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Ventriloquism
Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is a performance act of stagecraft in which a person (a ventriloquist) creates the illusion that their voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered prop known as a "dummy". The act of ventriloquism is ventriloquizing, and the ability to do so is commonly called in English the ability to "throw" one's voice. History Origins Originally, ventriloquism was a religious practice. The name comes from the Latin for 'to speak from the stomach: (belly) and (speak). The Greeks called this gastromancy ( grc-gre, εγγαστριμυθία). The noises produced by the stomach were thought to be the voices of the unliving, who took up residence in the stomach of the ventriloquist. The ventriloquist would then interpret the sounds, as they were thought to be able to speak to the dead, as well as foretell the future. One of the earliest recorded group of prophets to use this technique was the Pythia, the priestess at the temple of Apollo in Delphi, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gef Mongoose Ventriloquism
Gef ( ), also referred to as the Talking Mongoose or the Dalby Spook, was the name given to an allegedly talking mongoose which was claimed to inhabit a farmhouse owned by the Irving family. The Irvings' farm was located at Cashen's Gap near the hamlet of Dalby on the Isle of Man. The story was given extensive coverage by the tabloid press in Britain in the early 1930s. The Irvings' claims gained the attention of parapsychologists and ghost hunters, such as Harry Price, Hereward Carrington, and Nandor Fodor. Some investigators of the era as well as contemporary critics have concluded that Voirrey Irving used ventriloquism and family collusion to perpetuate the hoax. Story In September 1931, the Irving family, consisting of James, Margaret, and a 13-year-old daughter named Voirrey, claimed they heard persistent scratching, rustling, and vocal noises behind their farmhouse's wooden wall panels that variously resembled a ferret, a dog, or a baby. According to the Irvings ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edgar Bergen
Edgar John Bergen (born Edgar John Berggren; February 16, 1903 – September 30, 1978) was an American ventriloquist, actor, comedian, vaudevillian and radio performer, best known for his proficiency in ventriloquism and his characters Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. He was the father of actress Candice Bergen. Early life Bergen was born in Chicago, Illinois, one of five children and the younger of two sons of Swedish immigrants Nilla Svensdotter (née Osberg) and Johan Henriksson Berggren. He lived on a farm near Decatur, Michigan until he was four, when his family returned to Sweden, where he learned the language. After his family had returned to Chicago, when he was eleven, he taught himself ventriloquism from a pamphlet called "The Wizard's Manual". He attended Lake View High School. After his father died, when Edgar was 16, he went out to work as an apprentice accountant, a furnace stoker, a player-piano operator, and a projectionist in a silent-movie hous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Nelson (ventriloquist)
James Edward Nelson (December 15, 1928 – September 24, 2019) was an American ventriloquist who appeared on television in the 1950s and 1960s. He is most famous for commercials for Nestlé chocolate featuring Farfel the Dog. He also hosted a children's show sponsored by Nestlé. Early life Jimmy Nelson was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 15, 1928. When he was ten years old, his aunt won a toy ventriloquist's dummy named "Dummy Dan" in a Bingo game and gave it to her nephew for Christmas. He learned ventriloquism, and a year later, his father upgraded the dummy's mouth control from a simple string-and-loop to a lever-system like those used in professional ventriloquist's dummies. Nelson began taking "Dan" to school, where his fourth-grade teacher allowed him to use the dummy when speaking in front of the class. In this way, Nelson taught himself to overcome his fear of public speaking. He soon started using jokes in his presentation, discovering he could make his clas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Great Lester
Harry Lester (8 September 1878 – 14 July 1956), born Maryan Czajkowski in Poland, best known by his stage name The Great Lester, was a seminal vaudeville ventriloquist. Ventriloquist act Lester claimed to have carved his dummy, Frank Byron Jr., himself when he was young. ''Coronet'' cited Frank Marshall of Chicago as his carver. The most likely provenance of Frank Byron Jr., however, indicates that he came from the Chicago workshop of Theo Mack & Son, probably a number of years before Frank Marshall was employed there. Called the "Grandfather of Modern-Day Ventriloquism", Lester claimed to be the first to drink while his dummy spoke; however, Joe Laurie notes that this trick was first performed in 1821. One of Lester's most noted acts was a bit where he called up Heaven and Hell in search of his sister. He was also the first ventriloquist to walk among the audience while his dummy whistled. Legacy Lester was also a noted teacher of the art of ventriloquism, having developed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fred Russell (ventriloquist)
Thomas Frederick Parnell OBE (29 September 1862 – 14 October 1957), known professionally as Fred Russell, was an English ventriloquist. Usually credited as being the first to use a knee-sitting figure, he is known as "The Father of Modern Ventriloquism". Biography Russell was born in London, and began his career as a journalist, but from 1882 began performing his hobby of ventriloquism in public. In 1896, when he was editor of the '' Hackney and Kingsland Gazette'', he was offered a professional engagement at London's Palace Theatre and took up his stage career permanently. His act, based on the cheeky-boy dummy "Coster Joe", broke from the prevailing format of a family of dummies, establishing a precedent for performers such as Edgar Bergen and Paul Winchell. According to ''The Times'' obituary, he changed his name because of the political flavour of " Parnell". In 1910, Russell published a book on his craft entitled ''Ventriloquism and Kindred Arts''. His act remained po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Winchell
Paul Winchell ('' né'' Wilchinsky; December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005) was an American actor, comedian, humanitarian, inventor and ventriloquist whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1950 to 1954, he hosted ''The Paul Winchell Show'', which also used two other titles during its prime time run on NBC: ''The Speidel Show'', and '' What's My Name?'' From 1965 to 1968, Winchell hosted the children's television series ''Winchell-Mahoney Time''. Winchell made guest appearances on Emmy Award-winning television series from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s, such as '' Perry Mason'', ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'', ''McMillan & Wife'', ''The Brady Bunch'', ''The Donna Reed Show'', and appearances as Homer Winch on ''The Beverly Hillbillies''. In animation, he was the original voice of Tigger, Dick Dastardly, Gargamel, and other characters. Winchell, who had medical training, was also an inventor, becoming the first person to build and patent a mechanical artificial heart, imp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Prince (ventriloquist)
Arthur Prince (17 November 1881 – 14 April 1948) was an English music hall entertainer and ventriloquist. Biography Prince was born 17 November 1881 in London. He made his first appearance in a beach concert in Llandrindod Wells, where he performed for four seasons. Prince and his ventriloquist doll ‘Jim’ made their London debut in 1902 at the South London Palace. They went on to appear at all the leading music halls in the United Kingdom, including the first Royal Command Performance at the Palace Theatre in 1912. A world tour followed with their comedy act ‘Naval Occasions’. Prince is remembered for having his dummy, Sailor Jim, sing while Prince drank a glass of water or smoked a cigar. A singer off stage made this trick possible. This was made more believable because Prince developed a very lifelike dummy. Prince died at his St John's Wood home on 14 April 1948 and was buried at Hampstead Cemetery. His doll 'Jim' was buried with him. References External l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Hall
Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Britain between bold and scandalous ''Music Hall'' and subsequent, more respectable '' Variety'' differ. Music hall involved a mixture of popular songs, comedy, speciality acts, and variety entertainment. The term is derived from a type of theatre or venue in which such entertainment took place. In North America vaudeville was in some ways analogous to British music hall, featuring rousing songs and comic acts. Originating in saloon bars within public houses during the 1830s, music hall entertainment became increasingly popular with audiences. So much so, that during the 1850s some public houses were demolished, and specialised music hall theatres developed in their place. These theatres were designed chiefly so that people could consume f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palace Theatre, London
The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick facade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace Theatre seats 1,400. Richard D'Oyly Carte, producer of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, commissioned the theatre in the late 1880s. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and intended to be a home of English grand opera. The theatre opened as the Royal English Opera House in January 1891 with a lavish production of Arthur Sullivan's opera ''Ivanhoe''. Although this ran for 160 performances, followed briefly by André Messager's ''La Basoche'', Carte had no other works ready to fill the theatre. He leased it to Sarah Bernhardt for a season and sold the opera house within a year at a loss. It was then converted into a grand music hall and renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties, managed successfully first by Sir Augustus Harris and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robin Hood and to the lace-making, bicycle and tobacco industries. The city is also the county town of Nottinghamshire and the settlement was granted its city charter in 1897, as part of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Nottingham is a tourist destination; in 2018, the city received the second-highest number of overnight visitors in the Midlands and the highest number in the East Midlands. In 2020, Nottingham had an estimated population of 330,000. The wider conurbation, which includes many of the city's suburbs, has a population of 768,638. It is the largest urban area in the East Midlands and the second-largest in the Midlands. Its Functional Urban Area, the largest in the East Midlands, has a population of 919,484. The popu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
