The Prescott Tea Ladies

07/28/2024

Lily Elsie

Elsie Cotton (April 8, 1886 – December 16, 1962), known professionally as Lily Elsie, was an English actress and singer during the Edwardian era. She was best known for her starring role in the London premiere of Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow.

Beginning as a child star in the 1890s, Elsie built her reputation in several successful Edwardian musical comedies before her great success in The Merry Widow, opening in 1907. Afterwards, she starred in several more successful operettas and musicals, including The Dollar Princess (1909), A Waltz Dream (1911) and The Count of Luxembourg (1911). Admired for her beauty and charm on stage, Elsie became one of the most photographed women of Edwardian times.

07/28/2024

07/28/2024

A young woman poses with her airplane in the 1940s.

07/28/2024

On July 23rd, 1886, the world lost Giuseppina Morlacchi. Giuseppina—who was called "The Peerless" by the American press, "Josephine" by her friends, "Mademoiselle" by critics in awe of her poise, grace, and style, and "Madam" by her loving husband Texas Jack—was the single most famous ballet dancer in the world during her lifetime.

She was finishing a successful run of shows with her ballet troupe in Chicago when Ned Buntline approached her and her manager, John Burke, with an offer to join his new show, the Scouts of the Prairie and Red Deviltry As It Is!, in a leading part. Giuseppina quickly jumped on the offer, as it gave her the chance to showcase her dramatic skills in addition to her world-renowned dancing.

Buntline's other stars, Texas Jack Omohundro and Buffalo Bill Cody, were bonafide frontier scouts, soldiers, and hunters, but neither were actors. He knew that he needed a real star to ensure ticket sales, and he found it in the Peerless Morlacchi.

When Bill Cody's wife Louisa wrote about that first show in Chicago in 1872, she noted that both her husband and his friend Texas Jack were such bad actors that Buntline decided they needed lessons. He took Bill Cody under his wing and asked Morlacchi to work with Jack.

“Texas Jack,” he said, “meet the Peerless Mademoiselle Morlacchi.” According to Mrs. Cody, “Texas Jack put out his hand in a hesitating, wavering way. His usually heavy, bass voice, cracked and broke. There were more difficulties than ever now, for Jack had fallen in love, at sight...And never did a pupil work harder than Texas Jack from that moment!”

The two married the next year in Rochester, New York, and were endlessly devoted to each other. Giuseppina was devastated by her husband's death in 1880 and retired from the stage soon after, returning to her home in Lowell, Massachusetts to care for her sister. Giuseppina Morlacchi died of stomach cancer on July 23, 1886, and is buried at St. Patrick's Cemetery in Lowell, Mass.

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Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star by Matthew Kerns, is available at:

Amazon - https://amzn.to/4fmAcsY

07/28/2024

Groucho Marx and Dean Martin with Raquel Welch at the Hollywood Palace in 1964. BTW Raquel was "The Billboard Girl" at the time.

07/28/2024

A group of well-dressed people crossing a suspension bridge. Vancouver⁣, Canada, 1905⁣.

07/28/2024

Clayton Moore was the Lone Ranger from 1949–1952 and 1953-1957.

Born in Chicago on September 14, 1914 he became a circus acrobat by age eight and appeared at the Century of Progress exposition in Chicago in 1934 with a trapeze act. As a young man, Moore worked successfully as a John Robert Powers model. Moving to Hollywood in the late 1930s, he worked as a stunt man and bit player between modeling jobs.

Moore was an occasional player in “B” westerns and the lead in four Republic Studio cliffhangers, and two for Columbia.

He served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II and made training films (Target — Invisible and others) with the First Motion Picture Unit.

Moore's career advanced in 1949, when George Trendle spotted him in the Ghost of Zorro serial. As creator-producer of The Lone Ranger radio show (with writer Fran Striker), Trendle was about to launch the television version. Moore landed the role.

Moore trained his voice to sound like the radio version of The Lone Ranger, which had then been on the air since 1933, and succeeded in lowering his already distinctive baritone even further.

With the first notes of Rossini's "William Tell Overture" and actor Gerald Mohr's "Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear ... ," Moore and co-star Jay Silverheels, in the role of Tonto, made television history as the stars of the first Western written specifically for that medium.

The Lone Ranger soon became the highest-rated program to that point on the fledgling ABC network and its first true hit — earning an Emmy nomination in 1950. Moore starred in 169 episodes of the television show.

After two successful years presenting a new episode every week, 52 weeks a year, Moore had a pay dispute and left the series. Eventually the show's producers came to terms and rehired Moore.

He stayed with the program until it ended first-run production in 1957. He and Jay Silverheels also starred in two feature-length Lone Ranger motion pictures. After completion of the second feature, The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold in 1958, Moore embarked on what would be 40 years of personal appearances, TV guest spots and classic commercials as the legendary masked man.

Silverheels joined him for occasional appearances during the early 1960s. Throughout his career, Moore expressed respect and love for Silverheels.

In 1979, the owner of the Ranger character, Jack Wrather, obtained a court order prohibiting Moore from making future appearances as The Lone Ranger. Wrather anticipated making a new film version of the story, and did not want the value of the character being undercut by Moore's appearances.

Also, Wrather did not want to encourage the belief that the 65-year-old Moore would be playing the role in the new picture. This move proved to be a public relations disaster.

Moore responded by changing his costume slightly and replacing the Domino mask with similar-looking Foster Grant wraparound sunglasses, and by counter-suing Wrather. He eventually won the suit, and was able to resume his appearances in costume, which he continued to do until shortly before his death.

Moore was so identified with the masked man that he is the only person on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, as of 2006, to have his character's name along with his on the star, which reads, "Clayton Moore — The Lone Ranger.”

He was inducted into the Stuntman's Hall of Fame in 1982 and in 1990 was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Clayton Moore died on December 28, 1999, in a West Hills, California, hospital after suffering a heart attack at his home in nearby Calabasas. He was 85.

Photo by Mary Ellen Mark

07/28/2024

Norma Jean later known as Marilyn Monroe photographed in 1946

07/28/2024

A healthy game of tennis back in 1938.

07/14/2024

I pray for my country tonight.

07/03/2024

Come see me at the 2024 Artists Studio Tour!
I'll be in the 'Tis Building downtown,
October 4th, 5th, and 6th

Tour Studio 3 www.TisArtGallery.com Wheelchair Accessible 235 N Marina St, Prescott 928-776-1087

06/25/2024

Happy trio joking it up for the camera, 1900.

06/25/2024

“This young man was on his way to a job interview and had a bit of trouble with his tie.
The lady in the red coat noticed him struggling and nudged her husband with her elbow. She then blocked him to help him evade any embarrassment. What a beautiful photo!
Don’t let the evil in this world stop you from showing love to one another, folks!
Together we are stronger! ❤️🙏”

Credit - original owner