VAUDEVILLE STARS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18629, 26 July 1930, Page 9

VAUDEVILLE STARS

WHAT FAMOUS CELEBRITIES ARE DOING NOW. Not all music-hall stars live beyond their incomes and find themselves in the evening of their lives reduced to | comparative poverty (writes a “SunI day Express” representati *). i Here is a list of top-of-the-bill per--1 formers whom I found living in happy 1 retirement:— ■ Harry Randall, Charles Whittle. R. A. Roberts. George Lash wood, Arthur Godfrey, George Gray, | Ernie Mayne, Gus Garrick, Arthur Lennard. Marie Loftus. Six of them own bungalows at Brighton or Shoreham. In fact, most variety artists seem to nurse a hope of one day settling down “to live happily ever after in Sussex.” Sometimes the slippered ease of rc- ’ tirement palls. There are times when I have to fight the temptation to return to the footlights; I often thlhk I retired too soon.” said Mr R. A. Roberts, the quick-change artist, when I called at i his picturesque house near Brighton. “I am happy and comfortable, but, I laddie, at seven o’clock every evening I get restless. I would be in my dressingroom at that hour making up for the ; show. Ah, laddie, and what an act it [ was!” A romantic story lies behind Mr j Robert’s success. I “ I began life as a clerk in a Liver- | pool office,” he said, “and wanted to go on the stage. A senior clerk earning 30/- a week spent a whole morning i giving me advice on money matters, j I put his principal points on paper ! and the following week I made my first j public appearance. I followed that j clerk’s advice throughout the forty | years I was on the stage. “It was sound advice and the clerk j who gave it to me was Sir Ernest ; Cassell, who died leaving millions of | pounds. “When I began my stage career my ! best friend, was a young man named Barker. He had stage ambitions, but I persuaded him to take up something else as he was really not a good actor. “He took my advice and became Sir | Herbert Barker, the famous bonesetter. "Then there was a lad named Stoll, 1 who, when I was a clerk, used to ..go 1 with me every morning to the post ofi fice to collect the letters and parcels. I can see him now staggering under a loaded mail-bag and solemnly assurj ing me that one day he would be a great theatrical financier, i “Well, he became Sir Osward Stoll.” ! I found Marie Loftus looking out to sea from her Shoreham bungalow and i humming. “I am so Shy,” which was 1 one of the songs that made her famous. j "Those were the days,” she said, re--1 miniscently. "Now’ I am just a memi ory to the public. In fact, many people | think I’m dead. “Of course, I’m happy, but there is ■ nothing to do and I feel I must be ! doing something all the time.” Arthur Godfrey, who made £IO.OOO from his sketch, "Me and ’er,” lives ■ in a bungalow near Marie Loftus, and as a hobby he runs a beach club. “Funny thing.” he said, "but I spent forty years in trains, and this bungalow is built of converted railway carriages. “I ‘put by for a rainy day,” he went on. “and always travelled by bus or tram instead of taxi, even when I had made my £10.000.” Ernie Mayne owns a prosperous hotel at Shoreham. but his w r ife confesses: “I cannot stop him from working sometimes. He gets restless and wants to see an audience in front of him and hear the applause.” George Gray, of "Never Introduce Your Donah to a Pal." is enjoying retirement on £IOOO a year in the Channel Isles. George Lashwood. the Beau Brummel of the halls, is farming in Worcestershire. Charles Whittle invested money he made by singing “Let’s all go down the Strand” in property, and owns many houses in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Harry Ford, the comedian, bought a prosperous tobacconist's business at Sutton, Surrey, ar.d nearby at Merstham Alf. Cruikshank owns an hotel. I found Harry Randall living at Hendon, because "David Garrick lived there, and the prestige of the place must be kept up.” “Many of us did well out of variety,” he said, "but so many artists followede the bell on the racecourse too much. For myself I made it a rule never to have a bet larger than 10