THOSE “GOOD OLD DAYS”

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11305, 2 September 1922, Page 10

THOSE “GOOD OLD DAYS”

COMPARISONS BY JEWISH COMEDIAN. Mr Sam Bernard, who has the reputation of being the best-paid Jewish comedian in the world, has temporarily forsaken Broadway, and is, with nis wife and children, on holiday in London. “I was born in Birmingham, and went to the States when I was four,” he told a “Daily News” reporter. “in 1885 I came to London, and got £5 a week at the Old Middlesex for'a song or so and some patter. Those ’were the good old days, and now—thoy -have gone puff,’-’ The comedian threw up his arms, shrugged hit shoulders, and looked the essence of dejection. “There wo were,” he recalled, “a nice happy band Charlie Godfrey, Vesta Tilley, Marie Loftus, Marie ‘Lloyd, Dan Leno, Chevalier, Fred Coyne, Gue Elen, and the rest. Eighteen star turns a night there used- to be at the Tiyoli, and every one of ns trotting round' half-a-dozen theatres every night, too. If we were getting £lO a week we were doing brilliantly." “And to-day?" interposed the “Daily News" man. "There’s ten times the salary and less than a tenth of the talent," was -his verdict. After london, Mr Bernard is going to visit his birthplace at Birmingham, and then rome Continental cities.