Donna Darling Collection – Part 90

Donna Darling & Sammy Clark – Booked Solid

Treasure Chest Thursday
By Don Taylor

I’m looking at an advertising sheet from the Donna Darling Collection for Treasure Chest Thursday. The sheet includes photos of Donna and Sammy. It appears it may have been for “The Artist’s Paper.” It mentions that Donna Darling and Sammy Clark booked solid – Orpheum and Affiliated Circuits in their new Revue, assisted by Babe Barring, Hal Dixon, and Steve Lazur.

I have cropped, edited, and sized the photo for the web..

Key features:

• • Photos of Sammy and Donna.
  • Their act was in the Orpheum Circuit
  • Also in the act were Babe Barrington, Hal Dixon, and Steve Lazur.

Analysis

The Donna Darling Revue with Sammy Clark started in April 1926. Their first show together was on April 8, 1926, at Keeney’s Livingston Theatre in Brooklyn, New York.

The Orpheum Circuit was a chain of vaudeville theaters that operated through 1927. It merged with the Keith-Albee-Orpheum corporation and later became part of RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum). The Orpheum Circuit was a booking agency that worked to assure similar acts weren’t on the playbill simultaneously and that shows were only at one theater during a season. If Donna and Sammy were in the Orpheum Circuit, I would expect they would likely only play theaters in that system.

The act included Babe Barrington, Hal Dixon, and Steve Lazur. It appears the three joined the Donna Darling Revue with Sammy Clark began in April 1926.

• • Donna Darling Collection – Part 89. Barring, Lezure, & Hal Dixon on the piano were mentioned in a clipping from August or September 1926 when they played at the Novelty Theater, Topeka, Kansas.
  • Donna Darling Collection – Part 57 and Part 55. Barring, Lazur, and Hal Dixon assisted in the show at the Majestic Theatre in December 1926 in Dubuque, Iowa.
  • Donna Darling Collection – Part 50. Raring [sic], Lazur, and Hal Dixon supported the show at the Monache Theatre in Porterville, California, on October 19, 1926.
  • Donna Darling Collection – Part 40. Barring, Lazur, and Hal Dixon supported the show at the Grand Theatre, Great Falls, Montana, on November 26-27, 1926.
  • Donna Darling Collection – Part 31. Barring, Lazur, and Hal Dixon supported the show at the D & R Theatre in Aberdeen, Washington, on November 16-17, 1926.
  • Donna Darling Collection – Part 27. Barring, Lazure, and Hal Dixon assisted in the act at the Colonial Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, on December 19, 1926.
  • Donna in Bridgeport, CT, at Poli’s – June 30-July2, 1927. Hal Dixon appears to be part of “Modern Vaudeville Frolics” that played at Poli’s in Bridgeport, Connecticut, June 30-July 2, 1927. However, it seems that may have been a one-time title for the show, and it was the Donna Darling Review in May and later in July 1927.

Conclusion

This advertising flyer is probably from April 1926.

Besides Donna and Sammy, the act was assisted by Babe Barrington (Possibly Barring), Hal Dixon, and Steve Lazur (or Lazure). Hal Dixon played piano for the Donna Darling Review.