Eviction of Imogene

Mr. Ziegfeld Establishes a Precedent

Life is getting harder for the chorus girl. Last week Florenz Ziegfeld issued a general order (by telegraph, as is his custom) to omit Imogene Wilson from further performances of his current Follies. And all because she got herself in the newspapers for an alleged punch in the eye at the hand of Frank Tinney, piebald comedian.

In a newspaper interview the lovely Miss Wilson reported that she never wanted to see Tinney again, that she was through with Broadway, that she had accepted a motion picture contract out West "where men are men, and not black-face comedians."

The greedy newspapers, swollen with the story, alarmed the finical Florenz. He wired his press agent to keep Imogene out of the newspapers.

The Daily News, which first caused gum-strengthened jaws to drop at her adventure, saw the comedian and the comedienne on a friendly promenade near Broadway. Mr. Tinney smashed the News photographer's camera.

Mr. Tinney sailed for Europe. Imogene visited him on the steamer. Variety (theatrical weekly) concluded that they must be reconciled since they spent several hours in his stateroom apparently in earnest conference. The newspapers bulged anew. Imogene went back to the Follies and found herself without a job.

In the midst of the melee newspaper reporters asked Mrs. Tinney (there is one) whether Frank's pranks appealed to her. "Be yourself," answered Mrs. Tinney cryptically. A few hours before he sailed, Frank was served with papers in a suit for separation.

What of it?

The eviction of Imogene marks a serious break in theatrical tradition. Heretofore chorus girls, particularly Follies girls, were supposed to get themselves into the newspapers. Newspapers or separation papers--it all came to the same thing. The public reads and runs to the box office. Witness Countess Peggy Upton Archer Hopkins Joyce Morner who can neither act nor sing nor dance. Simply by her extraordinary endurance and ability to keep on getting married and keep on getting in the newspapers she keeps on getting star's situations in expensive musical revues.

Imogene meant no wrong. She was simply striving for an honest living. Ziegfeld has blocked her road, because Tinney blacked her eye. The time may come when a chorus girl will be refused honest employment simply because she has married the third or even the second millionaire, or because she has dropped a handbag containing dynamite in a crowded taxi-cab. "What's going to become of us?" conscientious, multimarried chorus girls are asking. And there simply isn't any answer.