MUSIC HALL SALARIES.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 441, 29 January 1890, Page 4

MUSIC HALL SALARIES.

Knowing something of music halls beyond what is confided to a trusting public by the interviewers (says a correspondent), music hall salaries, considered as a whole, are very far from princely, even the 4 celebrities’ being paid, let us say, about a sixth part of sum they drop into the ear of the surprised reporter. I know that the best known of professional ‘stars’ have few- weeks in the year in which they make £SO, and probably seldom clear £I,OOO annually. If the public would compare the sums rumoured to be paid to music hall lions and lionesses with the sums they admit they are paid when sued for debt, it would seem that £35 is much nearer the mark than £IOO. Even in pantomime time, when tli6 greatest harvest is reaped, £SO is a very uncommon height to which to rise; and Mr Augustus Harris himself would draw the line at £75. Music halls could not afford to pay the high salaries that are talked of, as a little reflection will show anyone. A ‘ star ’ can sometimes fill a theatre, but that is chiefly because he pervades the whole entertainment, being so much on the stage that he can overlook his ‘support.’ But it is different in the music halls, where each performer has his ‘ turn ’ of a few minutes, and is then done with for the evening. The music hall is more cheaply conducted than the theatre. Except at halls where ballets are presented, the performers all provide their own dresses —as, indeed, the majority of prominent actors do nowadays and music hall scenery is not a heavy item. Lastly, there is the artiste’s right to appear at several halls in any evening ; many appearing at three, and some even at four. Were it not for this, few music hall performers would make £lO a week. Their costumes are by no means the music hall performers’ only heavy expense which should be deducted from their salaries before one has a notion of what they really make. Rushing from one music hall to another means several extensive cab fares—or their equivalent in a private trap—every evening, or something more than a pound a week. Then, while the actor’s part in the play costs him nothing, the artiste has to buy his own songs or dances or ‘ business’ generally. Even the songs he sings in pantomime have to be paid for by himself.