The Curse of the Mean Cicero Blues

The Duncan Sisters, Vivian & Rosetta, 1929

The news items that appeared in papers around the world in July of 1924 read like something that could have, and very well may have, caught your eye over yesterday's breakfast: "Noted Celebrity in Slug Fest!," "Struck a Cop!" "Swung Vicious Left to Officer's Head!"

The celebrity involved here was Rosetta Duncan, half of a once wildly popular sister act, The Duncan Sisters... Rosetta and Vivian. Singers, dancers, comedians, musicians. Do it all and do it well actresses. Performers since childhood, stars of vaudeville, Broadway stage and motion pictures (both silent and sound), prolific recording artists spanning the acoustic, electric and LP eras. They'd entertain home front audiences during the first World War, and would still have name power enough to perform for troops during World War II. And, in the waning years of their mammoth career, they'd also appear on television, and even play Las Vegas. In other words, they had the sort of long lived and all encompassing career that most performers can only dream of.

You don't last that long without hitting a few bumps in the road, and the Duncans were no exceptions. Marriages, both successful and not, highly publicized divorce trials, spats, litigation, hospital stays, auto accidents, and all the usual events that come to most of us without being detailed in news journals. But, for all this, the Duncans always seemed to take it on the chin and bounce back, none the worse for the wear. Although their basic performing style never seemed to change (they continued to interpolate their successful "Topsy & Eva" child characters into all their performances long after it could be carried off convincingly), they appeared to escape criticism because they were always in on the joke and never pretended to offer or be anything else than what they were --- take it or leave it.

Now, let's get back to 1924. You can read all the details in the article to the right from the Lincoln Night Journal of July 5th, but in a nutshell: With Rosetta at the wheel of a car who's contents included her sister Vivian, her brother Harold, and others, they dashed across an intersection in the Chicago suburb of Cicero --- and were stopped by a traffic cop. At this point, what happened next is speculative. 4'11", 104lb Rosetta claimed she was verbally and physically abused by the policeman, who landed a blow to her face. The cop, a strapping 6'2, 225 bloke, in turn, claims it was she who struck him --- gashing his head in the process.

Then as now, there's no such thing as bad publicity, and the Duncans lost no time in inviting photographers from the Chicago Daily News to visit them while Rosetta convalesced. In the photo below, we see brother Harold Duncan (a shadowy figure in their life whom I could find little about) who also seems to have experienced injuries that went unreported in any news account I've read, Rosetta Duncan --- sporting a standard issue concussion bandage along with a bit of plaster tape to the nose, and the entirely unscathed Vivian Duncan.

The case would drag on, with each party embellishing and elaborating until the policeman faced an attempter murder charge --- while, in the interim, the initial traffic violation was dismissed with Rosetta paying a fine of $1 (plus costs) on or around July 16th of 1924.

Here, details as to the ultimate outcome are difficult to ascertain --- but the lack of any further news reports suggests the entire matter was dropped and forgotten.

Or was it?

In a highly contemporary move that would be admired today, the entire debacle was set to music and lyric, with the result being "The (Mean) Cicero Blues," published in November of 1924 and then preserved forever on shellac by the Duncans for Victor Records that same month and year.

Included in their performing repertoire while the song's newsworthy value remained, "Mean Cicero Blues" exists today as what can be considered a surprisingly forward-thinking example of celebrity exploitation --- turning an unfortunate and rather mundane incident on a quiet street in the Cicero neighborhood of Chicago, into a revenue earning non-sensation.

"Mean Cicero Blues" (1924)

Years pass --- and with them, the news story and song fade into nothingness. By the late 1950's, the Duncans performed sporadically together, but Rosetta plugged on --- the born show-biz trouper personified. Occasionally, a special play date would prompt Vivian to join the act again, as she would do in early December of 1959 at a Chicago night club that featured a nostalgia-themed floor show. The 1920's had become just distant enough as to become nostalgic, and the Duncans were there as living reminders of an earlier day and form of entertainment.

After one of these performances, as Rosetta was driving to a friend's home, she lost control of her car and it crashed into a bridge post --- with Rosetta suffering fatal injuries and dying soon thereafter without ever regaining consciousness.

Although the incident of 1924 was, by every indication, forgotten by the news services, surely Vivian Duncan couldn't help but notice the irony of that her sister's fatal car accident happened to take place in the still quiet suburb of Chicago known as Cicero.

Chicago Daily News Photo #DN-0077122, Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society

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Addendum:

My personal favorite of all the Duncan Sisters' many recordings, "The Argentine, the Portuguese and the Greek," recorded in the U.K. for HMV in 1928. You may find the subject matter odd, or inflammatory... or both, but stick with it until the end and you just may well be as surprised as most listeners are upon hearing it for the first time:

"The Argentine, the Portuguese and the Greek" (1928)

Left: Jed Prouty and Rosetta Duncan in a scene from "It's A Great Life," (MGM-1929)

Right: Rosetta Duncan's grave marker, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California

By Way of Introduction...

Meet Mr. Anthony Kilty, whom we see here in early November of 1907. His story, like so much of the past, exists today only in scattered fragments made up of crumbling paper, rotting celluloid, granulating wax cylinders, and the slow but sure self-destruction of nearly every medium science, technology and invention has brought forth.

These bits and pieces of our past, once so important and vital, are now artifacts that are either ignored, destroyed entirely, collected by some as one would collect stamps, or simply momentarily appreciated for having survived at all and then quickly forgotten once again.

Then, there are those like myself, who can't help but attempt to interpret them --- to place them into their proper historic prospective, and try to understand (although I never fully can) the world in which they either lived and breathed, or moved, or strived to entertain a public about to experience an onrush of technological development the likes of which hadn't occurred before or since.

At first glance, this dapper fellow seems moderately well dressed and neatly groomed in the style of his day, doesn't he?

But look again. Look at the small details.

A suit that while not shabby, could do with a pressing. A vest that doesn't quite match the weave and pattern of the jacket. The necktie that is somewhat askew. His hair, auburn I suppose, hasn't been combed as it would be for a portrait --- and his handsome moustache, also auburn, is decidedly uneven.

And behind him? The stern looking fellow in the derby hat is holding up a newspaper behind him so as to prevent details of his face and figure from blending into the dark wood interior of the room --- which, as it turns out, is a police station.

In fact, only moments before, Mr. Anthony Kilty had walked into an unspecified Evanston, Illinois police station and rather than report a crime, as I suppose anyone present might have expected, he announced that he wished to turn himself in... that he was a wanted criminal.

When pressed upon to tell his story, Kilty claimed it was all due to hard luck. He admitted that his first "job" took him to Northwestern University, where he attempted to steal clothing from a cloak room adjacent to a social frolic in progress. He inadvertently frightened a pair of co-eds who happened in upon him, and he fled... empty handed.

Ambitious, if nothing else, one evening during the first week of November, he gained entry to the home of one L.A. Eliel of Evanston, Illinois, a wealthy broker. Here, Kilty's apparent lack of stealth and skill would work against him once again, for he was soon discovered by Mr. Eliel himself, in the midst of gathering up whatever loot he could.

Oddly, Mr. Eliel, late middle-aged, distinguished and educated, did not sound an alarm, cry out or even seek to deter Anthony Kilty. As described in a contemporary newspaper account --- far removed from the source of the photograph --- let's hear Kilty tell his story as filtered through policemen, newspaper reporters and City Desk editors: "With a lump in his throat, and a suspicious moisture in his eyes, he described his visit to Eliel's house. He said that Eliel treated him so nicely (they had chatted and shared the broker's expensive cigarettes,) that when he (Eliel) asked him not to awaken the children for fear they would jump out of the window, he didn't have the heart to do it."

"Then," the newspaper account continues, "just as he was leaving with his loot, a tiny tot came running into the room and he just had to pause, stoop and kiss her. A few days ago, Kilty said he was walking on Clark Street, and spied the 'Welcome Men' sign on Dr. Terry's (an evangelist) big tent. He went inside, heard the sermon, and was all broke up by it. He then decided to make his peace with the law and his God, and give himself up."

And here, as if to punctuate the end of that newspaper article, is an image of Mr. Kilty and his kindly victim, Mr. Eliel... with a fatherly hand on Kilty's shoulder, offering a handshake of congratulation for having done the right thing.

At this point, the mists of time swirl thickly and swallow up both Mr. Kilty and Mr. Eliel, at least as far as I have been able to determine. It doesn't look as though Mr. Eliel would have pressed charges, although nothing was printed to indicate otherwise. Did Eliel offer Mr. Kilty an honest living after he paid his debt to society? Did Kilty serve time in prison and then discover, upon release, that Mr. Eliel had since passed away and with him a promise of redemption?

All that's left of Kilty, Eliel and a forgotten night of 1907 are these images, a perfunctory newspaper account and the knowledge that a gentle thief with auburn hair paused to kiss a little girl before stealing away into the clear, chilly night.

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Glass photo negatives courtesy of the Chicago Daily News Negatives Collection, The Chicago Historical Society, DN-0005419, DN-0005418 & DN-0005416.