From: "Alan Cook" <alangregorycook-AT-msn.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2007 05:32:14 GMT
Subject: [Puptcrit] Fw: Re: Mortimer Snerd


Sorry--I mis-typed the puptcrit address. I should have had dinner first---am running at low energy level.


-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Cook
Sent: Monday, October 1, 2007 10:21 PM
To: jim99jr-AT-wzrd.com
Cc: puptvrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: Mortimer Snerd

SOME of this posting will be repetetive to long-time puptcritters. But the repetition is needed for full explanation. And there are a few new bits

I just had a question asking who sculpted Mortimer Snerd? Wasn't it Wolo, the San Francisco puppeteer? 

Well, no, it was not Wolo who sculpted Mortimer, though Wolo knew Virginia in Los Angeles. Virginia Austin (Curtis) did the sculpting.of Mortimer Snerd. She used to work in a teahouse on Olvera Street in Los Angeles. The Long Beach Earthquake or a secondary quake put the teahouse building out of commission and so she needed a new job and went next door to ask if they needed someone to sing for the Olvera Puppeteers" puppets (her words to me).

They hired her, and taught her to work marionettes. She even went on a national tour with the company. Frank Paris did too. 

Customers at the Olvera Puppeteers theater (adults) asked Virginia where could they get a marionette for their kids, and so she made a boy clown named Clippo, and hand made them in her studio in nearby Chinatown (a few blocks away from Olvera Street). In a short time, Clippo was produced in greater quantity at Effanbee Doll Company, with Virginia demonstrating them in prominent toy departments at Hudson's Dept Store on Detroit and Marshall Field's in Chicago and Macy's in NYC. In a bit more time, Burr Tillstrom did shows with the Clippo line at Marshall Fields. He once walked me through the store and showed me where the theater space used to be.

Wolo did caricatures on Olvera Street in the early/mid 1930s. Walton & O'Rourke ran a puppet theatre where Velma Dawson saw W&O'R perform and decided she'd like to make & operate marionettes. A decade and a bit more passed by, and she created Howdy Doody#2. So Olvera Street figures into Howdy history. 

In 1937 when Frank Paris was about 17 years old, he worked with the Olvera Puppeteers as did Virginia (also Bob Bromley who had first worked on Olvera Street with the Yale Puppeteers c. 1930). So the order of companies was (1) Yale, (2) W&O'R, and (3) Olvera Puppeteers.

A footnote: the Yale Puppeteers on Olvera Street all had last names beginning with the letter "B", so you had Harry BURNETT, Forman BROWN and Roddy BRANDON---so Bob Bromley (a stage name) had to fit in with BROMLEY (I never knew him by his real name).

While W&O'R were running their theater there, Ginger Rogers, then still not a big movie star visited and was photographed with marionettes for publicity shots, as did some other Hollywood movie folks. Edgar Bergen visited Olvera Street often, and was a fan of Walton & O'Rourke's shows just as Velma was, and was especially intrigued by one marionette which he had Wolo sketch.

 Eventually, sketches were given to Virginia, who sculpted Elmer/Mortimer. There is a photo of her "sculpting" Mortimer. No-one thought to photograph her when she actually sculpted Mortimer, so they re-created the moment by putting a thin layer of plastecine over the plastic wood head, and Virginia "appeared to sculpt the head" (again). History was rerun for the photo (which I have seen). Virginia thought it a bit amusing.

 Edgar Bergen, Velma Dawson, Virgnia Austin Curtis all knew one another. Edgar thought Velma was particularly attractive and glamourous. Well, she was! 

There was a short-lived TV show in Los Angeles (may have been seen elsewhere too?) called "The Girl in His Life".

Gayle Schluter took Virginia Curtis to the TV show set, but Virginia had no idea she was the GIRL on that particular program. She thought she'd be  an audience member, but instead she was onscreen with Edgar and Mortimer who gave her full credit for scul;pting Mortimer.. Most of the Los Angeles Guild puppeteers who had access to a TV set that day and hour watched the show which was great fun to see

ALAN COOK.



-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Menke Puppets
Sent: Monday, October 1, 2007 9:05 PM
To: 'Alan Cook'
Subject: Mortimer Snerd

Alan, I was wondering about your statement on puptcrit that Virginia Curtis
sculpted Mortimer Snerd. I had always heard that he was created by Wolo, the
puppeteer in San Francisco. 
 
*****************
Jim Menke Puppets
open your mind
and fantasies unwind
 
 

  _____  

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