Mai Bacon at the time of her appearance in Whirled into Happiness, a musical farce with music by Robert Stolz, produced at the Lyric Theatre, London, on 18 May 1922.

Mai Bacon (1897-1981), English actress, singer and dancer, at the time of her appearance in Whirled into Happiness, a musical farce adapted by Harry Graham from the book of Robert Bodanzky and Bruno Hardt-Warden, with lyrics by Harry Graham, and music by Robert Stolz, produced at the Lyric Theatre, London, on 18 May 1922.
(photo: unknown, probably London, 1922)

Mai Bacon played Delphine de Lavallière, a French dancer; her duet, ‘That’s the Way It’s Done,’ with Billy Merson as Matthew Platt, proved especially popular.

* * * * *

Whirled into Happiness was an adaptation of Stolz, Bodanzky and Hardt-Warden’s operetta, Der Tanz ins Glück, which opened at the Raimundtheater, Berlin, on 23 December 1920. The first night of the New York production, entitled Sky High, took place at the Shubert Theatre on 2 March 1925, when the part of Delphine de Lavallière was played by Vanessi. The cast also included the English actress, Joyce Barbour.

José Collins in Alone at Last, Shubert Theatre, New York, 1915

José Collins (1887-1958), English actress and singer, as she appeared in Alone at Last, an operetta in three acts with music by Franz Lehar, adapted from the German for the American stage by Edgar Smith and Joseph Herbert and produced at the Shubert Theatre, New York, on 19 October 1915.
(photo: Moffett, Chicago, 1915)

‘Jose Collins returned to the cast of Alone at Last this week after having walked out of the rehearsals last week. Miss Collins will open with the show when it comes into the Shubert theatre unless she changes her mind between now and the opening date.’
(Variety, New York, Friday, 8 October 1915, p. 1d)

‘White Alone at Last, the most recent operetta from the pen of Franz Lehar, famed as the composer of the celebrated and justly sensational success, The Merry Widow, is endowed with a fine musical score, it is only fair to state that the big song hit of the piece is an interpolation. The song in question, contrary to the usual rule, is not a dreamy waltz ballad of love and soul kisses, but a comic ditty entitled ”Some Little Bug Will Find You Some Day.”
‘It occurs during the action of the second scene of the second act, and receives the best of treatment through the very able recitative attainments of Roy Atwell. Incidentally the latter collaborated in the writing of it in conjunction with Benjamin Hapgood Burt and Silvio Hein. Mr. Atwell tendered some ten extra verses of the ”Bug” song the opening night, and, to use a vaudeville colloquialism, ”stopped the show.”
‘But there is a great deal more to Alone at Last besides this most excellent humorous lyric. Take, for instance, Mr. [Joseph Harry] Benrimo’s superior producing ability as evidenced in the Swiss mountain scene in the second act.
‘The effect obtained is atmospheric to a remarkable degree, thanks to extraordinary lighting and Mr. Benrimo’s superlative knowledge of stage craft.
‘There are other beautiful and convincing scenic backgrounds as well, notably in the first act, with brings froth a realistic hotel set. The third act set, a hotel interior, while good in its way, is not up to the outdoor effects.
‘Then the music, both solo and ensemble, is pleasing, sweet and melodious. The score on the whole, although it contains nothing startling in the way of an individual ”hit,” is highly satisfactory. One might say that Lehar’s music was ”pretentious,” inasmuch as it often approaches great opera standards.
‘The chorus costumes are correct, in no way vulgar or obtrusive, and sufficiently kaleidoscopic in coloring. They show a nice refinement of taste in their designing and selection.
‘The book is only fair, and judicious eliminations of long and tedious passages of dialogue would help considerably. Particularly is is lacking the comedy values. This fault, of course, must be charged up to its programmed foreign authors [Dr. A.M. Willner and Robert Bodansky]. Admittedly the book contains no horseplay or buffoonery.
‘The cast is exceptionally talented in almost every instance. Jose Collins, as Tilly Dachau, sings charmingly, acts competently and wears her numerous costume changes bewitchingly. A champagne colored riding suit work in the second act, with the cutest of tightly fitting ”pants” imaginable, fills the eye in decidedly pleasure fashion. Miss Collins, it might be said in passing, fills the costume quite in the same manner.
‘John Charles Thomas, a strapping young fellow with a beautiful singing voice, that is quite as robust as his splendid physique, established himself in the good graces of the first nighters immediately after his first vocal number. His performance was highly enjoyable in every way.
‘Harry Conor, veteran American comedian, did splendidly with the material at hand. He was always at east and made his rather inane lines sound natural and convincing. A genuine achievement.
‘Madame Namara is a pretty girl of the frail, flower-like variety of beauty. The madame made the most of excellent opportunities offered her tat the finish of the second act. Her singing voice, a soprano of good range and fair quality, seemed to be not in the best of condition on the opening night.
‘Roy Atwell was very slightly remindful of Richard Carle as a mollycoddle sort of lover. Outside of the big song hit in the second act, Mr. Atwell was assigned little that was entertaining or amusing. He seemed to be mis-cast. However, the way in which he put over the ”Bug” song more than made up for any deficiencies of singing or acting.
‘The rest of the large cast, including Ed. Mulcahey [Edward Mulcahy], who made a realistic looking and sonorous voiced Swiss mountaineer, and Elizabeth Goodall, who impersonated an American widow without unnecessary affectations, were eminently satisfactory with one or two exceptions.
‘The dialogue exchanged by three or four chorus men in the second act should either be given to competent principals or else left out altogether. It would never be missed.
‘Alone at Last is a big show scenically, a delightful show musically, and a pleasing show generally speaking.’
(The New York Clipper, New York, Saturday, 30 October 1915, p. 27a/b)

José Collins (1887-1958), English actress and singer, as she appeared in Alone at Last, an operetta in three acts with music by Franz Lehar, adapted from the German for the American stage by Edgar Smith and Joseph Herbert and produced at the Shubert Theatre, New York, on 19 October 1915.
(photo: Moffett, Chicago, 1915)

‘Jose Collins returned to the cast of Alone at Last this week after having walked out of the rehearsals last week. Miss Collins will open with the show when it comes into the Shubert theatre unless she changes her mind between now and the opening date.’
(Variety, New York, Friday, 8 October 1915, p. 1d)

‘White Alone at Last, the most recent operetta from the pen of Franz Lehar, famed as the composer of the celebrated and justly sensational success, The Merry Widow, is endowed with a fine musical score, it is only fair to state that the big song hit of the piece is an interpolation. The song in question, contrary to the usual rule, is not a dreamy waltz ballad of love and soul kisses, but a comic ditty entitled ”Some Little Bug Will Find You Some Day.”
‘It occurs during the action of the second scene of the second act, and receives the best of treatment through the very able recitative attainments of Roy Atwell. Incidentally the latter collaborated in the writing of it in conjunction with Benjamin Hapgood Burt and Silvio Hein. Mr. Atwell tendered some ten extra verses of the ”Bug” song the opening night, and, to use a vaudeville colloquialism, ”stopped the show.”
‘But there is a great deal more to Alone at Last besides this most excellent humorous lyric. Take, for instance, Mr. [Joseph Harry] Benrimo’s superior producing ability as evidenced in the Swiss mountain scene in the second act.
‘The effect obtained is atmospheric to a remarkable degree, thanks to extraordinary lighting and Mr. Benrimo’s superlative knowledge of stage craft.
‘There are other beautiful and convincing scenic backgrounds as well, notably in the first act, with brings froth a realistic hotel set. The third act set, a hotel interior, while good in its way, is not up to the outdoor effects.
‘Then the music, both solo and ensemble, is pleasing, sweet and melodious. The score on the whole, although it contains nothing startling in the way of an individual ”hit,” is highly satisfactory. One might say that Lehar’s music was ”pretentious,” inasmuch as it often approaches great opera standards.
‘The chorus costumes are correct, in no way vulgar or obtrusive, and sufficiently kaleidoscopic in coloring. They show a nice refinement of taste in their designing and selection.
‘The book is only fair, and judicious eliminations of long and tedious passages of dialogue would help considerably. Particularly is is lacking the comedy values. This fault, of course, must be charged up to its programmed foreign authors [Dr. A.M. Willner and Robert Bodansky]. Admittedly the book contains no horseplay or buffoonery.
‘The cast is exceptionally talented in almost every instance. Jose Collins, as Tilly Dachau, sings charmingly, acts competently and wears her numerous costume changes bewitchingly. A champagne colored riding suit work in the second act, with the cutest of tightly fitting ”pants” imaginable, fills the eye in decidedly pleasure fashion. Miss Collins, it might be said in passing, fills the costume quite in the same manner.
‘John Charles Thomas, a strapping young fellow with a beautiful singing voice, that is quite as robust as his splendid physique, established himself in the good graces of the first nighters immediately after his first vocal number. His performance was highly enjoyable in every way.
‘Harry Conor, veteran American comedian, did splendidly with the material at hand. He was always at east and made his rather inane lines sound natural and convincing. A genuine achievement.
‘Madame Namara is a pretty girl of the frail, flower-like variety of beauty. The madame made the most of excellent opportunities offered her tat the finish of the second act. Her singing voice, a soprano of good range and fair quality, seemed to be not in the best of condition on the opening night.
‘Roy Atwell was very slightly remindful of Richard Carle as a mollycoddle sort of lover. Outside of the big song hit in the second act, Mr. Atwell was assigned little that was entertaining or amusing. He seemed to be mis-cast. However, the way in which he put over the ”Bug” song more than made up for any deficiencies of singing or acting.
‘The rest of the large cast, including Ed. Mulcahey [Edward Mulcahy], who made a realistic looking and sonorous voiced Swiss mountaineer, and Elizabeth Goodall, who impersonated an American widow without unnecessary affectations, were eminently satisfactory with one or two exceptions.
‘The dialogue exchanged by three or four chorus men in the second act should either be given to competent principals or else left out altogether. It would never be missed.
‘Alone at Last is a big show scenically, a delightful show musically, and a pleasing show generally speaking.’
(The New York Clipper, New York, Saturday, 30 October 1915, p. 27a/b)

José Collins (1887-1958), English actress and singer, as she appeared in Alone at Last, an operetta in three acts with music by Franz Lehar, adapted from the German for the American stage by Edgar Smith and Joseph Herbert and produced at the Shubert Theatre, New York, on 19 October 1915.
(photo: Moffett, Chicago, 1915)

‘Jose Collins returned to the cast of Alone at Last this week after having walked out of the rehearsals last week. Miss Collins will open with the show when it comes into the Shubert theatre unless she changes her mind between now and the opening date.’
(Variety, New York, Friday, 8 October 1915, p. 1d)

‘White Alone at Last, the most recent operetta from the pen of Franz Lehar, famed as the composer of the celebrated and justly sensational success, The Merry Widow, is endowed with a fine musical score, it is only fair to state that the big song hit of the piece is an interpolation. The song in question, contrary to the usual rule, is not a dreamy waltz ballad of love and soul kisses, but a comic ditty entitled “Some Little Bug Will Find You Some Day.”
‘It occurs during the action of the second scene of the second act, and receives the best of treatment through the very able recitative attainments of Roy Atwell. Incidentally the latter collaborated in the writing of it in conjunction with Benjamin Hapgood Burt and Silvio Hein. Mr. Atwell tendered some ten extra verses of the ”Bug” song the opening night, and, to use a vaudeville colloquialism, “stopped the show.”
‘But there is a great deal more to Alone at Last besides this most excellent humorous lyric. Take, for instance, Mr. [Joseph Harry] Benrimo’s superior producing ability as evidenced in the Swiss mountain scene in the second act.
‘The effect obtained is atmospheric to a remarkable degree, thanks to extraordinary lighting and Mr. Benrimo’s superlative knowledge of stage craft.
‘There are other beautiful and convincing scenic backgrounds as well, notably in the first act, with brings froth a realistic hotel set. The third act set, a hotel interior, while good in its way, is not up to the outdoor effects.
‘Then the music, both solo and ensemble, is pleasing, sweet and melodious. The score on the whole, although it contains nothing startling in the way of an individual “hit,” is highly satisfactory. One might say that Lehar’s music was “pretentious,” inasmuch as it often approaches great opera standards.
‘The chorus costumes are correct, in no way vulgar or obtrusive, and sufficiently kaleidoscopic in coloring. They show a nice refinement of taste in their designing and selection.
‘The book is only fair, and judicious eliminations of long and tedious passages of dialogue would help considerably. Particularly is is lacking the comedy values. This fault, of course, must be charged up to its programmed foreign authors [Dr. A.M. Willner and Robert Bodansky]. Admittedly the book contains no horseplay or buffoonery.
‘The cast is exceptionally talented in almost every instance. Jose Collins, as Tilly Dachau, sings charmingly, acts competently and wears her numerous costume changes bewitchingly. A champagne colored riding suit work in the second act, with the cutest of tightly fitting “pants” imaginable, fills the eye in decidedly pleasure fashion. Miss Collins, it might be said in passing, fills the costume quite in the same manner.
‘John Charles Thomas, a strapping young fellow with a beautiful singing voice, that is quite as robust as his splendid physique, established himself in the good graces of the first nighters immediately after his first vocal number. His performance was highly enjoyable in every way.
‘Harry Conor, veteran American comedian, did splendidly with the material at hand. He was always at east and made his rather inane lines sound natural and convincing. A genuine achievement.
’Madame Namara is a pretty girl of the frail, flower-like variety of beauty. The madame made the most of excellent opportunities offered her tat the finish of the second act. Her singing voice, a soprano of good range and fair quality, seemed to be not in the best of condition on the opening night.
‘Roy Atwell was very slightly remindful of Richard Carle as a mollycoddle sort of lover. Outside of the big song hit in the second act, Mr. Atwell was assigned little that was entertaining or amusing. He seemed to be mis-cast. However, the way in which he put over the “Bug” song more than made up for any deficiencies of singing or acting.
‘The rest of the large cast, including Ed. Mulcahey [Edward Mulcahy], who made a realistic looking and sonorous voiced Swiss mountaineer, and Elizabeth Goodall, who impersonated an American widow without unnecessary affectations, were eminently satisfactory with one or two exceptions.
‘The dialogue exchanged by three or four chorus men in the second act should either be given to competent principals or else left out altogether. It would never be missed.
’Alone at Last is a big show scenically, a delightful show musically, and a pleasing show generally speaking.’
(The New York Clipper, New York, Saturday, 30 October 1915, p. 27a/b)

a scene from To-night’s the Night

a scene from George Grossmith and Edward Laurillard’s production of To-Night’s The Night, first staged (after a trial at New Haven) at the Shubert Theatre, New York, 24 December 1914, with, left to right, James Blakely as Montagu Lovitt-Lovitt, George Grossmith as Dudley Mitten and Emmy Wehlen as June

the piece ran at the Shubert until March 1915 after which, with various cast changes, it toured the United States;
meanwhile, Blakely, Grossmith and others returned to London, where
To-Night’s the Night opened at the Gaiety Theatre on 28 April 1915,
when the part of June was played by Haidée de Rance (later replaced by Madge Saunders)
(photo: White, New York, 1914/15)

‘There has been, inevitably, an influx of English actors and English plays. Six entire theatrical companies are said to have arrived in their entirely in New York. Charles Frohman announced the past week that he intended to close his Duke of York’s Theater in London and transplant the company to Chicago. Marie Lohr, Irene Vanbrugh and Godfrey Tearle will head the Chicago all-star company.
‘George Grossmith, Jr., and Edward Laurillard intend bringing a company of 60 players, including a majority of the Gaiety favorites, to this country [a modernized version of] the old farce, ‘Pink Dominoes. In the cast are Emmy Wehlen, Iris Hooey [sic], Max Dearly, Robert Nainby and Mr. Grossmith himself. They will sail for New York November 28.’
(The Evening Public Ledger, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Saturday, 21 November 1914, p. 12a/b)

To-Night’s the Night, on tour in the United States, at the Lyric Theatre, Philadelphia
‘Tonight’s the Night is a drama from the English of Fred Thompson – as we Drama Leaguers put it about Ibsen. Anybody at the Lyric could tell it came from London by the flora, fauna and indehiscent polycarpellaries. When a stout gentleman, with a dreadnought wife says, ”What a pretty shape that house maid has. I mean what a pretty shape he has made the house”; when that fell remark is brazenly followed up by allusions to law cases and corkscrews; when a stony stare is described, with intent to kill, as a geological survey, then you may truly know that you are in the presence of English whit and ‘humour.
‘Those an ”med’cine” and ”ridic’lous” didn’t settle the question of pedigree or pleasure for the audience at the Lyric last night, for you can suffer that sort of thing in any Frohman importation. The present specimen was redeemed, redeemed completely and gloriously, by a real London company, doing the piece just as it would have done it if Tonight’s the Night had been produced at the Gaiety first instead of over here in America. The chorus proved it the minute it came on. It had a ladylike air about it. It breathed the refinement of duchesses in reduced circumstances. Probably that was because we are naturally too unused to the English girl to be able to detect subtle shadings. No doubt there are dozens of Englishmen who could say, ”That one isn’t a lady,” or ”This one will be some day.” But that doesn’t matter. There they were with their fresh complexions – fresh, but not from the rouge box – their softly curling flaxen hair, their gray-blue eyes, their gleaming teeth and their large, admirable noses. A languid chorus, maybe, that dawdled among while the music kicked up its heels and ran off. But a change for us! The second string wasn’t so good, but what can you expect in one show? ‘At any rate, you need not expect so many excellent principals. Lauri de Frece, a good-looking tenor-or-thereabouts with a sense of humor, capable of going punting on the sofa and flinging flowers to himself. Teddy Webb, playing the sort of fat uncle part James Blakely always does – and used to do in the present case. Wilfred Seagram, another of those good-looking young Englishmen, holding down, quite successfully, George Grossmith’s shoes. Edward Nainby, as a grotesque in the style of George Graves. Maurice Farkoa, cooing his songs with all the art of a chamber recital. Davy Burnaby, polite comedian, and added feature.
‘As for women – Ethel Baird, as an Iris Hoey: Allison Skipworth, as a matron of a decidedly subtle type, and Fay Compton, her delightful self, a beautiful women and also an artist in the subtleties that make ladies’ maids ladies’ maids, even if they are adored by sundry leading men.
‘And outside all the list of the Allies, Emmy Wehlen, the Von Hindenburg, the Von Kluck, of Tonight’s the Night, dashing from the eastern front to the west, sweeping down on Warsaw, plunging a new drive on Paris. Languid English girls are very nice, ever so much nicer than American tango fiends. But ‘way for the lady from Germany!
‘All of which forgets the plot and music. For the first, understand that Tonight’s the Night is supplied with the dramatic details of that veteran farce, The Pink Domino – perhaps a few too many for the amount of music. And as for the music, it may not be up to American tunes as ragtime, but its composer is aware of the existence of the bassoon. And that is a good deal.
‘Tonight’s the Night is fresh from England, fresh as an English daisy. So far it has acquired only three bad habits: allusions to B.V.D.’s, Fatimas and the inevitable Ford.’
(The Evening Public Ledger, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Tuesday, 4 May 1915, p. 7a)