The Hanlon Brothers: From Daredevil Acrobatics to Spectacle Pantomime, 1833-1931

Third Interlude: George L. Fox and Humpty Dumpty

91 Third Interlude: George L. Fox and Humpty Dumpty In trying to characterize the Hanlons’ Le Voyage en Suisse, more than a few writers referred to the beloved pantomime clown George L. Fox. As one reviewer put it, “Two of them, William and Frederick, recall in their expressive pantomime and the startling mobility of their features the lamented Fox.”1 As the two scheming servants bedecked in whiteface, William and Frederick Hanlon reminded many writers of “Laff” Fox. For nineteenth-century American audiences , George L. Fox’s name was synonymous with pantomime comedy. Fox spent his early career in a variety of theatrical endeavors, working as a caricaturist, pantomimist, and manager. In an interesting bit of happenstance, Fox and his managerial partner James W. Lingard leased the New York Academy of Music in December 1861, where they presented the Hanlons’ Zampillaerostation for the first time. Lasting fame came to Fox in 1868 when he unveiled Humpty Dumpty. Until his untimely death in 1877, Fox racked up over 1,200 performances as the scheming clown Humpty Dumpty.2 Reputedly the funniest performer of his time, George L. Fox took the traditional clown figure of English pantomime and placed him in an urban setting filled with wild, often violent, knockabout comedy. The result was his beloved 92 third interlude character Humpty Dumpty. In addition to the “normal” fisticuffs of pantomime , Fox’s Humpty Dumpty mixed in brickyard fights, hot metal irons, and anything else that could be hurled at or bashed across a would-be adversary. And like the Hanlons’ servants Bob and John in Le Voyage en Suisse, the targets of Fox’s comeuppance were typically authority figures—police officers being a particular favorite. Sadly, George L. Fox eventually descended into madness, culminating in his forcible removal from a performance in 1875. In his wake, the clown Tony Denier, who had often worked in tandem with the great comedian, toured his own version of Humpty Dumpty after Fox’s death in 1877. A script published by Denier was allegedly arranged in accordance with the way that Fox played the character, and it provides a tantalizing peek into the chaotic pantomime created by Fox. With an armload of bricks pilfered from his wall, Humpty Dumpty terrorizes those unfortunate enough to find themselves within firing range of the miscreant and his missiles. HUMPTY fires third stuffed brick, FOP dodges it and runs off . . . just as OLD ONE TWO comes out of cottage and catches brick in the face, which knocks him down flat on his back in front of cottage. HUMPTY laughs, and ONE TWO gets up apparently stunned—picks up brick, looks at it, rubs his head, studies it a moment, puts finger aside his nose, and walks with a circling motion, the brick in his hand, to front of the pig-pen and looks behind it, supposing someone to be there hiding, when HUMPTY takes all the bricks and lets them fall on ONE TWO, who falls flat on his face from the weight of the bricks—he gets up, takes three bricks, and circles around stage cautiously to R. corner. HUMPTY jumps down, takes three bricks and follows very cautiously—when ONE TWO gets to extreme R., he turns quickly and meets HUMPTY face to face. They both stand still in a picture, each with a brick raised to throw. . . . HUMPTY makes three big steps backward to L. corner—ONE TWO follows, but makes big steps forward in time with HUMPTY—at end of third step picture as before. Repeat back to first position. HUMPTY fires brick at ONE TWO who dodges—ONE TWO fires brick at HUMPTY, who dodges in turn. This is repeated until each has thrown three bricks, when HUMPTY hits ONE TWO with a fourth brick in the head.3 But besides the mayhem of his comic world, Fox (and to a lesser extent his descendant clowns) was particularly renowned for the expressiveness of his face. Because pantomime did not rely upon the spoken word—the substance of most stage shows, the revelation of a character’s intent had to be conveyed through the silent visage. By all accounts, Fox’s chalky-white countenance was third interlude 93 remarkably mobile, able to move from one emotion to the next in a matter of moments. As Laurence Senelick describes him, “His best piece of business, the assumption of perfect innocence and docile...