PERFORMERS
Theatrical assignments are especially interesting, since it enables you to see the shows, and to see the actors behind the scenes, and at their hotel rooms, usually to engage them in interesting conversation that is not only informing but also highly interesting.
-Manuel Rosenberg, Course in Cartooing and Drawing, 1924
Theater Assignments
Of all the general assignments which a newspaper artist received, he likes best a theatre assignment.
There are several general ways of covering these assignments. I myself usually have a seat reserved for me in the first row. Here I get the light from the stage and the musician’s lamp. I preferably sit on the side away from the drummer’s corner, who is apt to make too much noise. Often I sit in the first box (braving the drums) to get a better light, but the front row is less conspicuous, and therefore for this reason preferable. The management is very considerate toward the press artist. You will be given two seats, as you likely will want to take a companion with you. From my front row seat I make sketches of the principal characters in the play. Look over the program. Let us say it is an Al Jolson play. Jolson being the headliner, will be shown in the largest sketch in a characteristic pose or gesture. By making my sketches, necessarily fast, from life, I save time next morning. The sketches are inked and grouped into a layout, pasted down, and the test, with full names, applied to each important subject. Often it is too dark to work in the audience. The artist, however, has permission to go back of the stage, where he will find a bright corner in the wings, where the stars will gladly pose for him. Actor folk are the most congenial of people.
You will likely be invited into the star actor’s dressing room to make your sketch while he or she is preparing for the next act.
You will often have occasion to cover a play wherein the star is practically the entire show, particularly comedy stars such as Ed Wynn or Elsie Janis. In this event you may best make your portrait sketch of the star; you will be introduced by the manager –or you may call back-stage and introduce yourself. You will be welcomed in the dressing room. Draw while the star is making up. Your other sketches can be made from the front row or the wings while your subject is performing.
-Manuel Rosenberg, Course in Newspaper Art, 1922
ARTIST AT UNIVERSAL
Manuel Rosenberg, a Chicago cartoonist formerly of New York, visited Universal City. During the afternoon he spent at the plant recording impressions of many of the leading actors and actresses, his pencil was kept in constant operation. Rosenberg has sketched scores of film luminaries during the past year and says he intends to publish a book in the near future on “People I Have Met in the Movies.”
-Los Angeles Evening Post - September 15, 1917
-LA Herald 1917, Universal Studios
Theodore Roberts 1926
Feodor Chaliapin 1927
Mitzi Hajos
Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
CARTOONIST PAYS FLYING VISIT TO FILMDOM
By MANUEL ROSENBERG
Chicago Cartoonist Who is in Los Angeles Seeing the Sights of California
Since that day, back in New York, when I drew a caricature of the famous scenario author and film star, then of the Vitagraph company, Nicholas Dunaew, I’ve had a desire to meet and sketch others of film note. Sketching Presidents, ex-Presidents, Congressmen, governors, foreign ambassadors, millionaires, etc., becomes monotonous at times and one yearns for a change of atmosphere and people. The other day a change from sketching politicians to film favorites became a reality. Armed with a pad and pencil and a trusty guide, we penetrated into that forest of film stages known as Universal City, the realization of the dream of Carl Laemmle. Here are stages galore -scenes and actors, directors, photographers, carpenters, designers and painters, supers, cowboys, cowgirls, horses and stage coaches and a zoo full of wild animals and what not?
-LA Herald - August 23, 1917 (excerpt)
Celebrity Sketches & Articles
partial collection signed by Manuel, autographed by performers,
self-caricatures signed for Manuel, and newsclippings