vaudeville

From the days of vaudeville until the dawn of color TV, a funny woman who wanted to tell jokes was faced with a brick wall—and not the kind you stood in front of at an improv comedy club.

At the start of the 20th century, vaudeville presented a wide variety of entertainment genres, and comedy—often in skits, often blended with singing, dancing, and novelty acts—was a big part of the draw.

The facts show Robinson to have been a force for positive change, Grant says, pointing to evidence such as the barrier-breaking in vaudeville.

Robinson’s vaudeville triumphs included performing at New York’s Palace Theatre — the summit of vaudeville prestige and the venue where, the story goes, he debuted his signature stair dance in 1918.

His father spent years shuttling between jail cells and mental institutions, and his mother, a onetime vaudeville dancer named Aileen Davenport, abandoned him as a baby.

The odd (though beautiful) pair here is Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twins who were a hit on the vaudeville circuit.

Vaudeville was dead, Houdini was dead—he was off the radar.

His life as the child of a vaudeville couple was one-step above living in the circus—cheap hotels and rooming houses were home.

Joe created at Engel Stadium the intersection between vaudeville and baseball.

Every election is a variation on the old vaudeville joke, "compared to what?"

For a long time he wrote vaudeville sketches over the name of Cursy.

No; only if you had told me that you wanted to come to the Vaudeville to-night I could have got this box for you as well as he.

In 1835 the marquise defended vaudeville entertainments against Lady Dudley, who said she could not endure them.

He came back warily, forgetting his English accent, which he had laboriously imitated in admiration of a certain vaudeville hero.

The Doctor thought this a capital idea for a vaudeville, but poor enough in real life, and doubted my success.