Bert Levy

Bert Levy – Australia's first global Vaudeville star

  • Speaking of big wigs

    Here is another member of the ‘Bert Levy Appreciation Society’ (BLAS) outside the Palace Theatre in London, the scene of Bert Levy’s breakthrough performances in 1909. This is the extremely talented Grace Louey, who like Owen from a week or two ago is a NIDA graduate in costume and set design. Grace has been in London two plus years now and is working on some of the biggest productions that are of course, all top secret. Grace started out making short films when at secondary school when she won a short film award at the St. Kilda Film Festival. Most recently, she co-produced independent feature film TRACES by Australian director Amiel Courtin-Wilson.

    https://filmfreeway.com/GraceLouey

    Grace’s Bendigo Connection – Added intrique to this post, is that Grace’s paternal ancestor is possibly sitting in that last photo from 1900 of the meeting of Bendigo’s Chinese Community and the Easter Fair Committee. The Loueys later moved to Mildura to become Market gardeners. (Small world again)

  • The big wigs in Bendigo in 1900

    Mayor Samuel Henry McGowan, sketched by Bert for the Bendigonian Supplement March 1900. McGowen was mayor for two terms 1899 and 1900. He was a Northern Irishmen, arriving in Bendigo in the 1870s. He got involved in Gold Mining as you’d expect and became rich. I think he can best be remembered as the Mayor who did the most to foster the Chinese community into the annual Easter celebrations and fund raising.
    Here is Mayor McGowan sitting in the front row, fourth from the left next to Chinese Community Leader, Dr James Lamsey. Each year, the Easter Fair Committee would go to the Chinese community at the Ironbark village and request their participation in the Easter Monday Procession. Photo 1900

  • Some other Bendigo notables sketched by Bert

    Apart from the guy in the middle, which is a photo of the Prince of Wales, Prince Edward…. aka Dirty Bertie, all the others are local Bendigo celebrities in 1900…..

    Starting in the top left is…….

    ‘Mine host’ is none other than Montague Levy, the licensee of the famous Shamrock Hotel, perhaps at the time rivalling the Windsor Hotel for the most prestigious in the state. He was responsible for adding an additional story to the Shamrock in the 1890s and other refurbishments such as hot and cold running water in the bathrooms. Now Montague was not a relative of Berts, however, in one of those small world moments, Phil Lipshut, often referenced on this site as Bert’s G.G nephew on his father’s side, Phil is also related Montague on the mother’s side !! What are the chances ?
    The Shamrock 1905
    Advertising postcard including image of Montague.

  • Bert’s first feature in the Bendigonian

    Kyneton Observer promoting the Bendigonian Supplement. The bumper coloured Easter edition was to be Bert’s entre’ into the Bendigonian as editor. Here is that front cover, minus the colour.
    Again, the image is courtesy of Phil Lipshut. This illustration was used by Bert in later publications.

    A month after arriving in Bendigo, he depicted its most famous and wealthiest identity, ‘Quartz King’ Sir George Lansell in a cheeky and risible sketch for the Bendigonian Supplement. This impudent representation of one of the richest men in the British Empire as well of other local notables, imbibed widespread affection among his readership..

    Bendigonian Supplement.

    What Sir George thought of Bert’s sketch we do not know.

    This is what he actually looked like.
    George Lansell still watches over Bendigo today. His statue on ‘Pall Mall’, Bendigo!

  • Bert’s first sketches in Bendigo

    Although hired as a reporter on the Music and Drama scene for the Bendigo Advertiser, Bert was keen to demonstrate his versatility by offering his sketch talent to the weekly supplement known as the Bendigonian. I’m told that in 1900 the Bendigonian had its own printing press (separate from the Addie) that enabled it to print photos and illustrations. Bert’s first sketches were from the court room in Bendigo.

    Photo courtesy of Phil Lipshut, shot at the State Library. The Bendigonian is digitised on Trove from 1914-1918. These early editions are not available on line.

    Both are interesting court cases….. Morris & Moore were acquitted ….. here is the court report… https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/89476594?searchTerm=moore%20and%20Morris

    Emma Draper was just 18 and was charged with Arson that resulted in the death of the infant child of the Guildford Station Master. (Guildford is near Castlemaine) She was also eventually acquitted in Bendigo.

    https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/196036509?searchTerm=emma%20draper

  • Back to Bert’s time in Bendigo……. the Easter Fair 1900

    Bert joined the Bendigo Advertiser in January 1900, and this is his first ‘Easter Fair’ feature story. Now, for ‘non Bendigonians’ this was a very big carnival held each year in aid of the hospital and ‘asylum’ as it was called. The fair started in 1871 and is still a big deal today. The mainstay of the carnival is the Monday procession with a very big Chinese presence going back to the 1870s. If interested – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRIiZrBw40&t=25s

    Bendigo at Easter 1900

    If you have time to read this through to the end, I highly recommend it. It was this article that alerted me to the talent of the writer (Bert) in the first place. This theme of the ‘downside of life on the stage’, became an enduring theme throughout his journalistic career.

    Maybe the old clown at the Bendigo Easter Fair inspired this
    sketch by Bert in the Sunday Call newspaper, San Francisco in 1907.
    The double page spread in the above paper was titled ‘The Pathetic Side of Vaudeville’. More on that later.

  • Final word on Bert’s London tour 1909

    Bert was ‘never backward in coming forward’ and in criticising London and Continental theatre managers who ripped off visiting performers he not only took on a fight with them, he encountered some London newspaper criticism. ‘You can’t have a foreigner criticising our theatre managers’. Here are two reported in Australian papers.

    Perth Mail
    1909 Sydney Mail attack from unspecified British paper

  • Bert’s warning to American actors ….

    Organising a Benefit for London’s impoverished East End Children provided opportunity for Bert to further another good cause… By billing the Benefit concert as an ‘All American’ cast, he provided a platform for the many American entertainers who felt that they had been duped by their Theatre managers at other London Theatres. Although they would have appeared for ‘gratis’ for the Benefit they got to strut their stuff on the principle stage in London (the Palace) in front of some of the wealthiest and influential patrons on both sides of the Atlantic. So, the Benefit proved beneficial for the ‘waifs’ and american actors alike.

    Punch Newspaper – Melbourne
    “The Palace“
    Alfred Butt as caricatured in Vanity Fair, December 1910

    Alfred Butt managed the Palace for 14 years from 1904. He went on to much bigger things… This was the guy that first engaged Bert in 1908 when Bert turned up unannounced.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Butt

  • What a cast….. The ‘All American’ artists in London Benefit

    Report in ‘The Australian paper for Australians’ a Sydney newspaper that folded in 1919.
    Full declaration – No known relation…..yet Joseph Coyne (1867 – 1941) sometimes billed as Joe Coyne, was an American-born vaudevillian and musical comedy actor whose career spanned nearly 50 years, from 1883-1931. A popular performer in the U.S., he achieved major stardom in the role of Prince Danilo in George Edwardes‘ London adaptation of The Merry Widow, which led to other leading roles in Edwardian musical comedy and many other productions in London, New York, and Australia.
    Clara Evelyn
    by Malcolm Arbuthnot
    photogravure postcard print, 1900s National Portrait Gallery, London
    Advertisement for the Big City Four, 1915 (colour litho) by Iannelli, Alfonso (1888-1965); Private Collection.
    Flo Irwin, Canadian-born American performer. 1858 – 1930. Sister May Irwin became bigger star.
    Now sure how Lazern got on the “All American line up’. He was actually British born and had immigrated to NZ. He toured his companies through Australasia and the East up until the mid-1920s, mostly with his wife May McCrystal (pianist/entertainer). Lazern was renowned for his beer making trick in which audience members attempted to out drink his magic bottle ??
    Wilfred Van Norman Lucas (1871 – 1940) was a Canadian American stage actor who found success in film as an actor, director, and screenwriter. He made a name for himself performing in light and grand opera in America and abroad.
    The ventriloquism act of Arthur Prince (1881-1948) was novel in that it was naval. In an act called “Naval Occasions” he played a ship’s officer; his dummy “Jim” was a sailor. It was, needless to say, an unusual gimmick, oddly macho for a music hall act. Also interesting was the size of Jim, much larger than the conventional vent dummy. His feet actually touched the ground and he was seated next to Prince, rather than on his lap. Prince smoked a cigar while the act was performed, a difficult feat of coordination that truly made it seem that Jim was moving independently of the man who pulled the strings.
    Famous American skating performers , husband and wife.
    Helen Trix (1886 – 1951) was an American actress, dancer, singer, and song composer. The August 1906 edition of Edison Phonograph Monthly describes her as having a “clear, well modulated contralto voice”.

  • Speaking of talent at the Palace Theatre

    For those in the Bert Levy Appreciation Society (B.L.A.S) who thought the readership had more hair in the nasal and ear compartments than on top…. well to prove you all wrong, here is one of our younger London BLAS members……

    This is Owen, our one and only Tasmanian member who is currently working on the set of a new series of Great Expectations in London, which will star Olivia Colman. Although NIDA trained, Owen is not playing Pip, but has been working in set design for productions in theatre and now TV and Film. Speaking of ‘Great Expectations’, we expect nothing less than a BAFTA for Owen and the BLAS society will be taking a table at the awards night. (get your black tie ready) Owen is working around the block from the Palace Theatre and graciously agreed to get a selfie outside the Palace in honour of Bert’s performances there 110+ years ago. (look at the size of the place now hosting some unknown production!!)

    We are still waiting for the other two BLAS members in London to send their selfie outside the Palace !! Given the way people are dropping off the perch in Australia at the moment, they better hurry up. BLAS membership base is not that big!!

    Speaking of ‘Great Expectations’

    https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/17/olivia-colman-to-star-in-bbc-adaptation-of-charles-dickens-great-expectations