The Bankhead Gleaner, 8

Mistaken identities and the perfidiousness of an esteemed friend

Artist having an off day perhaps because of Tom Jones

I’m writing this on Sunday, August 13. It’s 3.02 pm in the Pacific time zone. I asked Artist to set this chain in motion by producing an image that met these requirements: “A coffin being carried by six pallbearers all of whom look like Tom Jones, circa 1975.” It was Artist who decided 7 would be better number — it’s a big coffin — and that they should all be arranged on the casket’s starboard side. Likewise, Artist took the initiative to make each successive TJ, moving from prow to stern, look ever more Planet of the Apes than the one preceding. Why number 3 has his hand in his pocket — or is missing the hand — I can’t say. Artist could, but I’m not asking.

Why did I commission this? Here’s a screenshot I took at 2.47 PM on this Sunday afternoon.

It’s been more than 24-hours since word broke that Tom Jones had died. The gnashing and rending were immediate and, predictably, given the wide and enduring fame of the panty-pelted Welsh Elvis wannabe, and because hunger for news of celebrity mortality can never be sated, social media was a regular Krakatoa of explosive and histrionic reaction. My own first reaction was, “Thank God, now Engelbert Humperdinck can finally step out of the shadows,” but that was before I looked into the facts of the matter and understood that it was the other Tom Jones, the lyricist who, with composer Harvey Schmidt, wrote the hit musical The Fantasticks — it opened in 1960 and ran for 42 years — who had stepped into mystery at the very respectable age of 95. Fully a day after he did the mortal coil shuffle, much of the public has yet to catch up to the truth. Tom Jones, who is not slated for burial anytime soon beneath the green, green grass of home, is still being loudly and widely mourned.

By the time I finally saw The Fantasticks — this would have been towards the end of its attenuated tenancy at The Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village — it was starting to show its age; so was I, lord knows. It had about it the lavender whiff of artifact and mostly what I felt on leaving the theatre was stupid nostalgia for the time — 1970, age 15, an epoch in my life otherwise not worth idealizing — when I first took the original cast recording home from the Winnipeg Public Library and thought it was the most wonderful thing ever. Before that, all I knew of The Fantasticks was “Try to Remember;” it was in heavy rotation on the radio when I was very small — in those days, show tunes sometimes charted; does that ever happen now? — and had become a much-covered easy-listening classic. The Kingston Trio. Nana Mouskouri. Harry Belafonte. Andy Williams. They all had their way with it.

For me, the stand out tune was — this is still true — sung by the character Luisa. It’s a song that pokes fondly ironic fun at the extravagant self-absorption and illusions of uniqueness — no one has ever felt this before! — to which the young are prone, "Just Once."

Luisa — also known as “The Girl,” it’s the only female role — was played by Rita Gardner in the original cast. It was her performance — she had a fine, light coloratura, Julie Andrews or Barbara Cook like — as much as the song itself that I found, and find, so winning.

Rita Gardner, circa 1960

Tom Jones died, and I wondered about Rita Gardner who, as it turns out, has also left the building, not quite a year ago ,age 87. She was Rita Schier until she married the playwright Herb Gardner, best known for A Thousand Clowns; if you watch the 1965 movie, starring Jason Robards, it’s Rita Gardner you hear singing the little a cappella nursery song / lullaby at the very top of the film.

Tom Jones died, and everyone got in a muddle; Rita Gardner’s death didn’t go unremarked, but it didn’t provoke the same kind of confusion, nor did it prompt anyone to remember another Rita Gardner who had a life in show business. That’s too bad, really. In her day, Rita Gardner was was, well, quelque chose.

She entered the public record in 1886, in Butte City Montana, then a mining boom town where the population was doubling and redoubling every year. On December 13, the attractions at the New Theatre Comique included Miss May Chester, “the greatest female contortionist in the business,” and Miss Zoe Bentham, “the accomplished queen of the skipping rope and star Highland fling dancer.” Among the new faces — for the audiences in Butte appreciated a now-and-again freshening up on the stage — was Miss Rita Gardner, “character vocalist and actress.”

The Butte Miner, December 13, 1886

It’s strange that no trace of Rita seems to exist prior to 1886 because, according The Butte Miner, she was an established star upon eastern Vaudeville stages and created a sensation wherever she went. The first part of this claim might have been hyperbolic; but, as you’ll see, Rita did have a knack for ripple making: not necessarily with her theatrics.

Rita stayed in Butte over Christmas, lingered for a few months into 1887, entertaining the audiences at the Comique. Now and again she made the news, and plainly, she was a woman with aspirations, was someone disinclined to let her art go stale around her.

• The Butte Miner, January 10, 1887

Miss Rita Gardner, celebrated in New York City as “the Fire Queen,” will execute some wonderful and astonishing feats with the burning element, handling it with her naked hands, standing on it with her naked feet, sitting on it, and eating it. These great acts of Miss Rita, which nightly draw crowded houses in New York, will be performed here with all the hair-standing attachments.

Sadly, there are no photos (as near as I can tell) of Rita at work, so Artist filled the gap.

• The Butte Miner, January 13, 1887

A Magnificent Costume: A Work of Art, by an Artist and for an Artist

Among the great attractions at the new Comique is Miss Rita Gardner, a beautiful little lady, and one of the finest personators of male characters on the vaudeville stage. In this week’s programme she is cast in a sketch requiring a male costume. Not having one to suit her fancy she went to the Bonner Mercantile establishment and had her measure taken by Mr. David McKay, the boss tailor in the city. Like the artist that he is, he made Miss Rita a costume that a prince might envy. It is of the finest material and fits the lovely little actress like a glove. In look at her in the magnificent costume which consists of a full dress suit, with fawn-colored overcoat, one is at a loss which most to admire, the little elf herself or the artist who made th beautiful and exact fitting costume. Mr. McKay made Miss Gardner’s costumes in New York, where he took first place among the fashionable tailors of that great city. The Bonner Mercantile Company is fortunate in securing his services and Miss Gardner quite as fortunate in finding him here.

Artist interprets the instruction: “small woman dressed as a man singing to a theatre audience in Butte Montana, 1887”

There was a late 19th-century vogue in American vaudeville and the English music hall for “male impersonators,” and Rita Gardner, apparently, was part of it.

• The Butte Miner, January 17, 1887

The Misses Rita Gardner and May Runnels, two beautiful, sprightly actresses will appear during the week in an original duet and sketch in which Miss Rita will impersonate the due and Miss Runnels the dudine. It will be a rich treat to see them. Miss Rita will wear her magnificent full dress male costume which has excited the admiration of all who have seen it.

Rita stayed in Montana for a while, playing the circuit. In March, 1887, she moved on to Helena for a six week stint, but not before this unsettling bit of news appeared in The Butte Miner, January 26.

Not only are the proprietors of the variety theatres, but the performers are in a peck of trouble. Billy Mack, of the Comique, is loser of a diamond stud; Neville Waters had four of nine bangles of a bracelet stolen, and Rita Gardner is the loser of two diamond rings, an opera glass and a poodle dog by the perfidiousness of an esteemed friend.

Poor Rita! The perfidiousness of an esteemed friend! Her lost poodle dog! Her rings! Her opera glasses!

Remember the opera glasses. As time would tell, this was the first statement of a theme that would have a number of variations in the life and times of Rita Gardner, and missing opera glasses would once again figure.

Rita’s work in Helena ended on May 14. Then she goes to ground. How to explain the lost years of Rita Gardner? Perhaps she entered a convent, perhaps she got married to a rancher and devoted herself to the wifely arts, perhaps she went to Cuba or Argentina - who know? A more diligent researcher than I might be able to find out. For ten years, there is no sign of her. She breaches for air in 1897 when, once again, she was back on the boards in Montana, but without any fanfare, getting only a passing mention in The Butte Miner in their Christmas Eve edition; the bulk of the copy was given over to touting the leading acts with whom Rita shared the bill at The Imperial Theatre.

The three Luzoris, who are top-notchers in their line, do a great pantomime act, which includes some wonderful contortion work and ludicrous falls. Signor Bovino does a very difficult contortion act on the trapeze and Zeno shows that he is honestly entitled to be called ‘the human snake.’ Prof. Godfrey, the heavy weight juggler, performs some remarkable feats with cannon balls and the trained rats and mice of Prof. Pierano display an almost incredible degree of intelligence.

Artist, annoyed at being made to work on the Sabbath, does a slapdash job of Professor Pierano and his trained mice and rats

Rita, re-established in the public record, remains there, spottily, but ever more intriguingly. She becomes tricky to track because she starts replacing — or journalists start replacing on her behalf — “Rita” with “Reta,” but not consistently. It’s as “Reta Gardner,” said to be “an opera singer of reputation,” that she appears at The People’s Theatre in Seattle on March 29, 1898. From then on, whether as Rita or Reta, she stays on the west coast; is based there, as now we would say. It’s in Washington State, in Tacoma, in 1902, that she makes her biggest, her most notoriety-gathering public splash — but not as a singer. Instead, the talented little lady who once was known as “The Fire Queen” is now dubbed “The Burglar Queen.”

Tacoma Daily Register, February 5, 1902.Reta’s story is told over the space of a few weeks in 1902 in The Tacoma Daily Ledger.

On Jan 25, it was reported that she had been arrested, charged with receiving stolen property. In The Tacoma Daily Ledger, On February 5 — see the headline and subhead above — she was described as a “variety actress” who was arrested in Seattle on December 28, 1901 and charged with possessing stolen items, including a watch, a lady’s ring, and a baby’s ring. They were received — had been given and willingly taken — from “her friend and intimate associate” Chas. E. Jackson, “who assisted James Lackey in taking these articles from the house of Ida May Dahlquist in Tacoma, November last.”

In short, the story is this. Reta was living with Charles E. Jackson, who made his way through the world by being light-fingered. James Lackey was one of his confederates. Various items, known to have been stolen and identified upon recovery by their former owners, were found in Reta’s trunk in the boarding house room she shared with Jackson, and which Lackey was known to have visited. The stolen goods included a manicure set, a fur cape and dress skirt and two pairs of opera glasses.

Remember when I said “Remember the opera glasses?” That was why.

That theft had occurred was beyond doubt. What remained to be decided was the question of culpability. Someone was going to have to take the rap. That Charles wanted it to be Reta and Reta wanted it to be Charles says quite a lot about the state of their relationship, which was neither long nor happy. At the trial, as reported in The Tacoma Daily Ledger, Charles talked about their early days.

Jackson said that he first met Reta Gardner last April. He was then going under the name of Davis, but the defendant did not fancy that name and suggested that as he was a stranger in town he should change it. Accordingly she submitted a list of four names from which he was to make a selection. One was Denny and another Preston, and the other two he had forgotten. None of these suited the witness and they did not agree upon a new cognomen for several days. They thye chanced to see the name “Kinnear” on one of the business blocks of Seattle and decided to it. Henceforth he was known as Irving M. Kinnear.

Predictably, Rita’s profession as an actress — which placed her in the shady “half-world”— was scrutinized.

• The Tacoma Daily Ledger,Feb 7 1902

The testimony of the witnesses on the stand yesterday was chiefly noticeable for the light it threw upon the the conditions of life in the half-world of so-called variety actresses. The ceaseless rushing from place to place, the jealousies and all the sordid details of the unhappy life were indicated by expressed and hinted stories told by some of the witnesses.

The jury, however, did not let any of the sordid details of theatre life persuade them against her before they’d heard her evidence, which she presented in “a very decided way.” Reta’s defence was that she had no idea the goods were stolen, and that her understanding was that they belong to her lover’s wife, Mrs. Jackson, and had been entrusted to her, Reta, for safekeeping. To the jury, this made perfect sense.

The fact that 15 years earlier, back in Butte, in 1887, Rita (as then she was) was proximate to a rash of thievery where opera glasses went missing would never have been allowed as evidence at the trial. It interests me, as do all the gaps in her story, those temporal spaces where, I think we can assume, the Fire Queen was probably not just cooling her heels and darning socks for the chorus.

If I had all the time in the world, I’d look more into Rita / Reta Gardner’s rhymes and reasons. All I can tell you here and now, on Sunday, August 13, 2023, is that, shortly after clearing her name in Tacoma, she sullied it in Salinas, California where, I think, she was part of a show at the Opera House. The headline to this story is a keeper, for sure.

• The Californian, November 27, 1902

Soiled Dove in Trouble

One of the residents of the half world giving her name as Rita Gardner was arrested last night and locked up in the old brick jail for being drunk and disorderly. Her hearing will probably be held tomorrow.

There was no followup to the story.

Time passed, a bit of it. The soiled dove flew wherever she could or had to fly. On August 12, 1905, she’s in Spokane, part of a show at the Comique Theatre.

Time passed, quite a lot of it. It’s possible that the Rita Gardner who turns up in The San Francisco Examiner on February 9, 1916, is a different person altogether, but I suspect she’s our gal.

Woman Gets Warrant to Look for Finery

Mrs. F. C. Munn, 1618 Guerrero street, obtained a search warrant from Police Judge Fitzpatrick yesterday to seek for aigrettes valued at $50 and a silk shirtwaist.

She says she believes a woman named Rita Gardner several days ago, became friendly and entrusted her with the key to her flat while she went to the country. When she returned Mrs. Munn says the articles were missing.

Frustratingly, once again, the story peters out.

Later in that same year, 1916, on November 30, in the Salt Lake Telegram, we read that Rita Gardner is involved in a new and exciting film project. But she is 19 years old, and “fair to look upon.” In private life she’s Mrs. Tom Sharkey.

So, another Rita G. has taken over the news. And 44 years hence the Rita Gardner with whom we began, the singer of “Just Once,” will make her own headline when she stars in The Fantasticks. But our Rita, our Reta, sinks without trace in 1916, in San Francisco. She ends with only a whimper, leaving us with many unanswered questions and, possibly, with a silk waist shirt and $50 worth of aigrettes. As the singer sang, “Aigrettes, I’ve had a few…”

Curtains for Rita. Finis for Reta. For Rita, for Reta, all said and done.

Mercy. THAT took a while. It’s 7.08 and tomorrow I’m off to the dacha in Manitoba for a few weeks. I’ll write from there. RIP Tom Jones. Thanks for reading, friends. Yr fond, BR