Tag Archive for '20s'
One of the archival collections Rebecca Main from Conservation and I greatly enjoyed working on this year was that of the Weatherly Sisters. This photograph was taken about 1927 at the Victoria Theatre in Newcastle and shows a group of performers applying makeup back stage. From left to right: Zilla Weatherly (holding Ivy Rogers’ baby), Ivy Rogers, Toots Weatherly (in background), Fanny Rogers (seated) and Gaga Weatherly.
The Weatherly sisters, Gaga and Toots, were fifth generation circus performers and worked in circuses, on the stage, and in film and television as clowns, contortionists, mimics, dancers, singers, songwriters and musicians. They were both born while their parents were travelling in South East Asia with Harmston’s Circus – Gaga (Zaida) in a hotel in Singapore in 1903; and Toots (Queenie) on a ship travelling between Sumatra and Penang in 1905. Their older sister Zilla had been born in a hotel in Bangkok in 1900. The children began their careers at about the age of two. At first they sang on stage, played musical instruments and performed impersonations, but in their early teens they introduced a contortion act into their program.
As a family unit they travelled with circuses throughout the Indian sub-continent, the Far East, Australasia, and southern Africa or with regimental theatres operated by the British Army on the Indian sub-continent and in Burma, Malaya, Singapore, and southern Africa. They made a number of short trips to Australia to perform with circuses including Wirth’s and Barton’s.
During the 1920s the family was based in Australia and focussed on vaudeville. They travelled widely as itinerant performers and were usually billed as the “Five Musical Weatherlys”. In the early 1930s they undertook a tour of Singapore, India, Burma and Java but the political situation in India and ill-health convinced the family to settle permanently in Australia. Nevertheless they continued to travel and Gaga and Toots undertook tours with a number of tent shows including Sorlie’s and Barton’s. It appears that Gaga and Toots performed their last contortion act in 1945 and after that concentrated on music with Gaga having a long-standing engagement as a drummer in an all-girl band at Leichhardt Stadium. In the early 1950s the sisters developed a boxing bells act and later appeared on a number of nationally-televised variety shows including “The Don Lane Show” and “The Mike Walsh Show”. The last time they played on television was in the early 1970s and after that they confined their performances to nursing homes and hospitals. Toots died in September 1989; it is not known when Gaga died.
As part of our research into the Weatherly Sisters both Rebecca and I listened to oral history interviews conducted with them by the film historian Graham Shirley in 1983. These interviews are held in the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra. Even in old age the sisters were very sharp mentally and enjoyed life. The interviews are full of humour and punctuated with laughter. Apart from the fascinating background information they provide, the interviews also brought out their personalities both as individuals and also as sisters devoted to each other.
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Post by Paul Wilson, Project Archivist, Powerhouse Museum Archives
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