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Ventriloquist's Dummy
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] |
The GreatLester 1904 - Wielki Lester 1904
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a v ... [...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 house. E ... [...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, impla ... [...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 a ... [...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 linksHe ... [...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 the ... [...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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, 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 industry, 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 Midland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...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 movies. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 170 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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