believed volatility were as necessary to a diva as a good voice and an expensive dress, the purchase of which Crippen also cheerfully funded.
Cora drafted a libretto for her show but recognized that it needed work. She arranged a meeting with a woman named Adeline Harrison, a music hall actress and part-time journalist who also worked as an adviser helping other performers craft new acts and improve scripts. Crippen may have had something to do with recruiting Harrison, for the two women met at Munyon’s suite of offices on Shaftesbury.
Harrison recalled her first glimpse of Cora. “Presently the green draperies parted and there entered a woman who suggested to me a brilliant, chattering bird of gorgeous plumage. She seemed to overflow the room with her personality. Her bright, dark eyes were twinkling with the joy of life. Her vivacious rounded face was radiant with smiles. She showed her teeth and there was a gleam of gold.”
A photograph from about this time captured Cora in a pose for the stage. It shows her seated and singing from a songbook, beside a basket heaped with flowers of some lush species, possibly orchids or calla lilies, or both. She is on the far side of plump, with thick fingers and almost no neck. Her dress and the many layers underneath make her appear still larger, more weapon than woman. The dress is printed with daggerlike petals. Its billowing shoulders amplify the breadth of her bodice but also highlight the impossible narrowness of her abdomen, corseted perhaps in the famous “Patti” from the Y.C. Corset company, named for Adelina Patti, one of the world’s most beloved sopranos. Cora wears an expression that conveys both confidence and self-satisfaction. Not quite haughty, but vain and smug. Mighty.
Harrison read Cora’s script. There wasn’t much of it—“a few feeble lines of dialogue,” Harrison wrote.
Cora told Harrison she wanted to make the act longer and asked how that might be achieved. Cora wanted it to be more of a freestanding operetta than a simple variety turn.
“I suggested that a little plot might improve matters,” Harrison said.
The resulting show was called
The Unknown Quantity
and debuted at the Old Marylebone Music Hall, not quite the tier of theater Cora had hoped for. The Marylebone had developed something of a reputation for favoring melodramas that featured coffins, corpses, and blood, but it nonetheless was a known and credible venue that would give her an opportunity to show off her talents. That was all she wanted. Once London got a look at her, her future would be made.
A program from this period identified Cora as Macà Motzki—her maiden name divided in two—and as a principal in “Vio & Motzki’s American Bright Lights Company, From the Principal American Theatres.” Her foil was to be an Italian tenor named Sandro Vio, identified in the program as “General Manager and Sole Director.” Crippen too was on the program, as “Acting Manager.” The plot involved romance and extortion and required Cora at one point to hurl a fistful of banknotes at Vio. She insisted the cash be real, though the resulting first-night scramble by the audience caused the management to command that fake money be used in future performances. The show lasted one week. Cora demonstrated a lack of talent so complete that at least one critic mocked her as “the Brooklyn Matzos Ball.”
The failure humiliated Cora and caused her to give up variety, at least for the time being.
T HE C RIPPENS MOVED FROM South Crescent to Guildford Street, a block or so from where Dickens once lived, but soon afterward, around November 1899, Professor Munyon called Crippen back to America to run the company’s Philadelphia headquarters for a few months. He left Cora in London.
Something happened during that stay, though exactly what isn’t clear. When Crippen returned to London in June 1900, he was no longer employed by Munyon’s. He took over management, instead, of another
Cora drafted a libretto for her show but recognized that it needed work. She arranged a meeting with a woman named Adeline Harrison, a music hall actress and part-time journalist who also worked as an adviser helping other performers craft new acts and improve scripts. Crippen may have had something to do with recruiting Harrison, for the two women met at Munyon’s suite of offices on Shaftesbury.
Harrison recalled her first glimpse of Cora. “Presently the green draperies parted and there entered a woman who suggested to me a brilliant, chattering bird of gorgeous plumage. She seemed to overflow the room with her personality. Her bright, dark eyes were twinkling with the joy of life. Her vivacious rounded face was radiant with smiles. She showed her teeth and there was a gleam of gold.”
A photograph from about this time captured Cora in a pose for the stage. It shows her seated and singing from a songbook, beside a basket heaped with flowers of some lush species, possibly orchids or calla lilies, or both. She is on the far side of plump, with thick fingers and almost no neck. Her dress and the many layers underneath make her appear still larger, more weapon than woman. The dress is printed with daggerlike petals. Its billowing shoulders amplify the breadth of her bodice but also highlight the impossible narrowness of her abdomen, corseted perhaps in the famous “Patti” from the Y.C. Corset company, named for Adelina Patti, one of the world’s most beloved sopranos. Cora wears an expression that conveys both confidence and self-satisfaction. Not quite haughty, but vain and smug. Mighty.
Harrison read Cora’s script. There wasn’t much of it—“a few feeble lines of dialogue,” Harrison wrote.
Cora told Harrison she wanted to make the act longer and asked how that might be achieved. Cora wanted it to be more of a freestanding operetta than a simple variety turn.
“I suggested that a little plot might improve matters,” Harrison said.
The resulting show was called
The Unknown Quantity
and debuted at the Old Marylebone Music Hall, not quite the tier of theater Cora had hoped for. The Marylebone had developed something of a reputation for favoring melodramas that featured coffins, corpses, and blood, but it nonetheless was a known and credible venue that would give her an opportunity to show off her talents. That was all she wanted. Once London got a look at her, her future would be made.
A program from this period identified Cora as Macà Motzki—her maiden name divided in two—and as a principal in “Vio & Motzki’s American Bright Lights Company, From the Principal American Theatres.” Her foil was to be an Italian tenor named Sandro Vio, identified in the program as “General Manager and Sole Director.” Crippen too was on the program, as “Acting Manager.” The plot involved romance and extortion and required Cora at one point to hurl a fistful of banknotes at Vio. She insisted the cash be real, though the resulting first-night scramble by the audience caused the management to command that fake money be used in future performances. The show lasted one week. Cora demonstrated a lack of talent so complete that at least one critic mocked her as “the Brooklyn Matzos Ball.”
The failure humiliated Cora and caused her to give up variety, at least for the time being.
T HE C RIPPENS MOVED FROM South Crescent to Guildford Street, a block or so from where Dickens once lived, but soon afterward, around November 1899, Professor Munyon called Crippen back to America to run the company’s Philadelphia headquarters for a few months. He left Cora in London.
Something happened during that stay, though exactly what isn’t clear. When Crippen returned to London in June 1900, he was no longer employed by Munyon’s. He took over management, instead, of another
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