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John Considine (Seattle)
Encyclopedia
John Considine was an American
impresario
, a pioneer of vaudeville
.
, Considine grew up attending Roman Catholic parochial schools, and eventually briefly attended St. Mary's College, Kansas
. Briefly a Chicago
policeman, he was involved in the raid that led to the Haymarket Riot. He then became a traveling actor, and landed in Seattle, Washington
in 1889. By 1891, he was manager of the People's Theater, a box house
in the wide-open "restricted district" below Yesler Way in what is now Seattle's Pioneer Square
neighborhood.
A friendly, outgoing, but resolutely sober man in a rowdy environment, he dealt cards but did not play, made money off the sale of liquor but did not drink, managed a business whose profits depended on its female performers hustling drinks (and, in Murray Morgan's words, "If the girls wished to peddle more personal wares, management did not object"), but was reputed to be a faithful family man.
Considine decided that he could out-compete the other box houses by raising the level of entertainment, hiring professional actresses for the stage and letting other girls work the floor and the dark booths. He prospered greatly for a while, until he was brought down by the Panic of 1893
, the ensuing economic depression, and the 1894 election of an "anti-vice" administration in Seattle. He briefly attempted to run the People's as a proper theater; he ran a box house in Spokane, Washington
before a similar anti-vice administration shut him down; and he returned to Seattle and lay relatively low until the Klondike Gold Rush
(1897) brought back an "open town" administration. By February 1898 he had leased back the People's Theater, and was back in the business along with the rest of Seattle, "mining the miners."
" from the World's Columbian Exposition
(the Chicago World's Fair
of 1893). The People's Theater (and its rivals) posted brass bands outdoors early in the evening to draw in custom. Salvation Army
bands merely upped the level of chaos. Business was good.
Considine also obtained an interest in a nearby saloon, Billy the Mug's at the corner of Second and Washington. He operated the rooms above it as the Owl Club Rooms, a gambling joint. He established himself as a power in Seattle, "The Statesman", "The Boss Sport", ward heeler
of the wide-open Fourth Ward. He became a power in town, and was locally famous for his personal sobriety (his closest thing to a vice was chewing gum
). His burly brother Tom and equally burly associate Doc Shaughnessy were known as his muscle and bodyguards. Shaughnessy, backed by Considine, started a physical culture
institute.
Considine was not just big in entertainment: he was the city's gambling kingpin as well. For a brief while in Klondike days, Wyatt Earp
set up as his rival in this realm; Considine outlasted him.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
lashed Meredith for not coming down hard enough on vice. An ambitious politician named John Wilson started a Law and Order League charging Meredith and Mayor Thomas D. Humes with a variety of offenses. The Seattle Times squared off in defense of Meredith and Humes, but the real duel was between Meredith and Considine. When Considine brought forth evidence that Meredith was corrupt, the P-I "played this testimony for as much as it was worth, perhaps more."
Matters escalated. Meredith accused Considine of an affair with Mamie Jenkins, a 17-year-old contortionist who performed at his theater, stating that she had become pregnant and that Meredith himself had paid for her abortion. This was almost certainly a slander: she appears to have ruptured herself while performing. By this time the People's did not even have any closed boxes, but Meredith tried to shut it down under an anti-box-house ordinance, while letting actual box houses continue to operate. The city council decided to believe reports that Meredith was corrupt and his resignation was forced. Protesting a "star chamber
" investigation, Meredith resigned. While Considine consulted with his lawyers about further action against Meredith, Meredith got hold of a double-barrelled 12-gauge shotgun
.
On the morning of Tuesday, June 25, 1901, Considine dropped by Meredith's lawyer's to inform them that if Meredith would not retract the claim about Mamie Jenkins, he was ready to sue for libel. He and his brother Tom wandered down from their (and the lawyer's) First Hill
neighborhood. He dropped by the courthouse hoping to sort out his business's legal problems; the prosecuting attorney was out. At the courthouse, a friend warned him that Meredith was after him, and advised him to arm himself. He went about his day—shooting some pool with his brother, dropping by the office to read his mail, deciding to knock off early because of a sore throat. Forewarned, he picked up a .38 revolver
that normally remained at work.
Meanwhile, Meredith had acquired a virtual arsenal: besides the shotgun (which he had wrapped in butcher paper), he was carrying a .32 Colt
in a .45 frame and a .38-caliber short-barreled revolver. He had also placed silver dollars strategically around his vest, presumably for armor. He spoke openly of the town "not being big enough" to hold both him and Considine.
Meredith waited at the corner of Yesler and Occidental, where he expected the Considines would go to catch the streetcar back up the hill. He spotted the Considines headed into G.O. Guy's drugstore a block to the east, where John meant to pick up something for his throat. They were standing just outside the store talking with one Patrolman Merford, who Meredith had suspended, according to Gordon Newell "for pocketing part of a protection payment earmarked" for Meredith himself.
Meredith caught up to them just outside the store, took point-blank aim at John Considine with his shotgun, and missed. The dazed Considine staggered into the store; Tom Considine and Merford, were so taken aback that they hardly reacted at first; Meredith entered the store pursuing John Considine.
Meredith's next shot caught the back of Considine's neck, wounded the arm of a messenger boy drinking a sarsaparilla
at the soda fountain
, and nearly caught Dr. Guy, who hit the floor. Meredith dropped the shotgun and went for the revolver. Considine managed to grab Meredith in a bear hug and drag him toward the entrance, yelling out for help from his brother, who finally realized what was happening. Tom grabbed Meredith's gun and smashed it into Meredith's skull. More police arrived, including Sheriff Cudihee. Tom grabbed one of their guns and drew down on them, yelling "Stand back, you sons of bitches!"
Meanwhile, John Considine drew his gun on Meredith, who was clearly wounded, but still moving and possibly reaching for another weapon. Considine shot Meredith three times in the chest and neck, killing him, then handed his gun to Sheriff Cudihee and surrendered himself.
that would convict me for killing Considine") helped to clarify any confusion as to what happened, as did the testimony of the best-situated eyewitnesses. The jury took only three hours to reach an acquittal.
phonograph records, creating Seattle's first establishment to combine variety entertainment with movies and Considine's first "dry" establishment.
Difficulty in obtaining first-rate acts to play a city so distant from the major concentrations of North American population led Considine to establish one of the first vaudeville circuits (quite possibly the very first), with theaters in Victoria
, Vancouver, Portland
, Bellingham
, Everett
, Yakima
, and Spokane
as well as Seattle. This was the world's first popularly priced vaudeville chain, with ten- and twenty-cent admissions.
Considine soon cut (or played down) his old ties to the "restricted district". He played a major role in one of the country's rising fraternal organizations: just before the turn of the century he and John Cort, whose career followed a similar trajectory, had founded the Independent Order of Good Things, which soon became the Fraternal Order of Eagles
(F.O.E.). A third founder, H. L. Leavitt, soon bolted to the Loyal Order of Moose. In New York City
in 1906 on F.O.E. business, he met and teamed up with Tammany
boss Big Tim Sullivan
to form the Sullivan–Considine vaudeville circuit and associated nationwide booking agency. At it peak, the Sullivan–Considine circuit owned 20 theaters in the Pacific Northwest and was affiliated with 20 in California; they also booked numerous theaters in the Midwest.
While Considine and Cort had always been the friendliest of rivals. Considine's rivalry with another Seattle-based vaudeville impresario, Alexander Pantages
, ran more to stealing each other's acts (or, failing that, literally stealing the acts' equipment). Still, they too maintained a cordial personal relationship. Their rivalry took place both on their home turf and on the national scene. Murray Morgan characterizes their rivalry as that between a well-connected, savvy businessman (Considine) and a hardworking uneducated genius (Pantages).
Pantages simply had a better instinct than Considine for what the public would pay to see, and his total contempt for efforts to "uplift" public taste—and, especially for efforts to impose New York tastes on the country at large—turned out to make good business sense. When Tim Sullivan went insane in 1913, Considine lost one of his main sources of clout and connections. By 1914, Pantages had clearly won out. Considine tried selling out to Marcus Loew
(whose eastern-U.S.-based circuit had been allied with the western based Sullivan-Considine circuit since 1911); the deal ultimately fell apart, but a forfeited down payment gave Considine quite an infusion of cash. Still, with World War I
clobbering access to international stars, Considine's circuit fell apart, and Pantages bought up the pieces.
All concerned eventually moved to Los Angeles
, which by then had firmly established itself as the West Coast entertainment capital. Considine gained a foothold in the film industry. His son Bob
became a political reporter and newspaper columnist; another son, film producer John Considine, Jr. (Puttin' on the Ritz, 1930; Boys Town, 1938), married Pantages' daughter Carmen; John, Jr. and Carmen's sons John
and Tim
became successful movie and television actors.
The 172 S. Washington Street basement that housed Considine's original People's Theater survives, although the building has lost its upper stories. At the corner of Second Avenue South, the remaining aboveground floor houses a pawnshop, Barney's Loans and a longstanding gay
/drag
bar, the Double Header. The basement has housed a series of bars, including an after hours venue known officially as the Casino, and unofficially as "Madame Peabody’s Dancing Academy for Young Ladies" and, later the Catwalk (1994–2005), a venue friendly to the S&M crowd. Club Heaven, an upscale nightclub, has occupied the space since 2006.
From 1911, the flagship of Considine's chain was the Orpheum Theatre at 3rd Avenue and Madison Street in Seattle. Designed by William Kingsley, the $500,000 theater was constructed, insofar as possible, with materials and services obtained from within Washington state. The decorative wrought iron canopy extending from over the box office to the curb out became "a fixture of the 3rd Avenue landscape"; the lavish interior was "awash in marble, onyx, and glass." The murals of the equally lavish auditorium depicted classical and mythological themes: scenes from The Iliad
and Odyssey
, Aesop
and the 12 Muse
s.
Although the Orpheum was touted at the time of its 5 May 1911 opening as "America's most luxurious theater," after 1916 it no longer was even the grandest vaudeville theater in the neighborhood: Alexander Pantages opened an even larger and more opulent theater several blocks north at 3rd Avenue and University Street. The Orpheum vaudeville shows moved to the larger Moore Theatre, although the Orpheum continued to operate for many years, variously showing live shows and movies; it was renamed as the President Theatre. In the last years before it was torn down in 1949, it was used merely as a storage facility.
This Orpheum was not Seattle's only theater by this name; indeed, it was Considine's third theater by this name in Seattle. The first had been one of Considine's first vaudeville theaters; the second was a renaming of Martin Beck's Coliseum Theater (no relation to the surviving 1917 Coliseum theater building, designed by B. Marcus Priteca
for Pantages). A later Orpheum, also the work of Priteca, stood 1927–1967 at the corner of 5th Avenue and Stewart Street, now the site of the south tower of the Westin Hotel.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
, a pioneer of vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
.
Youth and arrival on the scene
Born in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Considine grew up attending Roman Catholic parochial schools, and eventually briefly attended St. Mary's College, Kansas
St. Mary's College, Kansas
Saint Mary's Academy and College is a religious school of the Society of St. Pius X located in St. Marys, Kansas, 25 miles west of Topeka.- St. Mary's College :...
. Briefly a Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
policeman, he was involved in the raid that led to the Haymarket Riot. He then became a traveling actor, and landed in Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
in 1889. By 1891, he was manager of the People's Theater, a box house
Box house
A box house was a combination of low-class theater and brothel, found in western North America in the late 19th and early 20th century. It offered light entertainment "such as magic acts, singing, dancing, minstrel shows," as well as sexual services...
in the wide-open "restricted district" below Yesler Way in what is now Seattle's Pioneer Square
Pioneer Square, Seattle, Washington
Pioneer Square is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of Downtown Seattle, Washington, USA. It was once the heart of the city: Seattle's founders settled there in 1852, following a brief six-month settlement at Alki Point on the far side of Elliott Bay. The early structures in the neighborhood...
neighborhood.
A friendly, outgoing, but resolutely sober man in a rowdy environment, he dealt cards but did not play, made money off the sale of liquor but did not drink, managed a business whose profits depended on its female performers hustling drinks (and, in Murray Morgan's words, "If the girls wished to peddle more personal wares, management did not object"), but was reputed to be a faithful family man.
Considine decided that he could out-compete the other box houses by raising the level of entertainment, hiring professional actresses for the stage and letting other girls work the floor and the dark booths. He prospered greatly for a while, until he was brought down by the Panic of 1893
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures...
, the ensuing economic depression, and the 1894 election of an "anti-vice" administration in Seattle. He briefly attempted to run the People's as a proper theater; he ran a box house in Spokane, Washington
Spokane, Washington
Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...
before a similar anti-vice administration shut him down; and he returned to Seattle and lay relatively low until the Klondike Gold Rush
Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush, also called the Yukon Gold Rush, the Alaska Gold Rush and the Last Great Gold Rush, was an attempt by an estimated 100,000 people to travel to the Klondike region the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1897 and 1899 in the hope of successfully prospecting for gold...
(1897) brought back an "open town" administration. By February 1898 he had leased back the People's Theater, and was back in the business along with the rest of Seattle, "mining the miners."
Rise to prominence
Considine brought variety entertainment in Seattle to a new level by importing Farida Mazar Spyropoulos, famous as "Little EgyptLittle Egypt (dancer)
Little Egypt was the stage name for three popular belly dancers. They had so many imitators, the name became synonymous with belly dancers generally.Farida Mazar Spyropoulos, Little Egypt was the stage name for three popular belly dancers. They had so many imitators, the name became synonymous with...
" from the World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
(the Chicago World's Fair
World's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
of 1893). The People's Theater (and its rivals) posted brass bands outdoors early in the evening to draw in custom. Salvation Army
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
bands merely upped the level of chaos. Business was good.
Considine also obtained an interest in a nearby saloon, Billy the Mug's at the corner of Second and Washington. He operated the rooms above it as the Owl Club Rooms, a gambling joint. He established himself as a power in Seattle, "The Statesman", "The Boss Sport", ward heeler
Ward heeler
A ward heeler variously describes a politician or political worker in the United States who is in politics for private gain rather than public service, who does illegal acts on behalf of a political party, or who is a low level political operative soliciting votes and doing chores for a political...
of the wide-open Fourth Ward. He became a power in town, and was locally famous for his personal sobriety (his closest thing to a vice was chewing gum
Chewing gum
Chewing gum is a type of gum traditionally made of chicle, a natural latex product, or synthetic rubber known as polyisobutylene. For economical and quality reasons, many modern chewing gums use rubber instead of chicle...
). His burly brother Tom and equally burly associate Doc Shaughnessy were known as his muscle and bodyguards. Shaughnessy, backed by Considine, started a physical culture
Physical culture
Physical culture is a term applied to health and strength training regimens, particularly those that originated during the 19th century. During the mid-late 20th century, the term "physical culture" became largely outmoded in most English-speaking countries, being replaced by terms such as...
institute.
Considine was not just big in entertainment: he was the city's gambling kingpin as well. For a brief while in Klondike days, Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an American gambler, investor, and law enforcement officer who served in several Western frontier towns. He was also at different times a farmer, teamster, bouncer, saloon-keeper, miner and boxing referee. However, he was never a drover or cowboy. He is most well known...
set up as his rival in this realm; Considine outlasted him.
Facing off with the police chief
As the gold rush era began to wane, the "open town" atmosphere again became a matter of controversy. A former employee of Considine's, William L. Meredith, who had followed Considine to Spokane, returned to his earlier job as a policeman. Meredith and Considine had slowly become enemies, and when Meredith became police chief he started an anti-vice campaign, which was really more of an anti-Considine campaign: he started to enforce laws against Considine's business, while leaving Considine's rivals alone.The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
lashed Meredith for not coming down hard enough on vice. An ambitious politician named John Wilson started a Law and Order League charging Meredith and Mayor Thomas D. Humes with a variety of offenses. The Seattle Times squared off in defense of Meredith and Humes, but the real duel was between Meredith and Considine. When Considine brought forth evidence that Meredith was corrupt, the P-I "played this testimony for as much as it was worth, perhaps more."
Matters escalated. Meredith accused Considine of an affair with Mamie Jenkins, a 17-year-old contortionist who performed at his theater, stating that she had become pregnant and that Meredith himself had paid for her abortion. This was almost certainly a slander: she appears to have ruptured herself while performing. By this time the People's did not even have any closed boxes, but Meredith tried to shut it down under an anti-box-house ordinance, while letting actual box houses continue to operate. The city council decided to believe reports that Meredith was corrupt and his resignation was forced. Protesting a "star chamber
Star Chamber
The Star Chamber was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters...
" investigation, Meredith resigned. While Considine consulted with his lawyers about further action against Meredith, Meredith got hold of a double-barrelled 12-gauge shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
.
The shootout
First Hill, Seattle, Washington
First Hill is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, named for the hill on which it is located. The hill, in turn, is so named for being the first hill one encounters traveling east from downtown Seattle toward Lake Washington....
neighborhood. He dropped by the courthouse hoping to sort out his business's legal problems; the prosecuting attorney was out. At the courthouse, a friend warned him that Meredith was after him, and advised him to arm himself. He went about his day—shooting some pool with his brother, dropping by the office to read his mail, deciding to knock off early because of a sore throat. Forewarned, he picked up a .38 revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
that normally remained at work.
Meanwhile, Meredith had acquired a virtual arsenal: besides the shotgun (which he had wrapped in butcher paper), he was carrying a .32 Colt
Colt's Manufacturing Company
Colt's Manufacturing Company is a United States firearms manufacturer, whose first predecessor corporation was founded in 1836 by Sam Colt. Colt is best known for the engineering, production, and marketing of firearms over the later half of the 19th and the 20th century...
in a .45 frame and a .38-caliber short-barreled revolver. He had also placed silver dollars strategically around his vest, presumably for armor. He spoke openly of the town "not being big enough" to hold both him and Considine.
Meredith waited at the corner of Yesler and Occidental, where he expected the Considines would go to catch the streetcar back up the hill. He spotted the Considines headed into G.O. Guy's drugstore a block to the east, where John meant to pick up something for his throat. They were standing just outside the store talking with one Patrolman Merford, who Meredith had suspended, according to Gordon Newell "for pocketing part of a protection payment earmarked" for Meredith himself.
Meredith caught up to them just outside the store, took point-blank aim at John Considine with his shotgun, and missed. The dazed Considine staggered into the store; Tom Considine and Merford, were so taken aback that they hardly reacted at first; Meredith entered the store pursuing John Considine.
Meredith's next shot caught the back of Considine's neck, wounded the arm of a messenger boy drinking a sarsaparilla
Sarsaparilla
is a perennial trailing vine with prickly stems that is native to Central America. Common names include Sarsaparilla , Honduran Sarsaparilla, and Jamaican Sarsaparilla...
at the soda fountain
Soda fountain
A soda fountain is a device that dispenses carbonated drinks. They can be found in restaurants, concession stands and other locations such as convenience stores...
, and nearly caught Dr. Guy, who hit the floor. Meredith dropped the shotgun and went for the revolver. Considine managed to grab Meredith in a bear hug and drag him toward the entrance, yelling out for help from his brother, who finally realized what was happening. Tom grabbed Meredith's gun and smashed it into Meredith's skull. More police arrived, including Sheriff Cudihee. Tom grabbed one of their guns and drew down on them, yelling "Stand back, you sons of bitches!"
Meanwhile, John Considine drew his gun on Meredith, who was clearly wounded, but still moving and possibly reaching for another weapon. Considine shot Meredith three times in the chest and neck, killing him, then handed his gun to Sheriff Cudihee and surrendered himself.
The trial
While Meredith had always been part of the "open town" faction, his death made him a martyr for the "closed town" side. At the Considines' trial, the prosecution tried to make the case that the Considines had started the gunfight; however, Meredith's outspoken statements in the 24 hours before the fight (including "They couldn't get a jury in King CountyKing County, Washington
King County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population in the 2010 census was 1,931,249. King is the most populous county in Washington, and the 14th most populous in the United States....
that would convict me for killing Considine") helped to clarify any confusion as to what happened, as did the testimony of the best-situated eyewitnesses. The jury took only three hours to reach an acquittal.
Respectability
Considine soon reinvented himself as a respectable impresario north of the Yesler Way "Deadline". In 1902, he bought into Seattle's first well-appointed movie theater (Edison's Unique Theater, established 1897), partnering with the local distributor of EdisonThomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
phonograph records, creating Seattle's first establishment to combine variety entertainment with movies and Considine's first "dry" establishment.
Difficulty in obtaining first-rate acts to play a city so distant from the major concentrations of North American population led Considine to establish one of the first vaudeville circuits (quite possibly the very first), with theaters in Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
, Vancouver, Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, Bellingham
Bellingham, Washington
Bellingham is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It is the twelfth-largest city in the state. Situated on Bellingham Bay, Bellingham is protected by Lummi Island, Portage Island, and the Lummi Peninsula, and opens onto the Strait of Georgia...
, Everett
Everett, Washington
Everett is the county seat of and the largest city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. Named for Everett Colby, son of founder Charles L. Colby, it lies north of Seattle. The city had a total population of 103,019 at the 2010 census, making it the 6th largest in the state and...
, Yakima
Yakima, Washington
Yakima is an American city southeast of Mount Rainier National Park and the county seat of Yakima County, Washington, United States, and the eighth largest city by population in the state itself. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 91,196 and a metropolitan population of...
, and Spokane
Spokane, Washington
Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...
as well as Seattle. This was the world's first popularly priced vaudeville chain, with ten- and twenty-cent admissions.
Considine soon cut (or played down) his old ties to the "restricted district". He played a major role in one of the country's rising fraternal organizations: just before the turn of the century he and John Cort, whose career followed a similar trajectory, had founded the Independent Order of Good Things, which soon became the Fraternal Order of Eagles
Fraternal Order of Eagles
Fraternal Order of Eagles International is a fraternal organization that was founded on February 6, 1898, in Seattle, Washington by a group of six theater owners including John Cort , brothers John W. and Tim J. Considine, Harry Leavitt , Mose Goldsmith and Arthur Williams...
(F.O.E.). A third founder, H. L. Leavitt, soon bolted to the Loyal Order of Moose. In New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1906 on F.O.E. business, he met and teamed up with Tammany
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
boss Big Tim Sullivan
Timothy Sullivan
Timothy Daniel Sullivan was a New York politician who controlled Manhattan's Bowery and Lower East Side districts as a prominent figure within Tammany Hall. He was euphemistically known as "Dry Dollar", as the "Big Feller", and, later, as "Big Tim"...
to form the Sullivan–Considine vaudeville circuit and associated nationwide booking agency. At it peak, the Sullivan–Considine circuit owned 20 theaters in the Pacific Northwest and was affiliated with 20 in California; they also booked numerous theaters in the Midwest.
While Considine and Cort had always been the friendliest of rivals. Considine's rivalry with another Seattle-based vaudeville impresario, Alexander Pantages
Alexander Pantages
Alexander Pantages was an American vaudeville and early motion picture producer and impresario who created a large and powerful circuit of theatres across the western United States and Canada.-Early life:...
, ran more to stealing each other's acts (or, failing that, literally stealing the acts' equipment). Still, they too maintained a cordial personal relationship. Their rivalry took place both on their home turf and on the national scene. Murray Morgan characterizes their rivalry as that between a well-connected, savvy businessman (Considine) and a hardworking uneducated genius (Pantages).
Pantages simply had a better instinct than Considine for what the public would pay to see, and his total contempt for efforts to "uplift" public taste—and, especially for efforts to impose New York tastes on the country at large—turned out to make good business sense. When Tim Sullivan went insane in 1913, Considine lost one of his main sources of clout and connections. By 1914, Pantages had clearly won out. Considine tried selling out to Marcus Loew
Marcus Loew
Marcus Loew was an American business magnate and a pioneer of the motion picture industry who formed Loews Theatres and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .-Biography:...
(whose eastern-U.S.-based circuit had been allied with the western based Sullivan-Considine circuit since 1911); the deal ultimately fell apart, but a forfeited down payment gave Considine quite an infusion of cash. Still, with World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
clobbering access to international stars, Considine's circuit fell apart, and Pantages bought up the pieces.
All concerned eventually moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, which by then had firmly established itself as the West Coast entertainment capital. Considine gained a foothold in the film industry. His son Bob
Bob Considine
Robert "Bob" Bernard Considine was an American writer and commentator. He is best-known for co-writing Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and The Babe Ruth Story.-Biography:...
became a political reporter and newspaper columnist; another son, film producer John Considine, Jr. (Puttin' on the Ritz, 1930; Boys Town, 1938), married Pantages' daughter Carmen; John, Jr. and Carmen's sons John
John Considine
This article is about the writer and actor. For his grandfather, the vaudeville pioneer, see John Considine . For the former Florida state representative, see John J...
and Tim
Tim Considine
Timothy Daniel "Tim" Considine is a former American child actor and young adult actor who was popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s...
became successful movie and television actors.
The original People's Theater building
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
/drag
Drag (clothing)
Drag is used for any clothing carrying symbolic significance but usually referring to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender. The origin of the term "drag" is unknown, but it may have originated in Polari, a gay street argot in England in the early...
bar, the Double Header. The basement has housed a series of bars, including an after hours venue known officially as the Casino, and unofficially as "Madame Peabody’s Dancing Academy for Young Ladies" and, later the Catwalk (1994–2005), a venue friendly to the S&M crowd. Club Heaven, an upscale nightclub, has occupied the space since 2006.
The Orpheum (1911)
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
and Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
, Aesop
Aesop
Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...
and the 12 Muse
Muse
The Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...
s.
Although the Orpheum was touted at the time of its 5 May 1911 opening as "America's most luxurious theater," after 1916 it no longer was even the grandest vaudeville theater in the neighborhood: Alexander Pantages opened an even larger and more opulent theater several blocks north at 3rd Avenue and University Street. The Orpheum vaudeville shows moved to the larger Moore Theatre, although the Orpheum continued to operate for many years, variously showing live shows and movies; it was renamed as the President Theatre. In the last years before it was torn down in 1949, it was used merely as a storage facility.
This Orpheum was not Seattle's only theater by this name; indeed, it was Considine's third theater by this name in Seattle. The first had been one of Considine's first vaudeville theaters; the second was a renaming of Martin Beck's Coliseum Theater (no relation to the surviving 1917 Coliseum theater building, designed by B. Marcus Priteca
B. Marcus Priteca
Benjamin Marcus Priteca was born in Glasgow, Scotland. A theater architect, he is best-known for his work for Alexander Pantages. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1907 and later attended the Royal College of Art...
for Pantages). A later Orpheum, also the work of Priteca, stood 1927–1967 at the corner of 5th Avenue and Stewart Street, now the site of the south tower of the Westin Hotel.