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Joe |
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JOSEPH P. HAMILTON JR., known in the world of entertainment as Joe Hamilton, was born in 1883, the third of four children born to Joseph Hamilton and his wife, the former Sarah Anne Reilly. The older children were William and Annie, and Laura May was the baby of the family. In 1905 Joe Hamilton married Laura Cowls, the daughter of Garret Cowls, who was well known in Camden for managing local baseball teams. The marriage produced six children, Francis, Kathryn "Kay", Laura May, Joseph Jr., and Edith. The 1906 Camden City Directory lists both Joseph and Laura G. Hamilton at 210 Friends Avenue, with occupations of actor and actress, respectively. Joe Hamilton worked in vaudeville and for many years in minstrel shows. He is known to have worked for some time with Philadelphia-based minstrel show producer Frank Dumont, and with the legendary Hughey Dougherty. In 1919 he appeared on Broadway in the musical Hello, Alexander, a vehicle for the famed blackface team of McIntyre and Heath. The show ran for 56 performances at the 44th Street Theater before closing on November 22. Changing times, the introduction of movies, and especially movies with sound over time put an end to minstrel shows and vaudeville being mainstream entertainment. There still was work to be had in vaudeville in the 1930s, and Joe Hamilton often teamed up with Walt Stanton, another Camden born-and-raised entertainer, in producing mostly small venue shows and in performance. As part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Theater, they perfromed during the 1930s and into the 1940s with other former vaudeville headliners and supporting acts. This unit was disbanded in March of 1943. With the WPA unit and as a pair, Joe Hamilton and Walt Stanton also spent a good deal of time during World War II entertaining wounded servicemen at Fort Dix and in Atlantic City. Daughter Kay Hamilton, a talented singer and actress in her own right, made her debut in 1919. She attended St. Mary's Catholic School, but her real schooling came on stage. A stage veteran by 1927, Kay Hamilton was working that year on Broadway, with Eddie Dowling in the musical Sidewalks of New York. She also appeared in vaudeville, and in nightclubs and theaters. By 1930 the Hamilton family was living at 501 Haddon Avenue, the corner of Haddon and Newton Avenues, directly across the street from what was then Junior High School No. 1. Joseph Hamilton was living at 1533 Federal Street when he passed away in 1946. Joseph Hamilton's grandson, James P. McEvoy served with the Camden Fire Department from 1969 to 1982.. |
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326 Cooper Street February 7, 2004 Dr.
Daniel Strock April 2004- Click on Images to Enlarge |
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Theatre Magazine * November 1919 |
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44TH STREET- HELLO ALEXANDER Musical comedy in two acts. Book by Edgar Smith and Emily M Young, lyrics by Alfred Bryan, music by Jean Schwartz. Produced on October 7 with this cast: Colonel Winslow
Dan Quinlan IT was immediately after the close of the Civil War with the negro emancipated that a Southern girl accosted an aged colored lady with "I have lost my way, Can you tell me Auntie?" and received the reply "I ain't your Auntie, I's your ekal". The racial characteristics that made minstrelsy possible were fast disappearing. But with a difference the negro minstrel on the fantastic and farcical side remains as amusing as ever. He has the advantage of facial and labial expression and a franchise in extravagances in dress manner and voice. Mclntire and Heath represent this old form of entertainment with success. They would represent it better if the authors of the book of Hello Alexander had contrived a better assimilation of negro minstrelsy with modern comic opera. The comic opera element is overwhelming with its troops of dancing and singing girls and its display of feminine bare legs exhibited in one or two numbers on a glass covered runway with electric lights beneath. More fantasy in the story and the happenings and less physical fact of the particular kind might improve the substance and spirit of the production. With all this lack of consistency not easy to describe the special features are of the popular kind. Sophie Tucker has half a dozen songs full of the Broadway comradeship that bring pleasure to those who live in the bright lights. Singularly enough the unfelicitously named Eczema in black face Mabel Elaine in acting and dancing was more satisfactory than her fairer sisters in barer legs. There you had whimsicality and the minstrel spirit. In expenditure and scenic and other display Hello Alexander is produced after the Broadway manner of the moment . |
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DUMONT'S
THEATRE |
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Travels
in Philadelphia by Christopher Morley - 1920 |
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Up at the Arch street corner is the famous Dumont's Minstrels, once the old Dime Museum, where Frank Dumont's picture stands in the lobby draped in black. Inside, in the quaint old auditorium, the interlocutor sits on his throne and tosses the traditional jest back and forth with the end men, Bennie Franklin and Alf Gibson, clad in their glaring scarlet frock-coats. The old quips about Camden are still doing brave service. Then Eddie Cassady comes on in his cream-colored duds and sings a ditty about Ireland and freedom while he waves the banner with the harp. Beneath the japes on prohibition there is an undertone of profound sadness. Joe Hamilton sings a song which professes to explain that July 1st will be harder on the ladies than any one else. "Good-by, Wild Women, Good-by," it is demurely called. Joe Hortiz gets "Come Back to the Farm" over the footlights, a plaintive tenor appeal, in which the church steeple chimes 3 (a. m.) and all the audience can hear the cows lowing out in Manayunk and Marcus Hook. We are all nigh to tears for the little sister gone astray in the bad mad city; but here come Burke and Walsh in a merry little duo about whistle-wetting. "We took this country from the Indians," sings Burke. "We'll give it back after the 1st of July," replies Walsh in his dulcet barytone. Then, to show they really don't care so much, they wind up with a jovial bit of dancing. Dumont's famous "timely burlesques" still keep pace with the humors of the town. The "Drug Store Telephone Fight" reduces the audience to cheery hysteria. Joe Hamilton or some body gets Saint Peter on the wire; the rival demonstrator gets connected with "the other place." The problem is whether the Jazzbo Phone Company or its rival can locate the whereabouts of Mr. William Goat, who (it appears) is the father of the interlocutor, the dignified interlocutor in his purple dress suit, who is writhing in embarrassed distress on his throne. And then, as we are already trespassing on the preserve of the dramatic editor, comes what the program calls "intermission'of several minutes, to enable the ladies to powder their noses." |
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SMALL TOWN GUY Part of Joe Hamilton's act was the recitation of poems like the one below. |
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Keep A
Goin' Part of Joe Hamilton's act was the recitation of poems like the one below. |
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STEEL PIER
- CASINO HALL - ATLANTIC CITY, NEW JERSEY |
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PROGRAM 1.
OPENING CHORUS AND OVERTURE- Company
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STEEL PIER
- CASINO HALL |
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Frank Elliott's Steel Pier Minstrels - Atlantic City, N.J. - 1927 |
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Frank Elliott's Steel Pier Minstrels - Atlantic City, N.J. - 1927 |
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Elliott - Vic Richards - Charley Boyden - Vaughn Comfort Joe Armstrong - Vaughn Comfort Jr. - Joe Hamilton |
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Camden Courier * February 17, 1928 |
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Cornell Daily Sun * February 28, 1929 |
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VAUGHN COMFORT A Pretentious Carnival of Bubbling Mirth. Melodious Modern Melodies by a Red Hot Jazz Rand, Silvery-Voiced Songsters and Droll Laugh-Provoking Comedians Lillian Gish in "The Wind" |
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Excerpted
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Camden Courier-Post - October 29, 1931 |
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Camden Courier Post - October 30, 1931 |
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Camden Courier-Post - October 31, 1931 |
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Camden Courier-Post - March 29, 1932 |
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What
Do YOU Think? What a show this boy Happy Rathbone is putting across for the Elks' Minstrel Revue .... Pete McGuire and his Egyptian eel dance will be featured .... As will Joe Hamilton, Camden's most famous minstrel man, and a host of others .... Hattie Evans will be Mistress of Ceremonies ... And that, in itself, is a treat. |
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Atlantic City Press - 1932 or 1933 |
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Death of Daughter Fails to Stop Resort Minstrel From Saving Show The show must go on. The actors creed, which so often holds a performer to the stage and carries him through his role, as through tear-dimmed eyes, he looks on an audience made happy by his songs or antics, while in reality he is playing a part in one of life's tragedies, cast its spell over last Saturday's performance of the minstrels in the casino on the Steel Pier. Joe Hamilton, on of the troupe, was notified shortly before the afternoon curtain time that his 13-year old daughter Edith had died at her home in Camden. Unable to leave because no substitute was available and harkening to the law of his guild, Joe hid his sorrow behind a mask of black cork and took his place in the circle of smiling faces. None in the vast audience that applauded his numbers realized the After the performance, the minstrel jumped into an automobile and hastened to his Camden home where the happy laughter of his little girl would no longer greet him. It was late in the afternoon and he was forced to leave his wife and other daughter, Kathryn, a radio and theatrical singer, sobbing as he hurried back to the shore to don his makeup for the evening show. Halfway through the performance a substitute was obtained, and Joe returned to his home to arrange for his little girl's funeral. She had suffered an attack of rheumatism three years ago which finally affected her heart. Since that time she has had several attacks, but was never seriously ill. The child complained of pains in her heart while sitting in the bedroom talking to her mother and gasped for breath, asked her mother to rub her chest. She moved toward the window as if to open it wider, and as she did so collapsed, dying in her mother's arms. |
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Camden Courier-Post - June 7, 1933 |
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ST. JOSEPH'S THESPIANS WILL REPEAT CABARET The
St.
Joseph's Dramatic Club will repeat its cabaret show tomorrow
night at the school auditorium, Twenty-ninth
street and Westfield
Avenue. Walt
Stanton, popular vaudeville performer, is master of ceremonies
again. He has arranged a
bill
of professional talent, including Joe
Hamilton, old-time minstrel
comedian well known in Camden; the Two Jays, Ed Donahue, the Irish
tenor; Mullen and Vincent, the Warrington Revue, Walter Giffins'
dance revue and the Bertha M. Pogue studio dancers. Mrs. William Mullen, musical director of the affair, will be the piano accompanist. Bill Printz and his orchestra will provide the musical program for the dancing. |
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Camden Courier-Post - Late November or Early December 1937 |
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Is
Zat So? FIFTY years rolled away in the twinkling of an eye the other day and once more we sat in the peanut gallery of the Old Howard listening to "Alexander" tell his trials and tribulations to "Henry Clay Jones." You youngsters of 40 perhaps do not know those distinguished thespians, but ask dad, he knows. He'll tell you all about McIntyre and Heath. Jim Mclntyre, now called to join the celestial choir, while Tom Heath, at 84, still lives in stage memories that can never fade, for him or those who witnessed the famous "Georgia Minstrels." Mclntyre & Heath were as familiar to the average eye as ham and eggs, bread and milk, coffee and sugar for 60 years. Perhaps, no team in the history of Thespis ever existed so long together. Even now the eye dims a mite to think that the kids of today have no chance to see the lugubrious Alexander, taken away from "his good job in the livery stable," to travel with a minstrel troupe that usually was stranded and never billed. The reason that memory took a nose dive into the past was Joe Hamilton. Joe, now a veteran trouper himself, intends to give Camden a treat on December 10, when he'll put on an old time minstrel show in the Labor Temple. This veteran will gather about him the boys who were the stars of blackface years ago. While many will be missing in the flesh their ghosts will hover over the circle as end men crack their jokes, and the interlocutor puts the questions glibly and often to that immemorial "Mr. Bones," without whom no minstrel show is complete and no production is a minstrel show. JOE HAMILTON REAL VETERAN Joe Hamilton himself was one of the best of all minstrels, a trouper who still hankers for the banjo and the burnt cork. To prove that this venerable hoofer still can slap down those soft shoe as agilely as he did in days of yore, Joe may dance a bit after the interlocutor rails for the "opening number" 15 days before next Christmas. The veteran minstrel was born in Kensington, or to be more specific, in Fishtown". That means perhaps little to the resident of Camden, but "Fishtown" has a physical identify that makes it still apart from Philadelphia, although it remains its Sixteenth ward. Joe, like all other gamins of the district, won his first spurs as a thespian when he was the winner of an amateur night, given at one of the local theatres in his district. It was a few steps, and we mean steps literally and figuratively, for Joe was a dancer, in the parlance of the profession "a hoofer", that took Joseph from the amateur ranks to those of professional entertainers. As a minstrel and an actor he traveled all ever the country, and believe it or not, Mr. Ripley, while Joe has reached that allotted span of threescore and ten, he can hum a mean number, warble a fine ballad or topical song, and throw a few steps that would make the average hoofer look like a contortionist. For 38 years after that fateful amateur night, Joe was on the stage. He played with McIntyre and Heath, and one of his proudest memories is the offer that McIntyre made to Joe, asking him to take Heath's part, when that veteran performer had become ill and wanted a rest. Joe was a pal of all the great song writers and songbirds of an era that alas, has passed away, to the sadness of the trouper and the utter woe of those who sat and heard them in the good old days. OLD PALS HAVE PASSED AWAY It fell to our lot to know personally many of the old minstrels and singers whose names were those of the friends of long ago to Joe. First. was the late Hughie Dougherty, who was one of Frank Dumont's minstrels, in the heyday of that minnesinger in the old Arch Street Theatre. Hughie and myself were strong friends. We were together on a training trip with the Athletics to Atlanta in 1910, when Connie Mack was piloting the team that later in the year was to give the lean leader his first world champion baseball+++++ ..............Hibernian brogue under ..... the patois of the blackface comic is a secret which he alone knew and he never told me, anyway. Then Joe and Jimmy Thornton were buddies. Jimmy, who wrote "When You Were Sweet Sixteen," "My Sweetheart's the Man in the Moon" and other song hits of another and to my mind, a more melodious day, was also a friend of yours truly. One of the Christmas cards we especially treasure every Yuletide is from Jimmy, who now lives in Long Island. Jimmy, in the days when he and his grand wife, the late Bonnie Thornton, were headliners, liked to dwell where wassail prevailed. It was during those moods that good old Irish melody spurred him to write some of "the most singingest" songs that were "ever warbled by a barbershop quartet, or by strolling minstrels, standing by the old board fence in the light of the moon. Make no mistake about Joe Hamilton, either. A little troubled and beset by his old enemy rheumatism, he has days when he doesn't feel so chipper, but usually he is a grizzled old veteran who wears well and defies Father Time to give him a bust in the nose. Agile in mind and "trippety" on his feet yet, Joe wants to show the youngsters of today a real minstrel show. The thespian spirit and traditions of the stage have hit the Hamilton family in another direction, too. One of Camden's prettiest contributions to stage, screen and radio is Kay Hamilton, or otherwise Mrs. Peter Trado. Winsome and petite, Kay has delighted thousands upon thousands with her singing over the air, in musical comedy and talking pictures. If possible, she'll be along to help Dad in his coming minstrel show, which will be the goods. A reunion of old time minstrels and blackface comedians such as hasn't been seen in many a moon. Personally, I'm going to break a leg to get there. There are certain young Mackays who will be among the audience, for Dad wants these youngsters to see, look and listen, when a real old-time minstrel show gets under way on December 10, in the Labor Temple, Broadway and Royden street. And here is hoping that Joe Hamilton's voice remains as melodious as ever and that rheumatism may be conquered, so the grand old hoofer and minstrel can be able to step as he did in the days of McIntyre, Heath, Thornton, Dougherty, Dumont, Dockstader, Primrose, West and those other magnificent blackface performers who made minstrelsy impressive and their hearers delighted. |
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Camden Courier-Post - February 25, 1938 |
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AT GUILD HALL SEE ‘REVIEW OF 1938’ Three hundred greeted the initial production of the "Revue of 1938" last night in the Guild Hall of St. Wilfrid's Church, Dudley street and Westfield avenue. The program, which will be repeated tonight, opens with a minstrel show. The show includes vaudeville acts and a comedy presentation of an amateur hour radio broadcast, entitled "Major Shows His Amateur Hour." Robert Burgy is interlocutor of the minstrel show. The end men are Jimmie Jones, Bud Ashton, Joe Hamilton, old time minstrel man, and Milton K. Stanley, former county detective, who directed the show. Frances Allen, Maurice Atger, Mrs. Irma Weller, Mrs. Alice Stanley, George Braunwarth, Jr., Jones, Frances Stanley and Doris Gray are soloists in the minstrel troupe. Miss Weller does a novelty dance and Miss Kray a monologue. Jimmy Lang and his orchestra provide music. Florence Geragussi's Sophisticated High Steppers and Dorothy and Charles Ganter give song and dance specialties. Marcus Matthias takes the role of Major Show. In the "broadcast," Harry Riley, Charles Pelouze and Robert Shoemaker appear as Tennessee Hill Billies. Florence Donahue, Elizabeth Martin, June Daryman and. Freda Nuss are sunshine girls. Other characters are George Wysocki, "Signor Tomato';" Atger, "Rollo Winesap;" Mary Riley, "Mrs. Winesap" Braunwarth, "Epsom Salts;" Ellsworth Marcoe Jr., “Ferdinand Squidge;" Lillian Petit, “Mlle. Fefi Flitters;" Miss Weller" "Madame Coco;" Pelouze and Edward Mortimer, "Pluto, the Trained Mule," and Babe Shoemaker, "life of the party." The above also appear in the general ensemble together with Doris Dodd, Dorothy Schmidt, Eleanor Dryer, Vern Burgy, Marie Dodd, Florence Feick, Robert Burgy, Theodore Tessier, Jerry Nicholson, David Lacy and Bud Ashton. |
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Fords & Raritan Township Beacon * November 14, 1941 |
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WOODBRIDGE — Our Lady of
Mt. Carmel church auditorium was
filled to capacity Monday night
when Woodbridge Local, Patrolmen's Benevolent association held
its annual Armistice Eve dance.
Al Kalla's orchestra played for
the dancing and a program of entertainment was presented with Captain "Jack" Egan as master of ceremonies. Among the performers were:
Andy Kutcher, accordionist; The Dancing Lanes, Ray Jensen, stories; Al Johnson, baritone; Joanne Lee, tap and soft shoe dancer; Bill Breen, novelty act; "The Texans," cowboy songs and Joe Hamilton,
old-time minstrel man. |
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World War II Draft Card |
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Camden Courier-Post - January 11, 1946 |
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JOE
HAMILTON DIES; OLD TIME MINSTREL Heart Attack Fatal to Former Theatrical Man Here at 64 The curtain rang down the last time for Joseph P. Hamilton, 64, Camden's minstrel man. He died at his home, 1533 Federal Street. When "Joe," as he was known in all parts of the nation where he appeared from time to time, "had been ailing for several years, he was never too tired or too busy to give of his talents. Last Saturday he attended a motion picture show, suffered a chill when he retired that night, and a heart attack took his life yesterday. He is survived by three daughters, Mrs. Francis Cabaness of the Federal street address, Mrs. Kay Hamilton Trado who, with her husband. Peter, of Hollywood, was visiting here, and Mrs. Laura McEvoy, 1123 North Twentieth street; two sons, Joseph P. Jr., 910 North Twenty-third street, and Elmer, 427 Beideman avenue, and nine grandchildren. Mr. Hamilton last appeared with Walt Stanton as a comedy team in Philadelphia. Two weeks ago he and a number of theatrical friends played host to the Trados at a party here. Trado is attached to the technicians department of Columbia studios in Hollywood. Mrs. Trado [as Kay Hamilton- PMC] has been on the stage since she was 10 years of age, and for years her mother traveled with her. Mrs. Hamilton was the daughter of Garrett Cowls who was a baseball manager in Camden years ago. Kay has been making records for Warner's and Columbia. One of the last times in recent years when "Joe" Hamilton appeared as a minstrel was in a show presented at Camden Labor Temple on December 10, 1937. He wore his costume of the days of Frank Dumont and Hughie Dougherty, of the old Dumont's Minstrels. James R. Reed, seventh district commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars last night paid tribute to Mr. Hamilton, whom he said on many occasions visited and and entertained wounded and ill servicemen in hospitals without any form of compensation. Reed said Mr. Hamilton and Stanton formed a variety team and together they visited Tilton General hospital at Fort Dix, Thomas M. England General hospital, Atlantic City, and other institutions cheering the servicemen-patients. Andrew Phillips, chairman of the department hospital committee, also expressed sorrow over the passing of the veteran minstrel. |
