Vernon and Irene Castle's Ragtime RevolutionVernon and Irene Castle popularized ragtime dancing in the years just before World War I and made dancing a respectable pastime in America. The whisper-thin, elegant Castles were trendsetters in many ways: they traveled with a black orchestra, had an openly lesbian manager, and were animal-rights advocates decades before it became a public issue. Irene was also a fashion innovator, bobbing her hair ten years before the flapper look of the 1920s became popular. From their marriage in 1911 until 1916, the Castles were the most famous and influential dance team in the world. Their dancing schools and nightclubs were packed with society figures and white-collar workers alike. After their peak of white-hot fame, Vernon enlisted in the Royal Canadian Flying Corps, served at the front lines, and was killed in a 1918 airplane crash. Irene became a movie star and appeared in more than a dozen films between 1917 and 1922. The Castles were depicted in the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), but the film omitted most of the interesting and controversial aspects of their lives. They were more complex than posterity would have it: Vernon was charming but irresponsible, Irene was strong-minded but self-centered, and the couple had filed for divorce before Vernon's death (information that has never before been made public). Vernon and Irene Castle's Ragtime Revolution is the fascinating story of a couple who reinvented dance and its place in twentieth-century culture. |
Contents
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| 9 | |
| 19 | |
| 25 | |
| 30 | |
| 33 | |
7 They liked to test out their guns | 37 |
25 When I get old I shall be able to tell our children all about the Great War | 148 |
26 Kiss all the pets for me dear | 161 |
27 A super motion picture of epochmaking magnificence | 164 |
28 He was out to see the Kaiser defeated | 176 |
29 An hours pleasant diversion | 180 |
30 I Love My Wife but Oh You Kid | 184 |
31 Never in my life have I been subjected to such humiliation | 190 |
32 His plane dove straight into the ground | 194 |
8 Enfin une Revue | 41 |
9 I saw the fat years ahead | 45 |
10 Everybodys Doing It | 51 |
11 Two adolescent palm trees | 58 |
12 Gowns are more or less a business with me | 63 |
13 The best dancing music in the world | 68 |
14 More like a pair of schoolchildren | 73 |
15 Syncopation rules the nation | 78 |
16 The Most Talked About House in New York | 86 |
17 Dancing with Vernon was as easy as swimming with water wings | 95 |
18 The spirit of success oozes from these two young people | 102 |
19 The Castles Are Coming Hooray Hooray | 106 |
20 We were both miserable on those vaudeville tours | 116 |
21 Their enthusiastic followers never go to bed at all | 124 |
22 Mrs Castle is exhausted | 130 |
23 Castles in the subwayCastles in the L | 134 |
24 Oh give me a gun and let me run to fight the foreign foe | 140 |
33 Death is nothing to me sweetheart | 197 |
34 Robert was sweet sympathetic and besides he did all of my bidding | 206 |
35 A wellknown dancing dame | 209 |
36 Poor Irene Castle She certainly isnt what she used to be | 216 |
37 Jazs jazz jazz The paradings of savages | 223 |
38 To Chicago high society she was a chorus girl | 228 |
39 Orphans of the Storm | 234 |
40 What do you do for an encore to what they had? | 237 |
41 The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle | 242 |
42 Isnt old age awful | 248 |
Stage and Film Appearances of Vernon and Irene Castle | 253 |
Notes | 268 |
Bibliography | 298 |
| 302 | |
PHOTO INSERT | 316 |
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actor actress American article NYPL Astaire audience Blyth Broadway cabarets Café cast Castle House Castle's Charles Dillingham Chicago club comedy courtesy William McLaughlin dancer Director dogs dress early Elisabeth Marbury Elsie Elsie de Wolfe fame fashion film Foote friends George German Ginger Rogers Girl Grossmith hair Hearst Hotel Husband ibid Irene Castle Irene recalled Irene's Irving Berlin Ithaca James Reese Europe jazz Lady late later letter from Vernon Lew Fields look Mae Murray married McLaughlin to author Midnight Sons Milton Sills Modern Dance mother movie never night NYPL opened orchestra Paris partner Patria performances picture plane played popular quoted in Castle ragtime Rastus Royal Flying Corps show business song stage star story tango Tell Theater thing took tour town unidentified newspaper article vaudeville Vernon and Irene Vernon Castle Walter Ash Watch Your Step Wilmot wrote York
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Page 18 - Only forty-five minutes from Broadway, Think of the changes it brings; For the short time it takes, What a difference it makes In the ways of the people and things. Oh, what a fine bunch of rubens! Oh, what a Jay atmosphere! They have whiskers like hay And imagine Broadway Only forty-five minutes from here.