File puptcrit/puptcrit.0907, message 124


Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:33:18 -0500 (CDT)
From: Charles Taylor <cecetaylor-AT-verizon.net>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: [Puptcrit] Yale Puppeteers Yale Reunion Photograph


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puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org

Yale Puppeteers Yale Reunion Photograph

I would like to share this with puptcritters interested in the history of the Yale Puppeteers and Bob Bromley. In my viewpoint, there is a direct line connecting many Los Angeles Puppeteers with Olvera Street and the Yale Puppeteers.

If you type in Turnabout Theater in Goodgle and then go to the Los Angeles Library Turnabout. Type in performers and you will find hundreds of photographs of the Yale Puppeteers and various people that worked with them. Amongst them are very few pictures of Bob Bromley and of those, his name is never mentioned. But I am here to indentify them!:

"Publicity photograph of the Yale Puppeteers, holding a banner from Yale. Seen are Harry Burnett, Richard Brandon and Forman Brown, with another man." The man is unidentified but it IS BOB BROMLEY.

http://dbase1.lapl.org/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll?AC=GET_RECORD&XC=http://dbase1.lapl.org/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll&BU=http%3A%2F%2Fdbase1.lapl.org&TN=turnabou&SN=AUTO15893&SE=591&RN=288&MR=10&RF=web+tab+report+maya&DF=web+report+maya&RL=0&DL=0&NP=3&ID=&MF=&MQ=&TI=0

SUBJECTS
Puppeteers
Puppet theater

NAMES
Burnett, Harry
Brandon, Richard
Forman, George

LOCATION
Los Angeles, California

FORMAT
Photograph: b&w

DATE
1931
New Search
It is a shame that those cataloguing the photographs have no knowledge of the story behind it. But here is what this photo means to me:

The occasion for this photograph was a class reunion for Yale University alumni in Los Angeles. And so the tongue in cheek dress up. It was meant to be silly. Since Harry barely hung in, Forman never went there and Roddy was thrown out! Only Bob Cressy graduated with honors.

Because they were going to the Yale reunion, it was important that they show how well they had done. Bob Cressy was requested to change his name to Bromley so that it would be alliterative with Brown, Burnett and Brandon. They didn=E2=80=99t want his name to stand out from theirs. Also, he was the ONLY one of the Yale Puppeteers that graduated from Yale University with honors.

The Yale name is protected and there is ONLY Yale University, Yale lock and Yale Puppeteers who started out as Puppeteers from Yale University, which was partially true. But as time went by it was shortened to Yale Puppeteers.

When the Yale Puppeteers planned to close the Teatro Torito on Olvera Street, Bob Bromley asked if he could buy them out. Again their fear of =E2=80=9Coutsiders=E2=80=9D came to play. He had more right to the Yale name then they. They turned him down.

He went to Christine Sterling, the wealthy socialite that saved Olvera Street from destruction and rented the building. Then we went to the Yale Puppeteers and told them what he had done. He was fired on the spot.

Some of the hostility between them that lasted over fifty years started when Marie Dressler, the top star of Hollywood in 1931, called to invited Bob Bromley to dinner. She had a =E2=80=9Clustful=E2=80=9D intention with Bob. But Roddy, Richard Brandon, intercepted the call and wrangled an invitation for the Yale Puppeteers, never telling Bob about the dinner.

Bob=E2=80=99s story was that Marie Dressler was furious having to entertain these three faye gentlemen when the object of her obsession didn=E2=80=99t show. She told Bob off. He turned his anger toward the Yale Puppeteers. On closing night, he got drunk and went to the theater and heckled all through the show.

Many years after Bob died, I mentioned the heckling aspect of the story to Forman . Forman claimed they were never aware that Bob was in the audience and felt it was the best audience they had had. They held those thoughts about that night the rest of their lives.

Bob Bromley on the other hand, teamed up with Wayne Barlow to sneak into the theater late at night to measure the dimensions. The boosted eight year old Bob Baker through a window and he ran to the door and opened it so they could come in.

The Yale Puppeteers the next day destroyed everything they couldn=E2=80=99t take including the proscenium of the stage. They wanted to leave nothing for Bob to use. That was all right with Bob because he wanted a fresh and individual look.

Bob went on to hire Virginia Austin as a waitress in the little restaurant he created above the theater. She eventually began assisting Bob with manipulating the show. She also went on tour with him around 1934 before she invented her famous Clippo and became a personality during the Big Band era.

Bob went on to become the highest paid night club entertainer of his time before going to Europe and being a headliner and very famous. Bil Baird once said to me that "Bob was the cr=C3=A9m de la cr=C3=A9m of puppet manipulators".

Charles Taylor

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