From Cincinnati Enquirer, October 7, 1939
In the autumn of 1939, Cincinnati was a happy place. The Reds, after two decades wandering in the baseball wilderness, were back in the World Series, poised to silence the critics who claimed they took the pennant in 1919 only because the Chicago “Black Sox” gave it away. Although Cincinnati lost the first two games in New York, hopes ran high as the hometown team returned to Crosley Field.
The whole town was buzzing. Even the Gayety Burlesque theater added a second show to entertain fans after the games. Joe Goetz, manager of the RKO Shubert Theater, knew he had to come up with a baseball-themed act.
Joe was known for engaging in some wild and crazy gimmicks to get publicity. A few years back, he had some explaining to do when Cincinnati Police, investigating footprints painted all over the downtown sidewalks, discovered the graffiti all led to the Capitol Theater, where Joe was promoting a new movie. Then there was the time Joe staged a duel in the ballroom of the Gibson Hotel. As diners enjoyed a peaceful dinner, two conspirators staged a rowdy argument, pulled out pistols, stood back-to-back, paced off and fired blanks at each other. Joe told Cincinnati Post columnist Si Cornell [May 23, 1975]:
“I looked through listings of vaudeville acts, trying to find something for the Shubert during the World Series, and I saw photos of three cute little elephants that played baseball.”
Joe booked the act and, a couple of weeks later a policeman showed up in his office threatening to book Joe on charges of staging a parade without a permit. The elephants—Myrtle, Tilly and Jenny—were being unloaded from trainer Adele Nelson’s van and had completely blocked traffic on Walnut Street. It turned out the pictures in the vaudeville guide were a decade or more old. The cute little elephants had grown into rather hefty behemoths, each weighing north of 5,000 pounds. Joe accepted reality.
“Well, they still played baseball, so I put ‘em on stage. First performance we had a full house with all the visitors in town, and it looks like we’re booked solid for a week.”
Back in the 1930s, you really got your money’s worth when you went to the movies. When Joe Goetz booked the elephant act, he was filling the bill for an evening’s entertainment that featured The Under Pup, a new film introducing actress Gloria Jean in a juvenile drama set at a girls’ summer camp. In addition to the movie, fans got to hear John Boles, a singing actor who was heading into the twilight of his career; Sue Ryan, a comedic soprano who parodied the popular songstresses of the day; the Four Franks, a dance troupe; and a gymnastic act, the Gracella Dancers, “three strapping big chaps [who] throw a little blond girl everywhere but into your lap,” according to one reviewer. Naturally, so many acts require the direction of a master of ceremonies and that role was filled by rotund Milton Douglas and his sidekick and foil, Priscilla. All of that for just 60 cents, 40 cents for the matinee performance. The entertainers presented four shows on weekdays and five shows on Saturdays and Sundays.
The sold-out Friday premiere went off without a hitch and the newspaper reviews were almost universally positive. Halfway through an afternoon show, also sold to capacity, the Shubert provided one of the most unusual spectacles ever witnessed on a Cincinnati stage. The Nelson elephants were deep into their baseball routine when according to the Enquirer [October 7, 1939]:
“They were near the end of their second performance when a section of the floor began to buckle, throwing Myrtle to her knees. Trumpeting, she rolled over on her side, kicking out a rear foot. She kicked a rafter, which broke. Then the whole section gave way and Myrtle plunged 15 feet to the basement floor. She landed on her side, deluged by water from pipes broken in the fall.”
The show must go on, of course, and the Gracella Dancers were rushed to the stage, hurling their diminutive ingenue to the periodic wailing of a very confused pachyderm. The Shubert’s evening shows were canceled and a team of carpenters were drafted to cobble together a heavy-duty ramp to extricate Myrtle from the cellar and repair the gaping crater in the stage. Joe Goetz called the Cincinnati Zoo for advice. Si Cornell recalled:
“The carpenters banged away. The Zoo phoned back and said it wasn’t qualified to give advice, its elephants never having been in basements.”
Adele Nelson rushed to the basement with armloads of hay and several loaves of bread, a real treat for her stranded co-star, but could not lure Myrtle up the hastily constructed ramp. Myrtle’s plight attracted celebrity visitors to the Shubert to gape or to offer unsolicited advice, among them screen comedian Joe E. Brown and Frank “Buck” McCormick, the Reds’ first baseman.
Nelson’s husband, Louis E. Reed, suffered his own loss in the accident. He almost plummeted headlong into the basement as Myrtle dropped but was pulled back by a stagehand. Although Reed was safe, his false teeth fell into the hole and Myrtle trampled on them.
The Fire Department sent a rescue team to the theater. Fire Marshal Leo Kuhn called for a wrecker from Engine Company 42. The firemen fitted Myrtle with a rope harness and rigged up a mechanism for leverage, to no avail, according to the Enquirer:
“The fire department placed a block and tackle on her and pulled. Myrtle sat down calmly. It appeared the theater wall would move first.”
Late the next morning, it was John Boles, the headlining star, who came up with the solution. He asked the fire department to run a hose behind Myrtle and to begin spraying her hindquarters. That did the trick. Myrtle walked up the ramp and into the company of Tilly and Jenny.
From Cincinnati Enquirer, October 7, 1939
Although the Shubert management was concerned the act would have to be scratched from the bill, Myrtle and company returned to the stage that afternoon. Per the Enquirer:
“It might be well to mention that Myrtle first had to sniff around the repaired portion of the stage to satisfy herself as to its sturdiness.”
Adele Nelson and her baseball elephants finished the rest of their weeklong engagement at the Shubert. It is not recorded where the human participants in the act stayed while performing in the Queen City, but the elephants enjoyed luxurious quarters at the French Bauer stables on Central Parkway at Plum Street. It must have been quite a sight to see them on their eight-block commute to and from the theater.
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