Friars and Vagabonds

For a couple months I’ve been chewing away on a William Wesley Young mystery: the nature of his relationship with the NYC theatrical community. I found the following insert for Young in the 1920-21 edition of “Who’s Who in America”. Focusing on the “clubs” listing, you’ll see that Young was involved in: The Friars, Vagabonds, Writers’ and National Press Club.

“Young, William Wesley” entry in “Who’s Who in America, 1920-21”

Two of those clubs are theatrical clubs: the Friars and the Vagabonds. Since Young’s career took a “theatrical” turn when he was invited back to NYC in 1908 to edit Broadway magazine Hampton’s, perhaps this isn’t surprising. However, this period in Young’s life is worth examining because it contains a business link between John R Freuler (our Monroe, WI Mutual Film head) and William Wesley in NYC which predates the bloody 1914 struggles involving the Broadway Rose Garden as well as Leon Goetz’s strange 1910 submarine escape pod patent.

Hampton’s Magazine was owned by Benjamin B. Hampton, an early film mogul who was in close communication with Freuler over (quasi-) contracting star performer Mary Pickford for Mutual. Hampton was something of a “behind the scenes” man and I’m still trying to understand exactly why he and Freuler were cooperating together over Pickford in 1916. (It probably has something to do with the film ambitions of the American Tobacco Company, of which Hampton was vice-president and for which W. W. Young penned “The Story of the Cigarette”.)

What I do know is that in 1908 Hampton just had to have William Wesley Young move back to NYC from Chicago to edit his magazine, and that Hampton fired the existing editor, Freud-aficionado and soft-porn writer Theodor Dreiser. Hampton proceed to clean up the magazine’s content— it had become known for suggestive imagery too— and Young’s career in showbiz was born. The magazine continued to focus on the theater trade in NYC under Hampton’s management. Just a few years after purchasing the magazine, Hampton shifted his attention to film production— he seems to have very quickly become a “player” with extraordinary contacts and capital.

Cover of Hampton’s Broadway Magazine from Christmas, 1908, the year Young was hired. The title of the magazine would be shortened to Hampton’s Magazine shortly afterward.

Now that Young had day-to-day control of an entertainment-biz opinion organ, it was time for him to join the requisite social clubs.

“Gloria Allred Outside of The Friars Club in 1988 after she was the first woman to ever have lunch at the club” Medium.com

“The Friars” is a club for the elite of the theater business, they call their clubhouse “the Monastery”. This has become a dark joke, as the club has recently been in the press for all the wrong reasons: it was raided by the Feds in 2017 because its Executive Director Michael Gyure evaded taxes.

Even worse, in August of this year the establishment was exposed as part of that ‘floating world’ where well-connected pedophiles feel safe sexually abusing minors: Friars denizen Jeff Ross would allegedly fondle his teenage victim there. Ross’s alleged behavior shouldn’t have surprised anyone, as a few months earlier it came out that Gloria Allred, a Friars member and an active ‘face’ of the club on its website, had refused to represent Epstein victims the Farmer sisters (Maria and Annie), because “you and Annie don’t even have a case”. (Fortunately the sisters didn’t give up! Hear Maria Farmer talk about Allred in the last 10 minutes of the linked-to interview. Allred has since associated herself with Epstein’s victims.)

“Jessica [Radtke] and [Jeff] Ross at the Friars Club roast of Jerry Stiller in 1999. Radtke says this is the first public photo they ever took together. Photo: Courtesy of Jessica Radtke” Vulture.com

Jessica Radtke was 15 when the abuse began, she says. Much like Epstein victim Virginia Louise Giuffre, Radtke was neglected by her father who struggled with substance abuse. Her father was regularly drunk at the Boston Comedy Club, where he took Jessica along on binges. The club’s booker, Gina Savage, appears to have procured the teen for Ross. Like pedophile Jeffery Epstein, Ross was attracted by the teen’s “innocence”.

Jeff Ross denies the abuse and implies that Radtke has mental health issues— many sex abuse survivors do have mental health and substance abuse problems. Predators tend to groom victims from environments where such problems are prevalent and contribute to the child’s vulnerability.

There can be no excuses for adults who abuse children, but I would like to point out that pedophiles are often victims of sexual abuse themselves— the behavior is perpetuated in families. Pre-WWI law enforcement recognized that sexual abuse of minors was endemic and culturally normalized in families which participated in prostitution. This is worth bearing in mind when evaluating the modern “Friars Club” scene, particularly in light of the information about the club’s founders I provide below.

The Friars’ Club was originally an organization of press agents who banded together in 1904 to eliminate the "free pass" fraudsters who tried to get admission to New York City theaters and thereby endangered the agents’ source of income.

According to an archived history from the Friars’ official website:

The first meeting was held at Browne's Chop House, in response to a call issued by Charles Emerson Cook, press representative for David Belasco; Channing Pollock, representing the Shuberts; and John S. Flaherty, since deceased, who was manager and press representative for the Majestic Theatre. Those who attended the inaugural meeting, and assisted in organizing the Press Agents' Association, were: John W. Rumsey, Charles Emerson Cook, Channing Pollock, Philip Mindil, Mason Peters, William Raymond Sill, Burton Emmett, Bronson Douglas, Harry C. Schwab, and John S. Flaherty. Channing Pollock was elected President; John W. Rumsey, Treasurer; and John S. Flaherty, Secretary.

David Belasco, whose family were London transplants, was responsible for launching the careers of two key people associated with Freuler’s Mutual Film endeavor: D. W. Griffith and the young Canadian Mary Pickford. He also championed Cecil B. DeMille, whose career flourished alongside British government intervention in the US film industry.

The Shuberts (Friar Channing Pollock) ran a theater monopoly based on controlling performing talent, which I talked about with reference to the “White Slave Trade” here. Austro-Hungarian law enforcement recognized international traveling musical acts as a prime vector for sex-trade human trafficking; the Shuberts controlled booking for such talent in key US markets.

The “Majestic Theater” mentioned above as managed by Friar John S. Flaherty is most likely the one built in 1903 on Columbus Circle in NYC:

John H. Duncan, architect. Built by Edward D. Stair and A.L. Wilbur as one of the first theatres by Columbus Circle, which was expected to become another theatre district. The Shuberts, Florenz Ziegfeld, and Billy Minsky each failed to make it a success. Later, William Randolph Hearst took over, changed the policy to cinema, and renamed it the Cosmopolitan. In 1949, NBC leased it for a television studio. It was torn down in 1954 to allow for wider sidewalks in front of the New York Coliseum.

Friar John W. Rumsey was an influential theater manager with connections to the Shuberts; to British literary talents who would work for British Intelligence during WWII (but possibly earlier into the 1890s); and to Daniel Frohman, 1912 business partner of Adolph Zukor in the Famous Players Film Company. (Famous Players signed Mary Pickford in 1913 after she built her career working with D. W. Griffith, in 1916 she approached Hampton/Freuler for a more lucrative contract.) Rumsey was famous for his involvement in the American Play Company, as described in this Bonham’s listing of American Play Company memorabilia:

AMERICAN PLAY COMPANY / CENTURY PLAY COMPANY.

THE BUSINESS OF SHOW: ARCHIVE OF MATERIAL FROM MAJOR 20TH CENTURY THEATRICAL AGENCIES.

Bonhams is pleased to present the extensive archives of the New York theatrical agency, American Play Company / Century Play Company…
The roots of the American Play Company go back to the 1880s, when Elizabeth Marbury became the protégé of theatrical impresario Daniel Frohman and convinced Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of Little Lord Fauntleroy, to let her act as her exclusive business representative. Marbury learned the practical side of theatrical management supervising the Broadway and traveling productions of Burnett's play (based on her novel of the same name), involving herself down to the casting of the young actors playing the lead.

From there Marbury enjoyed great success, becoming the sole representative of the French Society of Authors, as well as the agent of such literary luminaries as George Bernard Shaw, Edmond Rostand, W. Somerset Maugham, J.M. Barrie, Arthur Wing Pinero, Rachel Crothers, G.M. Cohan, Jerome Kern, Guy Bolton, and P.G. Wodehouse, among others.

In 1914, with the outbreak of war in Europe, Marbury decided to merge her company with Selwyn & Co, a competing theatrical agency, to form the American Play Company. By 1930 APC was actually an amalgam of Selwyn & Co, Elizabeth Marbury, Inc., The John Rumsey Play Company, the original American Play Company, and The De Mille Company.

John Rumsey (also a protégé of Froman) took over the day-to-day management of the business from 1930 until the 1960s. In 1950, Rumsey negotiated a merger between APC and Century Play Company, a competing agency whose roots are much murkier than APC's. Century Play Company was founded at the beginning of the 20th century, and may have had been a subsidiary of the Schubert organization until that company, feeling governmental anti-trust pressure, spun the agency off as its own entity. It was run by two men, James Thatcher and Thomas F. Kane, who, agency files reveal, executed agreements with authors sometimes on behalf of Century Play Company, and sometimes in their own names. Thatcher died in 1930, and Kane ran the business until his death in 1950, after which the company was sold to American Play Company.

I’ve provided all this information in an attempt to show that Friars’ Club founders had interrelated business interests and were influential in the early film industry. Flo Ziegfeld was a Friars member too, one of the “Immortal Friars” according to Barry Dougherty, historian and Communications Director of the Friars Club:

While attending the after party of the Friars Icon Award in honor of Robert De Niro in the Frank Sinatra Dining Room, I took note that the chair he was sitting on had “George Burns” engraved on a plaque on the back of the seat. There are scads of chairs in the Monastery and each of them has a nameplate– an opportunity for Members to support the Club and to be remembered along the way.

There are also chairs that have been designated for our “Immortal Friars.” Those are the prime seats in which to park your carcass. With this in mind, I checked to see who I had the honor of resting on during this event…

One afternoon at lunch a Broadway producer waved me over to his table for a chat. My eagle eyes instantly read “George M. Cohan” off the back of his chair. His lunch guest, Bernadette Peters, was seated on “Florenz Ziegfeld.” I sat down on “Al Nussbaum.” …

These chairs were becoming my obsession. I found myself making a daily appearance in the dining room, wandering among Members and their guests. I glared at them for having randomly chosen “George Jessel,” “Phil Silvers” and “President Woodrow Wilson.”

Eddie Cantor was one of Ziegfeld’s star performers. The Friars held dinners for a number of men identified as Ziegfeld investors: anti-pornography tsar William A. Brady, A. L. Erlanger and Marc Klaw.

When William Wesley Young joined the Friars, he was joining a social club for well-connected men who controlled the NYC entertainment industry and molded public opinion. They were also tied into the seedy world of human trafficking and the international sex trade. Austrian diplomats and Brooklyn civic leaders shared the belief that the wider immigrant milieu from which the Ziegfelds, Shuberts, Frohmans and Belascos came was the driving force behind revolutionary violence in Imperial Russia. Austrian Foreign Minister Baptist Lexa von Aehrenthal predicted that the US would follow Russia’s revolutionary politics, albeit more slowly. Ears in New York City were listening.

Starting in 1915, Jacob Schiff’s Humanitarian Cult, for which William Wesley Young worked, existed to harness revolutionary socialist politics in NYC and its bedroom, Brooklyn, by using a Russian immigrant ‘frontman’ named Mischa Appelbaum. One year later, in 1916, William Wesley Young would produce a movie about the civic education of a young revolutionary from Russia, titled “A Boy and the Law”— though Young doesn’t talk about that film in his 1920 Who’s Who entry!

In 1916 The Friars’ “Monastery” was relocated to Nos. 106-108-110 West 48th Street, New York City; the purchase of this property was financed through several years’ worth of fundraisers which the organization called “Frolics”. Readers will notice that the Monastery’s address includes the “110 W 48th Street” that William Wesley Young listed as his office address in 1920. If Young had some official connection with the administration of the Friar’s Club, its not a connection that the organization has spoken publicly about. The Who’s Who of 1920-21 isn’t the only place where Young listed the Friar’s address as his business address, he did the same in his bio for the “Committee on Pedagogical Research in Visual Education” hosted by Educational Film Magazine (January 1921), where he served next to A. A. Brill, Sigmund Freud’s representative in New York City.

The black star shows the location of the “Monastery” in 1916. Today the Cort Theater is nearby, while the actual site is occupied by the sprawling Rockefeller Center.

So, there you have it. When “Mr. Young” wined and dined Edith May two weeks into her Ziegfeld experience and Young’s colleague Mischa Appelbaum was busy guzzling mercury pills, William Wesley conducted his business dealings out of the Friars Club premises. What about the Vagabonds?

I found absolutely no evidence of a connection between any ‘Vagabond Club’ and William Wesley Young other than this Who’s Who entry. By process of elimination, the only club of that name in the USA at that time and in W. W. Young’s milieu would have been “The Vagabonds”, an amateur theatrical group in Baltimore— but really run out of NYC.

“The Vagabonds” was set up by the daughter-in-law of a prominent publisher, Henry Holt. Holt was the American translator and publisher of Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf, a favorite of 1960s-era ‘counter-culture’ exponents. The book is complex, it involves a “magic theater” which brings a perceived transcendence to the protagonist, and was popular among counter-culture adherents for its depictions of sex and drug use, as well as anti-nationalism. Holt’s daughter-in-law, Constance D’Arcy Mackay, founded her magic theater long before Steppenwolf’s German-language appearance in 1927, so if there was influence between the two parties, it was Hesse influenced by Mackay.

In 1916 Mackay decided to employ her Baltimore entourage in the foundation of The Vagabonds, an amateur theater group whose goal was to produce more experimental plays than those produced by the Broadway magnates listed above.

Mackay used her father-in-law’s press presence to promote her project, while enlisting the help of Baltimore pressmen to trumpet the Vagabonds locally. John Oldmixon Lambden, a critic for the Baltimore Sun and heir to a multi-generational theater legacy, worked with David Belasco to acquire rights to plays that would otherwise have been off-limits to the amateurs. So, despite the Vagabond’s self-consciously counter-culture stance, it was suckled by the leaders of NYC press and theater industries.

Theater facade, from vagabondplayers.org.

This two-faced nature was reflected in the Vagabond’s membership, also. Filled with bankers, Cotillion leaders, debutantes, real estate developers, suffragettes and assorted industrialists, it’s hard to imagine a more ‘establishment’ East Coast group in 1920s America. This is exactly the type of crowd which would have appealed to William Wesley Young.

The Vagabond’s typical repertoire in the early years consisted of plays by local boy H. L. Mencken, ‘Viennese Modernism’ writer Arthur Schnitzler and Anton Chekov. During the War, The Vagabonds lost their leader Mackay and her henchman Adele Gutman Nathan (wife of a real estate developer) to the War Camp Community Services (WCCS) organization, naturally Nathan went to the Maryland branch while Mackay became director of the department of pageantry and drama of the National Headquarters.

The WCCS was a strange organization, as described by unitedwarwork.com, a website run through the Hope College History Department and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s Library of Congress Research Initiative:

War Camp Community Service  was one of only two secular groups involved in the UWWC [1918 United War Work Campaign], the American Library Association being the other. The service was also unique in that it was formed out of a previously-existing organization, the Playground Association of America (PAA). … After one of its first meetings, the leaders of the organization declared that “inasmuch as play under proper conditions is essential to the health and the physical, social and moral well being of the child, playgrounds are a necessity for all children.”[3] This philosophy, originally applied to children, would be extended to American soldiers through the War Camp Community Service in later years…

… Some have contended that the PAA and other organizations that built public playgrounds did so out of concern that urban youth who had few recourses for amusement would turn to hooliganism.[4] Others have alleged that the play movement sought to make these youth more like Anglo-Protestant America.[5] The PAA, indeed, seems to have had motivations besides philanthropy. Joseph Lee, a key figure in the organization, saw the play movement as a way of training children to be future citizens…

The service also invited soldiers to social, supervised gatherings where young women would be present, which was seen as a way to bolster morale in the men without impropriety. According to Lee, “Our soldiers and sailors will seek and find female society in any case. The War Camp Community Service has provided, for the first time in history, that they shall find it in a form that does them not harm but infinite good.”

Young women of the WCCS entertain servicemen, without the danger of VD or fraternizing with the enemy.

In short, the WCCS was an organization right up William Wesley Young’s alley. After the war, Mackay would become heavily involved in the PEN organization, which by the mid 1950s had become a CIA front— another organization up that same alley.

I had hoped to be able to offer readers more personal details about Young’s involvement with these theatrical clubs, but the truth is their early history hasn’t been studied much. Recent versions of the Friars’ website are far more stingy with information about the club’s past than they were previously. The only work I found dealing with the The Vagabonds’ pre-1920 history, Koenig’s The Vagabonds: America’s Oldest Little Theater, is light on background. Hopefully I will be able to remedy this in the future.

In the meantime, as a public service, I’d like to leave readers with this incomplete list of Friars from the Friars’ Club website— there are around 1500 total members:

In 1988, Liza Minnelli smashed through the club’s Tiffany ceiling by becoming the first official card-carrying female Friar. She was followed by the legendary civil rights lawyer, Gloria Allred, the club's first female non-entertainer member.

Its cadre of members has expanded far beyond the boundaries of entertainment professionals and continues to grow. Some notable Friars, past and present, are listed below:

Comedians

Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, George Burns, Lucille Ball, Sid Caesar, Phyllis Diller, Redd Foxx, Red Buttons, Buddy Hackett, Don Rickles, Carole Burnett, Carl Reiner, Rich Little, Bob Newhart, Freddie Roman, Joan Rivers, Richard Prior, Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, Robert Klein, Gilbert Gottfried, Totie Fields, Rita Rudner, Jeanne Carroll, Sophie Tucker, Joey Adams, Henny Youngman, Gene Baylos, Richard Lewis, Billy Crystal, Chevy Chase, Robin Williams, Lewis Black, Joy Behar, Janeane Garofalo, Jerry Seinfeld, Susie Essman, Lisa Lampanelli, Whitney Cummings, Sarah Silverman, Jack Black.

Actors

George M. Cohan, Douglas Fairbanks, Will Rogers, Cary Grant, Elizabeth Taylor, Humphrey Bogart, Kirk Douglas, Ernest Borgnine, Candice Bergen, Elliot Gould, Elaine Stritch, Abe Vigoda, Richard Dryfuss, Robert Deniro, Morgan Freeman, John Travolta, Danny DeVito, Betty White, Roger Moore, Renée Taylor, Joe Bologna, George Raft, Kelly Preston, Bill Murray, Susan Lucci, Pierce Brosnan, Brooke Shields, Tom Cruise, Sam Jackson, Alec Baldwin, Don Cheadle, Lainie Kazan, Anjelica Houston, Bebe Neuwirth, Matthew Broderick, Bruce Willis, Neve Campbell, Rosario Dawson, Lea DeLaria.

Musicians

Oscar Hammerstein, Al Jolson, Irving Berlin, Dave Brubeck, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Barbra Streisand, Perry Como, Enrico Caruso, Liza Minnelli, Tom Jones, Tony Bennett, Nancy Sinatra, Diana Ross, Harry Belafonte, Nat King Cole, Frankie Valli, Art Garfunkel, Elvis Costello, Dee Snider, Dionne Warwick, Allen Toussaint, Debbie Reynolds, Aretha Franklin, Boyd Tinsley, Clive Davis, Natalie Cole.

Writers, Directors & Producers

Neil Simon, Herb Sargent, Gary Smith, Chuck Barris, Joe Cates, Alan Zweibel, Elie Wieser, Tom Fontana, Evan Hunter, Marc Eliot, Nelson DeMille, Sam Denoff, Gil Cates, Michael Tadross, Will Friedwald, Quentin Tarantino, Rob Reiner, Eli Roth, Brett Ratner, Brad Grey, Michael Lynne, Leslie Moonves, Jon Favreau, Joel and Ethan Coen.

Talk Show Hosts

Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Ed McMahon, Dick Cavett, Joe Franklin, Sally Jessy Raphael, Regis Philbin, Matt Lauer, Steve Allen, Meredith Vieira, Kathy Lee Gifford, Al Roker, Larry King, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon.

Journalists & Broadcasters

Walter Cronkite, Barbara Walters, Edward R. Murrow, Mike Wallace, Bob Woodruff, Diane Sawyer, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Chuck Scarborough, Roger Grimsby, Rolland Smith, Rosanna Scotto, Earl Wilson, Brian Williams, Janice Huff, Ernie Anastos.

Entrepreneurs

Carl Icahn, Steve Tisch, Jonathan Tisch, Samuel J. LeFrak, Hugh Hefner, Caroline Hirsch, Donald Trump, Leonard Wilf, Carlos Slim, John Catsimatidis, Sheldon Adelson, Alan Patricof, Ron Perelman.

Sports Figures

Rocky Marciano, Rusty Staub, David Cone, Howard Cosell, Goose Gossage, George Foreman, Tiki Barber, Boomer Esiason, Leo Durocher, Arthur “Bugs” Baer, Tommy Lasorda, George Steinbrenner, Adam Graves, Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Keith Hernandez, Don King, Bert Sugar, Bob Arum.

Politicians

Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, David Dinkins, Alfred E. Smith, Jimmy Walker, Abe Beame, John Lindsay, Michael Bloomberg.

Restaurateurs & Food Show Hosts

Bob Lape, Arnold Penner, Frank Pellegrino, Bill Boggs, Drew Nieporent, Padma Lakshmi.

Barbara Streisand at an appreciation dinner The Friars Club held for her in May 1969.

“Actress Betty White arrives on a white pony as she is honored at a Friars Club Roast sponsored by Godiva, Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at the Sheraton Hotel in New York.” timesunion.com