HARRY LAUDER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 185, 3 February 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

HARRY LAUDER.

ANGRY WITH THE MANAGERS. When Harry Lauder returned from America he gave his experiences to a representative of the Liverpool Courier. He had, he said, a very good time in America, but a time of very hard work. "I've appeared in 62 cities in the States on this my fifth visit here; and it has taken only seven weeks. I had one week in New York, another in 'Chicago, two nights each in Boston, Philadelphia and Toronto; but, generally, I've been doing two cities per night, sometimes 160 miles, always on a special train of my own. "I was taken ashore on the New York Herald yacht. Three motor cars met me, two as standbys in case of a breakdown. We did live miles in eight minutes—a regular hustle. "At three minutes to one in the morning we reached the Hall. A great crowd of over three thousand people awaited, me. They had been there since a quarter past eight. I had a magnificent reception. Simply stupendous! And we kept it up till ten minutes to two. I had dressed in kilts ready for the show before leaving the boat. The 'house' clapped and stamped and shouted. Now when a crowd has waited so long you want to give them a laugh right off. So I did the natural. "I said, 'Where have you all come from? I would like to know what all the noise is about. What are you all doing out at this time in the morning? Have ye no h'ames to gang tae?' I sang seven songs, and finished with 'Auld Lang Syne.' The audience stood up and joined in, and then cried for more. 'The best thing I can do is to advise you to go to your beds. Come back in two nights when I have had time to have a good sleep.'"

Mr. Lauder said that he had brought off his last Christmas pantomime engagement at a cost of £3OOO. He was to appear at Manchester at Christmas. "But I'm ganging hame to Bonnie Scotland for a week's rest," he remarked. "I'm going to my ten-acre estate at Dunoou. If I could have bought off this year's engagements for panto's I should not yet have returned from America," he added. "Now, as to English and American managers I much prefer the American. At home they want to take everything and give nothing. I have had ten years' experience and ought to know what I am talking about. When lam at home ill and sick and lying in bed the English managers will not believe my doctor's certificate, but send down their own medical man to see if I am shamming.

"The very latest development of my English managers is that if I am ill and off work they are going to raise an notion against me and make me fulfil the weeks I am ill at a later date in lieu of the dates I have missed. Of course, they will have to go to the Courts. Some of these managers have made fortunes out of me, but if they meet me in the street they never say, 'Good evening; glad to see you.' But when I want to see them I have to go through locks and bars to reach them. There will be a fine racket when I get back to London. I ;\m expecting it, and I am prepared for it.

"I have found things better in America. Of course, I had the advantage of going to America a free agent to make my own engagements at my own value. I don't mind telling you what I have been paid in America—£sso a week — but I have had to pay my own expenses out of that. And that is not my only expense. Now I have been away for a seven weeks' engagement, and I have had to pay £2OO per week in England to obtain release from contracts to enable me to go. Two hundred pounds a week to get off, and they only pay me £l2O when lam here! They make £BO out of me. If that is not scandalous I don't know what is."

Mr. Lauder mentioned that he has arranged to make a trip round the world, beginning in December, 1913. He will visit the United States, Canada, Vancouver, Australia and New Zealand. "And noo I'm off t-ae my bed. Guid nicht!"