File puptcrit/puptcrit.0907, message 63


To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:03:30 -0400
From: dhpuppet-AT-aol.com
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Yale Puppeteers: where are the puppets now?



	boundary="--------MB_8CBCFC164FA01B0_1DBC_2DF36_webmail-stg-m07.sysops.aol.com"


----------MB_8CBCFC164FA01B0_1DBC_2DF36_webmail-stg-m07.sysops.aol.com

Thanks Allen for all your wonderful information on the Yale Puppeteers. A few months ago I bought a special note book just so I can preserve your puptcrit responses. See you in Atlanta along with lots of other Puptcritters


-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Cook <alangregorycook-AT-msn.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Sent: Fri, Jul 10, 2009 3:31 pm
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Yale Puppeteers: where are the puppets now?



In the 1930s Greenberg/Greenburg published some of Forman Brown's delightful scripts for shows performed on Olvera Street and in NYC. Some of the shows were still in the repertory 1941-1955 at the Turnabout Theater. 

The book was published in a small edition, was called THE PIE-EYED PIPER AND OTHER IMPERTINENT PUPPET PLAYS.

I lent one copy that never came back. All the copies I ever saw were autographed by Forman Brown, author not only of the scripts, but also the music & lyrics (not in the book). To many, Forman was the genius of Yale Puppeteers/Turnabout Theater.

Harry made the puppets, which were a bit on the primitive side---but they did what they needed to do. He used wood, cloth, wire, tacks, plastic wood, cotton, papier mache, poster paint, occasionally fur, etc. Most of the portrait heads of celebrities were made by an uncredited sometime staff-member, but I think Harry did the Hedda Hopper which appeared in the Caesar story.. I wish the giving of credit had been more generous, since the pay was probably on the low side.

Harry taught marionette making classes on Olvera Street
, and again in later years too. He did papier mache puppet workshops for the Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry---considered to be very successful by a large turnout. After retirement he made various clowns and other characters (Pinocchios came with 2 o 3 detachable noses held in place with a magnet) for collectors---one clown series had a "tangle-proof" wire from the airplane control to the top of the head, but that made it a bit harder to pack in a box for storage. They were all different looking, but do not have the same amount of history as those that perfomed Forman's puppet musical plays.

The show titles were always with a comical twist---"Mr Noah" for the Noah's Ark tale. Albert Einstein saw that play on Olvera Street---there was an Einstein marionette in that show which met the Ark at Mt Wilson, just north of Pasadena CA---Einstein was teaching at Caltech at the time. Harry recounted the story of Einstein's visit to the Olvera Street Theater---Einstein approved his puppet impersonator but said it was not fat enough, so he took an envelope from his pocket and fattened the puppet with it."Caesar Julius" was about "Julius Caesar but somehow, Hedda Hopper & Louella Parsons, the reigning Hollywood Gossip columnists were it it too., but the "Pie-eyed Piper" was my favorite title.

I have the Piper, the Mayor & his Wife from that show. "Tom & Jerry" was sort of an Horatio Alger tale with a period setting. "My Man Friday" was Robinson Crusoe's tale---in the original version, Crusoe lands on a nearly 
deserted island where he meets Friday, but he also meets Eleanor Roosevelt, the first First Lady to travel widely---I remember newspaper photos of her rubbing noses with eskimos, so there was a ceriain logic that Crusoe would run into her on his island.

Harry saw an early touring production of TONY SARG's "THE ROSE & THE RING" in Michiigan which inspired him to make his frst marionette---now THAT one must have been really primitive---it was strung to a tennis racquet!

Dan Bessie wrote a book of his family's history. One chapter is about Harry & the Yale Puppeteers. Dan also produced a film caled TURNABOUT which was available in VHS form, but I don't think it came out as a DVD. There are a number of my slide photos of Yale Puppets in that movie. The book grew out of the film. Dan currently lives in France. His mom was Harry's sister and she was probaby the first costumer to Harry's marionettes.

Harry's brother Leo formed one of America's top advertiing agencies in Chicago. (Leo Burnett Advertising) which always had a bowl of real apples in the office--a holdover from the Great Depression years when jobless people were reduced to selling apples on the street for a living. 

It is true that the Burnett clan was an interesting lot.
From: Bell, John
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 9:40 AM
To: 'puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org'
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Yale Puppeteers: where are the puppets now?




The Ballard Museum has a few Turnabout puppets, and also a number of scripts from Turnabout shows.=C2=A0 Alan
=E2=80=99s story of what happened to their puppets is amazing!=C2=A0 I hope we all can prevent that kind of thing from happening again=E2=80=A6

=C2=A0

jb

=C2=A0


Dr. John T. Bell

Director

Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry

University of Connecticut

6 Bourn Place Unit 5212

Storrs, Connecticut=C2=A0 06269-5212

office: 860 486 0806

cell: 617 599 3250

www.bimp.uconn.edu

=C2=A0

To make a contribution to the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, please go to

https://secure.ga4.org/01/uconn_foundation_giving, and select "Ballard Puppetry Museum" from the "Purpose" list.=C2=A0 Thanks for your support!


=C2=A0



From: puptcrit-bounces-AT-puptcrit.org [mailto:puptcrit-bounces-AT-puptcrit.org] On Behalf Of Alan Cook
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 11:02 AM
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: [Puptcrit] Yale Puppeteers: where are the puppets now?



=C2=A0


Harry Burnett had what must have been hundreds of puppets. When Turnabout Theater closed in the mid 1950s, many things were stored at Jungleland in Thousand Oaks, California in a large moving van that you could see while driving on the highway. It looked like a billboard, with the JUNGLELAND name painted in large letters on the van's side..

Some local kids broke into the van. Puppets and valuable photo documentation (lots of negatives) were scattered along railroad tracks. Antique Italian hand puppets "were found" and taken to a local antique store. Puppeteer Susan French bought them there. See her book, "Presenting Marionettes" published by Reinhold as part of=2
0a "how-to" series of art books---photos are in the book.

Eventually Susan returned the antique hand puppets to Harry. (I recognized the puppets when she showed them to me).

Later the Yale group sold them.
I wish there had been a more orderly disposal of the Yale Puppet & Art holdings.

A 1930s portrait puppet of Gretta Garbo may have ended up in a San Francisco shop which was closed when I passed by its windows.

Before the US Dollar dropped suddenly in value, Harry, Forman & Roddy decided to retire to Europe=C2=A0 and sold off lots of stuff.Much of it at insanely cheap prices. Roddy sold many marionettes from past productions at around $20 to $35 each to local=C2=A0 puppeteers and fans of the Turnabout. On weekends at a closed gas station in the vicinity of La Cienega Blvd & Melrose Avenue, Roddy priced puppets as low as $3 each (I missed out on that). There were some marvelous old Sicilian Puppets in armor which Roddy sold to an antique shop on La Cienega Blvd which later ended up in a restaurant in San Francisco as decor. Those had been purchased during an early trip to Europe in the 1920s when Harry acqired posters of the Yambo troupe (Italy)--I now have one Yambo poster and Bob Baker has a duplicate--the poster image once decorated the curtain of the Yale Theater on Olvera Street in 1930!
Bob Baker also has a French movie poster for "I Am Suzanne" which featured marionettes by the Yale Puppeteers and the Piccoli Theater (Milan/Rome, Italy) in the 1930s which he got from 
Roddy Brandon.

Charles Taylor managed to preserve some Neopolitan creche figures Harry brought back from that same 1920s trip.

Well, some of the history is preserved in Forman Brown's books, "Punch's Progress", and "Small Wonders" which incorporates and expands on "Punch's Progress". A novel, "Better Angel" by Richard Meeker and published by Greenburg (same publisher for a Tony Sarg book) in New York, was later reprinted first as a paperback with a garish color cover, and then by Allyson (spelling?) Books, and found a new generation of readers---even got written up in the Los Angeles Times, when it came to public attention that Richard Meeker was a pen name for Forman Brown---and there is a thinly-veiled biographical aspect to the novel set in the time frame of that 1920s trip to Europe.

When "Better Angel" was republished, it was I who told Forman his book was back in print. He did a few book signings and at this late date, got interviwed by the Los Angeles Times.

Between the theft at Jungleland and various sell-offs before the later trip to Europe, a lot of stuff was widely scattered.

Many of the marionettes were poorly stored (1960s) in their Hollywood garage before being sold.

I was able to buy a number of figures from as many of the shows as I could manage on a measley income,=C2=A0 including a portrait of Helen Hayes as Queen Victoria (Movie: "The Mudlark"). But basically stuff was scattered to the winds. Roddy Brandon was the Business Manager but he could have managed a lot bette
r. A hell of a lot better.

When the trio (Harry, Roddy & Forman) realized that they could not afford to remain in Europe, they came back to Los Angeles. Fortunately they still had some good examples of Turnabout marionettes which were displayed in their rented home on El Centro Street in Hollywood, along with many, many historic photos of movie stars and celebrities.

The Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry had many meetings in that house. Forman & Harry put on private performances in the living room which felt a bit like a theater, with a platform on the south side where Forman's piano was. Elsa Lanchester and Michael Feinstein might show up.

So some of the old glory lingered.

Today, the Los Angeles Public Library has many of the old photos and remaining marionettes which had been in Turnabout House. The Universiy of Texas in Austin acquired many important papers.

But I wish things had been kept together in Hollywood.

So for now, no-one knows where a lot of the stuff went.






_______________________________________________
ist address: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
dmin interface: http://lists.puptcrit.org/mailman/listinfo/puptcrit
rchives: http://www.driftline.org


----------MB_8CBCFC164FA01B0_1DBC_2DF36_webmail-stg-m07.sysops.aol.com

HTML VERSION:

Thanks Allen for all your wonderful information on the Yale Puppeteers. A few months ago I bought a special note book just so I can preserve your puptcrit responses. See you in Atlanta along with lots of other Puptcritters


-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Cook <alangregorycook-AT-msn.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Sent: Fri, Jul 10, 2009 3:31 pm
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Yale Puppeteers: where are the puppets now?

In the 1930s Greenberg/Greenburg published some of Forman Brown's delightful scripts for shows performed on Olvera Street and in NYC. Some of the shows were still in the repertory 1941-1955 at the Turnabout Theater.

The book was published in a small edition, was called THE PIE-EYED PIPER AND OTHER IMPERTINENT PUPPET PLAYS.

I lent one copy that never came back. All the copies I ever saw were autographed by Forman Brown, author not only of the scripts, but also the music & lyrics (not in the book). To many, Forman was the genius of Yale Puppeteers/Turnabout Theater.

Harry made the puppets, which were a bit on the primitive side---but they did what they needed to do. He used wood, cloth, wire, tacks, plastic wood, cotton, papier mache, poster paint, occasionally fur, etc. Most of the portrait heads of celebrities were made=2 0by an uncredited sometime staff-member, but I think Harry did the Hedda Hopper which appeared in the Caesar story.. I wish the giving of credit had been more generous, since the pay was probably on the low side.

Harry taught marionette making classes on Olvera Street, and again in later years too. He did papier mache puppet workshops for the Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry---considered to be very successful by a large turnout. After retirement he made various clowns and other characters (Pinocchios came with 2 o 3 detachable noses held in place with a magnet) for collectors---one clown series had a "tangle-proof" wire from the airplane control to the top of the head, but that made it a bit harder to pack in a box for storage. They were all different looking, but do not have the same amount of history as those that perfomed Forman's puppet musical plays.

The show titles were always with a comical twist---"Mr Noah" for the Noah's Ark tale. Albert Einstein saw that play on Olvera Street---there was an Einstein marionette in that show which met the Ark at Mt Wilson, just north of Pasadena CA---Einstein was teaching at Caltech at the time. Harry recounted the story of Einstein's visit to the Olvera Street Theater---Einstein approved his puppet impersonator but said it was not fat enough, so he took an envelope from his pocket and fattened the puppet with it."Caesar Julius" was about "Julius Caesar but somehow, Hedda Hopper & Louella Parsons, the reigning=2 0Hollywood Gossip columnists were it it too., but the "Pie-eyed Piper" was my favorite title.

I have the Piper, the Mayor & his Wife from that show. "Tom & Jerry" was sort of an Horatio Alger tale with a period setting. "My Man Friday" was Robinson Crusoe's tale---in the original version, Crusoe lands on a nearly deserted island where he meets Friday, but he also meets Eleanor Roosevelt, the first First Lady to travel widely---I remember newspaper photos of her rubbing noses with eskimos, so there was a ceriain logic that Crusoe would run into her on his island.

Harry saw an early touring production of TONY SARG's "THE ROSE & THE RING" in Michiigan which inspired him to make his frst marionette---now THAT one must have been really primitive---it was strung to a tennis racquet!

Dan Bessie wrote a book of his family's history. One chapter is about Harry & the Yale Puppeteers. Dan also produced a film caled TURNABOUT which was available in VHS form, but I don't think it came out as a DVD. There are a number of my slide photos of Yale Puppets in that movie. The book grew out of the film. Dan currently lives in France. His mom was Harry's sister and she was probaby the first costumer to Harry's marionettes.

Harry's brother Leo formed one of America's top advertiing agencies in Chicago. (Leo Burnett Advertising) which always had a bowl of real apples in the office--a holdover from the Great Depression years when jobless people were reduced to selling appl es on the street for a living.

It is true that the Burnett clan was an interesting lot.

From: Bell, John
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 9:40 AM
To: 'puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org'
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Yale Puppeteers: where are the puppets now?

The Ballard Museum has a few Turnabout puppets, and also a number of scripts from Turnabout shows.  Alan=E2=80=99s story of what happened to their puppets is amazing!  I hope we all can prevent that kind of thing from happening again=E2=80=A6
 
jb
 
Dr. John T. Bell
Director
Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry
University of Connecticut
6 Bourn Place Unit 5212
Storrs, Connecticut  06269-5212
office: 860 486 0806
cell: 617 599 3250
 
To make a contribution to the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, please go to
https://secure.ga4.org/01/uconn_foundation_giving, and select "Ballard Puppetry Museum" from the "Purpose" list.  Thanks for your support!
 
From: puptcrit-bounces-AT-puptcrit.org [mailto:puptcrit-bounces-AT-puptcrit.org] On Behalf Of Alan Cook
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 11:02 AM
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: [Puptcrit] Yale Puppeteers: where are the puppets now?
 
Harry Burnett had what must have been hundreds of puppets. When Turnabout Theater closed in the mid 1950s, many things were stored at Jungleland in Thousand Oaks, California in a large moving van that you could see while driving on the highway. It looked like a billboard, with the JUNGLELAND name painted in large letters on the van's side..
0A
Some local kids broke into the van. Puppets and valuable photo documentation (lots of negatives) were scattered along railroad tracks. Antique Italian hand puppets "were found" and taken to a local antique store. Puppeteer Susan French bought them there. See her book, "Presenting Marionettes" published by Reinhold as part of a "how-to" series of art books---photos are in the book.

Eventually Susan returned the antique hand puppets to Harry. (I recognized the puppets when she showed them to me).

Later the Yale group sold them.
I wish there had been a more orderly disposal of the Yale Puppet & Art holdings.

A 1930s portrait puppet of Gretta Garbo may have ended up in a San Francisco shop which was closed when I passed by its windows.

Before the US Dollar dropped suddenly in value, Harry, Forman & Roddy decided to retire to Europe  and sold off lots of stuff.Much of it at insanely cheap prices. Roddy sold many marionettes from past productions at around $20 to $35 each to local  puppeteers and fans of the Turnabout. On weekends at a closed gas station in the vicinity of La Cienega Blvd & Melrose Avenue, Roddy priced puppets as low as $3 each (I missed out on that). There were some marvelous old Sicilian Puppets in armor which Roddy sold to an antique shop on La Cienega Blvd which later ended up in a restaurant in San Francisco as decor. Those had been purchased during an early trip to Europe in the 1920s when Harry acqired posters of t he Yambo troupe (Italy)--I now have one Yambo poster and Bob Baker has a duplicate--the poster image once decorated the curtain of the Yale Theater on Olvera Street in 1930!
Bob Baker also has a French movie poster for "I Am Suzanne" which featured marionettes by the Yale Puppeteers and the Piccoli Theater (Milan/Rome, Italy) in the 1930s which he got from Roddy Brandon.

Charles Taylor managed to preserve some Neopolitan creche figures Harry brought back from that same 1920s trip.

Well, some of the history is preserved in Forman Brown's books, "Punch's Progress", and "Small Wonders" which incorporates and expands on "Punch's Progress". A novel, "Better Angel" by Richard Meeker and published by Greenburg (same publisher for a Tony Sarg book) in New York, was later reprinted first as a paperback with a garish color cover, and then by Allyson (spelling?) Books, and found a new generation of readers---even got written up in the Los Angeles Times, when it came to public attention that Richard Meeker was a pen name for Forman Brown---and there is a thinly-veiled biographical aspect to the novel set in the time frame of that 1920s trip to Europe.

When "Better Angel" was republished, it was I who told Forman his book was back in print. He did a few book signings and at this late date, got interviwed by the Los Angeles Times.

Between the theft at Jungleland and various sell-offs before the later trip to Europe, a lot of stuff was widely scattered.

Many of the marione ttes were poorly stored (1960s) in their Hollywood garage before being sold.

I was able to buy a number of figures from as many of the shows as I could manage on a measley income,  including a portrait of Helen Hayes as Queen Victoria (Movie: "The Mudlark"). But basically stuff was scattered to the winds. Roddy Brandon was the Business Manager but he could have managed a lot better. A hell of a lot better.

When the trio (Harry, Roddy & Forman) realized that they could not afford to remain in Europe, they came back to Los Angeles. Fortunately they still had some good examples of Turnabout marionettes which were displayed in their rented home on El Centro Street in Hollywood, along with many, many historic photos of movie stars and celebrities.

The Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry had many meetings in that house. Forman & Harry put on private performances in the living room which felt a bit like a theater, with a platform on the south side where Forman's piano was. Elsa Lanchester and Michael Feinstein might show up.

So some of the old glory lingered.

Today, the Los Angeles Public Library has many of the old photos and remaining marionettes which had been in Turnabout House. The Universiy of Texas in Austin acquired many important papers.

But I wish things had been kept together in Hollywood.

So for now, no-one knows where a lot of the stuff went.
___
____________________________________________
List address: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Admin interface: http://lists.puptcrit.org/mailman/listinfo/puptcrit
Archives: http://www.driftline.org
----------MB_8CBCFC164FA01B0_1DBC_2DF36_webmail-stg-m07.sysops.aol.com--
_______________________________________________
List address: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Admin interface: http://lists.puptcrit.org/mailman/listinfo/puptcrit
Archives: http://www.driftline.org


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005