"The Voodoo That They Did So Well"

Stefan Kanfer's collected articles are in rough chronicle order, and the brightest among them is 'Vaudeville's Brief, Shining Moment'.

• Vanished too are producers with the audacity and instinct that breathed life into vaudeville-producers like Oscar Hammerstein I, grandfather of the lyricist... 'The Creator of Times Square'.
• Headliners: Lady Hope, who showed off the enormous Hope diamond; the brilliant blind and deaf Helen Keller, who did nothing but answer a few questions written into her palm; the "girl on the red velvet swing," Evelyn Nesbitt, whose husband, drug-addicted socialite Harry K. Thaw, had murdered her former lover, the world-renowned architect Stanford White.
• Willie rarely went wrong when he took the murderess route... Willie billed them "The Shooting Stars."
• Edward Albee, (adoptive grandfather of the playwright) the tight-fisted Mr Vaudeville for so many years, himself fell victim to a hostile takeover by the Kennedy founding father, Joseph P. Kennedy.
• "the Human Broom" - father Keaton delighted audiences by grabbing his son by the ankles and sweeping tables, chairs, and the floor with the boy's hair.
• Fred Astaire (né Austerlitz) from Omaha also harkened hack to his days as a vaudeville hoofer.
• "A three-act," he recalled, "needed a replacement for one of their number. This act was Parker, Rand and Leach, and Mr. Leach was Archie Leach, now known to history as Cary Grant.
• art-deco architect Joseph Urban.. Lady Duff-Gordon and Erté did the costumes.
• The Scandals featured abbreviated skirts that finally drove critic Percy Hammond to complain, "The knee is a joint, not an entertainment".
  

'The Americanization of Irving Berlin'

__ Irving Berlin, horn one Israel Baline in 1888 in distant Siberia,
__ Another reported clash had Mackay boasting of his ancestry, and Berlin countering, "I can trace mine hack to Exodus." Said Mackay: "Is that so? Here's another Exodus for you. Get out."
__ Parody of "You're the Top": You're the top! You're Miss Pinkham's tonic / You're the top! You're a high colonic; You're the burning heat of a bridal suite in use, You're the breasts of Venus, You're King Kong's penis, You're self-abuse.