Vander Clyde Broadway, aka Barbette

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Oh. This one's been
on my list for a while. It was actually sent
to me a while back by my friends Amanda and Christina,

(00:22):
and it finally made it to the top of the
rotation because I finally got some time to seek out
some reading material around it. This is Vander Barbett, who
you will see as different names. He went by a
few different names in his life, but Barbette is the
one that he got famous with. He was a female
impersonator originally from Texas who became the toast of Paris

(00:45):
in the nineteen twenties. But of course that's kind of
only a small portion of the story. Barbette is an
example of someone who played really artfully with ideas of
sex and gender, and sometimes that performance was lauded for
its brillian Sometimes it was not so welcomed, but his
reputation for excellence enabled him to continue his career well

(01:07):
after he was done performing. So we are going to
talk about him today. As a brief heads up, there
is a mention of death by suicide late in this episode.
So Vander Clyde Broadway was born on December nineteenth, but
the year is a little less clear. Earliest year that
comes up is eighteen ninety seven, and then just about

(01:28):
every year between then and nineteen oh four has come
up in various accounts. His parents were Henry and Hattie
Wilson Broadway. He was born in Trickham, Texas, which is
in Coleman County, about one hundred and eighty miles southwest
of Dallas one hundred and fifty miles northwest of Austin.
Henry died when Vander was still a baby, possibly even

(01:50):
before he was born, and then Hattie moved around a
bit after that. She lived with relatives while earning money
as a milliner, then moved to Williamson County when she remarried.
That was to a man named Samuel C. Loving. Hattie
and Samuel had five children together, and Vander took the
last name Loving after they got married. I feel like

(02:10):
I should say he took a lot of last names.
I'm not sure he legally ever changed his name, but
he did go buy a few different names, and when
he was still a boy, Vander and his mother at
one point went to the circus while it was in Austin, Texas,
and Vander was completely entranced by it. He decided after

(02:30):
seeing that that he wanted to be a performer, and
specifically an aerialist, so he started to test out and
then develop his skills by walking on his mother's clothes line, or,
if you believe some lore, on the narrow rails of
the railroad tracks nearby. He also just went to the
circus as often as he could, and to pay for
his tickets, he took field work, mostly during the summers,

(02:53):
and specifically picking cotton. If you've ever picked cotton, that
is grueling. So he really wanted circus money. He wanted
to quit school and just run away and join the circus,
but his mother would not allow it. She made it
clear that he had to graduate before he could leave
home or do any such thing. His eagerness led him
to double up on classes, and he finished high school

(03:14):
at the age of fourteen through the Round Rock Institute,
which at the time was an offshoot of Round Rock
High School. Fourteen is pretty young, but this school only
went up to tenth grade at the time. Perhaps more
impressive is that despite taking on a heavier workload. Vander
also graduated valedictorian of his class. He later said of

(03:36):
this pretty hasty education quote, the chief thing I regretted
not going on with was Latin. I'd had only two
years of it. Once he had completed his education, Vander
wasted no time searching for an opportunity to make his
dreams come true, and when he saw an opening advertised
for an aerialist with the Alfaretta Sisters, he jumped on it.

(03:58):
That audition was more than one hundred twenty miles away
in San Antonio, but Vander got there and was hired.
The Alpharetta sisters were billed as world famous aerial queens,
and that meant that Vander was going to have to
dress as a girl. He was told it was more
dramatic for women to do wire acts, and he was
fine with taking on that stage persona, and so his

(04:20):
performing career began. Vander was replacing one of the two
sisters who had died, which may have been the real
reason he was asked to perform in disguise, kind of
like we want the act to go on as it
has already been. After working as an Alpharetta, Vander started
appearing with Erford's whirling sensations. This is a style of
act you've probably seen before. It involves several performers, in

(04:43):
this case three holding on to a twirling ring by
their teeth, which to me is one of the most
terrifying possibilities of all time. In the case of the Erfords,
they also dressed as butterflies for part of the act,
so it looked like several butterflies spinning through the air.
There was an other act that Vander had in mind
early in his performing career, and it was one that

(05:05):
played with the idea of performative gender. This was a
solo act which debuted at the Harlem Opera House in
nineteen nineteen. He would start out in the guise of
a woman, but once he had finished dazzling the audience
with all of his aerial tricks, he would take off
his wig and reveal himself to be a man. This

(05:25):
became a real hallmark of his act for the rest
of his performing career, although it changed and how he
performed the reveal over the years. It was during this
time that he also started using the name Barbette. This
is sometimes described as a selection that he thought of
as androgynists. But it's more that barbette could sound like
a woman's first name or anyone's last name. Yeah, it

(05:49):
does make it androgynist. But sometimes some people say because
barbette is androgynists. I know. When I first read that,
I was like, is it the But he intended it
to potentially be a last name as well. He later
stated that quote, I wanted an act that would be
a thing of beauty. Of course, it would have to
be a strange beauty. And part of the inspiration for

(06:10):
this act, he later said, were the many instances of
young men like actors disguising themselves as women to perform
in the plays of Shakespeare when the writer was writing them.
So those initial stagings at shakespeare plays where men played
women were what he said, was what inspired this. Vander
Clyde Broadway toured his act around Vaudeville in the early

(06:32):
nineteen twenties, and we should mention that his big reveal aside,
this act was considered very thrilling. He would frequently stage
sort of near misses, making it appear as though he
had fallen, but he always managed to catch himself and recover. Obviously,
audiences found this just very gripping. In the early years,

(06:53):
he'd take off his wing and show the audience that
he was a man. As part of his bow, he
would doff the wig in a way that a gentleman
might normally raise his hat. Yeah. One of the things
that I read over and over is about how in
these falls he would look like he had fallen, and
he would catch himself by one foot at like the
last second. Again to me terrifying, but people loved it.

(07:15):
The William Morris agency signed Vander and thought that his
act might be a hit in Europe. So he was
booked for shows in England and Paris and sent on tour,
and the agency was absolutely right. Paris in particular loved
the act, and Vander loved Paris. He later said, Paris
was the experience. As soon as I got to my

(07:37):
little hotel Maderne, near the Place de la Republique, I
felt that I'd found my city in Paris. Barbette was
initially booked at the Alhambra and from there went to
Casino de Paris. He fell in with some socialite expats
in the Paris art scene, and he met everyone from
royalty to the tastemakers of the day. In July of

(07:59):
nineteen twenty six, the periodical Nouvelle Revue Francaise featured an
essay by Jean Cocteau titled The numer Barbette. This has
come to be recognized is an important essay on art,
and Barbette later stated that quote, But of course the
most perceptive was Cocteau. He saw even more in the
act than I had realized was there myself. Coctau made

(08:22):
the case in this essay that Barbette's performance wasn't really
impersonating a woman and then revealing himself to be a man,
but that it was going from an extreme example of
femininity and grace and then an extreme example of performative manliness,
writing quote, imagine what a letdown it would be for
some of us if, at the end of that unforgivable

(08:42):
lie Barbette were simply to remove his wig. You will
tell me that after the fifth curtain call he does
just that, and the letdown takes place. There is even
a murmur from the audience, and some people are embarrassed,
in some blush. True, for after having succeeded as an
acrobat in causing some people almost to faint, he now

(09:03):
has to have his success as an actor, but watch
his last tour de force. Simply to re become a man,
to run the real backward is not enough. The truth
itself must be translated if it is to convince us forcibly,
as did the lie. That is why Barbette, the moment
he has snatched off his wig, plays the part of

(09:24):
a man, all of it to erase the fabulous, dying
swan impression left by the act. Coctau wrote of the
deception of Barbette's guise, using the dangerous backdrop of aerial
stunts as an art comparable to poetry, rather than just
some sort of gender stunt. He describes Barbett as reaching
a sort of transcendent sex that is not part of

(09:45):
the accepted binary of the day, but was the supernatural
sex of beauty. Of course, even as this writing was
quite unconventional for its time, it is based on outdated
ideas of sex and gender, and critiques note that Cocteau
is working with a binary idea of gender, even as
he strives to say that Barbette is outside of that binary.

(10:06):
And if you really want to dig into analysis of
the essay, there's a great piece written by Chase Dimmick
in twenty eleven titled The Surreal Sex of Beauty Jean
Cocteaux and Manray's Le Numero Barbette, and that was published
in As It Ought to Be magazine that will be
linked in the show notes, and it's quite a good read.
To accompany this essay, Coctau got visual artist Man Ray

(10:26):
to take a series of portrait photographs of Vander becoming
Barbette in preparation for a performance. The photos specifically include
the artist in androgynist states, showing both masculine and feminine
characteristics at once. The essay and accompanying photos have become
an important work in queer studies, showing this gender fluidity

(10:47):
in a way that celebrates it in the early twentieth century.
So even though Vander Barbette, as he came to be known,
identified as a man, he was also very willing and
extremely good at crosses any gender lines that were set
in place by social mores, and he did that in
a way that audiences really embraced for the most part. Yeah,

(11:08):
of course, this is a time way before the language
of non binary gender existed as it does today. He
might identify differently today, but that's sort of a matter
of speculation. We're going to talk a little bit more
about Barbett's act when we return from a sponsor break.

(11:34):
We mentioned that Barbett's act as it had evolved, had
really become one of gender extremes. So when he first
appeared to the audience, he was essentially in full drag,
often in a ball gown, fully accessorized with jewels and
ostrich plumes, and after the athletic feats and stunts were completed,
the fact that he was a man ended up being revealed,

(11:55):
not as part of a bow but through a sort
of stylized strip tease, as a former sat on a
sofa that was included as part of the set and
got undressed. Once it was shown that he was a man,
Barbette would then flex and pose muscleman style for the audience,
and then he would perform once again on the trapeze,
no longer pretending to be a woman. While early audiences

(12:18):
would have been surprised by the reveal, Barbett became pretty
famous rather quickly, so it's safe to say that a
lot of people were buying tickets for his show because
of the appeal of watching him move from one gender
expression to another, and this ability to glide between two
genders was something that Cocteau described as frightening. Because he
was so good at it, he was soon being billed

(12:40):
as Barbette the Enigma, and he could command as much
as two thousand dollars a show. As an aside, there
was already a connection between disrobing and the trapeze. Around
the same time that Vander was born, another performer, Lavery Velli,
performing under the stage name Charmian, had started to disrobe
why on the trapeze as part of her act. This

(13:03):
was recorded to film in nineteen oh one by Thomas
Edison and was released as the two minute movie Trapeze
Disrobing Act. Charmian's career, in some ways followed the path
that Barbette would take, finding a lot of success in
Europe and vaudeville. She'd make a great episode, and if
we can find enough information about her, we may want
to do one at some point, but we want to

(13:25):
make it clear that it wouldn't have been completely unheard
of by the time Barbette had come along. For an
aeralist to incorporate undressing as part of the act, Jean
Cocteau's fascination that we mentioned with Barbette is legendary. As
the aerialist and female impersonator traveled around Europe, Cocteau would

(13:46):
write friends in the various cities the tour was headed
to and encourage them to see the show, describing Barbette
as a great actor and angel. Cocteaux also told friends
how very smart Barbett was and that they should spend
time with him, adding quote, you won't be wasting your time.
The two men were romantically involved, at least briefly. Vander

(14:08):
recounted to an interviewer later in life that they sometimes
visited a brothel in Paris that showed pornographic films that
included homosexual content, although he also said that Cocteau usually
just spent the time critiquing the acting in them. As
for other romantic partners, there are certainly indications that Barbette
had relationships with other men, but he kept them entirely

(14:31):
under wraps. We really don't know if there was ever
anybody with whom he had like a serious, long term relationship.
In nineteen thirty, Barbette appeared briefly in Cocteau's first film,
Blood of a Poet. That project was bankrolled by the
Viccombe Charles de Noai, who had given Coctaux one million
francs to make it. The Vicomte also gave Salvador Dali

(14:52):
and Louis Bonnoeil a million francs for their film project
Laje d'Or. Both films were controversial bo kind of damaged
Noa's reputation, and in the case of Blood of a Poet,
the aristocrat and others made up an audience that was
filmed in a theater chatting and applotting. They were going
to be included in the film, but they did not

(15:13):
know that the scene that they were applotting, which was
filmed separately and then edited in, was a card game
that concludes with one of the players dying by suicide.
And it was because no I was so concerned about
being part of it that the audience section was reshot
and at that point Barbette was one of the audience members.
Barbette later said of the filming quote, Cocteau told me

(15:34):
that I was substituting for the vicomb test to no I,
whom I knew, but neither he, nor she, nor anybody
else told me why. Sitting in the box, I tried
to imagine myself a descendant of the Marquis de Sade,
of the Comtesse de Chevigne, who was one of Proust's
models for his Duchesse de Guillemont, and of a long
line of rich bankers, all of which the vicomtest was

(15:57):
for a boy from Round Rock, Texas that demand a
lot of concentration, at least as much as working on
the wire. Barbette was also quite chagrined when he discovered
what he was applauding in the film. He also had
not been told what the other part of the scene was,
but he didn't actually see the movie when it was released.
That movie wasn't released for two years until nineteen thirty two,

(16:19):
in part because of concerns about the content, and Barbette
didn't learn of the gruesome aspect of it for several years.
Barbette became a favorite at the Moulin Rouge and other
high profile theaters in Paris, and Vander also toured the
act throughout Europe, but he always felt like France was
his home, and noted that he believed that having chosen

(16:42):
a name that sounded French, had made French audiences kind
of feel like he was one of their own. As
he gained fame and was able to set rules and
boundaries about his setups. One of the things that Barbett
insisted on was that only two people were allowed to
be in the wings during his performances at thea his
maid on one side of the stage and the stage

(17:03):
manager on the other. He also did have a second
made to help the first because he had gotten to
the point where his traveling wardrobe Filder reported twenty eight trunks,
but made number two not allowed to be in the wings.
Barbett was aware of how exacting and fastidious he was
in his work in his life and later said quote,
since those years in Paris, I've never been able to

(17:25):
readjust to crudity. By the time Barbette returned as an
act to the US in the late nineteen twenties, he
was famous. A New York Times article about Barbette that
was published on February eighth, nineteen twenty seven, opens with quote,
the female impersonator known as Barbette, who some ten years
ago might have been found opening or closing shows and

(17:48):
the minor vaudeville houses with his wirewalking Specialties returned to
the Palace yesterday after an interval abroad and registered what
seemed to be an authentic success. That same write up
goes on to praise Barbette's work, writing quote, Barbette does
some really sensational stunts, not only on the slack wire,

(18:09):
but also on the flying rings and trapezes. Particularly, did
his ability to negotiate a cross between a summersault and
complete revolution on the flying rings Yesterday and press one
spectator usually anesthetic to the exploits of this sort. But
in that same paper, just five days later, a very
different review appeared. This one was written by New York

(18:32):
Times theater critic Jay Brooks Atkinson as part of his
survey of current theater events titled Songs, Dances and Costumes.
One thing that's apparent in Atkinson's writing is that the
gender bending nature of the show did not land well
with him. Every single time he mentions Barbette by name,
he puts the name in quotations with a question mark,

(18:54):
and his review is scathing, primarily because he seems to
feel he and the rest of the audience were duped
into thinking that this act was some sort of high
European culture Atkinson's review opens with quote when Barbette question Mark,
the sensational European novelty slack wire walker at the Palace
last week, removed a blonde wig after the fact and

(19:17):
became awkwardly male, the gum chewing dame of the row
in front exclaimed hotly, gone, ain't that awful. The review
then details how daintily and beautifully Barbette performed in womanly attire,
but how the woman who made the exclamation was responding
to the letdown that in removing the wig, the performer

(19:40):
quote became just a man. Atkinson points out that Broadway
Pedance noted that Barbette was a small timer on the
vaudeville circuit and now appeared back in the US having
quote glazed his gymnastic exhibition with stylized hocum and in
an a bit of a spe actually bad taste. The

(20:01):
critic concludes by saying that if Barbett falls and breaks
her neck, it would be quote a loss to the
crowned nitwits of Europe. Atkinson would later become a well
respected Pulitzer Prize winning war correspondent, but in this one
right up, he manages to insult Barbette and the gum
chewing Woman and any European whoever found this act entertaining.

(20:25):
So that's quite an accomplishment of insults. Yeah, I could
talk about how long it took me to pick apart
that review and figure out if he was really trying
to be mean to everybody or not. I concluded he was.
After we hear from the sponsors that keep the show going,
we will talk about the end of Barbette's performing career
and the new career that followed. In nineteen thirty eight,

(20:55):
Barbette's performing career ended when he fell. Maybe his retreat
from the trapeze and high wire acts that had made
him so beloved in Europe and quite popular on the
US vaudeville stage is sometimes reported as an accident, sometimes
as an illness. There are other accounts that say that
he fell and then caught pneumonia while convalescing. There is

(21:18):
even speculation that the culprit may have been polio. The
Texas State History Association states in its Barbett biography that
Vander had been performing at the Lowe's State Vaudeville Theater
in New York when he caught pneumonia. The version that
Barbett gave decades later in his sixties, noted that though
he had fallen on a number of occasions, those had

(21:41):
not caused his career to end, but he had occasionally
had to cancel shows. So his version supports this pneumonious
story and the nineteen thirty eight date, although other years
are listed in various sources. He stated that he had
left the Low's State Theater hot and sweaty, had caught
a chill when he walked out into the night air,

(22:03):
and woke up the next morning unable to move. His
bones and joints were, he said, deeply affected. It's entirely
possible that his illness was made more severe by various
injuries he had sustained over the years that he had
just performed through. Yeah, you'll even see dates as early

(22:23):
as nineteen thirty one as when he fell, and that
was the cause. He probably did fall in nineteen thirty
one at some point, and somebody has conflated them at
some point, but he says it is pneumonia. But whatever
the cause and whatever the moment, his act could not
go on. Vander was rendered unable even to walk for
a long time and had a long roadback from his illness,

(22:46):
reportedly needing eighteen months of rehab, during which he needed
to relearn how to walk. But even after that, the
performer was plagued by pain pretty much for the rest
of his life, and his body did not have the
strength and agility required for the work that he had
been doing for sixteen years. At that point, he had
to sell off property that he owned in Texas. He
later told reporters to pay for his extensive treatment. Once

(23:10):
his performing career was over, Barbette moved back to Texas
and another name change was made. From that point on,
it seems like he went by the name Vander Barbett,
presumably to make use of the name recognition that he
had achieved as a performer. He did stay in entertainment,
he worked as a choreographer and a consultant, so it
makes sense that he would want to keep that Barbette. Yeah,

(23:33):
so at that point, instead of just seeing him listed
as Barbette, he's pretty much always Vander Barbett when you
read about him in the paper. It was no longer
a first name. Now it was his last. Barbette found
work putting his expertise to use, first with the Ringling Brothers,
Barnum and Bailey Circus, where he was the aerial and
costume director. In June nineteen forty three, he was mentioned

(23:54):
in the Washington D c. Paper Evening Star, not for
his skills, though he is noted as the director of
aerial ballet. Unfortunately, this particular bit of news was about
him and a one hundred and fifty other people with
the circus. It was about one tenth of their full
staff getting food poisoning after eating a late afternoon meal
a filet of soul and chicken salad with mayonnaise. UH

(24:17):
nineteen forty eight write up in the San Francisco Examiner
was written by Paul Gallico and mentions the astounding artistry
often found at a circus that goes unappreciated by many attendees.
Galico's article mentions Barbette only in passing writing quote. A
matinee audience of grown ups and children were thrilling to

(24:39):
and obviously enjoying the work of the fabulous Alzanos on
the high wire. But as I stood down in the
arena with Vander Barbett, director of the Aerial Ballets, watching
Harold Alzana balanced on the wire beneath the garden roof
without aid of a balancing pole or safety net. I
wanted them to enjoy and appreciate it. Still more, I

(25:01):
thought they ought to be on their feet, cheering and
shouting because they were witnessing one of the great living
athletes of the world. While Paul Gallico may have admired
and appreciated the work of the performers, this is such
a great distance from the way that Barbette had been
written about twenty years earlier as an artist who transcended
known labels to become something new. Barbette later moved to

(25:24):
the Cole Brothers Circus in the late nineteen forties. An
April nineteen forty nine article about the circus preparing for
its opening mentioned Barbette for his great style. Quote, in
contrast with the general dishevelment of the practicing personnel, was
the immaculate Vander Barbett wearing a Hollywood beret and directing
the aerial ensembles in a rehearsal. Then just a couple

(25:47):
months later, in July, Barbett gave a quote to a
reporter about the Cole Brothers Circus and its emphasis on beauty,
which was touted in the headline of the article. The
opening line of this article includes the unfortunate quote, which reads,
quote It's just as easy to train pretty girls for
circus work as it is to work with those whose
physical attractions are negligible. This article then goes on to

(26:08):
say that vander Barbett is known as a quote famous
international trainer of circus girls for aerial work. The act
that he designed for the Cole brother Circus included two
dozen performers dressed as moths and included spinning while hanging
by their teeth. That's an act that sounds very much
like the show that he did with Erford's Whirling Sensations

(26:30):
in the nineteen teens. While he was working with various circuses,
Barbette also found work in theater and film. In nineteen
forty six, he was hired to stage a circus finale
in Around the World. That was a musical theater project
written by Orson Wells with music by Cole Porter. The
play was based on Jules Verne's book Around the World

(26:52):
in Eighty Days. This has so many names together that
make it seem like something I should have recogniz It's
already no. It only ran for seventy five days, Okay,
it wasn't super well reviewed, And to make it even
more confusing, there was a different project called Around the
World with Orson Wells, which was a series that came

(27:14):
out later. But this was a play's there's not much remaining.
I don't want to say evidence. That's not the right word.
There's not much remaining material from it. Orson Wells had
even like directed some film that was incorporated as part
of the play that's lost. We don't really know what
it was. It sounds potentially amazing. Yeah, we'll never know

(27:39):
what it could be for sure. Barbette was also the
obvious choice to train actor Gilbert Roland for the movie
Big Circus, which intended to create a true to life
reflection of the Circus. This was in nineteen fifty nine.
A write up about the pre production rehearsals noted quote Barbett,
a former high flyer of Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey,

(27:59):
Renown is so distinctly continental one would never suspect. He
was born in Texas and named Vander Clyde Broadway, and
perhaps his most long lasting influence and entertainment when the
Billy Wilder film Some Like It Hot was in production
in nineteen fifty nine, it was Vander Barbette who was
hired to help Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis with their

(28:21):
performances as musicians who put on drag disguises to get
jobs with Sweet Sue in her society syncopaters. In nineteen
sixty three, Vander Barbett moved in with his half sister
Mary Cahill in Austin, Texas. He often returned to the
Austin area in between jobs, but he never seemed to
consider it home. In nineteen sixty nine, he was interviewed

(28:43):
by Jean Cocteau's biographer, Francis Stiegmuller, and that interview was
published in The New Yorker. This was an interview that
Barbette was initially reluctant to give and described it to
the person who connected the writer to him as quote
the arrival of the literary FBI. Steigmuller described Barbette as
looking like quote, a very trim older man fashion model,

(29:06):
although the writer also noted the stiffness of Barbette's movement
the lingering effect of the illness that had taken him
away from performing. While in recent years Barbette has been
honored by his hometown of Round Rock, Texas, which is
just a twenty minute drive north from Austin. He didn't
have kind things to say about the area. In that

(29:27):
nineteen sixty nine interview, He told Stigmuller quote, I'm living
temporarily with my sister here in Austin before joining a
big show a few months from now. I'll not be
a performer, of course, but a trainer trying to give
young present day acrobats some faint idea of what a
refined act can be. I have to say that, apart

(29:48):
from my family, everything about Austin offends me, and I
know I'll be lucky if, in return for my very
handsome salary, I succeed in persuading a few young trapezists
just not to chew gum during their act. Imagine, Yeah,
not really a hometown hero in the Eric kind of

(30:09):
like I tried so hard to get away from here.
Here I am again. As the nineteen sixties wound down,
Barbett worked less and less as his health had gotten
steadily worse. He worked on the touring show Disney on
Parade in nineteen sixty nine in preparation for its nineteen
seventy season. If you don't know what that is. That
was a touring stage show that Disney and NBC co produced,

(30:30):
and it had scenes from the various Disney movies performed
by live actors. It's kind of like Disney on ICE's precursor.
On August fifth, nineteen seventy three, Vander Barbett died by suicide.
His cause of death was listed as an overdose of
somniferous drugs. He was cremated and was buried in round
Rock Cemetery at the foot of his mother's grave. His

(30:53):
obituary in the papers didn't mention his cause of death,
sating simply quote Vander Barbett, a world run now trapeze
artist of the nineteen twenties and thirties, died Sunday at
his home here. He was sixty eight years old. It
also mentioned his sister Mary kay Hill and his brother
Sam Loving as his next remaining kin. Austin and round

(31:15):
Rock have in recent years really embraced Barbett as part
of the area's history, including adding a historical marker to
his final resting place, and presumably being okay with him
having talked pretty negatively about the area. I'm really curious about,
like what Austin was like at the time versus the
reputation of Austin in Ray world. I don't know the answer.

(31:38):
I have not looked into it. In August of twenty
twenty two, an exhibit opened at the Williamson Museum in
Austin dedicated to Barbette's life and career. As of this
recording in June of twenty twenty three, it should still
be open. According to an article from CBS Austin when
it launched, it's supposed to run into twenty twenty four.
It seems most fitting to end Barbett's store with a

(32:00):
quote about him by Jean Cocteaux, which read quote, he
walked tightrope high above the audience without falling above incongruity, death,
bad taste, indecency, indignation. And that is Barbette, who I
am super fascinated by. Yeah, very appreciative that friends put

(32:22):
him on my radar. So thank you, thank you. I
have listener mail which is not about history really at all,
but it's about one of my favorite things, which is
Disney Parks. This is from our listener Hannah, who writes, Hello,
So I've been a fan of the podcast for about
seven years. Now, But today I have a question for
Holly about Disney World. My boyfriend and I are planning

(32:43):
a trip to Disney, but we will likely only be
able to budget two and three quarter days time wise.
I have been to Disney in the past. He hasn't. Really,
I haven't been since Galaxy's Edge opened. I really want
to be able to spend a full day in Magic
Kingdom and a full day in Animal Kingdom, but he
thinks he needs a full day for Holliyllywood Studios, could
you do three quarters of a day there and do

(33:03):
everything in Galaxy's Edge, including the Lightsaber building experience. We
would only be doing Galaxy's Edge and one go on
the Tower of Terror. It's really cool hearing your take
on Disney and Star Wars stuff in the podcast, and
I'd love to hear your input. Hannah also sent pictures
of They're Orange kitties Marie and Thor and Phoebe, who

(33:26):
are adorable. I and Phoebe is is no longer with us,
and I hope she is in the best part she's
non orange, and I hope she is in the best
part of Kitty Heaven because she has a great expression
that's like the expression I love in cats where they
have had enough of you, but they're willing to tolerate
you for food. Galaxy's Edge, so this is a little
bit tricky because I can spend days in Galaxy's Edge. However,

(33:51):
if you are a person who doesn't want to like
sit and linger and people watch, you could totally knock
it out in three quarters of a day. In my opinion.
There are only two attractions really, so there's Smuggler's Run,
which is the Millennium Falcon ride, and then there's Rise
of the Resistance, which is an amazing, fabulous ride, and
the Lightsaber building experience lasts about twenty minutes. Also, this

(34:15):
is from not that long ago, a couple weeks, so
hopefully she still has time. You do want to make
a reservation for that lightsaber experience because those go pretty fast.
If you want to build a droid, you can kind
of get into that on a walk in usually, and
then mostly you want to do food and if you
want to get into Oga's the canteena, you definitely want
to make that reservation ahead of time. I think most

(34:39):
people feel like they can knock out galaxies Edge in
a half day, especially if you're like the kind of
person who gets there at rope drop in the morning.
You can absolutely do it all. Like I said, I
want to stay there constantly, so even when there's not
much more to do, I'm still happy to do it.
The only other thing that is a little bit of

(34:59):
a time, and I think if it's your first time
you don't want to mess with it is something called
Bounty Hunt, where you use your Magic Band Plus and
there's an interface over by the garage area that gives
you bounties to go hunting around the land. It's all digital,
it's not like you actually go interact with anything. You
find doors and scan them to see what might be

(35:21):
behind them. It's very fun for people that have been
a lot, but for first timers, I would say you
are fine to steer clear of it. You're not You're
not going to feel like you missed a big, cool thing.
It's more like in something that augments your experience there
if you go a lot. In my opinion, so that's
what I would do. I would knock out Rise first
thing in the morning because that line gets very very
long unless you buy Lightning Lane, which can you can

(35:43):
schedule a time. Smuggler's Run not usually as battle line,
and if you're willing to separate, you can do single
rider and that usually goes very fast. And then just
work that around your reservations for lightsaber building and ogas
if you do that. I will say, if you want
to get cocktails and you can't get in Ogu's reservation,
don't sweat it because in Florida, Galaxy's Edge is in

(36:07):
Hollywood Studios, which is an alcohol park, So you can
actually get drinks at like any of the food stands,
and the milk stand will do alcoholic versions of the
milk if that's your thing. Just in case you're like, oh,
but I wanted cocktails, you can get them anywhere that's
my thing. I would say to me, I don't know
that I need a full day in Animal Kingdom, so

(36:28):
your mileage may vary on that. It's amazing. There's a
lot of beautiful stuff, but uh, the big one there
is Flights of Passage, which is over in the Pandora area.
In terms of like amazing rides and if you just
love to look at animals, there's tons of great stuff,
but that's it. Also great restaurants, Yak and Yetti forever Man. Yeah,
I think the trick I learned from you for Animal

(36:49):
Kingdom is get there right when they open, b line
back to like the Safari ride, Yes, and then your
way work back. Oh have you changed your opinion? Well,
only because flights of passage get so busy, Okay, And
so that is it was when we were there. Yeah,
And it's not a thing because I've been back one
time since the time that we were there, and like,

(37:11):
I just did not It was not something that I
was into spending my time on. So the prior advice
of being lined to the Safari ride and work your
way back, I will say for the Safari the best
times and you've probably read this are first thing in
the morning and last thing in the day because in

(37:32):
the middle of the day it is so hot that
all the animals are like, I'm gonna go find shade. Yeah,
you don't see as much activity. So but that's the scoop.
So I hope, uh right back and send me pictures
and tell me how it all went. But I think
you can absolutely do. Three quarters is plenty of time
for Hollywood studios. There are lots of yummy places to

(37:54):
eat if you want to eat somewhere that's not Galaxy,
said brown Derby. One of the great things too, is
that they have gotten a lot better across all the parks.
If you are a plant based eater, at offering way
better options than there used to be. So there are
some really much more delicious opportunities than there used to

(38:16):
be for plant based folks. So Hannah, like I said,
report back please because I want to know, and also
it will sustain me until I get tickoback next and
I hope you have an amazing time. But also if
you want to Wed Jane Epcott, Guardians and Galaxy, the
Cosmic rewind. Basically, I want everyone to do everything. If
you would like to write us about doing everything, or

(38:38):
about your trips to Disney World or anywhere that's pretty fun,
you should do that at Historam podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
You can also find us on social media as Missed
in History, and if you have not subscribed yet, you
can do that any iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen
to your favorite shows. Stuck Fumous in History Class is

(39:00):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows,

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Holly Frey

Tracy Wilson

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Vander Clyde Broadway, aka Barbette