Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells: The Best of Early Vanity Fair

by Unknown

  In the third act they are clad in somber black

  And know that there isn’t any Santa Claus.

  They are always going out into the night.

  They faint a great deal,

  And if anyone lets them get near the center of the stage

  They immediately burst into hysterics.

  They unfortunately never commit suicide until the last act—

  It’s always the audience that pays and pays and pays.

  Then there are the Musical Comedy Stars;

  The press-agent’s livelihood.

  They sing about love—in waltz time—

  And they dance as if something were just about to break.

  They end by appearing in a piece of court plaster

  And an American flag,

  And then the audience has to stand up.

  The show isn’t considered a success

  Until they climb into a flower-wreathed swing,

  And swing far out, over the orchestra—

  O, that I might be there when the ropes break.

  And there are the Emotional Ones;

  The ones who say,

  “I’ll have two lumps of sugar in my tea, please,”

  In exactly the same tones as they say

  “Yes, it was I who murdered him.”

  They are forever tearing their hair—

  I hope it hurts them.

  They shriek at everything,

  Usually at the hero,

  And they hurl themselves on the floor at his feet

  And say that they wish it were all over—

  They said something.

  Then there are the child Actresses

  Who should be unseen and not heard.

  They go around telling people about Heaven

  As if they were special correspondents.

  They are always climbing up on innocent bystanders

  And asking them why they look so sad;

  They eternally bring their fathers and mothers together,

  Which is always an error of judgment.

  They never fail to appear in their nightgowns

  And then kneel down beside the orchestra leader,

  And say their prayers to the spotlight man,—

  I wish I were Commodore Gerry.

  I hate Actresses.

  They get on my nerves.

  RELATIVES: A HATE SONG

  DOROTHY ROTHSCHILD (PARKER)

  FROM AUGUST 1917

  I hate Relatives.

  They cramp my style.

  There are Aunts.

  Even the best of us have them.

  They are always dropping in for little visits,

  And when you ask them to stay,

  They take it seriously.

  They never fail to tell you how badly you look;

  And they relate little anecdotes

  About friends of theirs who went into Declines.

  Their conversation consists entirely of Insides;

  They are never out of a Critical Condition.

  They are always posing for X-Ray portraits

  Of parts of their anatomy with names like parlor-cars.

  They say the doctor tells them

  That they have only one chance in a hundred,—

  The odds aren’t big enough.

  Then there are In-Laws,

  The Necessary Evils of Matrimony.

  The only things they don’t say about you

  Are the ones they can’t pronounce.

  No matter what you do,

  They know a better way to do it.

  They are eternally searching your house for dust;

  If they can’t find any,

  It is a wasted day.

  They are always getting their feelings hurt

  So that they can go around with martyred expressions

  And say that you will appreciate them when they’re gone,—

  You certainly will.

  There are Nephews;

  They are the lowest form of animal life.

  They are forever saying bright things

  And there is no known force that can keep them

  From reciting little pieces about Our Flag.

  They have the real Keystone sense of humor,—

  They are always firing things off in your ear,

  Or pulling away the chair you are about to sit on.

  Whenever you are striving to impress anyone,

  They always appear

  And try out the new words they learned from the ice-man,—

  I wish the Government would draft all males under ten!

  And then there are Husbands;

  The White Woman’s Burden.

  They never notice when you wear anything new,—

  You have to point it out.

  They tell you about the deal they put through,

  Or the approach they made,

  And you are supposed to get all worked up.

  They are always hanging around outside your door

  And they are incessantly pulling out watches,

  And saying, “Aren’t you dressed yet?”

  They were never known to be wrong;

  Everything is always your fault.

  And whenever you go out to have a good time,

  You always meet them,—

  I wish to Heaven somebody would alienate their affections.

  I hate Relatives.

  They cramp my style.

  GEORGE JEAN NATHAN

  THE EDITORS

  FROM NOVEMBER 1917

  One of the most amusing literary atrocities perpetrated in New York in many a day is a little pamphlet which has just made its appearance, entitled “Pistols for Two” (Alfred Knopf would, of course, be the publisher of it). It is the work of Owen Hatteras—if such a person really exists—and is made up of two brief biographies, the first of them a minced-meat life of George Jean Nathan, one of Vanity Fair’s most dauntless and debonair contributors (he invariably wears a cornflower—said to be artificial—as a boutonnière), the other a similarly chopped up biography of H. L. Mencken, a friend of Nathan’s and, like Nathan, an incorrigible fellow of the literary stripe. Both of these desperate characters are devil-may-care reviewers, writers of pale lyrics, roisterers in type, bravos of the printed page. Mr. Hatteras’s idea, as explained in his little scarlet pamphlet, is that biography as at present practiced is all wrong, Plutarch, all wrong. Who in the devil cares to know that a man was born, that he went to school, that he attended college, that he was married by a minister, that he had an illness, that he lived in Boston? Fatuous! Futile! Banal! No, none of that for the soi disant Mr. Hatteras. The really vital and important thing is, How does a man eat, What shirts does he wear, When does he wash, How often does he fall in love, How does he play? Put down these facts upon the printed page in any old order, in any old way, and let, whoever will, mess about among the debris and construct, from the scattered bits, a definite and symmetrical effigy.

  So, here are a few of the more portentous facts concerning the life, diet, tooth powder, love affairs, and winter underwear of our sad, mad friend Nathan—the Pierrot of Broadway.

  His boyhood ambition was to be an African explorer in a pith helmet; with plenty of room on the chest ribbon for medals to be bestowed upon him by the Crown Princess of Luxembourg.

  He dislikes women over twenty-one, actors, cold weather, mayonnaise dressing, people who are always happy, hard chairs, invitations to dinner, invitations to serve on committees, railroad trips, public restaurants, rye whisky, chicken, daylight, men who do not wear waistcoats, the sight of a woman eating, the sound of a woman singing, small napkins, Maeterlinck, Tagore, Bataille, fried oysters, German soubrettes, F
rench John Masons, American John Masons, tradesmen, poets, married women who think of leaving their husbands, professional anarchists of all kinds, ventilation, professional music lovers, men who tell how much money they have made, men who affect sudden friendships and then call him Georgie, women who affect sudden friendships and then call him Mr. Nathan, writing letters, receiving letters, talking over the telephone, and wearing a hat.

  He never receives a woman caller save with his secretary in the room.

  He can eat spinach only when it is chopped fine.

  In his taste in girls, he runs to the demitasses. I have never heard of his showing any interest in a woman more than five feet in height, or weighing more than 105 pounds.

  He never goes to weddings, and knows few persons who marry.

  He drinks numerous cocktails (invariably the species known as “orange blossom,” to which he has added two drops of Grenadine), a rich burgundy, and, now and then, a bit of brandy.

  He has no use for women who are not sad at twilight.

  He admires Max Beerbohm, Conrad, Dr. Lewellys Barker, Mozart, the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and the songs in “Oh, Boy,” sardines, ravioli, Havelock Ellis, chocolate cake, Molnar, Hauptmann, Royalton cigars, Anatole France, Simplicissimus, E. W. Howe’s Monthly, an eiderdown blanket, a hard pillow, a thick toothed comb, a stiff brush, Schnitzler, bitter almond soap, George Ade, Richard Strauss, Pilsner, Huneker, and Florenz Ziegfeld.

  He wears the lightest weight underwear during the coldest winter.

  He owns thirty-eight overcoats of all sorts and descriptions. Overcoats are a fad with him. He has them from heavy Russian fur to the flimsiest homespun. . . . He owns one with an Alpine hood attachment.

  His telephone operator, at his apartment, has a list of five persons to whom he will talk—so many and no more. He refuses to answer the telephone before five o’clock in the afternoon.

  The living Americans who most interest him are Josephus Daniels and Frank A. Munsey.

  He never visits a house a second time in which he has encountered dogs, cats, children, automatic pianos, grace before (or after) meals, women authors, actors, The New Republic, or prints of the Mona Lisa.

  He is not acquainted with a single clergyman, Congressman, general, or reformer. He has never met any of the Vice-Presidents of the United States.

  He is free of adenoids.

  His knee jerks are normal.

  A newspaper interviewer once asked him if it was true that a certain disgruntled theatrical manager had alluded to him as a “pinhead.” “That,” replied Nathan, “is, on the face of it, absurd. ‘Pinhead’ is a word of two syllables.”

  He once observed that the reason the galleries of our theatres, as our theatrical managers lament, are no longer filled with newsboys is that all the newsboys are now theatrical managers.

  He never writes love letters, and seldom reads them.

  He cannot operate a motor car, cook anything, wind a dynamo, fix a clock, guess the answer to a riddle, or milk a cow.

  He regards camping out as the most terrible diversion invented by man.

  For the last two years he has received weekly anonymous letters from some woman in Bridgeport, Connecticut, who signs herself “L. G.”

  He takes a companion with him to the theatre only on rare occasions. He uses the extra seat sent him by the managers as a depository for his hat and overcoat.

  He hasn’t the slighted intention of ever getting married.

  He gets squiffed about once in six weeks, usually in company with John Williams. He has a headache the next day.

  He wears a No. 141/2 collar and No. 71/4 hat. His favorite soup is Crême de Santé.

  His valet’s name is Osuka F. Takami. The latter has a penchant for polishing patent leather boots with sofa pillows.

  He has never been in a Childs’ restaurant.

  He has been shot at three times, but never hit.

  He likes chop suey, spaghetti, French pastry, horseradish sauce, Welsh rarebits, oysters à la Dumas, raw tomatoes, stuffed baked potatoes, green peppers, broiled lobster, halibut, mushrooms cooked with caraway seeds, and chipped beef.

  His favorite hospitals are the Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore, and Galen Hall, in Atlantic City. Whenever he is ill he goes to one or the other of these hospitals.

  Since 1901 he has loved seventeen different girls, and still remembers the names of all of them, and their preferences in literature, food, and wines. Of the seventeen, fourteen are happily married, one has been married and divorced, and the rest have gone West.

  He wears pongee pajamas.

  He knew Evelyn Nesbit when she was a baby.

  He wears low, Byronic collars and rather gaudy neckties.

  He is on good terms with but two members of his family.

  He uses Calox tooth powder, Colgate’s shaving soap, a double strength witch hazel, a Gillette razor, and Kitchell’s Horse Liniment. He has never taken quinine, Peruna, Piso’s Cough Syrup, Sanatogen, asperin [original spelling], morphine, opium, or castor oil.

  He gets a cinder in his eye twice a day, on an average.

  He believes that George Bickel is the funniest comedian on the American stage, that Arnold Daly is the best actor, that Margaret Ellington is the best actress.

  His usual pulse is 71 a minute. After drinking it rises to 85.

  His favorite name for girls is Helen.

  He has never visited the battlefield of Gettysburg.

  FROM LEFT TO RIGHT IN THE MOVIES

  DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS

  FROM JANUARY 1918

  A classified list of Who’s Who on the screen:

  First of all, there’s the movie heroine. She is invariably one of those excruciatingly sweet young things who once saw Mary Pickford and has never been herself since. She walks with the approved Lilian Gish movement, at a pace which would seem to indicate that she is always on her way to a fire. She never sits, in the accepted sense of the word,—she merely takes a running jump at a chair and lands girlishly on all fours, then draws her knees up on a level with her chin and clasps her hands vivaciously around them. Her hair is always worn in curls—it’s the unwritten law of the movies that all heroines, without regard to age, race, color or creed, must wear their hair in curls. So far as movie heroines are concerned, there is no other coiffure.

  High white shoes, also, are extremely prevalent among heroines, but these, while important, are not absolutely essential.

  The heroine is a marvel of versatility—her press agent says so himself. Versatility, in the movies, means starting the picture (in bare feet and a gingham dress torn in all the interesting places), as little Bessie, the Sunshine of Poverty Alley; in being adopted by a doting millionaire somewhere in the third reel; and playing the last thousand feet of the picture all Luciled up like a Century showgirl.

  • • •

  The heroine is the reason for the hero’s introduction into the scenario. If it weren’t for the crying need of someone to play opposite the heroine, all movie heroes would still be running elevators.

  The hero is always a dark person with highly polished hair, which is worn in much the same style that Mrs. Vernon Castle wears hers. His taste in clothing runs to belted coats, gracefully plaited across the back—the model popularly known as the ’Varsity, a snappy style for young men and men who want to stay young. He uses those soft felt hats with the college hat-bands—the kind that the owner gets all the girls at the seashore to write their names on, as a souvenir of the two weeks’ vacation.

  These hats are always selected at least a size and a quarter too small, and are worn rolled dashingly up in back and pulled rakishly down to shade the eyes. The hat is on no account removed in the house, save to register that Mother has just passed away. Sport shirts are worn always, and neckties are worn never. White tennis shoes invariably complete the hero’s costume, except when he
is wearing his evening clothes with the jet buttons.

  In that event, however, he always retains his white socks.

  The hero’s film life may be an eventful one, but there is always a pleasing element of certainty about it. No matter how wrong he may be in, there is the thrill of knowing that everything will be right for him eventually—that, after several fierce hand-to-hand struggles, which the villain evidently doesn’t care much about winning, he will always end the reel with one arm around the heroine and the other pointing towards the great West, where their future lies—where the men may not take water with their whiskey, but they’re square with their women. Upon this touching scene, the film fades slowly into darkness, and then follows the announcement of next week’s attractions, in brilliant colors.

  • • •

  The villain is the third figure from the left. He may be one of two kinds—eastern or western. If he’s the former, he wears a furlined overcoat, always open, and he owns one of those apartments with nude ladies holding bunches of grapes which light up. This shows that he is a man of wealth and artistic inclinations.

  If he’s a Westerner, however, he wears the usual Buffalo Bills, and he cheats at cards so cleverly that no one can detect him: no one, that is, but the audience.

  Whether eastern or western, the villain is never without a big black cigar. On the screen a big black cigar always indicates villainy; on the stage, it means an impersonation of General Grant.

  Mothers are also important figures in the screen world. The mother wears the conventional black and a becoming gray wig. She plays one of those watchful waiting parts—she never gives up hope that, maybe, Jim will get out of jail in time for Christmas. Mothers, in the movies, are never very well. They are always suffering uncomplainingly and they usually die at great length. In fact, it’s considered rather unsportsmanlike for a mother to be still alive at the end of the picture.

  The chee-ild is the lowest form of film life. The movie chee-ild is always a small blonde, who once overheard somebody say, “Isn’t she cute?” and has tried to live up to it ever since. The little dear has the prettiest way of looking right into the camera every few minutes, just to be sure that she isn’t missing anything that may be going on.