| Popis: |
Archie Leach’s struggle to establish himself in show business during the years 1922 to 1927 is discussed in Chapter 4. He was able to find work as an acrobat and, now in the Lomas Troupe, he continued touring in vaudeville throughout North America. However, with no experience of speaking on stage, he found it difficult to find any other form of stage work. To make ends meet, he took a job on the Coney Island boardwalk, advertising Steeplechase amusement park by stilt-walking outside the park’s entrance. In 1924, his maturing, handsome good looks caught the eye of writer-producer Jean Dalrymple, who gave him his first speaking role, in the vaudeville playlet The Woman Pays (1924), a show he toured with this show for 14 months. It was also during these years that he became friends with the future costume designer Jack Kelly (who would become known as Orry-Kelly). Drawing on Orry-Kelly’s recently published autobiography, Women I’ve Undressed (2016), the chapter discusses the friendship between Archie and Jack, concluding that it was not, as suggested in the documentary Women He’s Undressed (2015), a romantic or sexual one. |
