Dave Apollon * One of the most successful Mandolin Players in the World * 1933 - 1942

Auf dieser Seite geht es um Dave Apollon, einer der erfolgreichsten Mandolinenspieler des 20. Jahrhunderts in den USA.

Biographie Über Dave Apollon bei dawgnet: http://www.dawgnet.com/acd_html/artists/apollon.html

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Old Fulton NY Post Cards

Teil 1 (1921 - 1926) * Teil 2 (1927 - 1932) * Teil 3 (1933 - 1942) * Teil 4 (1943 - 1953)

New York Post, April 23, 1935

Dave Apollon has 20th Anniversary

Dave Apollon, Russian artist now appearing at the Capitol Theatre, celebrates his twentieth anniversary on the concert and vaudeville stage this week. Apollon is now planning for a Carnegie Hall appearence, in which Danzi Goodell, Russian dancer, will be premiere danseuse.

NEW YOkK POST. THURSDAY. FEBRUARY 21. 1935

HEBREW ACTORS' BENEFIT

Dave Apollon has volunteered his services for the benefit show of the Hebrew Actors' Union to be held Saturday night at the New York Coliseum, the entire proceeds going to aid unemployed Hebrew entertainers.

(photo on the left side: Maurice Chevalier) 

THE NIAGARA FALLS GAZETTE, Sep. 9, 1935

New York Inside Out

by Don O'Malley

New York, March 19 - Wilhelm Furtwaengler, the great German conductor, has declined his post for the next season as leader of the Philharmonic Orchestra. This departement predicted that ..... by New York anti-Nazis would become serious.

The loss of Furtwängler will probably prove a body blow to thePhilharmonic's future. The orchestra officials should have put up a better fight for their selection.

A confirmed Philharmonic fan is Mayor LaGuardia. You'll find him usually appending his Sunday afternoons in Carnegie Hall. It's the only place, he says, where he 'can be sure of a rest."

Beautiful Evelyn Laye is on view in the new play "Sweet Aloes." The show is a rather heavy-handed tale about an unmarried mother who gives up her child and then goes off to becoma a neurotic wife. But Miss Laye in an assortment of colorful day and evening dresses is something to gaze upon.

Earl Thomas, my epigramic pal, says that along Broadway an optimist is a guy who thinks he's going to be famous - and a cynic is one who's BEEN famous.

CURED - Vacation victims are trooping back from Southern spots, full of woefu tales. Dave Apollon, the Russian comic returned from Miami the other day, and now sits down to write me a harrowing account of his sufferings.

"I went away for a rest, to get away from it all," he moans, "and what happens? As soon as I get on the train Florida-bound, a Filipino orchestra starts playing in the club car. When I arrive in Miami, two Russian dancers, formerly in my act, meet me at the train and insist that I look at their new routine. At the Hollwood Beach Club, where I stopped, they called upon me to be master of ceremonies at two charity affairs. On the beach, two song writers stop to me to listen to some new ditties they've written."

NEW YORK POST. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1937

DAVE APOLLON'S REVUE ON LOEWS STATE STAGE

Dave Apollon, who recently returned from Hollywood, is back at Loew's State this week with his newest revue, "Varieties of 1938." Among those featured are Cass Daley, singing comedienne; the Five Hollywood Co-eds, a quintette of acrobatic-dancers; Max and his Gang, canine offering; Harold Aloma, the Hawaiian singing-guitarist; Apollon's Twelve Continental Beauties in dance routines; Emily Van Losen, the toe-strut dancer; Annavann and her Gladiators, adagio dancers, and Apollon's Filipino String Orchestra, which provides a musical program and the background for the acts.

"The Lost Horizon," starring Ronald Colman, is the feature film attraction.

Above, Dave Apollon who is presenting his latest revue with a cast of fifty on the stage of Loew's State this week.

Three Comedians, Quillian, Gleason and Armstrong, Are Amusing

Dave Apollon opened at RKO Proctor's Theater yesterday with his unit show, the first unit to play the Schenectady house in several months. The orchestra, which is an eight-piece stringed affair, is called international because it is composed of Hawaiians dressed in Scotch kilts and introduced as Russians. Apollon acts as master of ceremonies and soloist ans his specialities include everything from singng popular songs in broken English to playing mandolin and a piano simultaneously.

Besides his orchestra, his jokes and his own "talent," he has a blond Russian, Danzi Goodell, who dances rings around the stage. A pair of ballet dancers, Agnes and Adeline, are also in the company, and their stepping to fast popular music is a revelation. The orchestra helps along with a symphonic arrangement of "The Dance of the Hours," from La Gioconda. Several of the boys also step out of line for specialities and four of them form a quartet.

Apollon finishes the act in person with an arrangement of a Russian peasant dance which sends his audiences away wondering if he painted the scenery and made the costumes.

SCHENECTADY GAZETTE, FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 24, 1939

John Garfield Heads Cast in 'Racket' Vehicle

"Blackwell's Island" Deals With Cleanup of Gang of "Big Shot" Criminals; Story Is Ingenious

Henry Morton, Schenectady's own. took the biggest laughs in the Dave Apollon stage show that opened at Proctor's yesterday. Cast as Ivan the Great, posing as a  brother of Mr. Apollon, this young man has gone much farther than from Veeder avenue to Proctor's since he has been playing with the Apollon band for about two years. Dressed in Russian trappings, he shivers wordlessly beside a bass viol which he finally takes to town in graphic pantomime. It is anybody's guess whether he ever does play his bull fiddle but his act is idiotic and indescribably funny. The show warmed up slowly to a pitch of hilarity that pleased a responsive audience. Mr. Apollon in spite of a serious mien unbent to participate in the gaiety and proved himself a master of the charming little instrument that he features. This is unlike our mandolins, is flat with a scrolled cripe and its delicacy and grace is reflected in the tone as well as the form.

ON the STAGE IN PERSON!

DAVE APOLLON

VARIETIES of 1939

10 Big Acts and 30 Entertainers featuring Melissa Mason, Oxford Boys, Henry Morton, Mildred Law

Extra - On Stage - Tommy Trent and His PUPPETS ON PARADE

THE NEW YORK SUN, MONDAY, MARCH 27, 1939.

Apollon Coming to Loew's State. Dave Apollon, the International comedian and the world's greatest mandolin player, has arrived hack in New York with bis vaudeville troupe after a record-breaking coast tour. Apollon will bring his entertaining cohorts to the stage of Loew's State, commencing April 6.

SCHENECTADY GAZETTE, THURSDAY MORNING, JULY 27, 1939

Dave Apollon was such a sensation on his opening date at the Palladium that the bill ran 30 minutes beyond scheduled time and when York and King made their English debut at the Holburn the entire audience stood on their sears and called them back a dozen times.

NEW YORK POST, SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 1939 

NEW STAGE SHOW AT LOEWS STATE 

EVENING RECORDER, AMSTERDAM, N. Y, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1939

At the latest initiation of Circus Saints and Sinners, Ole Olson and Chic Johnson, co-stars of "Hellzapoppln'," were the fall guys. . . and were brought from Central Park to the Aator in a monkey cage . . . The occasion was a triple anniversary— the twenty-fifth of Olson and Johnson's stage partnership, tho first of their show and the ten of the Saints and Sinners . . . Dave Apollon, now rehearsing his seventeenth variety revue for touring this Fall and Winter, holds that Ohio is the greatest state for variety entertainment and Michigan the coldest . . . He can't figure out why. though he's been trying for years . . . Hat checking costs a night-clubbing New Yorker ten bucks a year.

BROOKLYN EAGLE, MONDAY, MARCH 27, 1939 

 . . . Dave Apollon sent a postcard to Hitler which I wish I thought of first, "Remember," Dave counseled, "no maestro ever got harmony in his band merely by tossing out the Jew's harp!" . . . 

Section I OF THE BROOKLYN EAGLE SUNDAY, OCT. 20, 1940

Dave Apollon, Mad Mandolinist

Does the theory that this is the land of opportunity need additional corroboration, consider Dave Apollon, the mad mandolin player, whose antics are not the least of the riches provided by Ed Wynn's new musical revue, "Boys and Girls Together," at the Broadhurst Theater. When Apollon firs set foot on our shores some 20 years back he found himself in San Francisco witha considerable skill in character and classic dancing, an ability to whack tunes out of  both mandolin and piano, a complete ignorance of the English language, and three thousand miles removed from his goal - New York.

That Apollon is a gentleman to whom no obstacle is unsurmountable he proved conclusively within a period of six months. He got to New York within a week after tretering down the gangplank through the simple device of playing at a reception given for a fellow passenger on the Japanese liner on which he had sailed from the Orient. It should be remembered that Apollon's knowledge of English was something less than that of a polar resident. But he could speak a little German, a little French, a little Russian and was eloquent in Polish. Unhappily there are few Poles in the New York theatrical hierarchy, but Apollon was like Farragut at Mobile Bay, like Dewey at Manila. He damned the torpedoes and sailed full speed ahead.

To introduce himself to a profession that seemed signally disinterested in a youth from Poland, Apollon contrived to give an audition to the gentry at the Belmont Theater. He didn't invite his probable benefactors to these exercises. Instead he charged each of them the nervy amount of $5 top witness the Apollon art unfold.

This unprecedented strategy won an immediate reward. The next afternoon - and this is gospel - he was playing his mandolin like mad at the Palace Theater, then the mecca for all the vaudevillians of the democracy.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Apollon stopped the show at the Palace, but, as a member of the act of the Ford Sisters, he came perilously close to it. And from E. F. Albee he won a two-year contract over the Keith and Orpheum circuits. So effective was his mandolin that though still a stranger to English he played 186 consecutive weeks in the varieties, during which time he organized a group of Filipino musicians into Apollon's Russian strings.

About this time Apollon decided that further progress was impeded by his unfamiliarity with our lanuage. The gentlemen in the higher income brackets in the trade all spoke long, loud and practically continuously—Cantor, Jessel, Benny, Allen and Jolson. Talk he must and talk he would. Over the protests of an uptown vaudeville theater manager he tried out his English on a matinee audience. The manner in which he outraged sentence form, syntax and grammar convused his auditors and Apolon has been talking ever since.

Although this is his first performance in one of the major revues, Apollon has long been one of the stalwarts of vaudeville and, when that phase of the profession passed into limbo he succeeded with his own units in setting up many a hue and cry in those picture palaces which go in for revues in addition to the outcries of the vocal camera. Throughout these free States his mandolin is as well known as is the cackle and mad millinery of his present master, EdWynn.

Candid Close-Ups

Maestro of the Mandolin, Dave Apollon, Of "Boys and Girls Together"

By Rober Francis

This corner wandered backstage at the Broadhurst one night last week to watch Mr. Ed Wynn's antics in "Boys and Girls Together" from the wings.

By ROBERT FRANCIS
This corner wandered backstage at the Broadhurst one night last week to watch Mr. Ed Wynn's antics in "Boys and Girls Together" from
the wings. It got into conversation with a genial and courteous little
man, and suddenly discovered that it was talking to Dave Apollon. This
corner had somehow missed meeting Mr. Apollon face to face before, but had long admired the marvelous things he used to do with a mandolin
in the heyday of vaudeville. Mr. Apollon is undoubtedly the world's maestro of the pick and strings. Your reporter decided to improve the opportunity to talk to him.

"Let us go then to my dressing room," he replied, with a little foreign bow, "it is quieter there, and I do not go on until the second act."

"This is your first Broadway musical, isn't it?" your reporter began, lighting one of the maestro's Russian cigarettes.

"Yes, and for the first time in 20 years, I work for somebody." He smiled, "It happened on account of tea." 

"Tea?"

"But yes. Mr. Wynn gave a tea party. I took my mandolin and played for them. He had signed everybody for his show already, but afterwardhe came to me and invited me to be in it also. So you see it was tea."

This reasoning seemed a little involved, but Y. R. let it go at that.

"How do you like working for somebody else, after having your own shows so long?

"I like working for Mr. Wynn," announced Mr. Apollon, decidedly. "He is a genius. Please say that. His timing! He is to me of the greatshowmen of the theater! I have learned much from being with him."

There is no bunk about that, Mr. A. means every word of it. That's why he stands in the wings every night to watch his idol.

Dave Apollon has had a chance to "learn much" over the years. He has packed more adventure into his career than any 10 actors. Born in Kiev, Russia, the son of a well-to-do fruit merchant, he ran off to join a circus. Sang, danced, did acrobatics, and learned the piano and mandolin. In 1914 he organized the first Russian vaudeville unit and toured Siberia for two years via two wagons. He was mustered into war service and became a boy bandmaster for Grand Duke Michael. Subsequently, with the varying changes of revolution, he served under 11 different generals in three different armies. He landed in San Francisco in 1920 with 40 cents in his pocket. Worked his way to New York and organized a revue with other refugees. Albee saw him and offered him a contract. That began a vaudeville career that lasted through 1934 without a break.

In 1928 a young dancer joined his act at the Albee Theater in Brooklyn. Her name was Danzi Goodell. She is Mrs. Apollon these last three years. She doesn't work with him now, but is studying dramatics. There is another member of the Apollon menage also, young Michael, aged 20months. His proud papa says that he already dances, plays piano, and can carry a tune.

They all live together in an apartment on Central Park West, where Dave spends his spare time in making home movies. The place is filled by his other two hobbles, a collection of mandolins dating from a troubadour's lute down to the present day, and countless antique porcelains. Says he may give the former to a museum some day, but not the porcelains. They are his grand passion.

"What are your plans, when 'Boys and Girls Together' is over?"

"Ah, I do not want it ever to be over! But some day I would like to produce my own musical show. After all, I am ready. I have danced, sung - even in the opera and the movies,"  he grins. "Of course, in theopera I am only in the chorus."

"I must, go now," he adds, tying on his kummerbund. "This has been so nice. Tonight after the show I make recordings for album of mandolin records. I will send you one, when it Is ready. Perhaps, you wouldlike it."

This corner would like it very much indeed. It likes the Maestro's playing and it likes the Maestro, too.

EVENING RECORDER, AMSTERDAM, N. Y., TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1941.

One of the few professional mandolinists in the United States is Dave Apollon, wry-faced zany In Ed Wynne "Boys and Girls Together". Apollon is said to be the only man who ever gave a solo recital on the mandolin in Manhattan. Twenty and 25 years ago he gave such recitals in Aeolian Hall and Carnegie Hall. Report has it that Wynn put Apollon in his show as a star because he likes mandolin playing. Recently Apollon bought a very expensive French-made mandolin which has become so rare since thewar that he has insured it for 110,000.

A clause In the insurance policy forbids Apollon to leave his mandolin in his dressing room overnight. So no matter where he goes after the show the mandolin goes along. Band leaders, seeing him traipsing up Broadway with his mandolin case. And not knowing he is in a show, offer him jobs. Also he has found himself very popular socially. People of whom he hat never heard keep asking him to parties. The reason is that the inviters, knowing Apollon will bring his mandolin, can call on him for impromptu entertainment.

New York Post, Saturdy, February 14, 1942

The Roxy gives its current stage show and picture one more week, after which they will make way for "Roxie Hart." Dave Apollon, self-styled Russian ambassador of music and lutist extraordinary, is the ringleader in the business currently going on on the stage. He is surrounded by such entertaining performers as Gower and Jeanne, two of the youngest and most talented of the dancing set; the acrobatic (with wellcalculated slips) Carr Brothers, and the popular tenor, Bob Hannon.