HENRI FRENCH.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3979, 12 July 1915, Page 6

HENRI FRENCH.

THE INTOXICATED GENIUS.”

Henri French, who opens with his vaudeville company at His Majesty's Theatre for a season of three nights on Wednesday next, arrived iri Gisborne on Saturday morning. “I was riding a bicycle—little wooden bicycle—on the stage when I was only#wo years old,” he confided' to a repeater. “As far back as my memory eayrgo, I was a theatrical performer, awl even farther back than that. I c#n’t recollect starting in this bicycle get, and it wouldn’t remain in my cnemory at all except that I havo a r distinct image in my mind of once falling ofl tho bicycle and making my nose bleed. But I have no doubt that I was received with great applause : in fact, my father lias some yellow old jiress cuttings which say so. “The first bit of circus work I remember learning rrom the beginning was that old trick of walking on a running ball. I began to do that BEFORE I WAS FOUR YEARS OLD.

It was surprisingly easy, for I suppose I had learned how to balance, though quite unconsciously, on the bicycle. _ After that I spent my boyhood doing all sorts of things. . “There wasn’t much in the way of circus and dumb-comedy business that I didn’t try before I was 21. You see, as a boy always with the show, fairly supplo and strong, quite healthy and with a good balance that I had learned almost as soon as I could walk, I was eager to imitate everybody round me. So I became a bit of a juggler. I would never put on my hat without tricking it there, and I would palm things just for fun. Muscles develop wonderful automatic skill with practice. You don’t think that it iS skill gained by practice that allows you to button your waistcoat | so easily. . It is, and the same thing 1 applies to anything that a bov is con- I : stantly doing. “Playing, about in the circus, I got J on the inside of a good many, tricks ! of magic, and thought for a while of ! making my living as a magician. Then I walked! the wire, and learned a little about the bar and tho trapeze, but I wouldn’t guarantee a star turn up In tho air. To be on the earth, on wheels, is good enough for me. “My father invented what you might call a one-wheel rollor skate, an apparatus on which you can run about f very fast- —if you don’t fall. When f he put them on mo I found it quite | easy to manage them. We advertised 1 them, and I made a lot of Money j teaching other people liow to do it. j They didn’t always learn, but they j always paid their fees. My father j patented the skates and tried to sell ; them —ho didn’t make any money at j all.” ‘ | When ho reached manhood, Henri i French decided to establish his own i show. He arranged a number of ! acts, of one of which 'his present a‘t, j “The Intoxicated Genius,” is a de-.j velopment, engaged some assistance, and became, :

A SUCCESSFUL VAUDEVILLE ( ARTIST. “I can truthfully say,” he said, “that I have boon head-lined in nearly every theatre in America. I have been over the Orpkeum Circuit seven times. .1 took my own show round tho United States, and do Cuba, Brazil, Uruguay, and the Argentine. I showed several seasons in Paris ,and the South of Franco, In London," 1 had a sixteen weeks’ season at the. Empire, and. eight at the Tivoli. Not too bad a record for a man 32 years old.”