Legends 58: Take a Bow

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There's nothing like it in the world.

It's one of the only places where magic is still possible.

I'm talking, of course, about the theater.

And I'm not referencing your local movie palace.

I mean real theater, live on stage.

There's just something palpable in the air, a magnetic kind of energy that's that's impossible to find anywhere else.

It's simply magic.

But if you can find magic in a theater, then you can find curses as well.

And nothing is more cursed than the Scottish play itself, Macbeth.

Superstition claims that saying the word Macbeth in a theater will result in disaster.

According to urban legend, the curse was laid by a coven of witches who were furious at Shakespeare for using a real spell in his script.

More practical minds have suggested that the curse can simply be chalked up to coincidence.

Theaters who are in financial trouble will often put on popular shows like Shakespeare's Macbeth to draw in a crowd.

But when that isn't enough to save them from ruin, at least they now have a convenient scapegoat.

But there have been actual examples of a curse throughout history.

In 1947, for example, an actor playing the legendary character himself died after being wounded during a sword fight on stage.

In 1964, a Portuguese theater burned to the ground while it was playing Macbeth.

In 1980, a production company folded shortly after showing, you guessed it, Macbeth.

So, yeah, the theater is pure magic, but sometimes even the most magical places on earth can be hit by bad luck.

And when bad luck comes to Broadway, the ghosts come out to play.

I'm Aaron Manke, and this is Lore Legends.

Ask any performer, theater or otherwise, what their dream job might be, and the answer is always the same.

There is no bigger stage than Broadway.

Of course, Broadway isn't a single stage.

It's an amalgamation of dozens of theaters in New York City, all of which put on some of the most incredible productions you will ever see.

And if you can get yourself onto one of these stages, then that means that you're one of the best performers in the world.

A lot of talented people have danced under those bright lights, and a lot of people will do so for years to come.

But some of them get caught in the middle.

They stay on stage forever.

And on the corner of 47th and Broadway is an entire building full of performers whose curtain calls never came.

The Palace Theater opened in 1913 as a vaudeville theater.

Its beautiful neoclassical design attracted a lot of interest, and in no time, it was pulling in some of the biggest names in entertainment.

Think Will Rogers, the Marx Brothers, Bing Crosby, Mae West, Bob Hope Fred Astaire.

They all performed at the palace.

With headliners like that, the Palace Theater gained a certain reputation.

If you can make it to that stage, then you were a somebody in the show business.

And so performers around the country clamored to get a spot on the playbill, many even going so far as to ply their act on the sidewalk in front of the theater.

But nothing gold can stay, and the Great Depression did a fantastic job of tarnishing all that gold.

Suddenly down on its luck, the Palace Theater was forced to convert into a movie theater, only hosting the occasional live performances.

It was reborn as a Broadway theater in the 1960s, and it's been operating as one ever since.

You can still attend a show at the Palace Theater today.

But be warned that you might see more than a musical within those walls.

The palace, you see, is full of ghosts.

Rumor has it that there are over 100 ghosts wandering in the wings.

If you want a specific number, one visiting psychic revealed that she sensed exactly 103 souls.

One of the palace's many ghosts is a cellist in a white gown who has been seen playing in the orchestra pit and sometimes even disappearing from it.

Another is a young boy who plays with toy trucks behind the mezzanine, and yet another is a man in a brown suit who is often seen striding through the walls.

There are so many more, and most of their identities have been lost to time, but we definitely know the name of at least one man, and luckily, he's one of the most active ghosts in the entire theater.

His name was Louis Bussolina, and he was an acrobat.

Louis was a member of a troop called the Forecasting Pearls.

Their acts involved very daring leaps from very high places, something that would make any normal person soil their pants.

But not Louis.

He had been flinging himself into the air for years.

He was a professional, after all.

But even professionals slip up every now and then.

On August 27th of 1935, the Four Casting Pearls were performing at the palace when tragedy struck.

During a double somersault, Louis reached out to grasp his co-worker's hand and missed.

In front of 800 horrified audience members, he fell 18 feet, hitting the stage with a sickening crash.

He was rushed to the hospital, where it was discovered that he had a fractured pelvis, along with a myriad of other internal injuries.

The doctors worked hard to save his life, and thankfully Louis survived.

In fact, he continued to perform with the forecasting pearls and he went on to live for almost 30 more years.

And still, even though he didn't die back in 1935, it must have been a terrifying fall.

One might even say that it was heart-stopping.

So maybe that's why his ghost still hangs out in the palace theater today.

Stagehands say that they frequently see a man in an old-fashioned white acrobat costume spinning around on the dress circle.

Some have even said that they've seen him flipping through the air before screaming and plummeting to the ground.

I think it's fair to say that I doubt Louis' ghost appreciates being forced to relive the most traumatic moment of his life over and over.

Hopefully, when he's not at the palace theater, his spirit is contemplating much happier memories.

It's nice to believe that out of 103 ghosts, there are at least a few that aren't stuck there permanently.

Maybe Louis is one of those few.

And if they're all trapped, then at least they have plenty of ghostly company to keep them all entertained.

No one in New York spends more time at their job than theater people.

Even in a city full of the hardest workers in the world, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who puts in more hours.

Not lawyers, not engineers, and not even, dare I say, Wall Street financial bros.

Theater professionals live and breathe their art.

The stage calls to them, and they answer.

And that doesn't only apply to the performers.

The directors, producers, stagehands, everyone involved dedicates as much time as possible to making sure every production goes off without a hitch.

Now, with that said, you don't often hear about the owner of a theater hanging around so much, but there are exceptions to every rule, and David Belasco was certainly an exception.

David was an actor, producer, and playwright who had gone down in history as the man who wrote Madam Butterfly.

But no matter his accomplishments on the stage, it's clear that his true pride and joy was his theater.

He built the Belasco Theater in 1907.

Now, originally, it was called the Stuyvesant Theater, but he changed it to match his surname just a few years later in 1910.

The playwright ensured that his new theater was outfitted with the best of the best.

He put his money towards getting a top-of-the-line hydraulic system, an elevator stage, and a special effects studio.

He even included a fully functioning restaurant for the stage so that the actors could actually cook full meals during their performances.

Velasco loved his theater so much that he actually lived in it, or that is, above it.

Only two years after it opened its doors to the public, he had a duplex apartment built on the rooftop.

So when he wanted to catch a show, all he had to do was walk downstairs.

And so he he did.

Often, Belasco seemed to spend more time at the theater than any of the actors.

Almost every night, he could be seen shaking hands with the patrons and wandering the aisles, all while dressed in his custom-made black suits and white priest-style collars.

His unique style, along with his borderline religious fervor for his theater, resulted in a special nickname.

He came to be called the Bishop of Belasco, and he wore that name proudly until 1931 when he finally passed away.

And with his passing, the Belasco Theater lost its biggest fan.

But his death didn't mean that everything ground to a halt.

This was entertainment, after all, and the number one rule is always that the show must go on.

To this day, the Belasco is a functioning theater.

Over the years, it has played host to some of the biggest names on Broadway and in Hollywood.

Antoinette Perry, Humphrey Bogart, Eddie Falco, and Ralph Fiennes have all performed there.

And in 1975, the Rocky Horror Picture Show made its Broadway debut at the Velasco.

The theater has had a great run, obviously.

I think that if he were alive today, David Velasco would be proud.

And I can say that with the utmost confidence, because his ghost seems to have really enjoyed spending his time there in the afterlife.

That's right, the Bishop of Velasco didn't abandon his beloved theater, even in death.

In the 1930s, actors started spotting a man in a priest-like suit sitting up in the balcony, watching them as they rehearsed.

As the years went by, some reported that Velasco approached them to congratulate them on their performances, even shaking their hands with his signature tight grip.

Other less fortunate actors have been known to file complaints about a man dressed like a priest pinching their backsides.

I think we can hazard a guess as to what Velasco thought of those performances.

He's made mischief in other ways too.

If a show doesn't go so well, then actors would often return backstage only to find their dressing rooms ransacked, as though though someone had come in and thrown all their belongings around in a rage.

At other times, people have reported hearing raucous music and loud voices from his old apartment upstairs.

But when they go to investigate, the rooms are always empty.

Tons of little oddities of the Belasco have been attributed to this ghost.

Sometimes people have randomly smelled cigar smoke.

Other times they've heard disembodied footsteps or broken elevators suddenly shooting up to his abandoned apartment.

Sightings of David Velasco have become more scarce since the theater was renovated in 2010.

It's possible that after the alterations were made, he just didn't want to spend as much time there.

But that doesn't change the fact that for decades after his death, the Velasco Theater was just as much a home to his spirit as it had been in life.

She was the most beautiful girl in New York City.

At least that's what the newspapers said about Olive in 1914 after she won a beauty competition.

And of course, someone else took the crown the following year, but for 12 months, 20-year-old Olive Thomas was the shining jewel of Manhattan.

It would have been easy for her to peak right then and there, to let her beauty be her only legacy.

But Olive was nothing if not driven.

She wanted to make an even bigger name for herself.

And so just a year later, she had taken up the mantle of performing as a Ziegfeld girl at New Amsterdam Theater.

Now the Ziegfeld girls were a pretty big deal.

They were the female cast of the Ziegfeld Follies, a series of lavish theatrical reviews.

The Ziegfeld Follies were a glittering spectacle, and a lot of that glitter came from the women on the stage, both literally and figuratively.

These chorus girls sang, danced, acted, and even did some comedy bits, all while dressed in the most elaborate outfits you could ever imagine.

And of course, they were all stunning, and their pictures were circulated all across the country.

Olive Thomas, of course, thrived as a Ziegfeld girl.

How could she not?

She was gorgeous and charismatic.

Her stage presence was electric.

No one could visit the New Amsterdam theater without finding their eyes glued to Olive.

She was, in a word, magnetic.

Olive's charm and beauty opened a lot of doors for her.

While she was still with the Ziegfield girls, she modeled on the side.

and then she got involved in the silent film business, starring in grainy black and white movies that promised to be the future of entertainment.

In 1920, after five years of lighting up the stage and the camera, she took a vacation to Paris with her husband, Jack Pickford.

The trip was meant to be a second honeymoon, a time for the two lovebirds to step away from their busy careers and focus on each other.

But that wasn't the reality of the situation.

In truth, even though Olive and Jack had only been married for a few years, their relationship was already on the rocks.

When they had met in 1916, Olive had been a party girl, completely taken by the glitz and glam of showbiz.

She and her husband had fallen in love while indulging in that party lifestyle together.

Later, her sister-in-law, silent film actress Mary Pickford, wrote, She and Jack were madly in love with one another, but I always thought of them as a couple of children playing together.

After marrying, they continued to party, but Olive started to become more serious about her acting career, and Jack went in the other direction.

He gradually slid into alcoholism, and he had a wandering eye that frequently landed on pretty women, women who were not his wife.

As a result, right before they left for France, Olive discovered that she had contracted syphilis from her husband.

So yeah, the Paris trip was an attempt to patch things up, but it's kind of hard to heal from a wound like that.

Even so, Olive did try.

She tried until she just couldn't try anymore.

On September 5th of 1920, Olive and Jack stayed out late, not returning to their hotel room at the Ritz until 3 in the morning.

Jack immediately went to bed, but Olive continued to piddle around, writing a letter to her mother and then retiring to the bathroom.

Sometime later, Jack awoke to Olive shouting, My God, what have you done?

Jumping out of bed, he ran to the bathroom, only to see an empty blue bottle next to her.

Olive had swallowed an entire container of medicine.

Historians suspect that the topical medication had been meant for Jack's syphilis.

Some have suggested that because the bottle's label had been written in French, Olive made a terrible accident thinking that the liquid inside was something else.

Others wonder if Olive had downed the entire bottle intentionally.

Her personal life was hanging by a thread, and her husband's womanizing, along with the ensuing disease, just might have been devastating enough to push her over the edge.

No one can say for sure.

No one, of course, except for Olive.

But we won't be hearing from her anytime soon.

Because on September 10th of 1920, Olive passed away after five days of fighting for her life in a Parisian hospital.

Word of her death traveled relatively quickly, but not that quickly.

It was 1920 and cross-continental communications didn't move with the speed they do today.

And so, when a few stagehands at the New Amsterdam theater saw Olive backstage, they thought that everything was business as usual.

She was just running around in her Ziegfeld girl costume, smiling and winking at everyone.

It wasn't until they mentioned it to their colleagues later that they found out that Olive was already dead and whatever they had seen at the theater.

Well, that couldn't have been Olive.

Soon enough though, it became evident that it was, to some degree, at least.

It seems that her spirit had decided to haunt the theater.

And soon enough, seeing her was an almost normal occurrence.

In 1952, for example, a handyman reported seeing Olive twice.

Both times, she was wearing her beaded green Ziegfeld girl dress and carrying a large blue bottle.

Decades later, in 1993, a security guard saw her on stage at 2.30 in the morning, once again wearing her green dress and carrying a blue bottle.

When he told her that she needed to leave, she obeyed his orders by blowing him a kiss and then walking through a wall.

The security guard, by the way, called his boss and quit that very same night.

It should be noted that Olive has mostly appeared to men, and she normally flirts with them for a bit before disappearing.

At one point, she was scaring so many of the nighttime security guards into quitting that the theater had to switch over to exclusively hiring female guards for a while.

She is seen as a friendly, benevolent spirit.

She is playful with the staff and doesn't do much aside from a wink and blowing her kisses.

Sometimes though, her ghost presents a much sadder image.

Over the years, some people have reported seeing a crying woman wandering around the theater wearing a white dress with silver trim, the very same dress that Olive was buried in.

For the most part, though, Olive is a welcome presence at the New Amsterdam Theater, and at this point, so many people have seen her that one Playbill writer referred to her as by far the most active ghost on Broadway.

Many historians believe that she was deeply unhappy by the end of her life.

If true, it makes sense that her ghost sought out the theater, a place where she could feel most at home, mingle with her peers, and put on a show.

It's fair to say that the theater has always been a place of drama, egos, entertainment, and over-the-top exaggeration.

For anyone with a hunger to perform, they were the moth and it was the blazing flame.

So it's no wonder that it's also drawn in the darker side of life and death.

Lots of buildings around the world claim to be haunted, and many people have described seeing strange and unusual things.

But in a theater?

Well it seems we're guaranteed to get a show regardless of which side of the veil it comes from.

Speaking of, remember how I said that Olive always appears to men but never women?

Well there is an exception to that rule.

At the time I'm recording this episode, the New Amsterdam Theater is hosting the Broadway version of Aladdin.

It's a popular show with an incredibly talented cast, but I can say from experience that it doesn't matter how talented you really are, anyone anyone can get nervous.

And that's exactly what happened during a preview run for the show.

The orchestra conductor was unable to be there that night, so a substitute had to step in, and this particular maestro was a woman.

She had a glowing resume too.

In fact, she had worked at the New Amsterdam Theater before on a production of Mary Poppins.

Needless to say, she was very familiar with Olive's story in life.

and in death.

Before going on stage that night, she stopped for a private moment in her dressing room.

Taking a deep breath, she said out loud, Well, Olive, I'm back again.

I'm a little nervous.

I just wanted to introduce myself again and ask you if you could please give me some good luck.

Then she went on to wonder out loud, I wonder what the Follies girls would have thought of a female conductor.

As soon as the words left her mouth, the light bulbs around her dressing room mirror flickered for a few seconds.

brand new light bulbs that had just been put in for opening night.

It was a message from Olive, and it was clear.

Later, this conductor said it was like a wink.

She was signaling that she was fine with the idea.

And yeah, she probably was.

After all, a Ziegfeld girl has got to support her fellow women.

That's just what a great performer would do.

And Olive Thomas, well, she was one of the greatest of all.

As the curtains come to a close, I hope you enjoyed your tour of the Broadway stage today.

Everyone knows there's something entertaining to see inside each one of these theatrical gems, but now you know there's even more hiding away in the shadows.

But New York isn't the only place with haunted theaters.

Just across the pond, London's West End has its fair share of spooks, and some of them will steal your breath away.

Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

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Thora felt wrong.

She was doing her best to power through her performance.

After all, she was the star of the show and she couldn't let the audience down.

But that didn't change the fact that she was struggling to breathe.

As the night wore on, her jacket felt tighter and tighter.

No matter how often she stretched out her arms and pulled at the collar, the sensation didn't go away.

If she didn't know any better, she would say that her jacket was trying to strangle her.

But of course, that was absolutely ridiculous.

This was just a little black jacket, albeit an antique one from the 19th century.

The Trafalgar Square Theater's current headlining show was a story set in the Victorian era, and so the black bolero had been found in a secondhand shop during the costumer's quest to amass a collection of period-accurate petticoats, corsets, and stockings.

It might not have been made for Thora, but that jacket had fit her as though it had been sculpted for her body alone.

And every day when she put it on, it felt perfect.

But by the end of every performance, she was gasping for air.

Even so, she was a professional, and the show, as we have already said, must go on.

So Thora ignored the pain and painted a smile on her face.

One evening, though, she called out sick, so her understudy Erica had to take her place.

She slipped into Thora's role and into her costume, and then she felt it.

The jacket had begun to squeeze her.

Unlike Thora Heard, Erica Foyle did not stay silent about the little black jacket's strangling grip.

She told the theater company about how it slowly tightened its grip over her body and about the strange vision she had while wearing it.

It was gone in a flash, but for one brief moment, Erica had seen another woman in the jacket.

To test out Erica's claim, the stage manager tried on the jacket herself, and the same thing happened.

She said that she felt like she was being strangled.

And then the director's wife tried it on.

She claimed that she didn't feel anything, but when she took it off, her neck was ringed with harsh red marks, as though someone had tried to squeeze the life out of her.

Intrigued, the theater company decided to get to the bottom of the mystery, so they hired a few mediums to come by.

They didn't tell them anything about the jacket, they just waited to see what the clairvoyants would say.

One woman gave them their answer.

She claimed that the jacket was haunted by a young woman named Edith Merriweather, who had been wearing it when she was strangled to death by her lover, a man named Derek.

The medium said that she had a vision of Derek attacking Edith, wrapping his hands around her throat, and forcing her head into a bucket of water until she died.

Apparently, Edith had been trying to tell her story to the jacket wearers for decades now.

And finally, in 1949, the performers at the Trafalgar Square Theater were getting her message.

Later that night, several other cast members also tried on the jacket.

They all felt it strangling them, and one person even fainted as a result.

But any good theater kid knows that theater people can be dramatic, so none of them really trusted each other to have an honest, non-dramatized reaction.

With that in mind, they pulled in a random couple off the street, asking them to take part in a small experiment by trying on the jacket.

When the woman put it on, she said that she didn't feel anything, but when her partner touched the sleeve, a strange expression crossed his face.

He said that he suddenly had the urge to squeeze her.

Slowly, he moved his grip up her arm and then tore his hand away as it moved closer to her neck.

When it was his turn to put on the jackets, he immediately had trouble breathing.

Through labored breaths, he said, there is something sinister, like death.

It feels as if someone were trying to kill me, but in a just way.

That was the evidence the theater employees wanted.

The jacket was definitely haunted.

The entire experience was unsettled enough that no one wanted to keep it around anymore.

So they sent the jacket to Hollywood, where a few actors and actresses tried it on, all of whom reported feeling as though their throats were being squeezed while they wore it.

The last trace of the jacket in contemporary newspapers comes from August of 1949, when it was claimed that further tests were planned for the garment and I quote, to have it worn atop Mount Whitney to see if the clutching hands are still trapped in the jacket, followed by a trip to Death Valley to see if the spirit still lingers at a below sea level altitude.

No one has heard of the jacket's whereabouts ever since.

And honestly, that's something that I'm totally okay with.

This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with writing by Alex Robinson and research by Cassandra De Alba.

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