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‘The Canny Scot’: Harry Lauder and the Performance of Scottish Thrift in American Vaudeville1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2011

MARLIS SCHWEITZER
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Abstract

Scottish vaudevillian Harry Lauder epitomized Scottishness in the Anglo-American cultural imaginary for much of the twentieth century. Yet Lauder's Scottishness was a carefully crafted performance, a collaborative effort between Lauder and his American agent, William Morris, centred on Lauder's embodiment of the ‘canny Scot’ stereotype. The article argues that this performance served two primary objectives within the context of early twentieth-century vaudeville. First, stories of Lauder's ‘characteristic’ Scottish thrift worked to deflect commentary about the star's status as a highly paid foreign commodity. By planting stories and arranging interviews that represented Lauder as a skilled and cunning Scot, Morris addressed growing anxieties that men, as well as women, were becoming mere cogs in the machine of corporate Broadway capital. Second, Morris's representation of Lauder as the epitome of all things Scottish guaranteed the loyal patronage of the Scottish diaspora and supported expressions of nationalist pride that were not antithetical to Scottish membership within the Union.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , October 2011 , pp. 254 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2011

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References

NOTES

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12 ‘5,000 a Week for Lauder’, New York Times (hereafter NYT) 1 September 1908, p. 1.

13 ‘Lauder on His Salary’, NYT, 2 September 1908, p. 1; ‘London Season Is Opened’, Chicago Daily Tribune, 2 September 1908, p. 10.

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32 ‘Foreign Business Finished; Morris Sails for Home’, Variety, 22 February 1908, p. 1.

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39 ‘What about This?’ New York Telegraph, 13 December 1908.

40 ‘A Harry Lauder Story that His Press Agent Has Conveniently Overlooked’, Toledo News Bee, 19 October 1909, RLC, Image ID: V311_065.

41 Untitled clipping, RLC, Image ID: V311_062.

42 ‘Lauder Tells of Scottish Thrift’, RLC, Image ID: V311_062.

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46 Herman, ‘The Tobaccomen of Glasgow’.

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56 Ibid.

57 Ibid., p. 12.

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59 ‘The Inimitable Lauder’; ‘Scotch Humour Set Theatre Roaring’, New York World, 5 November 1907, p. 6.

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