Cherie Rich, Australia's Only Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty
A coterie of Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties on tour in Washington DC, circa 1919. Source: Library of Congress
I have previously looked at the career of Yvonne 'Fifi' Banvard, who sometimes claimed to be Australia's only Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty. I found her claim to be highly unlikely - but that of another Australian girl looks more compelling.
Starting in around 1915, the Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties were to Sennett comedies what the 'beauty ballet' was to theatre or vaudeville - an eye-pleasing novelty, not central to the action but considered an essential part of the experience. The Bathing Girls were the titillating 'yin' to the 'yang' of the Keystone Kops and their madcap antics.
In practice, to be a Bathing Beauty comprised anything from posing for photos, to taking part in promotional events, to actually appearing in a Mack Sennett film. Hundreds of women fulfilled these role; a few became famous, but many remain nameless. Was Cherie Rich one of them? The answer is possibly, yes - but it forms only one small part of Cherie's own fascinating story.
Bessie MacIntosh of Bondi
The cast of 'Little Lord Fauntleroy.' Bess MacIntosh is in the third row from the top, on far right. Source: The Sun (Sydney) - 12 October 1913
Bessie Olive MacIntosh was born at Bondi on 12 November 1897, the second of three children to Minnie Rudkin Belisario MacIntosh (formerly Burgess), and Henry Brewster MacIntosh, a Scottish draughtsman. Her mother was of Irish parentage, though the name 'Belisario' and Bessie's olive complexion also suggest a Spanish lineage.
Not much is known about Henry, except that he evidently wasn't to be trusted. When he and Minnie were married in 1896, he had only recently been divorced from the first wife he abandoned years earlier, while, eighteen-year-old Minnie was already more than eight months pregnant with their first child.
Henry's second marriage ended in similar fashion to his first. In early 1906, just after Bessie’s eighth birthday, he departed for New Zealand, advising his family that he would send for them as soon as warmer weather arrived. Minnie waited six months before suing him for child desertion. There is no evidence that Bessie ever saw her father again, and even less that she cared to.
Show business captured Bessie’s heart at a young age. In October 1913, she made her stage debut in a charity performance of Little Lord Fauntleroy benefiting the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children. The company, under the tutelage of elocutionist and Shakespearean actress Sara Collins, was composed entirely of child performers ranging from six to fifteen years of age. Playing the title character’s mother, she was singled out in reviews: “Miss Bess MacIntosh’s interpretation of the role of Mrs Errol was characterised by sympathy and an agreeable clarity of delivery.”
Among the audience were such dignitaries as the State Premier of New South Wales, William Holman, and Mrs Hugh D. McIntosh, wife of the man who had loaned the Tivoli Theatre to the company for the evening. Hugh McIntosh was an impresario, boxing promoter and man-about-town, unkindly but accurately nicknamed ‘Huge Deal’ by those who did not admire the way he clearly considered himself one. In his own way, McIntosh would loom large in the life of the girl who shared a similar surname.
Frank Pichetto (aka Frank Picato), the American boxer who became Bess's ticket to Hollywood.
It was her mother’s second marriage that would change Bessie’s life forever. In March 1914, Minnie wed a Los Angeles-born, Australian-based lightweight boxer named Frank Pichetto. Using the professional pseudonym ’Frank Picato', he was currently boxing under the auspices of the same Hugh D. McIntosh.
At 26, Frank was considerably younger than his new wife - closer in age to his teenage stepdaughter, in fact - but Minnie generally sliced as many as seven years off her age in official documents, a habit her daughter would later emulate. At 5 foot 6, Bessie was taller than average, with a shock of dark hair that made it easy to pass for the Italian-American's natural daughter.
After his marriage, Frank suffered a loss of form in the boxing ring and gave himself over to domestic life. After a brief, unsuccessful period as a hotelier, he sought work as a manual labourer. An ankle injury sustained while working on Dalgety’s Wharf in Balmain in 1916 left him unable to work for months. Money was tight; for the time being, Bessie would have to put aside her show-business ambitions, though in her own words, she remained “wild to go on [appear in] the pictures.”
Perhaps it was when the United States entered World War I that Frank decided to return to his native land, bringing his family with him. Bess’s heart must have taken a leap. Improbably, in the midst of a World War, an Australian teenager who listed her profession on immigration documents as ‘Cashier’ found herself on a ship headed for the world’s movie capital.
Hollywood Beckons (1917-1919)
Tait's at the Beach as it appeared in 1919, around the time Bess - or Cherry, as she was then called - may have performed there.
Bessie arrived at San Francisco on 23 July 1917, and the family settled into a modest apartment on 14th Street in the Mission District. It wasn’t Hollywood, but it would do. “A letter from his wife informs me that Frank Picato is doing well in a constant job at iron moulding in San Francisco,” wrote one Sydney boxing correspondent in late 1917. “His little 14-year-old stepson, Billy MacIntosh, gets 9 dollars a week with the World Film Co, while Billy’s sweetly pretty sister, Bessie, was specially selected, after only four days at a manicuring school, for the post of manicurist at the famous Fairmont Hotel, where she gets 80 cents on the dollar and the tips are enormous.”
Minnie and her children briefly and mysteriously returned to Australia in 1918, and Frank and Minnie’s marriage did not last much longer. Shortly after she arrived in San Francisco, Minnie had met an old friend of her husband's, hotelier Gilbert Danby. In 1920, she and Gilbert left their respective spouses and fled to Australia, where they were married the following year.
When Bess returned to America later in 1918, things must have moved swiftly. From this point onwards, we must rely on her version of events. Solid evidence is scant, although three things are certain. The first is that at some point Bess adopted the theatrical pseudonym of ‘Cherry Mack.’ The origin of the first name is unknown, but it was one she used - later spelt ‘Cherie’ and then ‘Cheri’ - for the rest of her life.
The second is that the film industry remained her ultimate goal. “I didn’t make the mistake of trying to rush in,” she said later, “but went to a good dancing academy.” If it is true that she studied with Denishawn’s as she claimed, it was a sound footing for fame, a trying ground for such future stars as Dorothy Revier and Louise Brooks. “[I] put in six months’ strenuous work there before I finally got an engagement to appear at Tait’s in San Francisco,” she said, speaking either of the well known Union Square restaurant-cabaret or its seaside outpost, Tait's on the Beach. Interestingly, the current headliners at Tait's were the dance team Fanchon and Marco. One of their first professional engagements had been in Sydney, at a fundraising show where a teenage Bessie MacIntosh had taken care of ‘Barry the Charity Bulldog’ in the foyer. Perhaps it was they who had helped Cherie to a job.
It was at Tait’s, Cherie claimed, that she first met the great comedy film director Mack Sennett. According to Cherie, it was her genuine ability in swimming and diving - rare among the Bathing Beauties - that sold Sennett on her talents. She would further claim that Sennett hand-picked her to be part of the stage revue that accompanied his film Yankee Doodle Dandy in Berlin (1919) around America. As many as 250 different women took part in this tour, so it remains a possibility.
Larry Richardson not long after his marriage to Cherie. Source: 'Close Up', 20 October 1920.
However, it is the third thing we know occurred during this period that suggests that Cherie was elsewhere.
In mid 1919, the Harry Siebert Smith Company took up residence at the Burbank Theatre in Burbank, California, bringing with them a performer christened Laurence Jossenberger but now known as Larry Richardson. Born in Texas to theatrical parents, he had filled various roles in his twenty five years, including song plugger, actor-manager of a stock theatre company, silent film actor and vaudeville performer. The Harry Siebert Smith Company boasted a sizeable ‘beauty ballet,’ of which Cherie became a member. Only a few months after the company’s arrival, she and Larry were married onstage at the Burbank Theatre, on 22 September 1919.
In signing the marriage certificate, Cherie was at her most capricious. She gave her year of birth as 1900, substituted her erstwhile stepfather's birthday for her own, and listed her birthplace as ‘Calcutta, India.’ Erasing her mother’s two failed marriages, she gave her name simply as ‘Minnie Burgess.’ As for her father, she whimsically wrote ‘Hugh D. McIntosh,’ not even bothering to correct the spelling of his surname to match her own.
Larry and Cherie In Films (1919-1921)
Cherie advertises her skills as a dance teacher. Source: IT Magazine, 11 December 1920.
Though Cherie and Larry had only known one another for a short time when they married, it was a true love match both personally and professionally. The couple announced that their next move would be to abandon the stage in pursuit of screen fame. Larry had already appeared in a number of East Coast-produced silent films under his birth name, souring on screen work only after he was injured during production of The White Trail (1915). Perhaps it was his new wife’s ambitions that inspired him to attempt a comeback.
By mid 1920, Larry had found a place in the Henry Lehrman Comedy Company, whose two-reel shorts were released via Fox Films under the banner of ‘Sunshine Comedies.’ Ironically, given Larry’s previous injury, Lehrman had gained such a reputation for placing his performers in physical danger that he was known as ‘Mr Suicide.’
We know that Larry appeared in Lehrman comedies, but what of Cherie? She claimed to have played roles in Lehrman’s The Kick In High Life (1920) and A Twilight Baby (1920) - two films in which Larry also appeared. Like many of Mack Sennett’s competitors, Sunshine boasted an imitation of the Bathing Beauties, the ‘Sunshine Girls’ - and it is possible that Cherie numbered amongst their ranks, or played another small role.
While working on both films, the Richardsons would undoubtedly have become acquainted with actress Virginia Rappe, the female lead of A Twilight Baby who also played a minor role in TheKick In High Life. Rappe, a beautiful, vivacious former model and fashion entrepreneur, was engaged to Henry Lehrman and was currently being groomed for stardom. The following year, she would die in tragic circumstances at a Labor Day house party hosted by fellow comedy star Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle, forming the first of Hollywood’s great scandals.
Later in 1920, Larry moved to Vitagraph, appearing in A Parcel Post Husband (1920) and taking major roles in the serials The Wizard’s Spy Glass (1920) and Fighting Fate (1920). His wife, meanwhile, was advertising herself as an expert dancer and instructor, with a specialty in training performers for the screen.
Dance sequence from 'A Small Town Idol' (1921). It is quite possible that Cherie is one of the dancers seen here. Source: Exhibitors Herald, 5 March 1921 (via Wikimedia Commons)
It was around this time that Cherie claimed to have made her only onscreen appearance as a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty. A Small-Town Idol (1921) was Sennett’s most ambitious production yet, a rags-to-riches tale of an accidental movie star that marked his first production after the collapse of the much-hyped Triangle Pictures conglomerate.
It is probable that if Cherie did appear in A Small Town Idol, it was not as a Bathing Beauty but as a dancer in the film's most elaborate sequence: a musical theatre production complete with full chorus which, according to publicity, employed some five hundred extras. Though the Bathing Beauties were seen in A Small Town Idol, contemporary reviews described their appearance as a mere glimpse, and there is no evidence of it in the surviving version of the film, truncated from feature length to two reels.
Cherie, 'The Sweetest Ingenue' as she appeared in the Richardson Musical Comedy Company revue 'Jazzin' Around' in early 1921. Source: San Bernadino Sun, 27 March 1921
In early 1921, Larry and Cherie made their first sojourn into vaudeville, performing alongside Larry's brother Phil 'Rube' Richardson as the Richardson Revue Company (later known as the Richardson Musical Comedy Company). It was a rare moment of prominence for Cherie, who choreographed the 'snappiest chorus in California' and even headlined the act for a time as 'Cherie Richardson and the Joyland Girls.'
The company's range extended to straight theatrical productions, starting with Larry and Cherie's starring adaptation of the well known play Tennessee's Partner. Perhaps to deflect claims of nepotism, Cherie reverted to billing herself 'Cherie Mack' during this period. For the first and only time in her American career, she was advertised as a 'famous Australian danseuse.'
It was not long before Larry was back before cameras once more, this time for Universal’s Century Comedies - another lower-budget competitor to Mack Sennett, managed by brothers Abe and Julius Stern. Cherie claimed to have appeared in several Century productions of this period, including Stuffed Lions (1921). Century had yet another troupe of Bathing Girls, the Century Follies Girls, which again may have counted Cherie among its ranks.
In sum, there is a good chance that Cherie was a Bathing Girl for Mack Sennett, Henry Lehrman, Century - or all of them, or none of them. Sadly, the survival rate of Century and Lehrman films is especially poor, and even partially extant films like A Twilight Baby are difficult to see, making a positive identification all the more challenging.
Even if Cherie was confined to the background, Larry’s screen career seemed to be on the rise. 'His experience has been varied and lengthy, and we haven’t a doubt that when nineteen twenty runs into twenty-one, he will be confidently predicting a surer success for himself in the screen world than he ever did when playing slangy parts on the stage,” wrote Moving Picture World. And yet within months, Larry was back doing just that, joining his wife and brother as a vaudeville trio, 'The Richardson Brothers and Cherie.' In August 1921, the New York Clipper reported that the company had been booked for a tour of the Fuller Circuit - aside from Hugh D. McIntosh’s competing Tivoli Circuit, the largest and most prestigious vaudeville organisation in Australasia.
Bessie MacIntosh was on her way home, and this time, she would not be playing second fiddle.
The Australian Tour (1921-1922)
Cherie, photographed at Adelaide's famous Glenelg Beach during her Australian tour. She is wearing the swimming costume gifted to her by Grace Bros. Source: The Critic (Adelaide), 8 February 1922.
When the Richardsons began their vaudeville act, there was no mention of Cherie having worked for Mack Sennett. Likewise, when they made their Antipodean debut in New Zealand in August 1921, Cherie and the Richardsons were billed simply as comedy sketch artists. It was apparently not until late the following month that a new gimmick was proposed. And so, the concept of ‘Two Fun Merchants and a Mack Sennett Girl’ was born.
The retooled act made its Australian premiere at Fuller’s New Theatre in Sydney on New Years’ Eve 1921, thenceforth touring to Victoria, Adelaide, Queensland, and a return season to Sydney and Newcastle in later months. It was reviewed well, if not rapturously. “The turn comprised sketches, songs, and crisp patter in which the trio joined,” reported Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, further praising the character impersonations by the Richardson brothers. “The girl, dressed in natty costume, moved gracefully through her share of the new turn.”
For once, it was Cherie who was the centre of attention. Aside from parading in what was promoted as the same bathing suit she had worn in A Small Town Idol, local department store Grace Bros presented her with an elaborate beach outfit of green and gold with a matching cloak, cap and parasol, reportedly valued at over £190 at a time when that might have bought a small house. In this outfit, she marched the same sands of Bondi Beach from which she had swum as a girl, collecting funds for the annual Bondi Lifesaving Club Carnival. Meanwhile her appearance in a store window as a ‘living mannequin’ was so popular that she duplicated it many times both in Australia and the United States.
When speaking to the local media, Cherie certainly gave the impression of having been a genuine Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty. She recounted that Sennett’s studio was ‘run on the lines of a factory’ and that Charlie Chaplin’s dressing rooms from his early days with Sennett's Keystone Studios remained unchanged. “The old derelict shoes he used to wear are nailed fast to the wall,” she declared, adding that they had first been given to him by fellow Keystone Kop Chester Conklin. She also recalled standing in a line at the studio's unpretentious cafeteria alongside A Small Town Idol's leading lady Phyllis Haver, trays in hand, the lowliest extra equal to the biggest star.
Virginia Rappe's death was still in the headlines, and in obliquely addressing it, Cherie also mounted what could be interpreted as a defence of the actress, whose reputation had been dragged through the dirt in the wake of the Fatty Arbuckle scandal. “There seems to be an idea out here that girls in pictures are of an undesirable class, and that sort of girl has the best chance to get on at the studio,” she said. “Actually, the conditions are quite the reverse. It is the girl who respects herself and commands the respect of others who gets on …. Girls with beauty and brains are in constant demand at the studios; but there is no opening for beauty and badness, with or without brains.” The Richardsons toyed with the notion of making two-reel comedies in Australia, though noted that Universal Pictures were already dangling a tempting offer before Cherie that might soon take them back to America. After five months, they made good on this pledge, although Cherie's film contract never eventuated. It was probably the last time Cherie ever saw her home country.
Footlights, Flickers and Family (1922-1926)
Larry's brother Phil, Cherie and Larry, shortly after their return from Australia. Source: National Variety Artists Souvenir Book, 1924
En route to America, Larry and Cherie played a season in Hawaii which, if anything, was even more successful than their Australian jaunt. A local swimsuit manufacturer offered a special 'Cherie' bathing suit to Hawaiian shoppers, modelled by its originator. Cherie introduced an authentic rendition of the hula into her repertoire. Larry even found time to direct a two-reel comedy, Sand and Sandwiches, surrounding Cherie with some local bathing beauties. After a few screenings at a Honolulu cinema, it was never heard of again. The couple briefly considered managing a Hawaiian theatre before returning to America. Upon arrival, the Richardsons assumed management of the Lyric and Avenue Theatres in St Louis, Illinois for several months before returning to vaudeville.
It is likely to have been during this period that Cherie and Larry became parents, adopting a girl whose birth name remains undiscovered, but was known variously as Jane Shirley, Jane Shirlee, ‘Cuddles’ Shirley, Baby Jane, or Janee Rich. One intriguing possibility is that Jane, born in around 1918, was the same 'Baby Jane' - no surname given - who gained second place in a 1922 contest conducted on behalf of Century Comedies by theatre mogul Sid Grauman. This competition sought lookalikes for ‘Baby Peggy,’ Century's reigning child star, with the stated objective of finding and testing a tot who may become Peggy's screen successor. Though photos of 'Baby Jane' exist, her young age makes it difficult to say for certain whether she was indeed the same child. The official introduction of 'Jane Shirley' as part of the Century roster in late 1924 implies a familiarity with performance and the film industry, even if the particulars may have been exaggerated.
Early publicity claimed that Jane had worked in vaudeville for two years before being discovered by directors James Kirkwood and Henry Lehrman, and played juvenile roles in Fox comedies as well as Paramount's Peter Pan (1924) and The Devil's Cargo (1925). Whatever the truth of the matter, Jane first joined the Richardson family stage act at around the same time, promoted fancifully as a ‘star of the Hal Roach ‘Our Gang’ Comedies.' She also appeared independently of the Richardsons under the auspices of the same Fanchon and Marco whom Cherie had known earlier in her career, where she was called their 'Pint of Pep.'
At some point between 1925 and the early 1930s, the Richs adopted a second child, a boy whom they rechristened Larry Rich Jr. Later government correspondence suggests that Larry, who did not join the family act until some years later, was born Herman Feinberg in Brooklyn, New York on 12 April 1920, the son of Jewish Romanian immigrants. A New York state census confirms that he was still living with his birth family in early 1925, and was not an orphan. Possibly, he was delivered into the care of the Richs due to Depression-era financial hardship or to further an existing interest in show business, but the conditions of both his and Jane's adoptions - if indeed a formal process took place in either case - remain mysterious.
Cherie and Larry's adopted daughter Jane 'Cuddles' Shirley, as she appeared in a 1924 Christmas advertisement for Century Comedies. Source: Exhibitor's Herald, 27 December 1924
By late 1924, Larry was himself back at Century Comedies. By his own estimate, he appeared in more than fifty two-reelers - sometimes as the ‘heavy’, sometimes as the comic foil. Again, there is no certainty that Cherie joined him in these films, although another member of the family did. Possibly fulfilling the studio's pledge to hype her as the next Baby Peggy, Jane Shirley made her debut alongside her father as ‘Cuddles’ Shirley, in Century's My Baby Doll (1925).
Although My Baby Doll was well reviewed, it proved to be Jane's only major screen role. Meanwhile, Baby Peggy would soon have much to do with the Richardsons, who collaborated on a vaudeville show with the young thespian after her split with Century and also shared an agent, William Mack. Towards the end of her long life, Diana Serra Cary, as Baby Peggy was later known, still remembered the couple from her vaudeville days.
Early in 1926, the Stern Brothers decided to reorganise their business along more prestigious lines and discontinue the Century Pictures brand. It appears that Larry was a casualty of this reorganisation, sending the Richardsons back into vaudeville at the very time it was about to face its greatest threat.
The Twilight of Vaudeville (1927-1935)
Cherie, Larry and company, as they appeared in their two 1928 Vitaphone Varieties shorts. Source: Los Angeles Orpheum Program, 28 December 1928.
In the short term, the couple rebranded themselves yet again - from this point onward, they would be known as Larry and Cherie Rich (later spelt 'Cheri') - and returned to what they knew best, touring the Loews Circuit with a series of standard vaudeville turns that exploited Cherie’s skill as a dancer and Larry’s comedy chops.
In late 1927, they debuted an entirely new show and concept, the timing of which was no coincidence. Vaudevillians everywhere were watching nervously as The Jazz Singer broke records across America. ‘Band shows’ or ‘Presentation Acts’, featuring big band performances interspersed with a smorgasbord of different stage novelties, were vaudeville’s newest method of addressing the growing threat of the talkies, and Larry remade himself as a bandleader and Master of Ceremonies in the mould of the enormously popular Paul Whiteman.
The Vitaphone Corporation, the same Warner Bros subsidiary that had recorded sound for The Jazz Singer,was now capturing many vaudeville acts in one-reel sound shorts known as Vitaphone Varieties. Even as a fellow vaudevillian crooned a parody song titled ‘Vitaphone Is Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine’ in his act, Larry and Cherie consented to have excerpts of their show recorded. Perhaps due to his contractual obligations in vaudeville, Larry was billed as ‘Dick Rich.’ Two shorts were filmed, Dick Rich and His ‘Synco-Symphonists’ (1928) and Dick Rich and His Melodious Monarchs (1928).
These shorts not only capture Larry and Cherie at their peak, but provide a snapshot of vaudeville in its twilight. In some cases, such as their season at the Los Angeles Orpheum later that year, the Richs were the last act to appear before the discontinuation of two-a-day vaudeville and its replacement by the dreaded talkies.
Ironically, it was the very medium that would destroy their livelihood which allowed Larry and Cherie’s act to live on in some form. Their two Vitaphone shorts are fairly typical products of their time, but it is when we see the pair interact that they really come alive, their chemistry and obvious admiration for one another leaping from the screen. It is a shame for posterity that a planned third short never materialised.
Cherie and Larry as they appeared in the unit show they managed from the late 1920s to 1932. Source: University of Washington, J. Willis Sayre Collection.
As a new decade approached and the Great Depression consumed the world, vaudeville was forced to work even harder to remain relevant. Larry and Cherie now presided over a unit show - a complete programme of entertainment which would tour from venue to venue, under the auspices of the RKO conglomerate of film, radio and stage interests. They took charge of a company numbering between 40 and 55 performers - vaudeville's largest, according to advertising - taking in singers, acrobats, dancers and other novelty acts. New talent must constantly be found and nurtured. Future television actor Rufe Davis, cowboy star 'Dub' Taylor, and songwriter Cindy Walker were among those who found early work with the Rich unit.
Cherie was shouldering more work than ever. She had recently adopted yet another new persona, ‘Mlle. Cherie, Pert Miss of the Paris Boulevards,’ and was also designing the company’s costumes, staging dances, and acting as guardian for its younger members. In October 1929 she suffered what was reported to be a nervous breakdown, temporarily ceding the ‘role’ of Cherie to Gladys Hart Coleman while she recuperated.
The Rich family as they appeared in late 1934, the Rich children now teenagers. (Omaha World-Herald, 5 December 1934).
At a stop at Minneapolis in 1931, Larry and Cherie auditioned a trio of young singers who would later gain international fame as the Andrews Sisters. The Richs took the three under their wing and taught them all they knew about performance and show-business, from how to strike a rapport with an audience to how to get offstage gracefully. “We were very willing students because everything he [Larry] ever said to us stuck … those are the years I call serving our apprenticeship,” said Maxene Andrews.
Though the Andrews would later complain - probably spuriously - that they were poorly paid, the Rich company must have cost a fortune to move from place to place. In April 1932, new management took over RKO’s vaudeville unit, slashing Larry Rich’s salary from $4,400 to $2,700. The company was cut from 40 to 22 before being disbanded altogether by the end of the year. Vaudeville's golden era was over, and the Richs battled bankruptcy.
Advertisement for one of Larry and Cherie's final revues, 'Broadway Nights'. Source: Journal and Courier, Lafayette Indiana, 22 March 1935
After having been longtime residents of California, the Richs moved to the East Coast, where conditions were slightly more favourable to variety performers, eventually settling at Jamaica, Long Island. To play New York’s Palace Theatre remained the holy grail of all vaudevillians. The Richs conquered it with ease while continuing to maintain a punishing touring schedule, sometimes playing more than three shows a day, six days a week.
With the debut of Larry Rich Jr in August 1934 alongside his sister and parents, the act was now almost entirely a family affair. Their shows continued to be well reviewed, though commentators noted that the usually corpulent Larry had suddenly lost a dramatic amount of weight.
During a performance at the Paradise Theatre at the Bronx on 31 July 1935, Larry took ill. According to later reports, he begged to be allowed to complete the season. Fearing what was about to come, he was desperate not to leave his wife and children penniless. After being assessed at Montefiore Hospital, he returned home to Jamaica, where he passed away on 3 August at the age of 41. The cause of death was reported variously as a heart ailment, stomach cancer, or complications of diabetes. He was laid to rest at the National Variety Artists plot at Mt Kensico, New York.
Later Years
Part of Cherie's patent application for a folding make-up box. Source: US Patent Office.
There could not have been a worse time for a family of vaudevillians to lose their leading light. In their shared adversity, performers stuck together and called in favours. It may have been Arthur Lake, Larry and Jane Shirley's co-star in My Baby Doll (1925), who obtained for Cherie a background role in the Paramount feature It's A Great Life (1935), for which he had furnished the story.
Cherie and her now teenage children spent much of 1936 rooming with a much-married former Ziegfeld Follies girl, Peggy Rich - no relation, despite the name. When Peggy was married yet again that year, sixteen-year-old Larry Rich Jr sang at the reception.
In the short term, Larry Jr and his sister also continued to work in show business, appearing in Broadway Sho-Window (1936), star-maker Gus Edwards' attempt to nurture a new generation of stage talent and ultimately, to revive the two-a-day vaudeville format. Although Janee Rich, as she was now known, was singled out in reviews, the show was an expensive failure and closed within a month. It is likely that Sho-Window represented the Rich childrens' last professional engagement. Larry Jr appears to have reverted to his birth name of Herman Feinberg; his 2002 obituary described him as a retired insurance and investment agent, an observant Jew and a World War II veteran, making no mention whatsoever of any show business connections. Meanwhile, the Jane Shirley who appeared in vaudeville during the later 1930s was not Janee Rich, and though one 1936 article describes her as a model, the later life of Cherie and Larry's adopted daughter remains a mystery.
By 1937, Cherie herself appears to have abandoned show business, taking a job as a saleswoman at Sak's Fifth Avenue in New York. There is no solid evidence that she ever appeared on the stage or screen again, though it is quite possible that she took further undocumented roles as an extra, especially given her later association with the relevant union, the Screen Extras Guild. Anticipating the famous declaration of A Star Is Born's Vicki Lester, she preferred to be known simply as 'Mrs Larry Rich'.
'Popular Science' featured Cherie's patented design for a new form of adhesive earring in their issue of September 1945.
A rather unexpected pursuit filled Cherie’s later years. Since her early career, articles had often referred to her interest in inventions, from a form of toeless sandal to her own line of cosmetics. Money remained tight in the years following Larry's death, and Cherie and fellow vaudevillian Frances Kelcey turned to making and selling fabric clown dolls to make ends meet. In the early 1940s, the now-famous Andrews Sisters repaid their debt to Cherie, helping to finance a deal with a New York charity to manufacture and distribute her dolls and also brokering an agreement for the dolls to feature as a tie-in with their latest film, Buck Privates (1941). The venture was a success, allowing Cherie to finally discharge the debt that remained after Larry's passing.
It was most likely her father-in-law Victor Jossenberger who introduced Cherie to the idea of taking out patents on her inventions, having previously done so himself. Cherie’s first known patent, granted on 1 March 1932, was an ingenious design for a theatrical make-up box that could be folded for easy transport, then unfolded and set on a table for immediate use. Other inventions followed during the 1940s, including the aforementioned clown doll, a decorative box resembling a doll sitting on a ledge, and a new form of earring that used adhesive to cling to the ear. Cherie’s last known patent, for a child’s novelty umbrella that could dispense water, confetti or bubble mixture when deployed, was approved in 1960.
Cherie spent her final years in San Francisco, at one point working at the Telenews Theatre on Market Street and serving on the advisory committee for the local chapter of the Screen Extras Guild, before retiring to Contra Costa. It is possible that she was still inventing until her death on 27 December 1967, shortly after her 70th birthday. She never remarried after her beloved Larry’s death.
This article was Brooksie At The Movies' contribution to the Silent Movie Day Blogathon 2022! Click on the banner to the left to read other entries. Or, click here to learn more about Silent Movie Day.
Today, out of all days of the year, is the time to support a local cinema that shows silent films (especially if they've scheduled a special Silent Movie Day screening); to grab a silent DVD that's been sitting on your 'To Watch' pile for too long, to use a quality streaming service to dip into an interesting sounding title (or go to a local video store to hire one, if you are lucky enough to have one nearby!) - even to watch your very first silent film, or simply to spread the word that silent film is a unique art form that can be enjoyed by everybody!