New Britain Herald Newspaper, March 29, 1928, Page 19

S e R I T D 7, LONDON. ROMINENT residents of the American quarter in this me- tropolis were deeply shocked, recently, te learn that several of thelr compatriots—and young girls, st that—had been subjected to :.Lhd indignities during u series of theatre ots. Addm, to the general indignation came advices from the Continent that theatrical torlormcr- from the United States were eing terrifically “high-hatted” in such cen- ters of civilization as Paris, Berlin and Vienna. Indeed, actual personal affronts, = the cables said, had been heaped on weeping and indignant but helpless American performers “But,” as one well-known man from the States, a self-willed expatriate for the past ten years, remarked, “after all, you have to expect that sort of thing in Europe. Americans—and British—will always be ‘foreigners’ abroad. But in the mother country of Amcricans—to hear that pretty musical comedy kids have been mis- treated openly: dear, dear! 1 wonder what this town is coming to.” A X : The genesis of the distressing episode had its voot, as often happens, in an innocently inten- tioned display of high spirits. The English col- lege outfi is not different in kind from his American cousin at Harvard or Yale, and re- cently, when Oxford and Cambridge met for their annual football game, both victors and van- quished set off afterward to cciebrate the glori- ous occasion. 3 Every American college town knows the po- tential rack and ruin which lurks in a student body all steamed up over victory and another bent upon quenching the memory of defeat in the most effective liquid way possible. Some- times the business iz settled by uprooting a few oal posts or holding mass meetings around bon- ’(rn. On other occasions the students have been known to challenge the police of a city and pre- cipitate riots, causing considerable material damage. i ¥ When this precept is considered, it must oe admitted the British lads started off mildiy enough to celebrate victory and defeat. They flocked to London, and the theatre hour found a good portion of them concentrated in the area between Piecadilly and the Strand. The London Hippodrome was favored by a particularly en- thusiastic band, and sizable partics of students were found in five other London theatres. At the Hippodrome Alice Warley, an Ameri- ean vaudeville star, did her best to get her act But the enthusiasm of the Cambridge- Oxford clans was too much for her. Hardly had she appeared when the students launched & When the Rioting British Boys verbal attack of biting sareasm. [%3 They said unkind things about her act. They said unkind things about her whole family Finally the Am girl could broke down and fled to th nagement announced ai so became quieted and th: show again. In the first act after the forced intorruption an American girl sang *‘Hallelujah" from “Hit the Deck.” This precipi- tated another riot. The jerky strains of the jazz whipped the young gentlemen to greater flights of enthusiasm, and finally the management had to announce that the show was closed. Immediately the boys from Oxford and Cam- bridge repaired to the saloon bar. Here t eir «pirits were revived or reple ed, and someone thought of a good joke. The battle the other patrons with fire extinguishers! In a few moments the bar was empty save for the students. They continued to fight each other with the ex- tinguishers, interpolating a bit of crockery or glassware here and there when convention seamed to demand it. The American performance at other London theatres fared little better than did Miss Warley. “The Girl Friend" was playing at the Palace Theatre and Louise Brown, American dancer and former featured player in Ziegfeld shows, was doing her best to please. She succceded only in hf]commg a target for paper balls and other mis- siles. Finally the management had to close this show, and the students trooped out to spend their enthusiasm in the great open strcets, where men are men and the girls have a chance to fight back. In all, six London shows were closed that Headline from an Amusement Journal, Deploring the London Riots Which Resulted in the Closing of Six Playhouses. night, & majority of them because of attacks upon American enter- tainers. The attacks, while a bit more violent than usual, were decidedly not the first to be launched upon stage folk from across the sea. In fact, before the ‘“battle of the football game” the situation had reached & point where theatrical interests in New York were seriously consider- ing some move to pro- tect Americans playing foreign engagements. The trouble originally arose in Paris from very definite causes. The Con- tinental chorus girls cannot, or, at least, at that time they could not, begin to compare with their American rivals. The American girls were prettier, shapelier and had considerably more poise.. Above all, they were better trained. Matters reached a ¢Ji- max when an American woman, a dancer of con- siderable reputation, visited Paris under contract and packed the theatre where she was playing. A series of unusually annoying accidents marked her first night. Chairs collapsed, there was a great deal of whispered conversation during her act, and the orchestra seemed a bit out of sym- pathy. There was no open twitting, but when these “accidents” continued the star spoke to the manager about it. Fortunately he was not a party to the plot. He conducted a quiet investization, took drastic but mysterious action, and the annoyances ceased. Freed from these disturbances, the American was able to concentrate upon =% her performance, with the result that she was hailed by the Tess as supreme in er especial field. But other enter- tainers did not es- cape easily. One -~ Bawled Qut 9 the b Armerican Beauties Booed and Pelted by Students, These Dancers Are Indignant. U. S. ACTRESSES RAZZEI that they would leave. The French rivals were not satisfied, however. The Moulin Rouge fronts on the broad and bright Boulevard Clichy. The light of the Place Blanche whirls and ed- dies around it, the famous Rat Mort is close by and Joe Zellie's is within a stone's throw. = Crowds constantly are surging back and forth before the cabaret, the streets are as light at night as they are by day, and there is slight chance for one to meet bodily violence at the hands of an enemy in this section. But behind Moulin Rouge spreads an area of tangled streets, dim lights and sinister shadows. It leads upward to the crowning glory of the Cathedral du Sacre Coeur, and itself is no-man's- land of possibilities. Entertainers at the Moulin Rouge leave by 8 rear cxit and must pass through a strip of these darksome shadows before gaining the security of Montmartre. As the American girls were leaving one night they were surprised and frightened at being accosted by a group of men. The men acted like the usual bqulevard mashers, but they were unusually abusive when the girls scorned them. The next night the troupe met a similar group of men,—but there was a difference. For now the men wore masks,—they had a duty to perform, and they proceeded to execute it with- out delay. The girls were seized and soundly beaten. Before gendarmes arrived some man- aged to escape, screaming. These suffered only cuts and bruises. Others were less fortunate, and the pencils of light from official flashlights revealed three of the American beauties stretched unconscious upon the pavement, severely in- ured. Of course the girls could not remain in 'aris. They returned to New York and now are vorldng under the protecting wing of their own Uncle Sa Not only dancers and singers have met hostile receptions abroad. Members of j orchestras have been continually “persecuted” while play- ing foreign engagements, until they have author- ized their own representative to appear before the American Congress and request measures of retaliation. These would pro- vide for an alteration in the immigration laws, changing the classification under Comely Group of American Dancers Who Recently Returned Home After Warrowing Experiences st 3 Paris Theatre, Occasioned by the Jealousy of French Rivals. dancing troupe was actually run out of Paris by happenings not hard to trace to jealous i The girls were playing the oulin in Montmartre, and the red-upholstered rium was packed night after night as their performance continued to please. Then, one cach of the girls received a proposal, n’t she enter into a little business scheme? e had to do was manage a few fetching shrug a_ shoulder or two, and entice isitors from America—or other lands— n cabarets where the wine was high and poor and the intentions of the management doubtful ; The girls considered the proposals. French girls were doing it every night and the Ameri- cans had every reason to believe that they should be far more successful. It was of course, busi- ness with them. But they finally refused flatly, and when hard feeling developed between their employers and themselves they served notice Bowspaper Foature Servise, 1920 which foreign musicians now enter the United States and tending to equalize their standing with American musicians abroad. That the whole matter presents aspects of considerable seriousness is recognized by theat- rical managers abroad, and at least one construe- tive measure has been undertaken. It is a bill designed to fight American competition in Paris, but it is designed along legitimate lines, and if it succeeds American chorus girls hardly can ob- ject. For French employment managers are in- sisting that prospective chorus girls underge specified periods of training before they appear on the stage. The producer bears the expense of this training, but the girls are not paid while they are being trained. 'l%\u- French producers are endeavoring to secure French choruses which can compare favorably with the highly trained American chor- uses, and compete in the same market. It is considered probable that the French Government BRITISH STUDENTS RIOT AT LONDON SHOWS DURING FOOTBALL “CELEBRATION” will be appealed to to assist the !Muu: [ ] they may pay the girls a nominal salary they learn, and thus cncourage them te envell. In the meantime, however, until French chorus girls become efficient as dancing artists and Engli}:h vouths abandon llomb’clli nrfl:& least repress the great urge to play it in theatres, American entertainers may have te dance with shotguns slung over their shoulders, or sing with a pair of brass knuckles handy! That, at least, was the expri Miss Ruth Fallows, former Ziegfeld show girl. ise tured below, returned from the Moulin with an appalling account of the indi‘n‘fl.‘n which she and her colleagues had been submitted. The American girls, she declared, had beem offered unt costumes by the management; unclean dressing rooms and, as & erowning affront, they had been commanded to appear in costumes that were so scanty that they were scandalous. “I'm never going back,” she said. Clipping from a French Newspaper, Describing the Distasteful Conditions Which Foreed the American Beauties to Quit Paris. quittent le Moulin-Rouge pour des nium_ d hygitae Les sept beautes améticaines, — i ko S i Ruta raniuns, 1 amous American Model, Accorded Rough Treatment in the Fremch Capital