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    <title>Articles</title>
    <link>http://www.garychapman.biz/Gary_Chapman/Articles/Articles.html</link>
    <description>Short pieces about people or things that interest me!&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;gazchappers@btinternet.com</description>
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      <title>Peggy Marsh</title>
      <link>http://www.garychapman.biz/Gary_Chapman/Articles/Entries/2008/4/6_Peggy_Marsh.html</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 6 Apr 2008 21:04:55 +0100</pubDate>
      <description>Peggy Marsh’s tale is a curious one - an unremarkable chorus girl who became famous for having a baby with the son of a multi-millionaire and then being unceremoniously disregarded. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Peggy was born Annabelle Greenough in Chelsea, Massachusetts on 19th December 1894  and by the tender age of 15,  this pretty, slight built girl with gorgeous legs, was appearing in the chorus at the Palace Theatre, New York.  She was sent to London on tour and, with the outbreak of war in 1914, decided to stay and continued her career appearing in the chorus of such shows as the Gaby Deslys vehicle 5064 Gerrard at the Alhambra. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;She met and fell in love with fellow American Henry Field born 1895, the second son of Marshall Field II, a member of the family who owned the famous Chicago department store. Henry had gone to school in Britain, had been caught up in the patriotic fever that swept the country and joined the war effort before he met Peggy on leave. He frequently entertained her and her friends at the most popular London night-spots such as Ciro’s and Murray’s. In June 1916 he returned to Chicago with the promise that he would send for Peggy. A month later Peggy gave birth to his son Tony. Henry in the meantime met and fell in love with Nancy Keene Perkins, who, as a Virginia debutante, was a far more suitable bride, and they married in February 1917. When Peggy was told about the impending marriage she swiftly crossed the Atlantic and on arriving in Chicago began to make a fuss. Eventually, she secured a modest financial agreement to provide the future security for herself and her son.  However, the agreement was short lived, for in July 1917, Henry died following an operation and Peggy’s allowance was stopped which, by any standards, was rather mean.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Peggy, presumably needing money to support herself and her child, relocated to New York and resumed her career by joining the chorus of Ziegfeld’s world famous Midnight Frolic in the New Amsterdam Roof from May 1918. During this period she became involved with a rather extraordinary tale of espionage when she became under the spell of a certain Antoine Jechalski who turned out be a German spy. He was eventually arrested and interred. A journalist at the time interviewed Peggy and said that she was ‘a well-bred girl, with quiet manners and maternal instincts’.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Peggy criss-crossed the Atlantic and in 1920 took out a court case against the Marshall Field family but suffered defeat in February and June 1920, although she did find time to relax and enjoy herself at the height of the Deauville season in August 1920. Back in America she accepted an offer of $100,000 from the Marshall Field family if she would drop her court action which she duly accepted.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;At a luncheon at the Ritz Hotel she met Albert (‘’Buster’) Johnson, a flying ace war veteran, son of the late Albert L. Johnson once president of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company and nephew of the late Tom Johnson most famous of Cleveland’s mayors. After a whirlwind courtship lasting 5 weeks, they married in late 1920. The couple decided to form a dancing team to play vaudeville and in mid 1922 also appeared at Ted Lewis’s Night Club and the Tent Restaurant in New York before a summer cabaret spot in Atlantic City.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;But then tragedy happened. While on holiday at the dancer Jack Clifford’s retreat in the Adirondack mountains in September 1922, ‘Buster’ was admitted to hospital in Plattsburgh New York with a bullet in his abdomen. It was said to be an accident. By November Peggy announced the couple were splitting up on the grounds that he was ‘temperamental and highstrung’ and she returned to London allegedly to open a nightclub but actually became a featured performer at Ciro’s night club.  Alas, in early 1923, ‘Buster’ died of Pneumonia. Peggy attended the funeral but then returned to London. Oddly it was now that her career really took off. She was cast in C.B. Cochran’s Music Box Revue  at the Palace Theatre in mid 1923 and in August scored a big hit at the Deauville Casino before scaling even bigger heights as the chief attraction with the Tomson Twins at the Club Daunou in Paris. In November she starred with partner Ben Barette at Le Jardin de Ma Souer and then in December transferred to the Abbaye de Theleme. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;It would appear that she was on the brink of achieving stardom within the cabaret circuit but when she turned up on the Riviera in early 1924 there was no sign of any high profile ‘turns’. Instead it would appear that she was fishing for a new husband, since according to the Chicago Tribune it was at this time that  ‘the most thrilling chapters in Peggy’s romantic career’  took place. A year later in early 1925 she married a handsome soldier at a secret wedding ceremony with a reception at her luxurious flat in Mayfair. Her new husband Captain George Fenwick was a former officer in the Horse Guards and the Royal Air Force and very well connected within the London social scene. Indeed in December 1926 she was hunting alongside the Prince of Wales at Melton Mowbray. Despite the attractions of these connections unfortunately life with Fenwick at his country seat of Witham Hall, Bourne, Lincolnshire was not to Peggy’s liking. Peggy said she was ‘fed up with British men’ and in early 1928 divorced Fenwick. Peggy and her son vanished into obscurity. It is believed that she emigrated to South Africa and that she died in Johannesburg in 1945.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Sources: Chicago Tribune 2/1/25; The Marshall Fields by Axel Madsen/The Evolution of an American Business Dynasty; Variety 3/5/18; Ellis Island Website; Eve 26/8/20; The Sketch 4/2/20; The Sketch 19/11/19; Chicago Tribune 7/9/23; Vogue (UK) Early March 1924; Chicago Tribune 14/12/23; Chicago Tribune 6/12/23; Chicago Tribune 2/11/23, Chicago Tribune  21/9/23, Time 27/12/26 and Roots Web (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rootsweb.com/&quot;&gt;www.rootsweb.com&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;</description>
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      <title>The Hengler Sisters</title>
      <link>http://www.garychapman.biz/Gary_Chapman/Articles/Entries/2008/4/6_The_Hengler_Sisters.html</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 6 Apr 2008 20:53:34 +0100</pubDate>
      <description>At the turn of the century the Hengler Sisters (May and Flora) were child protegees of society who became stars on both sides of the Atlantic, famous for their singing and dancing act. But gossip suggested that huge bills for their stage dresses and transatlantic fares consumed nearly all they earned.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;They were both born in Brooklyn - May in 1880 and Flo in 1883 to May Fanning (nicknamed Muddicup) and the actor, composer and mistrel TM Hengler  (Tom) who had been part of celebrated variety team of Delehanty and Hengler. May’s mother,  Grandma Fanning (the Dutchess) was born to British peerage but ran off and married Captain Fanning (a Connecticut yankee and captain of a clipper ship) and moved to USA. He was lost at sea leaving his wife and two daughters alone and May Fanning’s sister moved in with the wealthy Bernard Family. It was throug hthis connection that May Fanning got to know the wealthy and influential Edith Kingdon (1864-1911). the actress who married George Jay Gould 1, the millionnaire financier, who introduced May to Tom Hengler whom she married.Alas, Tom died young after the birth of his daughters May and Flo.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;The girls were clever and when very young attended a Christmas benefit festival arranged by Dan Frohman and Tony Pastor in 1891. May played her fathers songs on the paino and Flo sang and danced. Subsequently they received education in the art of step dancing from Eddie Collyer and Mme Eloise Kruger instructed them in fancy dancing. However they were forced to abandoon the professional stage on account of the law which claimed they were too young to perfrom in public. Instead they made their debut in society at the New York home of their friend and mentor Mrs Edith Kingdon Gould and they were also taken up by Mrs Stuyvesant Fish and Mrs Oelrichs who also gave parties at which the Hengler sisters performed in private. These associations ‘created freindships that led to the deep sense of custodianship which endured throughout their European career.’&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;One summer they went to Newport as the guests of Mrs Lispenard Stewart Senior and appeared at parties given by Mrs Henry Claw, Mrs Fish and Mrs Pembroke Jones and one night at the yearly Vanderbilt Cinderella ball, the fairygodmother Edith Gould demanded they came down from their box to perform. Here they met members of the Stewart clan including Henry Stewart Trevor, who was Flo’s true love. Back in New York they sneaked in appearances in the Opera Club at the Metropolitan Opera Club for a whole season.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;In 1893 when May was 13 and Flo 10, they made their first trip to Europe with their mother May as escort. They were given introductions to London society and attended soirees given by the Duchess of Manchester and Mrs Ronald and were also given a profesional try-out at a place in Camden town. But then at a try-out at the Alhambra they were so successful that they were given a long contract.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Back in  America they were still not allowed to work in New York because of their age and so went to Chicago appearing a play by Will J. Davis. This was then followed by an appearances in Edward E. Rice’s historicla extravaganza 1492 in Boston during Christmas 1894 as two little Spanish girl, two lttle lords and a spectacular tableaux vivant. In Boston they were taken under the wing by society leader Mrs Jack Gardner who introduced  them to John Sargent the great painter. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;In the Spring of 1895 the Henglers made their second trip to Europe and spent the summer in London appearing at the Alhambra and they began to be noticed by other theatre managers in London and Paris. They returned to New York in August 1895 and Edward E. Rice sneaked them into his next production Excelsior Junior (November 1895) but they were ‘shopped’ by their understudies the Abbott sisters who were older and clearly older and clearly  envious of them. Once their age was known and they had to retire. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;At this point they met the three Charles’s - Charles Frohman, Charles Hoyt and Charles Dillingham, all distinguished theatrical luminaries. Dillingham suggested they should grow up quickly and wear long dresses which they did and in early 1897 they went into Hoyt’s comedy farce A Contentend Woman, written especially for Hoyt’s wife Caroline Miskel. Dillingham was keen on Flo and continued to woo her for many years to come. Afterward they made their third trip to Europe and stayed away for several years.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Firstly they appeared at the Alhambra in London and then in October, went to Paris and got a contract to appear at the Folies Bergere  with Loie Fuller, Lina Cavalieri and Yvette Guilbert.  Flo was taken ill with an inherited anemia that continued to be a problem all her life and she was advised to go to Switzerland, where the air might help her condition. In Geneva they were welcomed at the Hotel Beau Rivage by George Ade and Sarah Bernhardt and despite her condition and the idea of a rest,  gave three performances at the Kursaal but cancelled their appearance in Milan and went to Lucerne instead.  Here, WR Grebst (Billy) of Gottenberg, Sweden and his guest the Count de Bylandt of Ostende, who had seen them perform in Paris, persuaded them to take a cruise with them on his yacht and they sailed to Stockholm where the sisters had an audience with King Oscar.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;After their Swedish adventure they went to Berlin and performed at the Winter Garden theatre but Flo became ill again and they had to cancel their Leipsig and Hamburg contracts and went to Wiesbaden Spa in the Black forest where Flo improved. During this sojourn, Flo became enamoured with the handsome young Prince Serge Galitzin (who had seen them in Paris) who showered both of them with gifts.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;They opened in Cologne but after three days Flo took a turn for the worse and nearly died but but after a longer rest recovered. Soon the sisters were back performing again in Paris, London, Ostend, Dresden, Moscow, St Petersburg. In Dresden they met the Winthrop twins (Harold and Gerald) at a society gathering and Harold fell for Flora.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;In Russia they appeared between acts of the Opera and were presented to the Czarina and her daughters. Prince Serge Galitzin switched his attention and proposed to May. Two Americans who had married Russians (Julia Dent-Cantacuzene and Sarah Whittier-Beloselski) advised her not to marry because he had a powerful and possessive divorced wife. As a result May hestitated and the Prince became offended. Before long they were back in Paris (Mid 1900) appearing once again at the Folies Bergere and a late night evening cabaret at the famous Maxim’s restaurant before spending a few weeks in the early part of 1901 on the Riviera.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Returning to America, they signed a contract with Weber &amp;amp; Fields to become members of their stock company for next season and then appeared in the Christmas 1901 show of The Sleeping Beauty and the Beast. This was followed  by Tommy Rot in late 1902 followed by the Shubert production of Old Heidelberg. Returning to Europe in early 1903 they broke a contract to appear in Berlin and went to Paris and Russia instead. Prince Serge Galitzin continued to woo May and gave her a large Romanoff ruby ring  but to no avail (Serge later died during the First World War).&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;The Hengler sisters (May now 22 and Flo 20) arrived from Southampton aboard the St Paul on 15 March 1903 with their mother and went into The Runaways followed in early 1904 by the London hit Glittering Gloria and The Cingalee (late 1904). Other shows followed including  the smash hit The Red Mill (September 1906 - May 1907), The Little Mischus (early 1907), The Rogers Brothers in Panama  (September -November1907) and Dillingham’s The Old Town (early1910). &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Then May and Flo went to London to talk to James M. Barrie about their play Mayflowers, which had been especially written for them and was to be staged by Charles Frohman whom Flo was expected  to marry. Unfortunately fate took Charles Frohman from Flo when he died on the Luistania in 1912. This cancelled the Mayflowers project.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;What happened next is unclear but the sisters clearly retired from the stage. It is not known if either of them married. May died in New York on 15 March 1952 aged 68. Flora carried on but it is not known when she died. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Please note: all information is derived mostly from the privately printed The Story of May and Flo (1959) by Flora Hengler, plus The American Musical Theatre and various newspaper clippings, including Variety, The Times and New York Times.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;</description>
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      <title>Elizabeth Nelvi Craig</title>
      <link>http://www.garychapman.biz/Gary_Chapman/Articles/Entries/2008/4/6_Elizabeth_Nelvi_Craig.html</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 6 Apr 2008 20:33:51 +0100</pubDate>
      <description>When engaged in research for book projects I often get sidetracked by something or someone that for some inexplicable reason hits me between the eyes and says take notice. When references reach a critical mass and pieces start to form into a jigsaw I start taking more notice. This is what has been happening with Elizabeth Nelvi Craig. After stumbling across several magazine and newspaper articles about her my interest was piqued. Alas, a thorough search on google and other search engines proved fruitless. So I figured that I would write what I know, add in a few images and post this piece in the hope that perhaps someone might know more!&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Elizabeth Nelvi Craig was very beautiful artist and opera singer born Elizabeth (Bessie) English most probably in the early 1890s. She was the youngest daughter of Mr and Mrs Robert English of 21 Portman Square and Scatwell House, Muir of Ord, Ross-shire and clearly came from a family of some social standing. In January 1914 she married Mr A.D. Edmonstone Craig (also spelt as Edmunson and Edmonston) at St Paul’s Knightsbridge. Her husband was keen on every out-door sport and was a very good violinist. She shared his fondness of skating and was also very keen on music and hoped to become a professional singer. Indeed it would appear that she began training in grand opera in London.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;It was during World War 1 that Elizabeth’s husband became Captain Edmonstone Craig and thankfully he survived the conflict. By late 1920, Elizabeth’s paintings - signed Betty Craig - had attracted attention and she was exhibited at the Dorien Leigh Galleries in London. Eve magazine thought that her painting was ‘marked by great originality’ and available images suggest her work was largely fantastical and decorative. At the same time it was stated that she had also been designing sets and costumes for the stage although no confirmed credits can be located. It was also noted that she was going to renew her studies for grand opera in Milan since she had ‘that great gift, a voice of rare quality combined with a wealth of temperament’. By the spring of 1925 she clearly had achieved her ambition and had been performing in opera under the name of Signora Maria Nelvi. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Her husband’s fondness for outdoor sports had made him an all round sportsman and he became an Olympic games competitor, presumably in the Amsterdam games in 1928. In the autumn of 1929 Elizabeth had an exhibition in the Ferargill Gallery, New York and her paintings were described as intricate designs in black, white and gold with the occasional use of colour. The New York Times had high praise indeed calling her work ‘extraordinary’, ‘striking’ and ‘carried through to the utmost perfection’ but thought her themes ‘morbid’. They added:  ‘In the Middle Ages, Miss Craig, no doubt, if given the chance, would have toiled away on illuminated manuscripts, in the twentieth century she dips her brush in poison and achieves caligraphy that is fascinatingly decadent’&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Her first exhibition in America aroused so much interest that further exhibitions followed in New York and Hollywood in early 1930. She also signed a contract to design costumes for a film studio in Hollywood but like her earlier stage work no credits can be traced.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;What happened next? I have no idea... the trail is lost.... perhaps in the course of future research I will find more clues to add to the jigsaw. Of course, if you know anything about Elizabeth Nelvi Craig, or under any of her other names or her husband Captain Edmonstone Craig do let me know!&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Sources: The Sketch 14/1/14, The Sketch 8/9/20, Eve 9/9/20, The Sketch 25/3/25, The New York Times 10/11/29, The Sketch 26/2/30 and The Dance Magazine March 1930.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;</description>
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      <title>The Rocky Twins&#13;</title>
      <link>http://www.garychapman.biz/Gary_Chapman/Articles/Entries/2008/4/6_The_Rocky_Twins.html</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 6 Apr 2008 20:23:49 +0100</pubDate>
      <description>The Rocky Twins were a pair of Norwegian brothers who made a name for themselves as dancers in the Paris music hall in the late 1920s at the tender age of 18. Their act took Paris by storm because in one of their numbers, they dressed up in drag and imitated the famous Dolly Sisters who had just retired.  Their unique performance enabled them to star in stage shows  all over Europe and America and at the same time their good looks became highly sought after by connoiseurs of the body beautiful of either sex.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Leif and Paal Roschberg, were born 27 February 1909 in Oslo to Adolf Roscher Roschberg (a colonal in the army) and Gudrun Holst and they had an elder brother called Gunner. When they were eleven they wrote a book of fairy tales but their interest in dance eclipsed their writing talents and they studied ballet and dance in Oslo under Per Aabel and Love Krohn and allegedly had further tuition in London and Paris. They made their theatrical debut as The Rocky Twins in the Casino de Paris show Les Ailes de Paris in early 1928 at the age of 18 and became great friends with Helene Nice later to become known as the Bugatti Queen. They made an immediate impression and were adored by Parisian theatregoers. Next, they starred with Gina Palerme in La Volupte de Paris at the Concert Mayol in the summer of 1928. It was here that they gave their legendary impersonation of the famous Dolly Sisters who had just retired from the stage. They were described as ‘two tall disturbingly attractive youths...alike as two peas in a pod. On stage and off it was impossible to tell them apart.’ &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;In the midst of their success at the Concert Mayol they were filmed by Marcel L’Herbier in L’Argent (released in January 1929), a modernisation of an Emile Zola novel. With a budget of 5 million Francs this was the biggest French film of the season and firmly established the Rocky Twins as major Parisian stars. In the meantime they had left Paris for Vienna and appeared in the Emil Schwarz revue Sie Werden Lachen at the Stadt Theatre from October 1928 to February 1929.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;On their return to Paris in the spring of 1929, Mistinguett, ‘The Queen of Parisian Music Hall,' took them under her wing and escorted them on a trip to London. Here it is likely that they appeared in various cabaret shows including the famous Kit Kat Club (April 1929) and in September 1929 starred in Andre Charlot’s cabaret revue at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane and scored a big success in a number called ‘Guess Which is Which.'  Billy Milton, an English entertainer who met them at this time observed ‘they were unbelievably handsome and so alike you couldn’t tell which was which.  As one hostess remarked, you could never be sure which one you were talking to or had gone to bed with.’  The more sober atmosphere of London may have precluded any appearance in drag as the Dolly Sisters but according to Mistinguett they were arrested for public indecency (the mind boggles) and Miss rescued them from prison, ticking off the judge in the process and they all returned happily to Paris.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;In November 1929 they starred with Mistinguett in Paris Miss at the Casino de Paris. Apart from acting as her partners in several numbers they also did their hide and seek game where a gallant young man goes behind a tree and immediately a gorgeous woman appears. Mistinguett said that ‘they were so ravishing that each night after the show they would allow themselves to be kidnapped by beauty enthusiasts of both sexes’  and it was known that one of Rockies was in the midst of an affair with the Bolivian tin millionaire Arturo Lopez.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;With their success in Paris Miss, they tried to break into America and were engaged in lengthy negotiations with the Shubert Organisation. Variety thought that they were ‘just a pair of hoofers but they do look gorgeous and with showmanly handling probably will click in New York.’  The European scout for the Shuberts said, ‘they make a very good appearance and are very smart socially and were rather popular in London. But I believe I remember that their ideas of salary were rather exaggerated.’   It is not known what exactly happened but it is unlikely that at this time the Shubert’s exercised any option on their services. Instead they continued to appear in Paris Miss right through 1930, starred in a cabaret show at Les Champs Elysees (April 1930) and followed Mistinguett on a European tour in the spring and summer of 1931. They then appeared with Mona Lee in an act that toured Scandinavia but during a performance in Stockholm in August 1931 one of the twins’ slipped, injured himself and was hospitalised. Finally in the autumn they made their first trip to America.  At first it was muted that they would appear in one of the celebrated and hugely successful Franco and Marco stage units that toured the USA, but it is not clear exactly what they did or where they were based. Perhaps initially they appeared in cabaret in New York before making their way to Los Angeles.  &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;By the spring of 1932 they had became the celebrated drag act at the popular Ship Cafe  at Venice Beach, Los Angeles and were spotted by Edmund Goulding, the MGM director. He added them to the cast of the Marian Davies movie Blondie of the Follies that was in production during the summer and released in 1933. Then in September 1932 scandal erupted.  Goulding was one of the rare English directors to make a long term career in Hollywood and was riding high with the success of Grand Hotel. He was open about his homosexuality, although like most gay men in screenland he was married to the cockney Marjorie Moss of the famed ballroon dancing team Moss and Fontana. He was well known for staging wild parties. During one such evening in September 1932 something happened with two girls injured in a manner that recalled the ugly circumstances of the Fatty Arbuckle affair. The story was ‘so filthy’ that no-one wanted to talk about it. Within 12 hours of the event, and to avoid a scandel, Irving Thalberg, head of production at MGM, sent the Gouldings to Europe for an extended holiday as the ‘fuss’ was conveniently hushed up with the district Attorney. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;During their stay in Hollywood, besides socialising with the Gouldings and parties at Hearst Castle - the home of William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies - the Rocky Twins joined the entourage that accompanied Lorenz Larry Hart (of the famed songwriting team Rogers and Hart) around town, to private parties and the late night clubs. They were seen with Larry’s other companions Tallulah Bankhead and William Haines pursuing the bizarre in Hollywood including visits to the Club New Yorker in the Christie Hotel with its star attraction of the immensely talented and openly homosexual New Yorker Jean Malin (who died in a freak car accident in August 1933 aged 24).&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;With the film actress and danseuse Julianne Johnston, the Rocky Twins sailed into the Los Angeles Christmas show at the Shrine auditorium in December 1932 and appeared in Frank Fay’s revue Tattle Tales, through January 1933. By the Spring of 1933, when Jean Malin transfered to the Ship Cafe, they themselves appeared at the Club New Yorker  with Julianne Johnston. In April they were arrested and spent a night in jail because they didn’t have a driver’s license, no proof that the French car they were driving was theirs and were unable to satisfy the officers about the women’s clothes in the car. At the time they were described as ‘absolute madmen’  and completely wild since they loved to play un-funny jokes, phoning people all hours of the night just to annoy them.  As in Paris they were also ‘pursued by international swingers of the day and admired as male courtesans’ .&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;In May 1933 they appeared in Leonard Sillman’s Low and Behold, a satirical musical revue in three acts staged at the Pasadena Community Playhouse where they performed their famous Dolly Sisters routine. It is not known if they appeared in the New York production that opened as The New Faces in March 1934 at the Fulton Theatre. However, there is a photograph of Tallulah Bankhead and Paal Rocky at the opening which might suggest their involvement. They had arrived back in New York in the fall of 1933 and were rehearsing to appear in the famous Ziegfeld Follies that tried out in Boston during November 1933, but the Council of Actors Equity Association ruled that as ‘aliens’ they had to wait 6 months before entering another production.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Whatever the situation with the AEA, by the summer of 1934 they had an act with Nitza Vernille at the Palace Theatre in New York that gained praise and then appeared in a string of supper shows in cabaret including the Continental Grill at the Hotel St Moritz (Oct 1934), Sunday Nights at Nine at the Barbizon Plaza Hotel Concert hall (Jan 1935) and Le Boeuf sur le Toit (Feb 1935). They then signed with the festival impersario Robert Henderson to appear in his revue Up to the Stars that opened in Milwaukee in May 1935 and may have toured.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Presumably they continued in cabaret or vaudeville until they appeared in  the Henry Carson musical revue Contintental Varieties at the Theatre Masque, New York at the end of 1935, but the show was flat and it was commented that the Rockies were ‘nice dancers but fail to impress.’  They also appeared in Leonard Sillman’s revised Low and Behold staged in the Martin Beck Theatre, New York in December 1935 for a very short run. Shortly after their last appearance in New York in the floor show at the Versailles Restaurant in March 1936, the Rocky twins returned to Europe and toured cabaret nightspots including the Chat Noir nightclub in their hometown of Oslo.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;By 1937 the pair appear to have split. Leif spent two years in Taormina in Sicily before marrying a Maria Vogt in Vienna in 1939 (later divorced). Paal began a film career with Tobis Praktikum in Berlin and appeared in  Es Leuchten Die Sterne (Hans H. Zerlett, released 17/3/38) and may have done further film work in Berlin then Paris before moving back to America where it is rumoured he worked at RKO in 1940. Leif also by then had abandoned Europe and was in living in New York. Paal married Lilian Turner in 1941 in San Francisco (later divorced) but then returned to Norway for the rest of the war where he  spent 3 years in the Norwegian air force, 1 year in the American air force, six months with the occupational troops in Frankfurt and was awarded several medals.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Leif stayed in America and married Jenny Voigt in 1944 in Canada (later divorced) and took up painting and had two exhibitions in New York in 1952. Paal remained in Norway and became a film and book writer. A relative thought that Paal having got engaged was saying farewell to his gay lover and was murdered in New York in the 50s - and in fact he did die in New York on 21st March 1955. Lief died on 10th May 1967 in Kristiania, Norway. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;If you have any information about the Rocky Twins or the Roschberg family please let me know.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;../Gallery/Pages/The_Rocky_Twins.html&quot;&gt;Click here to go to my gallery with an album of photographs of the Rocky Twins&lt;/a&gt;</description>
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