Daily News from New York, New York • 377

NCW VOMITS PlCTURS NfWtMWI IE' THEATER MOVIES BOOKS TELEVISION OUTDOORS TRAVEL GU UULi an mo mo NOVEMBER 5, 1972 I 1 ur SI 1 I Judy Garland at the Palace in 1951 (above) and the Palace marquee in 1933 (right). Both scenes are from the era following the theater's demise as an all-vaudeville house 40 years ago and, to show business oldtimers, things haven't quite been the same since. Yflne Mace amdl Dtts -ytfe Atfiteir Beattlh For the aspiring entertainer, to make it to the Palace became the dream of dreams. Even today, when oMtin.e vaudcviilians the little people retrwi-isce, everything is buildup for the story how they finally made it to the Palace, even if it was for one night before being tgtiomir.ioi'sly canceled ani replaced by a trained-squirrel art. For.

if a performer made it to the Palace, tin-re was always a chance he might be seen fey People Who Count and would be tapped for a Broadway show. Or, if be for she) was a particular bit with the crowd, regular Palace bookings would be assured. And top rates in vaudeville, which could only cente after a Palace success bad been tallied, were wot to he sneezed they ran to several thousand a week. The Palace rolled on. Albee tad seised complete control and relegated Beck, the man whose 4rrxm it all was.

to retirement. Like the rest of the KeilH theaters, the Palace came under Albee puritsnucul rules. "Dont use the words faell 'damn, 'devil, 'cockroach. 'spit, read one notice to performers. Still, when bie-d rawing torch injrer liVe Sophie Tucker played the Palace, sorte bawdy lyrics managed to slip part the boss keen ears.

The Palace bubble actually buret. Ins-tea it began fo slowly that no one noticed, tr ii willing to admit to hiss and collapse. Who were the murderers? Who killed Their names were Rivoii. Rial to. Boxy, Strand, Capitolall the villainous theaters that were part of a newly emerging entertainment form: the By the end of the 20s, talkies had come into the ficture, and radio was solid'y ensconced in Awrimia ife.

Motion-picture bouses, offering short vaudeville acts with the films at ker prices, beat tnercl'tWy on the beads of vaudeville theaters everywhere. In July, 1932, the Palace management added Frattik Back's film. "Bring "Era Back Alive, ss an inn taent to audiences. But celluloid extras cid to help bring in paying curtomers. On Nov.

t.e Palace closed a bill featurir.g seven live acts nd a short movie, and enounced that the next attraction would be Eddie Cantor rtarrirg in the feature "The Kid From Spain." The Palace was a trwvie house. Vaudeville tried to come bark. It tried hard. Over the years, the Palace made attempts at reverting to a vaudeville policy. Judy Garland 1 w-ka there in 1951.

and other performers, like Harry Bt'-a-fonte, Betty Hutton and Danny Kaye. brour.t occasional beats of life to the Palace Stare. Bat ith the success of television, wbkh was like vaudeville only free, there m-as no hope. In 1905, the Palace was sold to Davi i ard his sons, for a price reported to be av The Nederlanders renovated the lobby, redid the stage, threw out a whole Kt of n.eW.rn, mtii began running musicals. About all that remains of the Age of Yaalev'JIe now are some portraits ad caricatures of lr of old, which line the walls of the raer.zaBir the inner hAAy.

Go see them beftre it's lat. By DAN CARLINSKY THERE'S AN ANNIVERSARY next week a 40th anniversary that few will note. It falls on Thursday, the 16th, and it's the anniversary of the day they killed the Palace Theater. You say the Palace is still there? At Broadway and 47th, at -what's called Duffy Square? You're right, but you're wrong. The Palace is there, all right, presenting musicals and an occasional concert or a one-man show between runs.

But the real Palace has been dead since 40 years ago. The real Palace is a place most New Yorkers alive today never knew, for it was part of and the heart of an institution that thrived before their time: vaudeville. The Palace was built in 1913, to be the greatest vaudeville theater of them all. and it was until that day when its owners finally threw in the towel and turned ths glittering Palace into just another vaudeville-movie house. On Nov.

16, 1932, to those who knew vaudeville, the Palace was dead. And so was vaudeville. It's difficult to imagine it now, but vaudeville, in the first decades of our century, was a cultural mammoth. A town with no vaudeville house could scarcely be called an American town. Into these theaters, large and small, came dancers, singers, comics, magicians, jugglers, female impersonators, acrobats, ventriloquists, pan torn imists and animal sets-For a week at a time they played to whatever tiny portion of America was on hand; then, unless they were lucky enough to be held over at a raise in pay they were shipped on to a hotel in the next town: from Albany to Schenectady to Utica and on to Allcntown, Pa.

Variety was the spice of it all (indeed, vaudeville was often called "variety" in its earlier days, but the fancier, French-sounding "vaudeville" won out): five minutes of this, 12 minutes of that, eight or 10 or more acts piled into a single show. A matinee and an evening performance: "two-a-day." For the actors, it was tough work, but hopeful kids, dreaming of stardom, studied and rehearsed, wiggled and whirled, clawed and scratched their way into vaudeville. It was glamor. It was at least some money. It was show biz.

In the East, a Bostonian named B.F. Keith came to dominate the world of vaudeville. With his partner, Edward F. Albee, he controlled some 1,500 theaters in towns of all sizes, and had 20.000 performers under contract. It was a stroke of good luck to be signed to work the Keith circuit.

If you were an unknown tapdancer or a headline comic you stayed on the good side of the Messrs. Keith and Albee, or you didn't work. Farther west, a reformed actor named Martin Beck controlled thing through his Orpheum circuit. But Beck's ambitions propelled him toward New York, where he built a theater and called it the Palace. In researching her book.

"The Palace," Marian Spitzer went to old newspaper ads and recreated the Manhattan entertainment scene at the time the Palace opened, on Easter Monday of 1913. Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish were appearing in "A Good Little Caruso was at the Met, with Toscanini conducting; and there were Eva Tanguay, the Schubert Brothers, Barnum Bailey all manner of big names up in lights. Other vaudeville houses of the time included the Colonial and the Alhambra, as well as Hammer-stein's Victoria. Hammerstein was offering 16 acts and, as a bonus, a short film for a top price of 50 cents. The Palace opened that cold Monday afternoon with a price spread of 25 cents (for the gallery, or top balcony) to SL50; evening prices ran as high as $2 for the best boxes.

What did the customers get for that outrageous fee? They got a spanking new theater, with marble columns in the lobby, plush seats, and a shiny brass railing around the boxes. And they got nine acts: The London Palace Girls, dancers. Mclntyre and Harty, singing comedy duo. "The Eternal Waltz," a short operetta. The Four Vanis, wire act.

La Napierkowska, pantomimist. Ota Gygi. "violinist at the Court of Spain." Hy Mayer, chalk talk artist. "Speaking to Father," a one-act comedy by George Ade. "The Court Jester, a farce starring Ed Wynn.

Not one of the acts threatened to tear the bouse down. Ed Wynn. the sole name familiar today, was not yet well known. La Napierkowska, the panto-mi mi at, was given the top billing. Reviews and word -of -mouth ranged from mild to ild on the bad side.

Variety, the trade journal, headlined: PALACE S2 VAUDEVILLE A JOKE No Praise and No Attendance But like the sickly, undersized boy who grew up to become President, the Palace, slowly but eurely, crawled to the top. After several weeks only middling business. Beck, still in charge of booking, convinced Ethel Barrymore to do a one-act play for Palace crowds. The reviews, as befitted the first lady of the American theater, were sparkling, attendance rose. The next week, another serious performer played the Palace.

It was her first performance on a New Y'ork vaudeville stage. Her name was Sarah Bern-haHt. The list of names that fallowed Bernhardt to the Palace stage can only astound: W. FMls, Nora Caves, Marie Dressier, Blossom Seeley, Will Rogers. Vernon and Irene Castle.

Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Harry Houdini. the Marx Brothers. Lillian Russell. Weber and Fields. George Jessel.

Eddie Cantor. Fred Allen. Bum and Allen. Bob H-spa, Jack Beuny, Milton Berie, Kate Smith, ani on aal on..