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© 2007 University of Chicago Library
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When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Goldman, Samuel. Papers, [Box #, Folder #], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
Samuel Goldman was an actor, producer, and writer of vaudeville comedies from 1909 (or earlier) until the early 1940s. Goldman toured vaudeville circuits in the United States, first as a single act and later with his wife Allie Ellsmore, as Goldman and Ellsmore. He played Perlmutter in Potash and Perlmutter directed by Al Woods and was with Sam Harris’s productions of the Marx Brothers’ Coconuts and Animal Crackers. Goldman also produced at major theaters through the 1910s and 1920s, with casts that included well-known stars (possibly May West). During the 1920s, he produced for W.J. Lytle (Publix Corporation) in San Antonio, Texas for six years. Later he directed stock and burlesque companies and taught classes in acting, vaudeville, and dance at schools that he had established in San Antonio and Cleveland, Ohio. According to a brief Billboard obituary, Goldman died on April 27, 1945 at the Maybury Sanatorium, Northville Michigan. He was all but forgotten and is not even mentioned in modern reference books on vaudeville.
Goldman wrote hundreds of pieces, from short bits [including the famous “Slowly I Turned,” re-enacted on I Love Lucy] to full multi-act dramas. Several of the dramatic and musical works of Goldman and Ellsmore were copyrighted, including “Clouds and Sunshine” (copyrighted in 1922), “Meet Me Tomorrow Night at Eight” (1924), “Decidedly Different” (1924), “In Nineteen Twenty-Four” (1924), “Everybody Laughed But Me” (1924), and “Dancing the Blues Away” (1935). In 1964, Allie Ellsmore registered a claim to copyright “Wine Women and Hats.” None of these pieces were ever published. Many of Goldman’s pieces were pirated by other more successful comedians, possibly including the original version of “Who’s on First?” the baseball skit made famous by Abbott and Costello.
Goldman’s productions were filled with the stock characters of vaudeville: Jew (often played by Goldman himself), Dutch, Ingénue, Rube, Straight, and Soubrette. His skits also feature suffragettes, gold-diggers, and policeman. The skits played on ethnic stereotypes and poked fun at gender relations. They parodied country bumpkins and noveau riche, as well as comic characters always out to make a quick dollar. Goldman’s witty word play relied on puns and mispronunciation, often made in exaggerated attempts at sophistication. He parodied new motion pictures and film stars and took occasional jabs at contemporary politicians. As an indication of what amused a wide spectrum of Americans in the first part of the twentieth century, his scripts represent a wealth of information for American social history and the history of the American
The Samuel Goldman Papers consist of nearly five hundred manuscripts, mainly original compositions, with related material including stage directions and programs for shows. The manuscripts are in Goldman’s handwriting or typescript, with many of them written in pencil on cheap contemporary paper. The original compositions have been divided into three groups, following Goldman’s own categorical divisions. These divisions represent primarily the length of each composition. “Complete Dramas” are the longest pieces, most containing several acts and requiring a large cast. “Bits” are the shortest pieces, no more than short skits, usually requiring only one or two actors. “Scenes” represent an intermediate category, compositions which call for large casts and elaborate staging (like the complete dramas) but which are relatively short (like the bits). There is significant overlap in categories: Goldman himself sometimes labeled the same piece as both a “bit” and a “scene.” Many bits are incorporated into scenes and both bits and scenes appear in modified forms in dramas. Some relatively complete pieces have no titles: these have been grouped in the appropriate category and given titles in brackets.
In all, 108 dramas, 106 scenes, and 280 bits have been identified in the collection. Labeled items are scripts unless otherwise noted in parentheses in the finding aid. Identical copies are noted by “c.1”, “c.2,” etc. while substantially different versions or completely different scripts with the same name are labeled with “-1,” “-2,” etc. Most of the scripts are undated, except where cue sheets or other materials related to production are available. While the majority of the materials appear to be Goldman originals, a few pieces are associated with Weber and Fields, the Marx Brothers, and other comedians, as noted in the inventory.
In addition to these three main series, a general series contains script fragments and notes pertaining to the scripts and production. This series also contains cue sheets, schedules, and other production materials not directly associated with scripts identified in the collection. There are a few newspaper clippings and miscellaneous materials included. The final series in the collection consists of materials from Allie Ellsmore (Goldman), including vaudeville materials, non-vaudeville poetry and writings, and a few items of memorabilia.