nothing else ever happened.
But I wonder sometimes if she ever found the buggy, and
what she did, anyhow. Talk about your highway robbers.
Oue act called for a property man to be a nurse girl. I
went on with a long wrapper. In between my appearance as
a nurse girl and the next act, I had to get busy with some
stuff behind the scenes, and I forgot all about the wrapper.
The next act I had to work in, too, and I had to come on as a
policeman.
With the wrapper still on, I put on the policeman’s coat,
and rushed in to arrest the villain. It came near breaking up
the act.
That was just like the time when I had to work in two
acts right together. In one there was a piano, and in the other
a garden bench. I got mixed up, and rolled out the garden
bench for the piano act. The piano player was a stiff guy,
without any sense of humor, and I thought he was going to
break my neck.
• • •
O NCE I was playing a burglar. According to the business,
I was to come in through the window with a mask on,
and the actor would hit me in the head with a fake billy.
It was fun, till something happened. Just .before the
show one evening, the billy got lost, and the actor forgot to
tell me about it. Just when his cue was called, he looked
around and the only thing he found was a short piece of broom
handle.
After that show, I refused to be a burglar any more. Can
you blame me?
“Where’s the other pair of pants,” he veiled. He had
some temper.
“Well, I tell you,” I said to him, “If I give you the only
other pair of old pants in the shop they wou’t let me work on
the stage.”
• • *
A
r I ''HEY call for crazy things sometimes. One act asked for
X two live babies and one stuffed cat. You see, we got to
get the very things they want. But I was up against it on
this deal. Two live babies and a stuffed cat. It sort of made
me sore.
He was a nervous sort of guy, was this act, and he kept
on worrying me about his property. I told him everything
would be all right. And when it came time for his act that
night he called me.
“Did you get my stuff?” he asked.
“Sure,” 1 said, and handed him two stuffed babies and a
live cat. But I leave it to the crowd, wasn’t that the next best
thing?
• # •
O NE fellow wanted two pairs of old pants aud a high
wheeled bicycle. I gave him the bicycle, all right, and
one pair of old pants.
ND some of them don't know anything. Of course, lots
-LA of actors, especially vaudeville actors, are wise, and
men of the world, and all that. Some of them have college
educations and money. Most of them are refined and inter
esting. But now and then just a plain boob gets hv. Listen.
The other week one act called for a sure-fire pistol. I shot
the pistol all right at the proper time, and it sounded like a
cannon there in the wings.
“Gee,” said the man after the act, “that pistol made a
heap of noise. What size gun is that ?”
“It’s a thirty-eight,” I told him.
“I know,” he said, “but what size cartridge do you shoot
in it.” ,
O NE act when we were up at the Grand called for a can
of beer each show. It came all right. But one night a
girl who was in another act, waiting behind the stage for her
cue, spied the beer and drank it. I didn’t have time to get
any more, and I was up agailist it. So I made up some soap
suds in a can of water and sent word’to the man in the act to
look out for it. Just so it looked like beer, I thought it
wouldn’t make any difference.
But the message 1 sent him was never delivered, and the
poor fellow drank the warm water and suds. Say, he was
some sick. When he sort of recovered, he came to the man
agement with a kick, and wouldn’t let me work with him any
more that week. It wasn’t my fault, but I don’t much blame
him.
S O the life of the property man in a vaudeville house, you
see, is just one doggoned thing after another. It’s
mighty interesting at that, though, but not so funny to poor
old Props as to the man who hears about it.
I’ve been everything from an ice man to an animal train
er, including almost every kind of woman. I’ve made every
kind of noise from a baby's yelp to the crack of doom. So
has every other vaudeville Props. It’s all in the game.
i
lure as the Chauffeur Sees Them
Queer anti Humorous
Happenings in the
1 >a\ s Work of 1 lie
Man Who Personifies
the Spirit of the Age.
; ( ry-y ///; chauffeur ptrst,
/ xpini of the agr.'’
* M. Knight, tt
?///•; chauffeur personi/tts the
reworked
the genial
proprietor of Iht Capital dtp Auto
Livery, "More than anybody else
he typi/it s the general desire to get
f from one place to another in a hurry.
| [Ie stands for the energy of the cen
tury. and for that reason is the big-
\ gest part of his life. ft* driven
men and women to weddings, tit death
bed*, to births. hut more particular!y,
to their pleasures.
it any wonder that the ehauf-
feut is wiser in human nature than
most peopleT Any ttne of them could
write ti book of his adventures.
You just ought to hear the stories
wy men bring bark to me.”
litre, as ht told them, are some:
By F. M. KNIGHT.
r On a delightful road in the Buck-
head section, a < ha .ififur was driving
a merry party of men and women.
They were having th** time ot their
lives. As they went along, tfyey ob
served ahead a car that was in trou
ble. Th" chauffeur was out tinkering
about the mechanism, and in the back
! seat were a man and a woman.
As the car of the joy riders name
near, the woman and man in the
i other automobile appeared a little
nervous. They spoke to the chau-
feur. but he shook his head, ev
idently telling them that he couldn't
| make it go. Then the joy riders' car
, drew near.
There was something mysterious
the couple in the broken car.
', ^'sallRiqhv
i DOC— SNCOKUMS \ ,
IS WELL ACjAIR? PVmS/A- V//m
[Minmn i u » nr rmmmi nmu iot
'mm
HI
immm
A
li
H
i
The woman put tyor hands up to
her face, and the man slid down in
the body of the car as the other au
tomobile drew near. The Joy riders,
however. had # no desire to penetrate
their little secret, and thought noth
ing of the matter. But just as they
came abreast of the car of the couple,
their own car gave a crunch and a
Jerk, and stopped altogether, two feet
from the other machine.
The joy riders looked at the woman
who kept her fa> c covered. They
looked at the man curled up in the
bottom. They looked at their own
car that refused to budge. And they
began to laugh. The louder they
laughed, the more the woman in the
next ear began to cry. and the man
to swear. And for twenty minutes
the odd party continued, until the
chauffeur of the joy riders adjusted
his machine, and moved away lea\ -
ing the identity of the couple still
veiled in mystery.
“1 wonder whose wife she was and
whose husband he was?” my chauf
feur likes to remark.
pleasure. But then there are other
sides. lake once a man got my
chauffeur up about 3 o'clock in
the morning, with a hurry call.
“(let a doctor,” he said, frenzied-
ly, "and come to - giving an
address, "quick."
With visions of murder and sudden
death, the chauffeur jumped out of his
bed and beat it for a doctor. He in
curred the wrath of several physi
cians before he finally enlisted the
services of one. Idling the saw
bones into the car, the driver broke
all speed limits to get to the address.
At the door of the house the man
met him. wearing a bath robe. He
was smiling.
"That's all right, doc," he said.
‘ Sorry 1 troubled you. But every
thing’s all fixed now. Snookums swal
lowed a button, but he's coughed n
up.' My wife and l were right scared
at first."
And he held up a little fuzzy poo
dle dog Right then it was proved
'hauffeur has a better wbrk-
ibuiary. than a physician.
«►£ the men liere^ caught a hurry call,
just like that. He grabbed a doctor,
and ran to the house from which the
call came.
There he found the man of the
house walking the front porch ner
vously chewing a cigar. Something
was about to happen within the
house, and it was plain what that
something was.
The doctor went in. leaving the
anxious man on the porch. Then the
doctor came back in a minute, and
called the driver. Several minutes
passed and Milton came back out to
the man on the front porch.
‘It's twins,” he informed the man.
The man of the house looked at
him stupidly. Then he grew red in
the face.
‘‘Get t’ h—1 out o' here." he yelled,
grabbing a chair.
And that was all the thanks the
chauffeur ever got for the glad tiu-
ings.
* * •
Milton helped at a wedding once,
also. That was nothing, though, be
cause runaway weddings are every
day occurrences, almost, in a chauf
feur’s line of work. But this one had
a few unusual features.
Milton took the couple from a hotel
in town and started toward Fayette
ville. about 9 o’clock at night.
Way out in the country, the fly wheel
ramp off and flew through the radia
tor. The road was dark, the place
was lonely, and the elopers were ner
vous. The girl was getting ready to
back out. anyway.
Milton had to set out tcv And a
house of some kind. He finally found
the house of a farmer, and after
fighting off the dogs and daring a
shotgun or two, he succeeded in
arousing the inmates. An old farmer
came to the door. Milton explained
his plight.
The young couple trailed along
about that time.
"It looks like we’re fixed here for
all night." the chauffeur told them.
The bride-to-be began to cry. She
proclaimed to the world that they
were not married yet.
"Sorry,” said the driver, “unless you
want to walk it."
Then an idea seized him. He
ther, I looked again. There was the
pig. I don’t believe a single bristle
had wiggled. A half mile farther on l
looked back. The pig stood in the
middle of the road. And as far as I
could see, the durned animal was
still there. I wonder if he has got
over the surprise yet? _
A little farther on we overtook a
buggy to which a mule was hitched,
and in which a woman was sitting.
\ As the automobile came to the bug
gy, the mule Jumped, and took a
fence at a single jump, leaving the
buggy behind. The woman fell out
in the road, and "lit a-running.” For
half a mile down the road she ran,
not once turning to look back, or to
glance one way or the other. Then
she ducked in the woods, and we
didn't see her any more.
that
All that comes under the head of in another case M. M. Milton, one
searched the barn over, and found a
section of lead pipe. Then he took
the fanner's shovel, and made a
melting pot of it. In the shovel he
put the pipe, stuck the whole thing
over a fire, and soon had the lead
melted.
All the time he was working, the
girl was crying. Then the driver’s
goat was gone.
“You all make me tired." he said
to the elopers. Then he called to
the farmer.
"Say, bo.” he asked, "is there a
justice of the peace around here any
where?”
"Sure, neighbor," called the farmer
from his bedroom. “I'm one. What
do you want?”
Milton turned to the elopers in
disgust.
“Now why in the world didn't you
think of that before?" he asked them.
"You folks want a chauffeur to do
all your thinking for you." Then he
yelled to the farmer.
"Come on out and marry a cou
ple."
The old man came in his costume
de rigueur. The knot was tied out
in the barn. Milton didn’t even stop
work for the occasion. They wanted
him to, but he was busy soldering
the lead pipe on the radiator, to mend
the hole.
"Nix,” he said to the invitation,
”n<2 time for such foolishness. You
all make me tired."
♦ • *
The funny things are those a chauf
feur sees when he is blazing a
new* trail through a country where
automobiles are not often seen. Men,
women, and animals are all struck
dumb with surprise. I was driving
through the Tennessee mountain sec
tion not long ago. A crazy pig dodged
across the road and then, in the mid
dle, changed his mind, and turned to
run back. He stopped right in the
middle of the road. The machine
was going at a good gait, and didn’t
even slow up. It passed over the pig,
without touching him.
After it passed, I looked back.
There was the pig, standing as if
petrefied. lie hadn’t winked an eye.
I don’t think. A hundred yards far-
Sometimes the folks from the
country come in and take a ride about
town in the cars. There was a cou
ple the other day, an old man and
woman.
They thought they were in heaven,
riding around, leaning back in the
seats, and enjoying every step of the
w'ay.
They held a w’hispered conversation
between them when they got back,
and had stepped out of the car. Then
they turned to the chauffeur.
“How much does a automobile like
this here cost?” asked the man.
"This little car?" said the chauffeur.
"Oh. about $1,600.”
The old man looked at the old wo
man.
“Mary,” he said, "I guess I better
go out to the yards and buy that
mule.” (
And that's the way it goes. We
see all the things—joy and sorrow,
life and death and disappointments.
The chauffeur, as I said before, is
the spirit of the age. and knows its
men and women—sometimes better
than they know’ themselves.
As
tv
t