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CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT, 1929.
MY FUNNIEST YULETIDE EXPERIENCE
By Popular Actors And Actresses
By THORNTON HALL
FMr. George Graves, the well-known UNNY Christmas experiences?" said
comedian, to the writer. "Well, I've had a good many, and it's not easy to pick and choose among them. But-well, yes, I think this was about the funniest of them all At least, it amused me most at the time- and since.
"One night in Christmas week I was playing a female part in a Liverpool panto- mime, and was enjoying a few moments rest at the back of the stage when I was approached by a woman anxious to sell cer- tain ladies' garments. 'No, thank you,' I answered politely, with my sweetest smile, as I proceeded to strike a match and light cigar. The woman gazed at me with open mouth, and then exclaimed: "Well, I never! It fair turns me over, miss, to see you puffing a cigar! A moment later her con- fusion was complete, when a friend came up with the words: I say, George, coming to the club after the show? Flinging up her arms, she uttered a cry of dismay and fed.":
:
"The First Tree? ·
L
No less amusing was an experience of Miss Lil Hawthorne when she was playing Jack, the Giant-killer, one Christmas week. "As Jack of the stout. arm," she says, "I had to force my way through a forest with sturdy blows from my cudgel at the ob structive trees. One evening a super accost- ed me timidly and begged to be allowed to speak to me. Who are you?" I asked. Well, miss," was the answer, I'm the first tree to-night, and I 'ope you won't 'it quite so 'ard. The other man resigned because, e says, you 'alf killed 'im last night. So they've put me in is place and I can't re- algn because I've got a wife and family Needless to say" adds Miss. Hawthorne, "like the woodman, I spared the tree' for the sake of his wife and family; and his gratitude was quite pathetic."
Miss Ellaline, Terriss tells the following story of her funniest Christmas experience; though, as she says, the "fun" was not very obvious at the time.
of his company. vited Mark Twain and the leading members
"And oh!" said Ellen Terry, "what a funny dinner it was! We waited an hour before the soup made its appearance burnt hare-soup, the smell of which was almost enough to knock me down! Luckily, Irving had brought his wine with him, and with champagne and stories we had quite a merry time in spite of the awful courses, unti! my English pudding arrived, the piece de resistance of our feast. 'Very strange!' said Sir Henry, as he sampled the delicacy. 'Very strange! But I think this must be camphor pudding! And so it was! This was the last straw! My housekeeper had packed the pudding in a trunk with some furs, and enough camphor to flavour a whole army's rations!"
Huntley Wright
audacity to ask me for a kiss and produced a sprig of mistletoe to sanction it. When I refused indignantly and asked him to leave me, he was very much out, and ac- tually told me he did not think I would refuse the request of a visitor with super- natural powers!
"While he was thus eulogising his remarkable abilities concerning handcuff tricks and magic the comedian re-entered and, overhearing and obtaining my explana- tion, said:
A Sporting Offer
""I've a great idea, Miss Blanche. As it's Christmas time, and our friend here has mistletoe and handcuffs, why not make a sporting offer? Promise him a kiss if he lets us into the secret of his handcuff trick?'
"I agreed, so the gentleman handcuffed Mr. Huntley Wright, the popular come-the right hands of both myself and the dian, considers a Christmas he spent in comedian, and we were chained securely Yorkshire some years ago the funniest in together. All that was now necessary was his experience, and for this reason:-
for the magician to go outside into the street, count five, and on the fifth count the handcuffs would fall off!
"I had finished a particularly trying week at a small theatre," he writes, "and. had tramped back to my lodgings very weary and down in the mouth. However, I awoke the following morning (Christmas Day), with a determination to banish dull care. and have a really.. jolly Yorkshire Christmas. In this buoyant spirit I rang for my breakfast, and when my landlady appeared with a tray, she looked, I was sorry to see, rather dismal. I greeted her with a cheery: 'Merry Christmas!' "Thank you, sir! Same to you!' she answered in a
funereal voice.
#6
"But the handcuffs did not fall off! It seems that the fickle fellow had met a pretty girl in the corridor who was ап understudy, and in one of his moments of forgetfulness he went off with her to. a party at her people's. We counted five till we were tired. We were called to go on to resume our performance, but how could we?
/
Story Of A Black Cat Miss Dorothy Ward tells an amusing “Now, Mrs ———,' I said, with a beam-story of Christmas and a black cat. "When 1 first met Shaun Glenville,” she says, “we ing, goodwill-to-all-men face, 'I want to
were both playing modest parts in a London forget all my worries in a good Christmas variety hall one Christmas, and he was dinner, which I know you'll provide. Roast standing on the side of the stage made up beef, Christmas pudding, mince pies, and all that kind of thing, you know, eh?"
“Mrs.
looked sorrowfully at me, and faltered: "Well, Mr. Wright, I'd be wiped an invisible tear from her right eye, much obliged if you could get your dinner out to-day. You see, my poor husband, he
as a comedian. I came along daintily attired for a nice love song. He saw me, and must have been struck-in both senses! He fell For, stepping back for me to pass, he trod in love with me, and then-over backwards!
on that 'lucky' black stage cat.
“It was during the run of 'His Excel. / died at Christmas, and I always like to upset the show for the time.
lency' at the Lyric Theatre. By mistake I was shut in at the theatre, and found my- self wandering alone down on to the stage with only the Cinderella cat for company, and a huge statue of Rutland Barrington. Got Off Lightly.
spend the day in the cemetery!"
"Of course, I dined out!"
Fell Into The Pit
"There was a great commotion which The cat howled and swore. I rubbed the poor man's head. He told me to keep on rubbing for ever, as he'd often wanted to meet and me! Not very long after he asked me if speak to me, and he had really cared for I'd marry him. I said, "No!
we met
again. He suggested we should hire a car
"The following Christmas
and go for a joy-ride.
had many amusing experiences of his own, Mr. Harry Randall, although he has gives the palm to the following story, in which he played only the role of looker-on. "Mr. Seymour Hicks, my husband, came "One night," he says, "while I was playing to fetch me; and for an hour he, with the in a pantomime, a man in the gallery, who aid of a policeman, tried to get me out, was rather deaf, leaned so far forward in but in vain. A crowd collected, but, alas! his anxiety to hear that he fell headlong country church, with ivy covering the walls, "We passed such a romantic little the one person wanted the fireman could into the pit and was carried to the hospital.and he said that would just suit nicely for not be found to release me. At last Mr. I quite thought he must be dead; but, as getting married in. Then the car broke Hicks climbed on to a great glass portico a matter of fact, he was only bruised and down-evidently Cupid's fault, for he was and managed to get me out. He was a little shaken. And the very next day he day-dreaming. When we'd repaired the car naturally very indignant with the fireman presented himself at the pay-box and asked he enquired: 'Will you marry me?' And, for shutting me up, but in consideration of to be passed in free on the ground that he wishing not to appear too anxious, I said: the Christmas season he got off very had paid on the previous night and hadn't 'No, no.' lightly."
seen the show!"
Among Yuletide memories Damé Ellen Terry recalled most vividly one Christmas Day spent at Pittsburg, which her com- panion, Henry Irving, described as "Hell with the lid off." Irving had arranged a dinner-party at his hotel, to which he in-
To Miss Marie Blanche the mistletoe has associations not altogether agreeable. "I shall never forget one Boxing night,” she says. "I was resting during the interval of a pantomime when our leading comedian introduced me to a man who had the
"
No's!
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"That's good!' he laughed. "Two
—and you must mean "Yes."
Two negatives make an affirmative
romantic little church, and from that day "Not long after we were married in that
to this have been really happy-although we're both stage stars!"