The Earl Carroll Vanities

The Earl Carroll Vanities was a Broadway revue that Earl Carroll presented in the 1920s and early 1930s. Carroll and his show were sometimes controversial.

This article is about the 1920s Broadway revue. For the 1945 film, see Earl Carroll Vanities (film).
This program was originally published by the New York Theatre Program Corporation in 1923.

Distinguishing qualities

In 1923, the Vanities joined the ranks of New York’s other popular revues: The Greenwich Village Follies, George White's Scandals, and The Ziegfeld Follies. At a time when Florenz Ziegfeld was hailed as “The Great Glorifier of the American Girl,” Carroll bragged that “the most beautiful girls in the world” passed through the stage door of his theatre. As many as 108 women were onstage in Carroll's show at one time.[1] Critics often insinuated that Carroll's performers were provocatively dressed.[2] Carroll frequently sublimated public scrutiny into free publicity.[3] Though Carroll boasted of presenting larger casts than his peers, his fare was frequently regarded as somewhat unsophisticated.[4] One critic in the New York Times described the show's comedy bits, which featured burlesque-styled dancers and minstrel-styled blackface comics,[5] as “The same old stuff”.[6] One of Carroll’s innovations was his “living curtain,” which featured scantily-clad models in striking stage pictures.[7] This wordless mise-en-scène was similar to the “ballad ballet” of The Greenwich Village Follies and the tableau vivant of The Ziegfeld Follies.

Editions

The following chart shows the various editions of the revue:[8]

EARL CARROLL'S VANITIES
YearOpenedClosedPerf.Theatre
1923Jul 05, 1923Dec 29, 1923204Earl Carroll Theatre
1924Sep 10, 1924Jan 03, 1925133Music Box Theatre/Earl Carroll Theatre
1925Jul 06, 1925Dec 27, 1925199Earl Carroll Theatre
1926Aug 24, 1926May __, 1927303Earl Carroll Theatre
1928Aug 06, 1928Feb 02, 1929200Earl Carroll Theatre
1930Jul 01, 1930Jan 03, 1931215New Amsterdam Theatre
1931Aug 27, 1931Apr 09, 1932300Earl Carroll Theatre/44th Street Theatre
1932Sep 17, 1932Dec 10, 193287Earl Carroll's Broadway Theater
1940Jan 13, 1940Feb 03, 194025St. James Theatre

Alumni

Over the years, the revue proved to be a training ground for up-and-coming talent. In 1924, Sophie Tucker was Carroll's featured “chirper.”[9] W. C. Fields was credited as both a comic and an author in the 1928 show. Jack Benny made his Broadway debut in the 1930 edition. Burton Lane, who would later compose several other Broadway scores, contributed music to the 1931 edition. In 1932, long before he wrote “Over the Rainbow,” Harold Arlen composed “I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues” for Carroll.[10] The scenery and costumes that appeared in that number (and throughout the evening) brought a young Vincente Minnelli recognition.[11] Also in that year, the comic Milton Berle[12] played a number of eccentric characters, as he would frequently do in his television show three decades later.

Of course, not all of the revue's contributors went on to become household names; lesser-known alumni included Joe Cook, Lillian Roth, Ted Healy, David Chasen,[13] George Moran, Charles Mack, Peggy Hopkins Joyce, Kathryn Reed Altman, Faith Bacon, Will Mahoney, Frank Mitchell[14] Yvette Rugel, and Beryl Wallace.

Actors’ equity

Propriety wasn’t the only scandal that plagued the production. Before the first edition ever opened, actors were under the impression that they had auditioned for a vaudeville-type show—free from the purview of Actors’ Equity. When they realized that they were rehearsing a revue, they demanded that Carroll either hire an all-Equity cast or join the Producing Managers' Association. Carroll fired the Equity members. In retaliation, around 150 Equity members refused employment with Carroll.[15]

Variations and legacy

By the mid-1920s, audiences were starting to crave storylines; Carroll took notice. With Murder at the Vanities (1933), he successfully inserted a revue into a book musical. The first edition of The Earl Carroll’s Sketch Book opened in 1929, but patrons surmised that it was merely the Vanities under a different guise. Carroll’s last attempt to re-stage his signature revue on Broadway closed after twenty-five performances.[16] Bankruptcy prompted Carroll to take his operation to Los Angeles, where his spacious theatre drew appreciative crowds, especially among soldiers on leave during World War II. The new venue, with its table-and-chair seating arrangement, had the cabaret atmosphere he had once hoped to achieve in New York, notably with the fourth edition of the Vanities.[17] In 1945, the Vanities inspired a musical film of the same title. Two other films inspired by Carroll's productions were Murder at the Vanities and The Earl Carroll Sketchbook.

References
  1. “Carroll’s ‘Vanities’ Full of Vaudeville,” New York Times, September 11, 1924, p. 23.
  2. Atkinson, J. Brooks. “The Play,” New York Times, August 25, 1926, p. 19.
  3. Everett, William A., & Paul R. Laird. Historical Dictionary of the Broadway Musical, Second Edition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. p. 239.
  4. Stempel, Larry. Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theatre. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2010, p. 214.
  5. Atkinson, J. Brooks. “The Play,” New York Times, August 25, 1926, p. 19.
  6. “Carroll’s ‘Vanities’ Full of Vaudeville,” New York Times, September 11, 1924, p. 23.
  7. Green, Stanley. Broadway Musicals Show by Show. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Books, 1985, p. 76.
  8. Internet Broadway Database
  9. “Carroll’s ‘Vanities’ Full of Vaudeville,” New York Times, September 11, 1924, p. 23.
  10. Bordman, Gerald. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 479.
  11. Bordman, Gerald. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 479.
  12. Smith, Bill. The Vaudevillians. New York: Macmillan, 1976, p. 73.
  13. “Harbor Police Hunt for Missing Actors,” New York Times, August 11, 1925, p. 23.
  14. Smith, Bill. The Vaudevillians. New York: Macmillan, 1976, p. 110
  15. “Equity Retaliates on Earl Carroll,” New York Times, June 11, 1923, p. 16.
  16. Bordman, Gerald. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 519.
  17. “‘Vanities,’ Fourth Edition, Run Like a Night Club,” New York Times, December 29, 1925, p. 20.
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