It was a dark and stormy day at B&N! The only ray of sunshine was a visit by our Miss Penny Orloff looking glamorous to make all others hammacher schlemmerous, and off to an interview. Most of the customers were quite pleasnt, oddly enough, but there were dark currents amongst staff and management.
I had a fascinating day at the NYPL Theatre collection yesterday: Jeremy McGraw, who supervises the theatre photos and I several weeks ago had gone through the BABES IN TOYLAND photo files and identified actors and sorted out the photos from the 1902 WIZARD OF OZ. Both shows had been produced by Fred Hamlin and Julian Mitchell, who also directed, and the publicity for both productions and their tours was handled by Townsend Walsh, who left voluminous scrapbooks and papers to the NY Public Library. Yesterday we went through all the WIZARD OF OZ 1902 photos looking for misfiled BABES photos. One of Jeremy's interns had uncovered a Townsend Walsh scrapbook of publicity shots for the two show, most of which probably haven't been seen in the past hundred years: amazing photos of Montgomery and Stone as the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow, both in and out of makeup, Mabel Barrison who was so bad in WIZARD OF OZ that she was replaced, only to become a star in BABES IN TOYLAND, and other performers: the Cowardly Lion was played by handsome Arthur Hill, who had the physique and biceps to send Michael Barnum into a coma, Bessie Wynn who also starred in BABES had some wonderful publicity photos as Dashemoff Daly in WIZARD, and Miss Barrison's replacements as Tryxie Tryfle the Waitress, Grace Field and Lotta Faust, were absolute beauties.
Then we got to Walsh's BABES photos for most of the principals: great shots of William Norris and better shots of Ignacio Martinetti his replacement, so I've now seen every costume worn by the leading man in BABES, as well as all the costumes worn by the dancing couple, Grumio and Jill, played by married couple Charles Guyer and Nellie Daly. It was an amazing find.
