The Pittsburgh Press (February 10, 1944)
Old minstrel headliners made fortunes on road and Primrose saved his
By Douglas Gilbert, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Last of a series.
Lew Dockstader, one of the last great minstrel comics. His monologues were topical kidding and among those he ribbed, and impersonated, was Teddy Roosevelt, who enjoyed Lew’s characterization.
Minstrel entertainment was juvenile, yet its bucolic tomfoolery developed a number of eminent actors and vaudeville comics, all of whom began their careers in blackface. Among them were Joe Jefferson, Francis Wilson, Honey Boy Evans, Chauncey Olcott, Eddie Leonard and a score of others.
Few stuck strictly to minstrelsy, and these – Jack Haverly, George Thatcher, George Primrose, Billy West, Lew Dockstader and Neil O’Brien were some – prospered greatly in the heydays of trouping (in passing, Joe White, who became the Silver Masked Tenor of radio, sang for Neil O’Brien a number of seasons).
George Primrose, whose specialty was soft-shoe dancing, was one of the most popular minstrels throughout the ‘90s, with Dockstader, with whom he later teamed, a runner-up. Each made fortunes, and the thrifty Primrose saved his. He settled in Mount Vernon, New York, in a gingerbread mansion and the grateful town named a street after him.
It is generally believed that Primrose began his career with McFarland’s Minstrels in Detroit in 1868, but his widow, the former Katherine Trueblood, says he teamed up with Billy West and danced in a Chicago free-and-easy, as low dives were then called.
George Primrose and Billy West, regarded by some old-timers as the greatest team in minstrelsy. Primrose was tops as a soft-shoe dancer, now largely a lost art.
Later they formed their own company and, as Primrose & West, achieved astonishing success. In 1893, celebrating their 25th anniversary in Madison Square Garden (then in Madison Square), they put on perhaps the largest minstrel show of all time – 300 performers. Primrose asserted that one day’s receipts totaled $12,000 which is more like a fight gate.
A sob in a song
It was through the medium of Primrose & West that Edward B. Marks, the music publisher, exploited “The Little Lost Child” or “A Passing Policeman.” This was the first of the illustrated slide songs which Marks wrote to the music of his then partner, Joseph W. Stern. It was a sobber about a girl whose finding by a policeman led to the policeman’s reunion with his estranged wife.
Marks asked Primrose if he would permit the minstrel tenor, Allan May, to sing the song to illustrations that he (Marks) would provide. Primrose was indifferent, but West said definitely no, held that such monkey business didn’t belong in minstrels.
Can’t say no
You just don’t say no to Ed Marks, and he finally gained grudging consent to put it on his way at a Wednesday matinee in the Grand Opera House, 8th Avenue and 23rd Street. The slides had been made from photographs by George H. Thomas, a competent photographer when working with a Niagara Falls backdrop, but completely lost in this new medium.
The original shots were authentic. Marks brought Thomas out to the Lee Avenue (Brooklyn) police station, and with the cajolery characteristic of all music publishers induced a real cop and an equally real urchin to pose in the setting of a bona fide precinct house.
Thomas transferred his negatives to slides and Marks, elated at the chance and feeling sure it would go over, awaited the forthcoming matinee. It came soon enough. At the Olio, Allan May stepped out on the stage as Thomas took his post in the balcony at the sputtering stereopticon machine.
Now Jim Fisk had owned the Grand Opera House (it still stands) and the admiral of the Fall River and Bristol lines always did everything in spades, doubled, with Technicolor. His Grand Opera House had two of everything and twice as big.
Thomas flashed his first slide. It pictured a policeman 15 feet tall standing on his head, and West, incensed, chased Marks and Thomas out of the theater. Undaunted, Marks rehearsed Thomas, who eventually got the knack. Then, with Primrose’s aid, Marks got West to consent to one more performance at the Saturday matinee.
It not only stopped the show – it started exploitation that sold more than a million copies of “Little Lost Child.” It also influenced others to make slide songs, among them Joe Howard, who similarly presented Marks’ song, “My Mother Was a Lady.”
Before she went trouping with her husband, Mrs. Primrose operated a stenographic office in a St. Louis hotel. In the early 1900s, when Primrose was playing that city, his box-office girl and bookkeeper fell ill. Miss Trueblood was recommended and she got the job for the St. Louis engagement.
Primrose’s Minstrels went on to Nashville and there the sick girl died. Primrose promptly wired Miss Trueblood to come on and join the troupe. She did, and finished out the season – the first of many for her.
Primrose married at 65
Long a widower, Primrose one day said to her:
I am growing old and I need a companion. I don’t know anybody I’d rather leave my name with than you. I don’t expect you to love me. I just want kindness.
They were married to Rochester, New York, when Primrose was 65.
Mrs. Primrose has devoted her life to keeping her husband’s memory alive. In 1918, she put on a blackface act, a sort of miniature minstrel show, and took it out on the Loew circuit. In white face and evening gown, she acted as interlocutor, probably the only woman ever to assume the role in the history of minstrelsy.
Primrose was an ardent poker player, but his wife would only allow him $10 a week for the game. One midnight in Knoxville, Tennessee, Primrose (with George Thatcher, Billy West and some others) entered their private car and started a game.
As Primrose dealt, a policeman, under a magistrate’s orders, arrested the players and subsequently they were fined a total of $100. Seems they were violating an ordinance against gambling. Earlier in the day, Primrose, grateful for the support of Knoxville patrons (the troupe had played to standing room) had taken out a large “thank you” ad in the local papers.
Arrest called an insult
Recalling the incident years later, Primrose observed:
And the advertisement ran the next day right alongside of the story of our ignominious arrest.
The Mayor was so indignant at what he termed “an insult to a great performer and friend of Knoxville,” he ordered the fine remitted and sent the money to Primrose, then playing Louisville. Primrose promptly returned the sum, asking that it be credited to some local charity.
Minstrelsy was never an art. It was a rowdy-dowdy, lampblacked harlequinade with music and song, awkward, yet genial, a sort of bucolic friendliness reflecting the spirit of homespun days that, in the speed and madness of contemporary times, is as fated as a comic valentine.