CLIMBING TO FAME AND FORTUNE
I give an impromptu show at the Palace Theatre--“Chuck him out!”--
I seek out Mr. Wieland again--At the Crystal Palace--I adopt my
present make-up--“The Human Hairpin”--Charlie Coborn and “Two
Lovely Black Eyes”--I do a trial turn at the Bedford Music-hall
--Billed as a star turn at the Alhambra and Palace Theatres--
And at the “Flea Pit,” Hoxton--My reception there--I work the
Alhambra, Palace, Middlesex, Metropolitan, and Cambridge together
--A record for those days--A Press “spoof”--Continental
engagements--Paris, Milan--An overdose of Chianti--And its
results--The night life of Milan--A blood-curdling adventure--
Murder most foul--Callous passers-by.
On my return to Town from Newcastle, and remembering how well my show
went there, I really did begin to think that I was “some conjuror,” as
our American friends have it, and I started to look round for a regular
London engagement.
Meanwhile I used to visit the galleries of the music-halls where
conjurors were performing, in order to observe their ways and methods,
and collect such information as I could. On these occasions I used
invariably to carry a pack of cards with me, and one day while I was
seated in the gallery at the Palace Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, a
conjuror and card manipulator came on and did a number of tricks, with
every one of which I was perfectly familiar.
Acting on the impulse of the moment, directly he had finished his turn,
I rose from my seat--I was in the front row of the gallery--and facing
about, and drawing my pack of cards from my pocket, I exclaimed: “I
can do those tricks; just watch me.”
Instantly there was a big commotion. Some of the people resented the
interruption, and there were loud cries of “Sit down!” “Shut up!”
“Chuck him out!” etc. Others among the audience, however, rather
welcomed my action, and took my part, applauding and laughing.
Meanwhile the next turn was spoilt, and Mr. Charles Morton, the
manager, sent an attendant to request me to leave, which of course I
did. But I had achieved what I set out to do, by giving what I suppose
was the only unauthorised show ever performed in public at the Palace.
Little did I dream as I took my departure, and still less, I suppose,
did Mr. Morton dream, that I was afterwards to fill at this same Palace
Theatre no fewer than forty-seven different engagements, ranging in
length from one to eight weeks, and thereby establishing a record, so
far as this particular house is concerned.
My next step was to seek out my old Aquarium “boss,” Mr. Wieland, who
was now running a variety agency in conjunction with Messrs. Oliver
and Holmes in Cranbourne Street, Leicester Square. I told him I was
the biggest card manipulator that ever was, and asked him for an
engagement. Mr. Wieland was considerably impressed by my cheek; but
not otherwise, I gathered. Anyhow I didn’t succeed in talking him into
booking me.
There followed more wearisome running round from one agent to another,
none of whom would listen to me, until in the end I managed to secure,
but off my own bat, a trial show in a Café Chantant company then
performing at the Crystal Palace under the management of Mr. Humphrey
E. Brammall. It was then that I first adopted my present make-up, and
I have never altered it since, except that during the first two or
three weeks I used to wear a long hairy wig, and whiten my face like a
clown’s.
At that time the regulation stage costume for all professional
conjurors consisted of ordinary evening dress, and the general opinion
amongst the audiences was that this attire in some way assisted the
conjuring performance; that the performer, in fact, had “something up
his sleeve,” both figuratively and literally. This gave me the idea of
dressing myself throughout in black tights, so that people could see
that there was no concealment possible.
This was really the only end I had in view in adopting this particular
costume. I most certainly never contemplated making my turn a comic
one. Consequently when I went on for my trial show at the Crystal
Palace, and at which I appeared in these tights for the first time, I
was considerably embarrassed because the audience roared with laughter
all through my performance, and I quitted the stage half believing that
I had made a mess of it. However, all the other performers saying how
funny I looked, and what a splendid patterer I was, and Charlie Coborn,
who was singing “Two Lovely Black Eyes” there at the time, being
especially enthusiastic about me, caused me to pluck up courage, and
I began to think that, after all, I was perhaps going to be a success
there at all events.
My surmise turned out correct. Next week I topped the bill there at
£3 a week, being billed as “Carlton Philps, the World’s Premier Card
Manipulator.” Following this I secured an engagement at the Hippodrome,
Brighton, then under the same management. This was a combined circus
and stage, and I did my show in the ring.
Returning to London, I again sought out Mr. Wieland, and told him of
the hit I had made. He was not greatly impressed even then, however; he
merely said, “All right, my lad, go over there in the corner, and let’s
see what you can do.”
Now my show needs now, and it needed then, a regular audience in
order to make it go properly. I did my best, but I could see that
Mr. Wieland thought precious little of my business. In fact he said
as much. Agents are not very particular as regards the feelings of
unknown artistes, and Mr. Wieland, although one of the best-natured
men in the world, was no exception to the rule. However his assistant,
a gentleman named Altree, was more cordial. He seemed to think that
there might be something in my show that was not readily apparent in
the drab surroundings of a variety agent’s office; and eventually he
got me a trial turn at the Bedford Music Hall, Camden Town, promising
at the same time to come down and see it for himself, which he did. As
a result he went back to Mr. Wieland, and reported to him that mine was
one of the best “acts” he had ever seen.
Still that gentleman was frankly incredulous, and he said so when I
again waited on him at his office on the following day. As luck would
have it, however, while I was talking to him a telephone message came
through from the Alhambra Theatre, Leicester Square, saying that their
star turn, Miss Ida Renè, was indisposed, and would Mr. Wieland please
send someone that evening to take her place?
Promptly I saw my chance, and as promptly I “butted in.”
“Send me?” I said.
Mr. Wieland stared at me in amazement; too flabbergasted at my audacity
for a few moments to speak. When he found his voice, it was to rate me
soundly for my impertinence. Did I realise, he asked, that they wanted
a star turn?
“Well, I am a star turn,” I replied, “or, at any rate, I’ve been one.
Topped the bill at the Palace, you know!”
“Palace?” snorted Wieland.
“Crystal Palace!” I corrected.
“Oh!” snorted the great man again, and wilted me with a look.
But now Mr. Altree joined in the conversation.
“Give the lad a chance,” he said. “You haven’t seen his show. I have. I
know. Give him a chance, I say. He’ll paralyse ’em.”
Well, there was a lot more argument; but the upshot of it was that I
went on that evening at the Alhambra, and was a big success, exactly as
Mr. Altree had predicted. Three or four times I was called before the
curtain at the conclusion of my performance, and all the while I was
giving my show the whole house was, I could see, pleased and amused.
When I quitted the theatre that night I knew that, barring accidents,
my future in the profession was assured.
Nor was I unduly optimistic. That Wednesday they were a turn short
at the Palace, and the assistant manager there, who had been to the
Alhambra and seen my show, asked me to come over there and deputise.
So here was I, a new and comparatively unknown performer, appearing
at two of the principal West End halls at one and the same time, and
that moreover at two establishments then running in opposition to one
another. My remuneration for the first week was £4 a week from each,
but I got a second week’s engagement to follow on, at £8 a week from
each. It was dirt cheap, of course, from their point of view. But at
that time I did not know my own value, and, anyway, it seemed to me
then a quite munificent salary.
While performing at these two halls, too, I was offered an engagement
at the Variety, Pitfield Street, Hoxton, then irreverently known as the
“Flea Pit,” at £4 a week. This came to me through Macdermott’s Agency.
It was a two-houses-a-night engagement, and I was at the bottom of the
bill; a position I was, of course, quite proud of. The contrast with
the Alhambra was most striking. There I had a comfortable dressing-room
and a refined and cultured audience to play to. At the Variety I had
to go down a spiral staircase to my dressing-room, which was a sort
of disused coal-hole, or something of the kind, and which moreover I
had to share with a troupe of performing dogs, and about a dozen other
artistes. As for the audience, it simply beggared description. Probably
there was no rougher one anywhere in London at the time.
It was about this period that I first began to be called “The Human
Hairpin.” Standing over six feet in height, I was exceedingly thin,
weighing less than nine and a half stone, and my all-black stage
make-up accentuated my lankiness, which I still further increased by
wearing “elevators,” and a high, padded wig, so that I looked to be
over seven feet. My appearance on the stage at the Variety was the
signal for so uproarious a scene as never before or since have I heard
or witnessed. The whole house roared and rocked with laughter, and
above the indescribable din I distinctly remember hearing a girl’s
voice from the gallery shriek out; “Blimey, ain’t he a coughdrop? Look
at ’is blinking legs!” It was the custom here, if the audience did not
like a “turn,” to throw “fish and chips” at the unfortunate artiste,
which they purchased at a shop opposite the theatre.
As for my performance, it had to be given in dumb show. I could not
hear myself speak. Yells, cat-calls, shrieks filled the air. I went
away disgusted, but of course I had to return and do my show again at
the second house. This was the same scene over again, only more so.
Never had I imagined such a pandemonium of noise.
Next day I went round to Macdermott’s Agency, told the manager there
I was a ghastly failure at the Variety, that the audience simply
wouldn’t listen to me, and asked to be released from my engagement.
“Oh, nonsense!” he cried. “I can’t believe it.” And he rang up the
manager of the hall. That gentleman telephoned back to say that so far
from my having been a failure, he had never heard such laughter in
his life, and that I had made a big hit--presumably, I suppose, from
the standpoint of the Variety, Hoxton. Anyhow, it wasn’t so from my
standpoint; and I again asked to be released from my contract. “The
audience was laughing _at_ me, not _with_ me,” I explained; “I couldn’t
hear myself speak.”
“My lad,” cried the manager angrily, “you’re too big for your boots.
Because you’re appearing at the Alhambra you’ve got a swelled head on
you.”
Then it was my turn to get angry. “Look here,” I answered, “I’ll not
go on again at the Variety, and that’s the long and short of it. I
wouldn’t go through again what I went through last night for fifty
pounds. I never was so insulted in all my life.”
The manager thereupon pointed to a clause in my contract, by which
it was stipulated that if for any reason I declined to fulfil my
engagement I was to pay him £4 in place of his paying me £4. This
meant, of course, a dead loss to me of £8. Nevertheless, I paid the
money, and I never went back to the Variety.
Next week was a record. My fame spread among the music-hall managers,
and I was offered, and accepted, engagements at the Alhambra, Palace,
Middlesex, Metropolitan, and Cambridge, the latter a two-houses-a-night
hall. This meant my doing six turns a night, and with a brougham, there
being of course no motor-cars in those days. It was a sufficiently
arduous task, but I managed it all right, and was, I need hardly say,
quite pleased with myself.
It was about this time, too, that I began to taste the joys of life.
One evening just as I had finished a late turn at the Palace Theatre,
a friend gave me a ticket for a Covent Garden Fancy Dress Ball. There
was not time to change into a costume, even if I had had one, so I went
just as I was in my stage make-up, and signed the book “Arthur Philps
[my real name] as ‘Carlton.’”
As a result, and greatly to my surprise, I was awarded first prize for
the best comic costume. People came up and congratulated me on what
they regarded as my “wonderful impersonation.” Others I heard passing
such remarks as, “Isn’t it like him?” “What a marvellous resemblance!”
and so on.
Only Mr. (now Sir Alfred) Butt, the Manager of the Palace, who chanced
to be present, was not deceived. “By gad, Carlton,” he whispered to
me, “you _have_ got a nerve!”
And, by the way, talking of Sir Alfred reminds me of a journalistic
advertising “stunt” I worked while I was playing at the Palace some
time back. In conjunction with a Press man I knew, I arranged to bring
off a “fake” rescue on Hungerford Bridge about two o’clock one morning.
At this time there was not a soul on the bridge, but I raced off the
Surrey end, and gasped out to a policeman that there were a couple of
hooligans up there assaulting an old gentleman. “I’ve given them a
pretty good hiding, officer,” I said, “sorry I can’t stop”; and I ran
off towards Waterloo Station, as though in a hurry to catch a train.
Next day there appeared in most of the London papers an account of the
“attempted outrage,” with the addition that the old gentleman who had
been assaulted was wishful to thank his unknown rescuer, and ask his
acceptance of a ten-pound note.
That night, at the Palace, I called Mr. Butt’s attention to the account
of the affair in one of the evening papers.
“It refers to me,” I told him. “I was the rescuer.”
“Good lad!” he cried, shaking me by the hand. “But what about the ten
pounds?”
“Well,” I said, “I don’t like taking that. After all I only did my duty
in protecting a harmless old man from a couple of ruffians. Suppose I
hand over the money to the Music-hall Benevolent Fund?”
Naturally he thought this was very kind and generous of me, and he told
several people about it. My Press man also let the story be known, and
the result was that I got the reception of my life when I appeared on
the stage later on.
It was a splendid “advert.,” and cheap at the price--£15: which was
what it cost me; £10 of which I had of course to find out of my own
pocket for the M.H.B. Fund, and £5 which I handed over to my friend the
Press man.
Once fairly launched on my career, the rest was comparatively easy.
Nevertheless, there were occasional spells of out of work, known
euphemistically in the profession as “resting,” and it was during one
of these intervals of enforced leisure that I first made acquaintance
with the Continent. I had been performing at the Empire, Hastings, with
the two Brothers Griffiths, well known in connection with their famous
Blondin donkey act, and as they, like me, were out of an engagement,
they proposed running over to Paris, in order to take a look round, and
see if they could not book an engagement or two there.
“Why don’t you come with us?” they asked. “You might succeed in getting
an engagement as well, you know.”
In saying this, they were, of course, only kidding me. I knew this,
too, quite well. But I also made up my mind that if I did go, I would
not go for nothing, at all events if I could help it.
However I kept my own counsel as to this, merely remarking that as I
was out of an engagement for the time being I might as well “rest” in
Paris as anywhere else, and that I would be glad to accompany them;
which I did.
Arrived there we took up our quarters at the Hôtel Franklin in the Rue
Baulfault, off the Rue la Fayette, then a favourite rendezvous for
English artistes staying in Paris. Next morning the Brothers Griffiths
went to call on their agents. I went sightseeing.
That night they started kidding me again, and suggested that I should
give a trial show at one of the Paris music-halls. I pretended to
think they were in earnest, but at the same time I feigned reluctance,
pointing out to them--what they knew full well beforehand--that I
neither spoke nor understood the French language. However, I said that
I would think it over, and they went off in great glee to let the other
English “pro.’s” staying there into the secret of the joke they fondly
imagined they were going to work off on me.
Meanwhile I got a friendly waiter at the hotel, who understood English,
to translate my patter, word for word, into its French equivalent. This
I wrote down phonetically, and used to practise it with him on the
quiet, and by myself at night after I had retired to my room, until I
was fairly perfect in it.
Well, my two friends kept kidding me, asking me how soon I was going to
pluck up courage to give my trial show; and at last I said that I would
give it if they could arrange the preliminaries for me. To this they
promptly agreed, and presently they came to tell me that they had fixed
it up through M. Marenelli’s agency for me to go on at the matinée at
the Olympia Theatre, first turn, that day.
The rest of the morning they spent in going round and telling all the
other English artistes then in Paris. Most of these did what are called
in the profession “dumb acts,” a term which explains itself, and they
were all quite sure that the joke was going to be on me, knowing that I
relied upon my patter, and that I spoke no French. To tell the honest
truth I thought myself that it was odds on them, but I made up my mind
to do my best to try and win through, and in order to assist my memory
I scribbled in pencil the tags of all my gags on the cuffs of my shirt
before going down to the theatre.
Needless to say all my fellow-artistes turned up there to witness the
fiasco they had made up their minds they were going to see. Not that
they really wished me any harm, or wanted to see me humiliated, but
it is our way in the profession to guy one another, and especially do
we delight to take it out of a beginner. Well, the curtain rang up,
and on I went. I was greeted with a regular tempest of cheers, mostly
ironical, I thought. Still, I managed all right at the beginning,
though afterwards I had to keep turning first to one shirt cuff, and
then to the other, for guidance and inspiration.
This amused the kindly French people immensely, and I soon had my
audience in great good humour, and I was rewarded with round after
round of hearty, genuine applause. In short, my “turn” was a success, a
big success indeed; and when I came off there were no fewer than three
managers waiting in the wings to interview me.
Naturally I let them bid against one another for my services, and
eventually I closed with the best offer, which came from an Italian,
Signor Caroselli. He engaged me to go to the Eden Theatre, Milan, at a
salary of one hundred francs a day for seven days a week, approximately
£28 a week in our money. Of course I was as ignorant of Italian as I
was of French, but I adopted the plan I had found so efficacious in
Paris, translating my English into phonetic Italian, and it worked
splendidly.
My original engagement with Signor Caroselli was for fifteen days,
but I remained working in Milan for eight weeks straight off. During
this period I did my show at the Eden in the evening, and at the Villa
Giardino--an open-air café chantant--in the afternoon, and also at
the Stablini Theatre; and during a part of my engagement I filled the
triple bill at all three places, a thing never done before in Milan.
On the very first day of my engagement, however, I nearly came a
cropper. It happened in this way. The Eden Theatre was a restaurant in
the day time, and even in the evening there were little tables dotted
about all over the place where people could come and eat a dinner while
listening to the performance. Working at the restaurant there was an
Italian waiter who had served for a long time at Pinoli’s Restaurant in
London, and who started out to help me by teaching me a sufficiency of
colloquial Italian for my business.
Well, I got there in the morning, and this waiter told me that the
proper thing to eat for dinner was a dish of spaghetti (fine macaroni)
washed down with a flask of chianti wine. I followed his advice,
and then, feeling tired, and as my turn, a late one, was not until
ten-thirty that night, I thought I would go home to my lodgings and
rest awhile.
Now in Milan chianti wine is very cheap. It is also, but this is a
detail, very potent. When serving it with a meal, it is the custom
there to place upon the table a huge flagon of it, holding, I suppose,
about a couple of quarts, and which is swung upon a pivot. The diner
helps himself to as much as he wants of this by tilting up the flagon,
thereby allowing the wine to run out into his glass, and he is charged
for as much of it as he drinks, and no more.
But I, of course, knew nothing of all this. I thought the entire flagon
was intended for my consumption, and the day being very hot, and myself
feeling very thirsty, I drank the lot. The natural result was that when
I reached my lodgings I felt horribly drowsy, so calling my landlady
I told her to call me at “otto d’ora” (eight o’clock) and lay down to
rest feeling quite proud at having been able so soon to air, to even
that limited extent, my newly acquired knowledge of Italian.
Alas! I was presently to discover that mine was the pride that goes
before a fall, for Italian time is reckoned right round the clock, and
I ought by rights to have told her to call me at “venti d’ora” (twenty
o’clock), eight o’clock there being in the morning. The result was that
I overslept myself, and when I at length awoke, of my own accord, the
performance at the theatre was over and done with for that evening.
I was in a terrible fever, and rushed round to find the manager and
explain matters. I expected nothing less than instant dismissal, but
instead, the manager, when I had explained matters, laughed heartily
after the good-natured Italian fashion, as if the being obliged to do
without his star turn for his opening performance was one of the best
jokes imaginable. Needless to say I took care to be on time the next
night. Also I was wary of the chianti for the future.
I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in the beautiful city of Milan, barring
one terrible incident, the memory of which is indelibly engraven on my
memory; and which I will now proceed to narrate. First, however, I must
explain that in order to reach my apartment in the house I lodged in,
I had to unlock no fewer than four separate doors. The first of these
doors opened from the street into a sort of passage, or corridor,
at the end of which was a second locked door giving admittance to a
quadrangle. A third door, one of several, and also locked, led from
this quadrangle to a common staircase, whence a fourth locked door led
to my bedroom. For the purpose of unlocking all these four doors, I was
provided with one key only, but that of the most peculiar construction.
It was in effect, indeed, four keys in one, being shaped like an iron
cross, the four separate arms fitting each its own separate individual
lock, and none other.
I should imagine that it would be hard to invent a more bothersome key
than this diabolical contrivance, especially to the roysterer returning
home late at night, and in the dark. The ordinary single latchkey is
sometimes sufficiently puzzling to the late comer at his own home
who has dined not wisely but too well. Try and imagine the effect in
similar circumstances of a fourfold key, each arm, or barrel, call it
what you will, looking exactly alike, but each quite different, in
that only one of the four is designed to unlock whichever particular
lock you may be at the moment negotiating, the odds being, of course,
exactly four to one against your picking out the right barrel in the
first instance.
Well, on this particular occasion I don’t mind confessing that I was in
a fairly blithesome mood. I had in fact been “out with the boys” seeing
the night side of life in Milan, and was returning home to my lodgings
in the early dawn feeling at peace with all the world, when, on turning
the corner of the street where I stayed, I was startled to observe a
man walking towards me, and being shadowed, at a distance in rear,
by another man, who was carrying in his hand a long, bright-bladed
stiletto.
I stopped suddenly, but before I had time to call out, or even to
collect my thoughts, the man in the rear suddenly bounded forward and
buried his weapon in the other’s back, between the shoulders. The
stabbed man uttered one single, terrible groan, and sank in a huddled
heap to the pavement, right in front of the door leading to the house I
was lodging in.
The murderer looked hastily round, listened intently for a moment
or two, then stooped to withdraw his knife, and strode off in my
direction. My first impulse naturally was to turn and run, but on
second thoughts I concluded that as he might not yet have seen me,
perhaps my safest plan was to keep straight on as if I had seen nothing.
I therefore started whistling in apparent unconcern; but the assassin
evidently suspected me. He allowed me to pass, then wheeled swiftly, as
if intending to go for me; whereupon I took to my heels, and he after
me.
Luckily I am a good sprinter, and on this occasion I ran like the wind,
doubling and turning through the maze of silent and deserted streets
for fully ten minutes. Then I stopped and listened. I had thoughts of
calling for assistance as I ran, and was even on the point of doing so,
when it suddenly occurred to me that I was just as likely to bring upon
the scene some other desperado, or desperadoes, friends or accomplices
very possibly of my pursuer.
I therefore refrained from giving the alarm, and presently, walking
very gingerly, proceeding by devious ways, and keeping a sharp look-out
round corners, I reached once more the street where the tragedy
occurred. There was the body lying where it had fallen, right in front
of the door I had perforce to enter in order to reach my apartment. I
tiptoed to the spot. The man was obviously stone dead, and a great pool
of blood had by now collected on the pavement, and run in red rivulets
to the gutter.
Shivering with fright and apprehension, I stepped over the corpse,
and started to unlock the street door. Of course I tried the wrong
key, and that not once nor twice. It seemed to me that minutes elapsed
while I was fumbling about with that beastly puzzle-key, and all the
while I kept nervously glancing back over my shoulder, fearing that the
murderer would return. Had he done so I had every reason to suppose
that my shrift would be a short one, for obviously the man had come to
the conclusion that I had been a witness of his crime, as indeed, of
course, I had, and for that very reason he would, I am convinced, have
had no hesitation in killing me also.
However, I presently got the door unlocked, and slipped inside, after
which I roused the concierge and told him what had happened. But,
greatly to my surprise, he refused to take any action.
“It is no concern of ours,” he said. “If the poor fellow were only
wounded now, signor?” he went on thoughtfully. “Well, we might be of
some assistance to him. But he is dead, you say?”
I nodded acquiescence.
“Very well then! In that case best leave matters as they are. The
police will no doubt find him later. Also, no doubt, they will come
here, seeing that the murdered man is lying outside this house. But
as for me, I know nothing. And best for you also, signor,” he added
significantly, “to know nothing. Police proceedings here in Milan are
apt to be long drawn out and troublesome.”
So saying, the concierge went back to bed, and I went off upstairs to
my room. Sleep, however, for me, was, I need hardly say, out of the
question. Softly drawing the curtains aside from the big front windows,
which opened, in continental fashion, on a little balcony overlooking
the street, I peered out.
There was the body, lying cold and still in the grey dawn. Presently
a man roughly garbed, probably a workman on his way to his day’s
toil, came along on a bicycle. He stopped on seeing the corpse, and
dismounted. But after a very cursory examination he mounted again and
rode off, shrugging his shoulders as if to intimate that it was no
concern of his.
A little later a man drove up in a cart, and he went off and
fetched the police. That day our house was invaded by inspectors
and detectives, and I, in common with all the other inmates of the
building, was subjected to a searching interrogation.
Acting on the advice of my friend the concierge, however, I replied
that I knew nothing whatever about the murder; and there, so far as I
was concerned, the matter ended.
But I have often wondered since what was the ultimate upshot of it all,
and what was the name and the station in life of the unhappy victim.