Show business is a multimillion dollar business, and its celebrities and sports figures are the most famous people on earth. Yet, most entertainers are neither rich nor famous. In Life upon the Wicked Stage, author Jacqueline Boles provides an academic portrait of live performers and offers insight into their unique world. Based on the biographies and autobiographies of one hundred and seventeen American show people, Life upon the Wicked Stage delves into the lives of entertainers-musicians, singers, dancers, comics, and variety artists. This sociological study first shares the history of show business from its beginnings to present-day, where the public's fascination with entertainers and celebrities is avid. Then, Boles analyzes the entertainers and their family backgrounds, investigates their reasons for choosing entertainment, and explores their career patterns. This study also shows the affects that show business has on family and relationships, and it discusses the costs and rewards of life as a performer. Life upon the Wicked Stage illustrates that live entertainment has changed dramatically over the last one hundred and fift y years while remaining remarkably unchanged. Boles communicates that the show must go on.

Life upon the Wicked Stage

A Sociological Study of EntertainersBy Jacqueline Boles

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Jacqueline Boles
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-3151-0

Contents

Foreward....................................................................................................................ixAcknowledgments.............................................................................................................xiIntroduction................................................................................................................xiiiChapter One LET'S PUT ON A SHOW: THE HISTORY OF SHOW BUSINESS FROM THE BEGINNING UP TO THE 19TH CENTURY.....................1Chapter Two LET'S PUT ON A SHOW: THE HISTORY OF SHOW BUSINESS FROM THE 19TH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT..........................13Chapter Three SHOW PEOPLE: THE SOCIAL SCIENCE VIEW..........................................................................29Chapter Four THE SOCIAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF SHOW PEOPLE......................................................43Chapter Five LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU: CHOOSING TO ENTERTAIN....................................................................59Chapter Six ANOTHER OPNIN': ANOTHER SHOW: BEGINNERS' CAREER TRACKS..........................................................69Chapter Seven MY BAG IS PACKED; I'VE GOT MY ACT: LEARNING TO ENTERTAIN......................................................77Chapter Eight CURTAIN UP/ LIGHT THE LIGHTS: SHOW BUSINESS CAREERS...........................................................89Chapter Nine IF MY FRIENDS COULD SEE ME NOW: THE PERSONAL LIVES OF SHOW PEOPLE..............................................107Chapter Ten THE OLD RAZZLE-DAZZLE: SATISFACTIONS AND DISSATISFACTIONS WITH A SHOW BUSINESS CAREER...........................119Chapter Eleven IF MY FRIENDS COULD SEE ME NOW: THE MOTIVE TO ENTERTAIN......................................................131Appendix A..................................................................................................................151Bibliography................................................................................................................157Index.......................................................................................................................171

Chapter One

LET'S PUT ON A SHOW: THE HISTORY OF SHOW BUSINESS FROM THE BEGINNING UP TO THE 19TH CENTURY

In all societies there are individuals who specialize in providing entertainment: shamans, priests, storytellers, singers, musicians and mimes, as well as exotic dancers, stand-up comics and magicians. For some providing entertainment is ancillary to their primary occupation, while, for others, entertainment is their sole and full time function. Historians, anthropologists and other academicians, including those who study performance (Bauman 1984) have documented the history and development of a variety of entertainment forms and genres, e.g., vaudeville, jazz, cabaret, the circus. Most of this research, however, neglects to present a systematic study of the performers. While a number of biographies of important entertainers exist, the working lives and social positions of the thousands of itinerant musicians, music hall comics and circus acrobats have gone undocumented.

In this and the following chapter I present a brief history of entertainers with a view toward explicating the social positions and working conditions of these culture workers. As a general organizing principle I use the ideas developed by the musicologist, Alan Merriam (1964:140):

The pattern of low status and high importance, deviant behavior and the capitalization of it cannot be said to characterize musicians in all societies, but it seems to be a basic organization for a number of groups in a rather remarkable world distribution.

Reports on entertainers in pre-literate societies are usually idiosyncratic, incomplete and often biased. Still using the available data, and Merriam's insights, I have attempted to knit together disparate accounts into a somewhat coherent picture of an ever-evolving occupation.

Entertainers in Tribal Societies. The origins of the first entertainers are lost to us, but probably they were individuals who specialized in music, storytelling and drama. Cave paintings which portray huntsmen blowing antler "horns" suggest that some early hunters also made music (Harwood 1984).

Humans are storytellers (homo narrans) as narration may be the earliest form of human communication (Fisher 1984). Drama developed from storytelling as tale tellers began to act out their stories. Most of the early dramatists were shamans who, while in a trance, enacted their cultures' myths. Lommel (1967) argued that the shaman was the first "artistically active man" who was singer, dancer, painter, magician, and theatrical producer. Shamans were central to the community life of the hunting tribes; they interpreted the myths, approached the deities, and healed the relationship between the community and its gods. All forms of variety entertainment found today originated with shamans, including ventriloquism, sword swallowing, close-up magic, rope tricks, puppetry, fire walking, acrobatics and escapes. The shaman/ ventriloquist enabled the deity to "speak" and sleight-of-hand manipulations brought forth demons out of the mouths of the "possessed." Kirby (1975) argued that the dance/drama rituals found in many religious and secular performances, e.g., the Noh Theater in Japan, are descendants of the shaman-created ritual enactments.

Though shamans were important to the well-being of their communities, they were considered aberrant and dangerous as they held the power to bring the wrath of the deities on enemies or withhold cures from the sick. Shamans, and later priests, were set apart from others in the community because of their awesome powers. Thus, from the very beginning, entertainment was associated with power, danger, and mystery.

Communal activities in tribal societies involved singing, dancing and storytelling with most villagers participating. However, some individuals specialize in providing amusements. Those who are not full time entertainers are rewarded with gifts; for example, the Australian aborigine tribes use songmen and dancers who, in exchange for gifts, lead festivals and other community activities (Berndt & Berndt 1964), while the Shona mbira players are usually paid for their performances (Berliner 1978).

The presence of entertainers is often essential to weddings, festivals, religious services, and various celebratory activities. Mbira players are essential to the correct enactment of religious observances during the bira, a key religious event (Berliner 1978). Among the Tumbuka the dancer/healer is the central performer in the sacred healing dance (Friedson 1996).

Many of the reports about performers in tribal societies document their reputation for deviant behavior. In his ethnography of the Trobriand Islanders Malinowski (1925) reported that a well known singer was said to be engaging in sexual relations with his sister, a violation of the incest taboo, punishable by death. However, the villagers excused his behavior saying, in effect, "You know how musicians are."

Most entertainers are male and, generally, have reputations as promiscuous, drunken, lazy, and otherwise unstable. Merriam (1964) reported that the Basongye informants characterized musicians as "lazy, heavy drinking, impotent, physically weak...