Mcintyre And Heath, American Comedy Duo

by Photo Researchers

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Mcintyre And Heath, American Comedy Duo

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Photo Researchers

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Photograph - Photograph

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Entitled "McIntyre & Heath's Comedians the epitome of vaudeville" lithograph poster created by U.S. Printing Company, 1900. James McIntyre (August 8, 1857 - August 18 1937) and Thomas Kurton Heath (1853-1938) were American minstrel performers. They met in Texas in 1874 and developed a blackface tramp comedy duo act. McIntyre played the character of Alexander Hambletonian who was a buffoonish stableboy. Heath acted as Henry Jones a clever black entertainer who frequently outwits Alexander. Their routines included an oft-performed skit known as the Georgia Minstrels where the character Henry persuades the witless Alexander to quit working as a stableboy and joins a traveling show where he is promised fame and fortune. None of the fame or fortune materializes and Alexander has comical and outrageous tasks to perform under Henry's direction which allowed them to act out comedic dialogue, dance and songs. Another skit, called the Ham Tree, and which formed the nucleus of a later stage play, involved the two characters discussing how ham grows on trees that are three hundred feet tall. Their acting partnership endured for some fifty years as they worked under the twin influential theatre managers of Tony Pastor and Benjamin Franklin Keith appearing as stars in both vaudeville and Broadway. Their blackface minstrel shows were an influential model followed by later film stars such as Al Jolson.

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September 24th, 2014

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