I was not raised for vaudeville.
Father and mother were veteran legits;
They loved the Bard and the "Lady of Lyons."
I was born on a show boat on the Cumberland;
I was carried on as a child
When the farm girl revealed her shame
On the night of the snowstorm.
The old folks died with grease paint on their faces.
I did a little of everything
Even to staking out a pitch in a street fair.
Hiram Grafter taught me to ballyhoo
And to make openings.
I stole the business of Billy Sunday
And imitated William Jennings Bryan.
I became famous in the small towns.
One day Poli heard me--
He's the head of the New England variety circuit.--
"Cul," he said, "you are a born monologist.
Where you got that stuff I don't know,
But you would be a riot in the two-a-day.
Quit this hanky-panky
And I'll make you a headliner."
Well, I fell for his line of talk
Like the sod busters had fallen for mine.
Aaron Hoffman wrote me a topical monologue;
Max Marx made me a suit of clothes;
And Lew Dockstader wised me up
On how to jockey my laughs.
I opened in Hartford;
Believe me, I was some scream.
I gave them gravy, and hokum,
And when they ate it up I came through
With the old jasbo,
Than which there is nothing so efficacious
In vaudeville, polite or otherwise.
The first thing I did I hollered for more dough,
And Poli says:
"That's what I get for feeding you meat,
But you are a riot all right, all right,
So I guess you are on for more kale."
I kept getting better.
I got so's I could follow any act at all
And get my laughs.
And he who getteth his laughs
Is greater than he who taketh a city.
At last the Palace Theatre sent for me
And I signed up for a week.
They kept me two.
I am a headliner;
I stand at the corner of Forty-seventh Street
And Little Old Broadway;
Throw out my chest,
Call the agents and vaudeville magnates
By their first names.
I am a HEADLINER with a home in Freeport.