BEHIND PRISON WALLS

Southland Times, Issue 21604, 16 January 1932, Page 20

BEHIND PRISON WALLS

REVUE IN A GAOL. FORMER ACTRESSES’ PLAY. Behind the walls of the grim State Prison at Auburn, New York, former show girls who once adorned Broadway theatres, but are now convicts, staged the “Auburn Follies” on November 24. A crowd of 200 of their sister convicts, clad in drab prison clothes so different from the abbreviated stage costumes of the performers, cheered as the “Follies” revived for a few moments their former gaiety. Two former Ziegfeld Follies girls “stopped the show” with their song and patter skit, while other women prisoners, once renowned on Broadway, rounded out the fast-stepping revue. When not performing on the stage one of the girls handled the drums in the orchestra pit. Sitting next to her was a shoplifter, who was the first woman to be sentenced to life imprisonment under the New York Baumes Act, which ordains life imprisonment for persons who have been found guilty of their fourth felony. A former vaudeville troper acted as interlocutor in the minstrel show that comprised the first part of the review. A famous “blonde bandit,” of Buffalo’s “million dollar kid” gang, was one of the minstrels. There was also a New York beauty, serving a life sentence for murdering her betrayer, who brought down the house when she sang her own composition, “Someone.” She sang “Indian Love Call” for an encore. The show girls who learned their “wisecracking” in Broadway’s school, brought roars from the audience by their barbed reference to police, prison officials and the Baumes law. Outsiders were not admitted to the performance and newspaper photographers were not allowed to take pictures. Explaining this action, the warden, Mr Brophy said, “I am running this for the benefit of the prisoners to keep up their spirits. They do not want their pictures to appear.”