Vaudevillainy

The Life and Language of Mr. Weber and Mr. Fields

The Book. Two undernourished young U. S. Hebrews--one fat, one skinny--came to fame in 1873 for their mutilations of the English language. Music-hall audiences rippled and rocked when they heard, just before an act came on, the plaintive offstage whisper of the fat one (Weber) to the skinny one (Fields)--"Don't push me, Meyer!" When the pair were at the height of their popularity, 20 years ago. they disagreed, separated. Friends called this a "business suicide." This winter, they have returned to the two-a-day, are playing certain Western towns under the management of Keith's Theatres, Inc. But this winter the whisper is not quite so funny; there is a ghost in its levity. For that whisper belongs to the theatrical days of which Savoyards reminisce with wistful head-shakings, of which Mr. Isman, in a similar manner, writes in this book.

He tells about the Webers--Rickler, Sarah, Fanny, Golda, Bertha, Esther, Leah, Rae, Rebecca, Flora, Anna, George, Abraham, Solomon, Philip, Max and Joseph, little Joseph. They lived in a shoe on Mott Street, Manhattan. 'Nearby, Lew Schanfield tended a street soda-fountain for a man named Gump. One night. Fields taught Weber a dance step he knew. Another night, the little lights on the facade of a brand-new music hall pricked out a trade-name that had become a tradition: WEBER AND FIELDS. They owned the place.

Between those two nights were many tumbles, shuffles; Weber and Fields clogged in dime museums, warbled for sidewalk audiences, galooted in saloons for $2 a day and 3 beer checks, toured with variety troups. Pages of their jocular maudlinity fill the book.

Maudlinity came to be worth the incredible sum of $6,000 a week to them. They formed their own company. Famed were its members: Peter F. Daily, "the quickest-witted man who ever wore grease-paint", who drank a quart of champagne and a quart of whiskey every evening in his dressing room; golden Lillian Russell who "broke 1,000 hearts a night" when she sang Rosie, you are my Posie; David Warfield, William Collier, Fay Templeton, De Wolf Hopper, Bessie McCoy, Frankie Bailey, Sam Bernard.

When Weber and Fields dissolved partnership in 1904, and the curtain, descending to the strains of Auld Lang Sync, ended the company's farewell performance, notables of society, stage, politics stood up in their chairs, weeping, shouting, refused to leave until Weber, until Fields, had responded.

"Speech!" they yelled.

Weber's voice carried only to the front rows.

"We can only say that we are sorry," he murmured.

"Fields!" they cried.

"I can only echo the sentiments of Mr. Weber," said the skinny Mr. Fields.

The Significance. Mr. Isman's narrative is like an old music-hall tune played on a street organ. On and on it jingles, sad and gay, the song of the lives of those two derbied, Semitic Pierrots who still posture sadly, gayly, under a calcium moon.

The Author. Mr. Felix Isman was once the business partner of Weber and Fields. With them he ran the Broadway Theatre, Manhattan, and produced many successes. They begged him to write this book about them. When it ran serially in the Saturday Evening Post, Wesley W. Stout was given credit as joint author. In the foreword Mr. Isman (an Elk, a Mason, now a realtor) thanks Mr. Stout for his assistance.