Give My Regards to Broadway (Backstage Blogathon)

In the Backstage Blogathon (click on the link for more info and the list of participating blogs) participants pick a film made before 1970 that has something to do with the workings of show biz.  This is a blog hop that definitely fits my interests in show business.  I'll tell you more about this later which should add more credibility to my championing the 1948 film Give My Regards to Broadway.  






Give My Regards to Broadway (1948)

      I happened upon this movie on television several years ago.  Serendipitously I had turned the channel just as the credits were starting to roll.  Seeing that it was a movie about show biz and vaudeville I stuck with it and I was glad that I did.   Give My Regards to Broadway is a film that so much reminded of me of my own family and upbringing that I added it to my list of favorite films.

        The story is about Albert Norwick (played by Charles Winninger), a vaudeville veteran who struggles in show business with his growing family until they are forced off the road by The Great Depression.   Taking on a regular job to lead the existence of any normal American family, Albert the Great hangs on to his vaudeville dreams believing that one day his family's act will get their big break in entertainment.

         As the years pass, the three Norwick children settle in taking on jobs when they reach adulthood.   The two daughters are ambivalent about the show biz dream while son Bert Norwick (played by Dan Dailey) shares his father's passion for the world of the stage.  When their old agent lets Albert know about a possible big show opening in New York, the family starts rehearsing their song, dance, and juggling act as Albert is convinced there will be a headlining spot for them in this new show.

        First one daughter and then the next loses interest as they fall in love and get married, abandoning the act.   At first father and son pursue their dream until complications arise that threaten to keep them where they've been since leaving the glamour life 20 years previously.  Faced with the dilemmas of what to do they must make the decisions that will decide the direction of their lives.

         This is a fun film that explores the passion of pursuing dreams, the realities faced in that pursuit, sacrifices made for the sake of  love and security, and the bonds of family and friends.  Give My Regards to Broadway is poignant and bittersweet yet ever hopeful.   It's a joyous film about life, love, family, and baseball--yes that's right.  I'll leave it to you to watch the film to get the baseball connection.

         Stars Charles Winninger and Dan Dailey do a fine job in the song and dance numbers as well as performing some very credible juggling numbers.  Actually Dailey is quite good with the juggling.  Professional jugglers Duke Johnson and Bill T. Coughlin acted as juggling coaches developing simple routines that looked good on screen while requiring minimal juggling expertise.  

         All in all this little known film makes for a delightful viewing experience.  Nicely filmed in Technicolor, the acting is excellent and the classic songs are performed with true vaudeville flair.  I was especially impressed by the story.  This is one of the most realistic films about show business that I've seen.  I'm going to tell you why I make that claim.

Dan Dailey, Barbara Lawrence, and Charles Winninger perform a plate juggling
routine in Give My Regards to Broadway

My Connection to the Film

        What surprised me most when I saw this film was how similar the story was to the experience of my own family.  My father was just starting out in show business with his own juggling act when this film first came out.  Like most performers, he had that dream of being a headline act in a big show.  He soon was to meet my mother who was a dancer with show biz dreams of her own.  After they partnered in marriage they put together their own dance and juggling package and began playing the still active club and show circuit in the Cleveland, Ohio area in the 1950's.

         My dad never gave up his dreams though he did maintain a good job as a bookkeeper and our family had a home and a relatively typical life.  As my sister and I grew up we became part of my parents' act, performing on weekends or special engagements whenever we could get the bookings.  It was a great life and the show biz bug easily hooked us.  We dreamed of becoming performers full time, but never quite took that step.

          Later, after my sister and I became adults, she left the act to follow her own pursuits.  A few years later I too left to pursue my own show business dream as a solo performer.  I worked successfully as a performer for about 15 years, getting married along the way and raising my own brood of kids.  As they became school age I too left the show biz life to settle down to a regular job with a normal home life.

         Having lived the life and the dream, I can understand the lure of the bright lights and the cheering audiences.  It is something that "gets in your blood" as the saying goes.   To me the film Give My Regards to Broadway precisely captures the spirit of the dream as well as the security of being tied down to regular life.

        Relatively few people who attempt to go into an entertainment career experience huge success.   Some of the luckier ones like myself and my family or the fictional Albert the Great and Family are able to enjoy enough of a successful run where we get a taste of the glamorous life.  Once that's been tasted I think most of us have a lingering desire to return in some capacity.  It's certainly true for me:  If I were offered an opportunity to go back to an entertainment career of some sort, I would be tempted.  I'd be very tempted.      

A 1967 promo photo for my family's act The Juggling Jacksons
My father Bob Jackson seated with my sister Joy, me in the center
and my mother Lois Jackson.

         If you've seen Give My Regards to Broadway, what did you think of it?   What films have you seen that come closest to depicting your own life story or your family background?     Have you ever sacrificed a dream for the sake of security or the love of another?

To watch this film online you can find it here.

Securing a Place in History

Arlee Bird a.k.a. Lee Jackson of the Juggling Jacksons

An Estate in Limbo

      For many of us our biggest mark on history will be our tombstone and whatever memories we leave behind with those who knew us or knew about us.   Having a memoir published is a big step in establishing a physical presence in history no matter how big or small that place might be.  Recently I came upon another concept of legacy in the tangible sense--becoming a part of a museum collection.

      My own story of this type of archived preservation memory relates to my family's reputation as a professional juggling act.  Though we may have not been widely known to the general public, the name of The Juggling Jacksons was known to many jugglers as well as others in the world of entertainment.  When my father was still living he and my mother would regularly attend jugglers' conventions and other gatherings thus establishing themselves in that community as iconic figures in juggling history.

       With my mother's passing in November of 2014 it became evident to me and my siblings that her house and everything in it would have to be sold, disbursed among ourselves, or gotten rid of in some way.  Part of this estate included decades worth of juggling props and artifacts.   None of the family had the proper space or wherewithal to hang on to these items even though we were aware of the sentimental value as well as the potential historical value.  Since none of the family continues to work in the juggling profession these props served no functional purpose to any of us.

A Fortuitous Inquiry

       A few years prior to my mother's death a juggler who at that time was working professionally in the art learned of the treasure trove of juggling memorabilia residing in my mother's house.  He passed this information to another professional juggler and juggling historian by the name of David Cain.

      David had been building a considerable collection of anything related to juggling for many years, maintaining space in his home as a juggling museum and touring juggling gatherings throughout the country with his collection.  Upon learning about the accumulation that my mother had, David contacted us to see if we were interested in donating to the museum.   We told him we'd think about it and left it there.

       Nearly a year after my mother's death, our family put her house on the market.  As we began clearing out her possessions, keeping what we wanted and selling, donating, or throwing away other things, I got back in touch with David Cain.  Juggling equipment was not going to be something easy to sell and we sure didn't want to just throw it all away.   Within a few weeks David drove down to Tennessee from his home in Ohio and loaded up nearly everything we had to add to his museum collection

        He was excited with this addition to his collection and we were pleased to have found a reasonable way to remove these from our possession finding a suitable home for them.  The arrangement served all concerned very well.

The Future of the Juggling Jacksons Collection

         David Cain is highly regarded as a collector of juggling history and his home museum is open to interested parties by appointment.  He has created a very fine website (links below) that details much of his collection to date.  Though his collection currently resides in his home, David dreams of one day establishing an official museum space for his valuable collection.

          Perhaps eventually the collection will end up as part of a larger museum or in a permanent juggling museum devoted to the art of juggling and the related history.  Whatever the case may be, the Juggling Jackson legacy will carry on through its place in the Historical Juggling Props collection.

           I encourage all of my readers to stop in to visit the online museum at Historical Juggling Props:  an Online Museum.  There is a lot of interesting information as well as many photos of items in David Cain's collection.  David has even added my blogs on his link page.  For those who are interested in furthering the outreach of this collection there is also information on how you can donate or offer your services in some way.

           Be sure to visit the Juggling Jacksons page at the site to see my family's contribution to the collection.  Since I hadn't gone through the props that we had in storage, I was very surprised at the extent of our collection as well as how good of condition these props were considering the amount of use they had endured.  Many of these juggling props are akin to works of art in my view.

          Another stop you might enjoy is the Juggling Jewels page.  The "Jewels" were an all female juggling act originally from England.  They worked extensively during the vaudeville era up to about 1950.   In 1967 one of the surviving members who lived in Roanoke, Virginia had gotten wind of our family and sent us some of their historical props which were included in the collection my family sent to David Cain.  He has credited us with this contribution on that page.

          I hope you will "visit" David's museum online to see some of the history of juggling which most people might never even think about.   Definitely visit the "Home Museum Display" page as I think you'll be impressed by the size of Cain's collection to date.  And it's always growing!

          Hopefully one day I can visit the Juggling Museum in person to see my part in preserving juggling history as well as marvel at the array of fun things that David Cain has accumulated so far.

          Have you donated any family or personal heirlooms to a museum or some other collection?   Do you have any things that you think might be good for museum preservation?     What are some of the most unique museum collections that you have seen or heard about?

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• Plates in the air

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland Skyline (Photo credit: digipixguy)

        If you've seen the movie A Christmas Story, that is in some ways what my first years of childhood were like.  Like in the narrator of the story I too lived in Cleveland, Ohio--the city of my birth.   I had a sister a year younger than I and my family lived in a working class neighborhood where houses were small and packed neatly together.

         My father worked as an accountant and my mother stayed at home with my sister and I and had dinner on the table every night when my father came home.  My parents rented the house where we lived.  The back yard seemed big to me then with a weeping willow tree and a flag pole in the center.  There was an American flag neatly folded in the front room closet but we never ran it up the flagpole because the flag belonged to the landlord and wasn't ours.  I didn't question much about this--I just knew that the flag was there wrapped in brown paper and that flagpole was in the middle of the yard.

         In the living room we had a television with a small screen, but in the mid-fifties I guess everyone who had television sets had sets with small screens.  There was also a framed glass covered picture of two swans floating among the lily pads in a pond.  I was intrigued by the work of house art and would often contemplate it.  It looked old, but I knew nothing about it.   None of the furniture in the house was ours and neither was the swan picture.

         We seemed to have frequent visitors at our house.  My parents welcomed relatives, neighbors, and entertainers--mostly jugglers.  Since my parents worked as a professional juggling act on weekends and occasional week nights they were often visited by other jugglers, entertainers, and one of their booking agents, Sally West and her husband Duke.  I typically enjoyed these visitors because they talked about things that seemed interesting even though much of the time I had no idea what they were talking about.

        I spent my first seven years living in and around Cleveland.  We probably lived in the house on West 143rd Street for about four years, but it seemed like a long time to me.  Of course, I had little perspective then.  Everything seemed like a long time.   And the house, the people, the city all seemed old to me then.  But I was a child and everything seemed old.

         And now from where I am and look back on those days, it seems like a  long time ago.