Donna Darling Collection – Part 74

Donna Darling Revue
Treasure Chest Thursday
By Don Taylor

For this week’s Treasure Chest Thursday, I’m looking at a page from the Donna Darling Collection that includes both a clipping and a photo.

Palm Theater – Pueblo, Colorado

Image DSCN1433 from the Donna Darling Collection – Note the 6th act was apparently cut off. 

Key features:

• The venue is the Palm Theater – Pueblo’s Leading Theater – Always a Big Show. The show is “Today and Monday – 2 Big Days. And is part of the Western Association of Keithp-Albee Orpheum Circuit.
• The show is a “Double Headliner Bill with the First Feature Ace — “Donna Darling Revue with Sammy Clark”
• The Second Feature Act is “Orpheus Quintet in “Big Moments from Big Operas”
• Also on bill:
  • Zuhn & Dreis – Dementus Americanos – A Feature Comedy Act Made For Laughing Purposes.
  • Curtis & Lawrence – Up to the Minute and a Minute Ahead in “Is That the Custom.”
  • Morrell & Elynor – Beauty-Grace-Speed 0 Introducing the Charleston on Rollers.

Analysis

The Donna Darling Revue with Sammy Clark began in May 1926. On September 17^th and 18^th, the show played at the Burns Theater in Colorado Springs and played on September 25^th in El Paso, Texas. It is most likely that the show played in Pueblo on a date between the 18^th and the 25^th. The only Monday between those dates was Monday, September 20^th, so it appears that the show played in Pueblo, CO, on September 19^th and 20^th.

I looked for newspapers on Newspapers.Com, Genealogy Bank, NewspaperArchive.com, and other sites via The Ancestor Hunt to prove that date; however, I was unable to find any papers for Pueblo in 1926 available online. However, I did discover that the Donna Darling Revue played at the Grand Theater in Douglas, Arizona on September 27^th.

Photo of Sammy

Unknown woman & Sammy Clark – ca. 1926.

On the same page in the Donna Darling Collection as the Palm Theater clipping is a photo of an unknown woman and Sammy Clark. It must be from sometime between 1926 and 1928, with 1926 as the most likely. It is nice to have another photo of Sammy. I’ll keep an eye out for any other photos showing this unidentified woman.

Conclusion

September 19 & 20, 1926 – The Palm Theater, Pueblo, Colorado – “The Donna Darling Revue with Sammy Clark.”

September 27, 1926 – The Grand Theater, Douglas, Arizona – “The Donna Darling Revue with Sammy Clark.”

A day I learn of two more dates and venues for Donna’s Vaudeville Career is a good day.

Sources

Douglas Daily Dispatch, 1926-09-17 – Page 6 via Genealogy Bank.