Category: Uncategorized
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Bert Levy Bio Note # 5
Matilda (Tilly) was 7 years older (b. 1864) than Bert and had been born in White Chapel, London just as Bert’s father Simon embarked for Port Phillip. The Argus below published Matilda’s and Joshua’s wedding notification in 1883. (Trove) They had two children that survived to adulthood, Mena (Minnie) & Emma (Elsie) and they lived…
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Bert was quick to recognise talent in a fellow artist….
Wikipedia informs Jolson was referred to by modern critics as “the king of blackface performers”. With his dynamic style of singing jazz and blues, he became widely successful by extracting traditionally African-American music and popularizing it for white American audiences who would be unwilling to listen to it when performed by black artists. Wanting to know more on Jolson…
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other friendships
Bert started performing in Vaudeville for Keith’s Theatre in 1907 and Mark Twain died in 1910, so this encounter and journey took place sometime between. Bert would have been a young man (24) hauling buckets of paint as a scenic artist when Mark Twain visited Australia in 1895-96. Twain gave orations in the largest theatre…
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Bert Levy Bio Note #4
Bert’s schooling ended abruptly, probably at the age of 13 or 14 around 1884 -1885. Most sons at that time would have been expected to work in their father’s business. Bert describes his first job in the Lone Hand Magazine of 1912. From a newspaper report of 1883, we know Simon Levy (Bert’s father) had…
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good friend to the biggest star of the era
Their friendship may have gone back to Bert’s early touring of London which started 1908 when Chaplin was first appearing on the Vaudeville stage. Chaplin did not go to America till early 1914 to work for Keystone Studios. Below, Bert writes of their friendship and Chaplin’s character in a Hollywood Filmograph in 1929 (link below…
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artist to the stars
Bert’s black and white sketches of Hollywood’s leading artists would have numbered in the hundreds. Most would have been used in theatre or movie promotion, many would have been sold at charity events or given away. However, I’m yet to find what happened to his collection on his (1934) or his wife’s death (1945). There…
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Bert Levy Bio note #3
Bert’s family moved to Melbourne in 1875. Bert was 4. In his own words again in the ‘Lone Hand’ Magazine in 1912 he described his school days.
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Dangers of Ragtime
Report in Punch (Melbourne) from an American paper 1913. In scenes reminiscent of a Marx Bros movie, Bert describes dining in New York. Twenty years later Bert would sketch two scenes for Paramount Pictures for the launch of their new movie, Duck Soup in 1933. The Marx Bros were a New York Jewish family who…
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Bert Levy bio fact #2
One final reference to Bert’s birth place. The Levy family were certainly in Ballarat in 1870 and may have likely been there for at least a couple of years. Prior to Bert’s birth in 1871 his parent’s new boot making business possibly had a perilous beginning. The first reference to Simon Levy (Bert’s father) in…
Bert Levy 