The Laurel & Hardy Museum

Some years ago, before my mother died, I was in Ulverston with my wife and we happened to come across the Laurel & Hardy Museum, purely by chance. On entering and paying I said that I was related to someone who had been in a film with Laurel & Hardy. There was a shout from behind the scenes and out popped the late Bill Cubin, the founder of the museum. He immediately asked if it was Dennis King I was related to and he said that he had been hoping to meet a lady he thought was still alive who used to be married to Dennis’s brother. “That’s my mother,” I replied!

In wandering round the museum we found Dennis’s signature in Stan Laurel’s Visitors’ Book although I cannot now remember the date of the entry or where Stan was living at the time.

I gave Bill details for contacting my mother in Birmingham and he did eventually do that, hoping to entice her to go to a meeting of the Sons of the Desert. My mother was pleased to see Bill but she declined the invitation. Luckily Bill did have his picture taken with my mother with both of them wearing the customary fezzes:

My Father and Me

I was a year old when this photograph was taken in our front room which was only used on special occasions.

My mother told me that I was named after Dennis’s son, John Michael, but with the names switched round I became Michael John.

My first memory of Uncle Dennis is from when I was about 7 or 8. He visited the UK and there was a get-together at his mother and father’s house in Birmingham. I only have a hazy memory but it revolves around a piano with Uncle Dennis by the side of it, singing. I am told that he would have been accompanied on the piano by his sister, my Aunty Marie. That is all I can remember but it obviously made an impression on me.

At some stage I became aware of the scrapbook that my father kept about his brother. I was aware that Dennis was a star but I didn’t see any evidence of that until the fifties when Fra Diavolo was shown at a local cinema – The Alhambra on the Moseley Road in Birmingham.

The main reminder of Dennis when my father was alive was the hamper that arrived at Christmas from him. I pictured it coming from the States but it probably came from a supplier in the UK. It was full of things that we wouldn’t normally have (like tinned tongue!) and it was great fun to unpack and to consume.

I have an idea that Dennis visited my family home twice but I only really remember the last time. It was after my father died. Dennis came in a chauffeur-driven car. He was well dressed, wearing a hat, possibly a bowler. My mother invited him into our front room and he sat by the window almost where I am in the photo above. He commiserated over the loss of his brother, my father, and said how close he was to him when he was growing up, even walking him to infant school in Dennis Road, Moseley, Birmingham. I remember his imposing voice and his bearing and he left a lasting impression on me.

Daisy Farm Road

A story that my mother told many times was that Uncle Dennis turned up once unannounced in Birmingham when my family was living in Daisy Farm Road. This was before I was born and will have been during one of Dennis’s performances in London during the 1930s.

He arrived when my father was at work and surprised my mother not least because he was in a white Rolls Royce that belonged to Ivor Novello! I have always assumed that he was chauffeured from London although I suppose it is possible he drove. It must have impressed the neighbours no end!

I have been able to verify that Ivor Novello had a Rolls Royce but not that it was white but I have no reason to doubt my mother’s story.

Links and Photographs

A Google Image search on “Dennis King” reveals a photograph (and others) from a New York stage performance of The Searching Wind in 1944:

http://www.life.com/image/50491195

Searching on “Dennis King Jr” reveals a photograph (and others) from a stage performance of Kiss Them For Me in 1945:

http://www.life.com/image/50496208

My favourite, however, is this photograph of Dennis King Jr as Dr Hanover in Perry Mason in 1958 (from The Digital Deli website):

I have copied the image from the Digital Deli website into this blog entry only because it requires a lot of page scrolling to find it. I don’t want anyone to miss it!

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has Dennis King Jr’s birth details as 6th June 1921 in Birmingham, England. I must admit that I did not know that, suspecting that he was born in the States. He is recorded as having died on 24th August 1986 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Dennis King – This & That

There are two other interesting items amongst the material sent to me by the New York Public Library (see previous entry).

One of them shows a copy of a portrait of Dennis by an English artist called Miss F. Enid Stoddard. Evidently she also painted the Prince of Wales and Mussolini! The item mentions that “Mr King has been in Chicago since Labor day of 1926 in the part of Villon in ‘The Vagabond King’.” so that dates it. Where is that portrait now, I wonder?

The other, an undated fragment entitled “Notes from luncheon with Dennis King” says:

“King played four weeks of ‘Benjamin Franklin’ through Pennsylvania, down as far as West Virginia. The one and a half hour dramatic lecture is called ‘Go Fly A Kite’ and is based on an enormous amount of research personally done on Franklin by King, who believes him to have been one of the most brilliant men in the history of the U.S.A.”

Dennis King, Player

In 1999 I contacted the New York Public Library via email, having seen that they had material on Dennis. Obligingly, they posted me a bundle of relevant photocopies, all of which was of interest but one document stood out. It was a Players’ Bulletin  from the autumn of 1971 that gives a selection of tributes from the Dennis King Memorial Service that took place on May 27th 1971.

Evidently Dennis was the 6th President of the Players from 1965 to 1970. When he stepped down due to ill health he became President Emeritus.

Perhaps it is in the way people talk about someone who has died that you learn things about them that you would not otherwise have known. The account of the Memorial Service for Dennis includes the following:

The Players Club was closed to allow members and staff to attend with friends of the family and the theatre.

Dennis joined the Players in 1943.

The Church was full and that would have pleased Dennis as he abhorred a half-empty house!

George Cooper spoke, Dennis’s oldest friend, who was at the Birmingham Rep. with him.

Dennis’s son, John Michael, sang “Abide With Me”.

Alfred Drake spoke of Dennis as a good companion, the expert pool player, the unique bridge player, the raconteur and the private man.

For Drake, Dennis was associated with elegance.

It is worth reproducing George Melville Cooper’s tribute in full:

I first met Dennis in England in 1914 when we both made our first appearances on the stage as two Footmen in The Return of the Prodigal. We carried on the leading man deposited him on the sofa and then left. We were both at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre – he was the call boy and I was a very junior member of the company.

One night he came to call me for my entrance and, looking over my shoulder into the mirror, he said: “Dennis King, you are going to be a star one day.” We all know how true that statement came to be.

He was a great man who did a wonderful job with his life.

It is comforting to know that there was someone to speak for  Dennis from his days in Birmingham before he went to the States.

Calling him ‘Denny’, Peter Turgeon said the following:

He delighted in telling the story of his wife who was living in their home in the country. It was late at night and Dennis was away on tour. Mrs King heard prowlers down by the garage. She leapt out of bed, flung up the window and yelled, “Quick, George … get your gun and let out the dogs!!” The prowlers quickly fled. Later upon his return she recounted the experience to Dennis who in turn asked, “Why did you call out for George?” Mrs King answered, “Why, I never could have frightened anyone away by calling out for Dennis!”

On the opening night of Patriot for Me his son Mike made his way to Dennis’ dressing room after the performance and, in an amazed tone said, “Dad, you didn’t tell me you were going to play it straight!!” (Dennis had just given the best display of transvestism since Julian Eltinge minced across a stage).

In 1969 we were both in a picture written and directed by Gar Kanin. At a bachelor dinner at Jim Cagney’s someone asked Dennis what the part was like. He thought a moment and then answered, “You might liken it to the fart of a medium-sized mosquito!”

I particularly like to hear that Dennis was at James Cagney's!

From the Players present day website I notice the following interesting fact:

Three British actors have served as President of The Players: Dennis King, Lynn Redgrave and Michael Allinson.

Also, with some excitement I see there is a photograph on the Players website of Dennis, with other Presidents (top right), here.

Dennis King on YouTube

It pays to keep an eye on newly posted items on YouTube. In October 2009 these two songs by Adrienne Brune & Dennis King  from Rudolf Friml's "The Three Musketeers" in 1930 appeared:

1. “Your Eyes”

2. “One Kiss”

For a remix, how about this! …

Fra Diavolo

This is the only fragment in my father’s scrapbook relating to Fra Diavolo, the film that Dennis appeared in with Laurel & Hardy.

There is a rumour in the family that a cousin has a specially taken photograph of Dennis with Laurel & Hardy on the set of the film during a break. He is having an English high tea with them, by all accounts. It was a photograph Dennis sent home to his family in the UK. Perhaps I will never see it!

As a result of putting some photographs of Uncle Dennis on flickr I have been in touch with someone who has a website dedicated to Fra Diavolo. You can find it at:

http://fradiavolo.heliohost.org/ 

You won’t be able to get straight in but you can easily apply for access (saying where you heard about it). The website has a very comprehensive list of Dennis’s film, stage and TV performances which relieves me of the need to do anything similar.

The creator of the Laurel & Hardy website has been following this blog and you will recognise some of his content from here. Via email he made the point to me that Dennis’s performance in Fra Diavolo is the main one he will be remembered for given the enduring popularity of Laurel & Hardy. I have no reason to question that given the evidence from this Youtube video:

Petticoat Fever 1936

Evidently Dennis was back in the UK in 1936 at Daly’s Theatre to appear in Petticoat Fever alongside Jill Esmond, as the cutting above shows. Previously running in New York for 8 months, according to the Daily Mail write-up, Dennis had proved to be “a novelty in the realms of farce”.

Jill Esmond was married to Laurence Olivier at the time. She had met him in 1928 and married him in 1930. Perhaps Dennis and Laurence met. They did have the Birmingham Rep in common, after all, Laurence having joined the company in 1926.

For Dennis, Petticoat Fever was a change from romantic musical comedy.

Of a production in the States, on March 5th 1935, The New York Times said:

Having worn the handsome tights of Richard Bordeaux last year, Dennis King is now wearing the cap and bells in an excellent farce by Mark Reed, "Petticoat Fever," which was played with great agility at the Ritz last evening.

I recall reading that Dennis acquired the UK rights for Petticoat Fever hence the London production but I’ve forgotten the source of this.

The only problem with this account is verifying it. It has proved difficult to find the London engagement in either Dennis’s or Jill Esmond’s biographic material. Could it be that it had a very short run, I wonder? I will continue to search for a separate record of it.

1940s onwards

Although my father’s scrapbook was a great source of interest for me, it did not contain much beyond the 1930s. What was there was undated. I could see that Uncle Dennis got older in the photographs and cuttings but I had no grasp of the nature of his continuing career.

It was only with access to the internet that it became apparent that he continued to work on the stage, on radio and on TV until just before his death in 1971.

The only promotional photograph tucked into the scrapbook was the one displayed above. It must have been sent to the UK by Dennis. On the back it has “Company of ‘Blithe Spirit’” and “Received April 21/42” handwritten on the back.

At sometime in the past I managed to establish that Dennis appeared in Blithe Spirit in 1942 in Chicago playing Charles Condamine. But it has proved difficult to identify the rest of the cast.

A modern day production of Blithe Spirit in Yorkshire describes it thus:

“Sharply witty and savagely funny, Blithe Spirit was Coward’s own favourite play, emerging from his imagination in just five days, and quickly becoming one of his most popular plays setting all manner of British box-office records.”

A Characteristic Pose

A cousin of mine told me that this was a pose that Uncle Dennis used often and that it ran in the family!

On the back of this photo is written, “Dennis King starred in “The Greatest Man Alive”. This dates it to the late 1950s; to an opening night of May 8th 1957, according to the New York Times, which started a review of the play with the words:

PROBABLY Dennis King likes to act. That seems to be the only way to account for his presence in a feeble jest like “The Greatest Man Alive!" which opened at the Ethel Barrymore last evening.

There is no indication of who took this photograph but it is from a batch that appears to have come from a theatrical agent.

Stop Press: A Radio Recording

Dennis with Tallulah Bankhead on The Big Show Radio Programme, February 18th 1951.

At the date of this entry (June 2009), this is a relatively new addition to YouTube and very welcome.

Durable King

A creased and yellowing full-page cutting, dated 1955, from the World-Telegram and Saturday Magazine has the heading:

Durable King

After 39 Years on the Stage, Dennis Retains His Enthusiasm for a Lusty Role

Based on an interview, it was written at a time when Dennis was the “alcoholic dame-crazed Judge Sullivan in Sidney Kingsley’s Lunatics and Lovers at the Broadhurst”.

It provides a few pointers to Dennis’s early life saying that he “got his first professional role in the touring Daddy Longlegs, Gilbert Miller’s first London production”. Also, it says that Dennis was married  to Edith Wright “35 years ago”, i.e. in 1920, just before he decamped to the States.

In the article, Dennis recalls his first New York audience when with John and Ethel Barrymore (the first of John’s four wives) in Claire de Lune. Off-stage, John greeted Dennis with, “I hear you can box” and invited him to have a go at him. In a brief exchange, Dennis says he won John’s respect and friendship with a straight left.

One other piece of information to be gleaned from the article is that Dennis was, at the time, “rated the best tennis player on the rolls of the Actor’s Equity Association”!

The photograph used above comes from the cutting described in this entry.

One of my Favourites …

This photograph, again showing signs of having been carried round in a wallet, is one of my favourites because it was sent by Dennis to his parents in Kings Heath, Birmingham. Dated July 24th, 1937, and postmarked Central City, Colorado, it carries the message: “ Not really grey! As ‘Dr Rank’ in ‘A Doll’s House’ by Ibsen.”

Mary Ellis’s Memories

The late Mary Ellis’s memories of Rose Marie and Dennis are extracted from her autobiography, Those Dancing Years*:

One evening during this play Arthur Hammerstein sat in the second row of the stalls. It meant nothing to me to hear of it that evening – but I soon received a call to go and see him At his office I met Rudolf Friml, the composer, and Oscar Hammerstein II, then a big, gentle, very young man. At that meeting Rose Marie was born. They all persuaded me that I must sing again and told me that what they had in mind was a new kind of play with a really dramatic story and fine music which would demand real singing – more like an Offenbach light opera. It was to be the first of Oscar’s long list of timeless musical plays. It was about a French Canadian girl and her love for Jim a fur trapper, wrongly accused of murder. Hammerstein got Dennis King to play him. Dennis had been having a Shakespearean season in New York and no-one then knew he had a splendid baritone voice. After Rose Marie he swashbuckled and sang in Friml’s two later musicals The Three Musketeers and The Vagabond King.

…

Day by day the production grew and, before I knew what was happening, rehearsals were in full swing. I felt dim and awful because I knew none of the ways and means of operetta. I … plunged into the playing with all the zeal of attacking Sardou and Puccini rolled into one! Perhaps that ultimately came over and accounted partly for its extravagant and phenomenal success. It is still something I cannot understand because, in the pre-New York tour that summer, we felt too terrible for words and managed to see only the long grim faces of the management in that try-out.

We were in Long Branch – a famous sea-side try-out place. The only hotel Dennis and I could get into was a kosher Jewish one, where we were fed on cucumbers and sour cream, among other things, which almost killed me with violent indigestion and added to a depression that seemed ominous. The ocean looked inviting enough to walk into and so avoid the terror of the New York opening.

On September 2nd 1924 at the Imperial Theatre, Rose Marie and the ‘Indian Love Call’ became theatre history. All I remember of that first night is sitting cross-legged on the table in Act One and reaching a pianissimo high B-flat which brought the house down. After that, euphoria, bliss and the final curtain fulfilling everyone’s expectations. During the run, Sir Alfred Butt asked me to go to England to play Rose Marie at Drury Lane. But for some reason I refused and the part was played in London by Edith Day. It is strange to think that I might have been in Drury Lane in 1925, instead of ten years later when I was destined to perform there!

*Those Dancing Years by Mary Ellis, published by John Murray, 1982.

Mary Ellis died in 2003 in London at the age of 105. She was born in the same year as Dennis. I heard her on the radio before she died and thought that I should get in touch with her to ask her about Dennis but I never did.

The Earliest Promotional Photo?

Judging by the way Dennis’s hair is combed and by the fact that the photographer* is British, I’d say that this is one of his earliest promotional photographs.

Dennis favoured a wave in his hair when photographed at a later date in the States. This photograph and the one of him in the family group in Birmingham look similar.

So, I’d say that this photograph was taken between 1917 (after he had left the Birmingham Rep) and 1921. As it was given me by my late sister, I’d say it came from my father. Judging by the extent of wear and the pencil scribblings on the back it seems that it was carried by my father in his wallet.

* The identification is “Guttenberg Photo. Manchester”. Evidently Percy Guttenberg was active as a theatrical photographer in the first decade of the 1900s and by 1922 he was the President of the Society of Master Photographers. It is not clear what links Dennis to Manchester. It is possible that he was there on tour in one of the productions that took him to Edinburgh.

Thomas Foden Flint

Thomas Foden Flint, a former Pilgrim Player, became the Rep’s first Stage Manager, a role he voluntarily relinquished after 5 months to make way for someone with more experience. He continued in the role of Assistant Stage Manager until he joined the Army in 1914.

When Dennis appeared in “The Three Musketeers” at Drury Lane in London in 1930 he acknowledged his debt to Thomas Foden Flint:

Yes, I must thank Birmingham for most of my knowledge about fencing. It was Mr. Foden Flint, the stage manager of the Repertory Theatre who taught me, and it was he who used to give me sixpence every time I got past his guard. I, of course, was then a call boy, but we found time in the mornings to do some serious fencing.

It is noted in Bache Matthews book that Thomas “was the only member of the company who persevered with his foils, to become later … runner up in the amateur championship”.

The image above, from my father’s scrapbook, shows Dennis as D’Artagnan (in the centre of the sketch) over the legend “In a Clash By Himself”.  Also, the panel in the bottom right has the following exchange:

Bill - “Mr King don’t ‘alf know how to make love to Miss Brune on the stage!”

Our Call-Boy - “Well, who wouldn’t? If a thing’s worth wooing it’s worth wooing well!”

Call Boy and ASM

As Dennis liked to point out in later life he was the Birmingham Rep’s first call boy. He started there in 1913 when the Rep opened and left in December 1916. When he left he had risen to the post of Assistant Stage Manager.

Although he was not identified as an actor during his time at the Rep, he got plenty of chances to perform. It was in the nature of the organisation of the Rep that those in “back-stage” roles made up the cast along with the regular actors.

His full list of appearances starts in January 1914 at age 16 and ends in November 1916 at age 19.

Dennis always said that his first stage performance was in As You Like It (in February 1914 as Dennis, one of the two servants to Oliver). Perhaps he meant his first real appearance, as the records for the Rep* show that he was in The Christmas Party (from January 10th, 1914, for two weeks) as Dick Whittington’s Cat!

The Christmas Party was written by Barry Jackson, the founder and patron of the Rep and its first Director. It was a children’s play that is described by Bache Matthews in his history as “unequal” and “no good” in its first outing but was later rewritten and revived in 1916 with Dennis as a Footman.

It is by looking at Dennis’s list of stage performances at the Rep (see Supporting Reference Material) that we can see the period he was absent due to him joining up, although underage. There is a gap between May 1914 when he was 16 and October 1915 (aged 17 ). It is during this period that his Medal Index Card (MIC) shows that he joined the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry as a Private on 9th September 1914. For reasons that are so far not clear he was discharged according to King’s Regulations on 10th May 1915 with the only reason being given as “Sickness”. As a result of this he received his Silver War Medal which I have written about in a previous entry.

It is my understanding that the official age for joining up was 18 and that an overseas posting only followed at 19. Joining up whilst underage was not uncommon at the time but it seems unlikely, though not impossible, that Dennis saw any service in the front line during the 8 months he served.

What is clear is that he valued the medal that showed that he had served. He resumed where he left off at the Birmingham Rep presumably as Assistant Stage Manager. His stage performances recommenced in October 1915.

It is surprising to see that his last performance at the Rep was in November 1916 in The Cassilis Engagement and that by December he was in Edinburgh at the Royal Lyceum Theatre appearing in a musical called Oh Caesar (with Evelyn Laye – see a previous entry about this). Having left the Rep as an Assistant Stage Manager he was now an actor in his own right.

Quite how he found the opportunity to leave the Rep is not recorded anywhere but I am hopeful that I may find the missing piece of the jigsaw.

I have left until last the question of why he chose to join the Rep when it opened in 1913. It is a coincidence, I think, that The Pilgrim Players out of which the Rep grew started their performances in Moseley, the area of Birmingham that Dennis lived on the edge of. Barry Jackson lived within walking distance of Dennis’s family home.

It is possible that Dennis saw an advertisement or other press coverage of the need for staff at the newly-built Rep and simply applied. Someone might have guided him to it. What is clear from the documented history of the Rep is that its inception did receive publicity in the local Birmingham papers but whether he found out about it on his own or whether he was told about it perhaps I will never know. As pure speculation - it is possible that his father or even his brother worked on the speedy building of the new Theatre.

* Records for the early days of the Rep, including details of the plays that Dennis appeared in, are held at the Birmingham Central Reference Library in the Barry Jackson Archive. The list that is available here has been assembled from those records and their total accuracy is not to be taken for granted without looking at the original sources.

Once again, Bache Matthews’ book has helped with this account.

In His Spare Time …

This photo, again from my father's scrapbook, has the following accompanying text: “Dennis King, star of the Three Musketeers, on d'Artagnan taking one of the jumps on his estate in Great Neck, L. I.”

As well as being a horse rider, according to various press accounts, Dennis was also a keen fencer, swimmer, tennis player & golfer.

Another dimension to his talents is shown in this extract from the full text of "Gertrude Lawrence As Mrs Q An Intimate Biography Of The Great Star"

In Pygmalion's coast-to-coast tour, Dennis King took over the role of Professor Higgins [in the late 1940s]. Following her usual practice, Gertrude kept a day-by-day journal of her experiences, in which her co-star and the other members of the company figured frequently.

“Just had a cup of tea in the diner with Dennis King” she wrote. “He has taken up painting and is most excited to find that he really can paint. He has found that everybody needs a hobby - no matter who the person or what the hobby. He now sees colors, and shapes and shadows which he can capture on canvas. This enthusiasm is shared by several friends of mine. I am going to watch Dennis and see whether I respond , . .”

In an interview in 1955 Dennis was asked who his favourite actresses were. He named two, Gertrude Lawrence and Katharine Cornell.

The Home of Fine Plays

In order to put together the preceding summary of the history of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre I bought a second-hand copy of Bache Matthew’s book A History of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. I chose the cheapest edition I could find online and eagerly awaited its arrival. To my amazement, when I received and opened the book I saw 4 original photographs stuck onto the blank pages before the title. These show the rear of the Repertory Theatre and must have been taken by a previous owner of the book. From the name of the production in progress at the time (on a visible hoarding) I can date the photos to 1927.

I don’t know how much that rear view has changed, but to be able to see the Stage Door that Uncle Dennis must have used, very little changed from when he would have been using it, was a real boost and a good omen.

You can see the 4 photos in a Picasa Web Album.

One surprising thing I discovered in reading Bache Matthew’s book is the speed with which the theatre was built. The contract was signed in October, 1912, and the opening was in February 1913. The builder worked round the clock during the winter months, using flares to work by at night.

Background: The Birmingham Rep

“… this little playhouse is the most considerable thing that the twentieth century has seen in the English theatre.”

T. C. Kemp*

In many ways it is painful to gloss over the interesting and well-documented history of the origins and early years of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre but I have to keep in mind that I am just setting the scene for the entrance of Dennis Pratt …

The Birmingham Rep opened it doors, in a purpose-built theatre in the centre of the city, on 15th February, 1913, with Twelfth Night. This was the first Repertory Theatre to be built in England (according to T. C. Kemp*). It had its origins in the work of a group of amateurs who first performed publicly in 1907, led by Barry Jackson who lived in the Moseley area of the city. In the early years this was a peripatetic group calling itself the Pilgrim Players and performing at venues around Birmingham.

Barry Jackson recognised the need for a change from amateur to professional status, and he became the Founder of the permanent theatre and its first Director. But he was more than that - he was also an actor, producer, playwright and stage designer. He was later to be knighted.

One more name to take note of from these early days is that of Thomas Foden Flint. One of the original Pilgrim Players, Thomas became the Stage Manager when the Rep opened but recognising his limitations, he relinquished that post to become the Assistant Stage Manager after 5 months. More about him later.

Once it had been decided that a permanent theatre was to be built there was a 10 month gap between the last production of the Pilgrim Players and the opening on 15th February, 1913.

* The Birmingham Repertory Theatre by T. C. Kemp, Cornish Brothers Ltd, 1943

Another book used to assemble this summary was:

A History of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre by Bache Matthews, Chatto & Windus, 1924

Jeanette MacDonald’s View

In his biography of Jeanette MacDonald called Hollywood Diva, Edward Baron Turk says that she despised her work on the film of The Vagabond King and that she had two great annoyances of which the second was:

… her leading man, British-born stage baritone Dennis King. Because he originated the role of Friml’s Villon to great acclaim on Broadway, King had Berger [the film’s director] and the front office eating out of his hand from the day shooting began. … While MacDonald had little choice but to accept his backstairs influence, she refused to put up with King’s shameless scene snatching. Ray Rennahan recounted: “After I’d set the lights on them they were supposed to keep their positions on the set and not move unless we were prepared for it. But King would be constantly moving this way and that to get a camera advantage over Jeanette. He’d block her key light by putting a shadow over her face, and just as soon as that would happen, Jeanette would say, ‘Oh, no! Wait a minute!’”

MacDonald’s guard failed her during the shooting of “Only a Rose”. Set in a luxuriant garden, this pivotal moment has Katherine respond in song to the vagabond’s ardent pledge to win her love by saving France. Berger had planned the scene so that except for one brief reaction shot of the actor, MacDonald would appear on-screen alone and in close shot until the song’s final strains, sung in duet. To make sure King would stay on his mark, Berger placed a hobbyhorse between the singers. Yet the baritone, true to form, spoiled MacDonald’s solo shots by prematurely inserting his fingers, nose, and slick pompadour into her frame. Somehow, the resulting glitch went uncorrected. MacDonald was as much enraged by Berger’s negligence as King’s hogging, and pleaded with B. P. Schulberg to order retakes or else drop her name from the opening credits. Schulberg refused to do either. From then on, MacDonald sarcastically referred to the song as “Only a Nose”.

Decide for yourselves. Here is the YouTube clip from The Vagabond King that resulted in Dennis being accused of “shameless scene snatching”:

Jeanette MacDonald and Dennis King - from The Vagabond King

Reference: “Hollywood Diva: A Biography of Jeanette MacDonald” by Edward Baron Turk (1998, University of California Press).

The Lapel Badge

One interesting detail from the family photograph in the previous entry is the badge that can just be seen on Dennis's lapel. When suitably magnified (see photo above) it can be identified as the Silver War Badge which Dennis was awarded as a result of his service during World War I which was curtailed by discharge due to him being physically unfit.

Evidently the badge was awarded from September 1916 (hence the dating of the photograph) to military personnel who had served at home or overseas during the war, and who had been discharged from the army under King's Regulations.

Background: The Pratt Family

This family photograph was probably taken around 1917. Dennis is on the left at the back in the bow tie. His three brothers and his sister are with him, all assembled around their father and mother, John and Mary Elizabeth Pratt. It was his mother's maiden name of King that Dennis chose as a stage name.

My father, Reg, is seated in front of Dennis.

I think it is relevant to Dennis's account of his early career to note that his father, John, was a bricklayer who eventually became his own boss as a builder. My father and another of Dennis's brothers followed in their father's footsteps and became bricklayers. The other brother, according to the 1911 census, started out as a sheet metal worker. So Dennis's decision to choose to launch himself into a life in the theatre has to be seen as an intriguing departure.

Dennis's story, repeated in many press accounts, is that he "ran away" to become a call boy. I have often wondered how this should be taken. The Birmingham Repertory Theatre opened early in 1913 when Dennis was just over fifteen so he didn't leave school any earlier than most and he certainly did not have to run far. Perhaps the real reason he saw it as running away is that it was his choice and either not what his parents envisaged for him or maybe his teachers suggested more schooling.

Whatever the explanation, given Dennis's family background, he has to be credited with making a momentous decision. A decision that all his family would live to praise.

Vote Yes

In my last entry - On Stage - I mentioned a review for the stage version of The Vagabond King that must have been sent to the UK by Dennis. I think you will agree that my father is unlikely to have got it from a UK publication. It was written by McHarg Davenport:

Should you as a Long Island Playgoer be called upon this month to vote on the proposition, "Shall We Get Seats For The Vagabond King"?, take a tip from this reviewer and mark your ballot "Yes". Then phone your ticketlegger, Tyson, McBride or whoever it is that looks after you, and get the best he has regardless, for really good seats are hard to get even now and by the time the Holidays roll around, anything nearer than the tenth row will be worth its weight in coal.

In our poor but honest opinion, Russell Janney's production offers the best evening's entertainment to be found in New York at this writing, and we hope it will run at the Casino for at least six years, or until our son David turns ten and is ready for such grown-up distractions.

Justin Huntley McCarthy's "If I Were King" furnishes the plot, the action of which is laid in Paris in the time of Louis XI and deals with certain highly colorful and fantastic adventures in the life of the poet Francois Villon. Despite the fact that most of the characters are thieves, cut-throats and other nameless male and female scum of the underworld, it is a clean-spoken play and a mighty refreshing one.

A play "with music", The Vagabond King boasts a number of outstanding melodies by Rudolph Friml, any one of them worth trekking in by foot from Montauk Point to hear. Villon's "Song of the Vagabonds" is the best of the lot and when Dennis King and his fine male chorus really let themselves go, they all but carry the audience over the footlight and out to defend the gates of Paris with them.

Like all songs ending with "To Hell with somebody!" this one has the magic when properly sung to make the veriest handful as irresistible as any Army Corps, and Heaven help France and the unknown Spanish soldier, if the Riffs get hold of it!

On Stage

I have reproduced a postcard I bought off ebay above. Although it didn't come from my father's scrapbook, he has the same image as part of an article that must have come over from Dennis under the heading Vote "Yes" on The Vagabond King Proposition.

The postcard is interesting in its own right. It was obtained at the Shubert Great Northern Theatre in Chicago. Under the image is the following text:

The thrilling duel in the Fir Cone Tavern between Francois Villon (Dennis King) and Thibaut d'Aussigny (Ben Roberts) in Russell Janney's musical triumph "The Vagabond King"

On the back it has the following promotional printing:

I have just seen "The Vagabond King" -

Why not let one of your friends know how much you enjoyed
THE VAGABOND KING. If you will address this card and give it to one of the ushers, we will post it for you.

Someone called Marie has written "It certainly is wonderful. If you only would see it you surely wouldn't regret it" and added the address of Miss Rose Marie Elas of Aledo, Illinois. The postcard is postmarked 1927, Chicago.

Stop Press!

I've just come across an update for the showing of The Vagabond King at the Futurist and Scala Theatres in Birmingham (see The Greatest Success). A cutting says that it was "Acclaimed by 30,000 People Last Week as the FINEST PICTURE yet Seen in Birmingham"!

Dates & Sources!

I am slightly hampered by there being no dates in my father's scrapbook on most of the press cuttings. Also, there are few indications of their sources. It is clear in some cases that items must have been sent over to the UK by Dennis. The example above has Dennis's annotation of "My leading lady" with an arrow pointing to Carolyn Thompson (in the stage version of The Vagabond King). Other items are obviously from UK publications.

The scrapbook was started before my father got married (pre-1929) as the address in the back suggests that he was living with his mother and father at the time. Thereafter there are address changes that indicate he was married.

Cuttings are not stuck in the scrapbook in chronological order. The first image is from the film of The Vagabond King whereas information about the stage production follows although it was earlier, in the States.

The Three Musketeers and More

I know that my father went down to London in 1930 to see Dennis in The Three Musketeers. I believe he was with his brothers. I am not sure if his sister went. I know also that Dennis invited his parents to watch the performance and arranged for them to occupy the Royal Box at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. I am not sure if the whole family went down together.

My mother used to say that the brothers arranged to meet Dennis outside the theatre at some point. Whilst they were waiting for him and admiring photographs of him on display outside the theatre, Dennis crept up behind them and surprised them with "He is a handsome fellow, isn't he?!"

My father tucked two souvenirs from that visit into the scrapbook that ke kept. One is a programme for the performance (minus its cover) which is well worn and creased. The other is a magazine (again minus its cover) which looks as though it might have been given away free at the hotel they stayed at in London.

The free magazine is interesting. Without its cover it is difficult to date it but its contents suggest that it could be from March or April of 1930. It was called the "Courier" and it lists the hotels at which it was available. It is clear why it was kept. With accompanying photos, the centre pages advertise The Vagabond King which was showing at the Carlton Theatre (see photo above); there is a whole page devoted to advertising Dennis's recordings from The Vagabond King, along with his portrait, and as if that isn't enough there is a separate paragraph under the heading Successes From The Shows which says:

"Dennis King, the star of The Three Musketeers at Drury Lane and of the talking film version of The Vagabond King has made two fine records of the hits he sings with such ability. These are If I were King and Nichavo (H.M.V. B3363) and The Song of the Vagabonds (B2426). This latter will give some idea of how good he is in the film. A good selection of the music is found on Columbia 9195 by Percival Mackay's band."

The programme for the show is unmistakably my father's as one page contains pencil scriblings of the names of horses he was intending to place bets on, five in all!

These two souvenirs make it clear to me that there were two attractions in London when my father visited. Not only was there the stage performance of The Three Musketeers to attend but The Vagabond King was showing as well! It is only now, in looking at these items for this blog, that the full significance of that trip to London hits me.

The Geatest Success

The early 1930s were a momentous time for the Pratt family in the UK. Not only was the film The Vagabond King released, it was also when Dennis came to Drury Lane in London to star in The Three Musketeers.

Considering the film first, its impact on Dennis's family when it arrived in Birmingham (at the Futurist and Scala cinemas with 5 daily showings) cannot be underestimated. Dennis would have kept everyone at home informed of his progress since arriving in the States in the early 1920s but the film would have been the first real public evidence, in his home town, of his rise to fame.

This cutting of the ad for the screening of The Vagabond King in Birmingham shows how well the film was received in the UK: "CONTINUED FOR A SECOND WEEK AS THE GREATEST SUCCESS IN THE HOMES OF SUCCESSES", "Direct from a Sensational Six Months' Success at the CARLTON THEATRE, LONDON". The wait while it made it to the provinces from London must have been unbearable!

It was not only Dennis's family who became aware of him as a star. A cousin of mine tells me that his mother was treated like royalty in the local shops after his name became known in Birmingham.

Apart from it being of personal interest to the Pratt family, The Vagabond King was also in the vanguard of film-making as an early Technicolor talkie. The first all-colour talking feature film (according to Wikipedia) came out in 1929 with The Vagabond King following in 1930.

[Evidently the film has been restored to its full colour at the UCLA Film and Television Archive (see Supporting Reference Material) but it is only available for limited screening. UCLA's own website notes that the restored film has had public airings at the 4th Festival of Preservation, 1991, and the 10th Festival of Preservation, August 5, 2000.]

Talking of Edinburgh

In a cutting from the Daily Mail, actress Miss Evelyn Laye explains that she met Dennis King when they were very young in Edinburgh and over a cup of coffee they vowed to each other that they would become stars. It is highly likely that this was in 1920 when Dennis, who was appearing in Monsieur Beaucaire, was 22 years old*.

They went as far as making a bet on who would reach the top first and when meeting up years later Evelyn had to concede defeat because Dennis had already made his first talking picture.

Although the scrapbook cutting is undated it was probably published around 1930 when Dennis was in London appearing as d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers.

* It turns out that Evelyn Laye and Dennis were in a musical together in Edinburgh, at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, three years before this! The production was "Oh Caesar!" and it ran from 23rd December 1916 to 20th January 1917. Evelyn was right, they were young, Dennis had just turned 19. I might have missed this because Dennis's name appears as "Denis King" in Glasgow University's online catalogue. As we will see in a later post this follows on neatly from his last appearance on stage at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

The Beginning and the End

Dennis King was born Dennis Pratt. His brother, my late father, kept a scrapbook of his rise to fame in the States. He started it with a photo of Dennis in the film version of The Vagabond King. More about that and the other contents later.

I will begin with the obituary pictured here. It must have been slipped into the scrapbook by my mother as my father predeceased Dennis. What can be gleaned from it? Before rereading it I had forgotten Dennis's wife's maiden name. In the family she was known as "Billie" as far as I can remember so "Edith Wright" came as a surprise.

What is the first thing we do now with such facts? We feed them in to Google and check the results. I was surprised to find that the combination of "Edith Wright" and "Dennis King" produced less than 20 matches and one of them showed that they had appeared together in Monsieur Beaucaire at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh from 22 March 1920 until 27 March 1920.

1920 in Edinburgh was not the first performance of Monsieur Beaucaire, 1919 in London preceded it. I do not yet know if Edith toured with Dennis but I like to think that this was the production that brought them together.