Mae Murray: The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips

2. Dancing into the New Century

2 Dancing into the New Century 1900–1907 Fifteen-year-old Anna Mary Koenig danced her way into the new century and never looked back. It was through dancing that she was able to forget her dreary beginnings. “Dancing, of course, is second nature to me,” she later said. “I have danced since my birth—almost—and I can imagine myself dancing to the brink of the grave. It spells the joy of living to me. In dancing I can lose myself from the sorrows of the world.”1 The teenager began hanging around stage doors “with my wistful little soul in my eye,” she said. “I wanted to see how they did what I wanted to do.”2 Her mother and grandmother objected to Anna Mary’s interest in the theater. From their perspective, as the Victorian era passed into history, there was something immoral about theater people, something a bit sleazy about the entertainment profession. Still, the teenager continued to return to the theater, meeting those who worked in the make-believe world she wanted to be part of. “Disobedient? Of course it was,” she later said. “I never really wanted to be disobedient. I wanted to dance, that was all. And my people said, ‘She shall not dance.’”3 While Anna Mary defied her family by pursuing the stage, the Whitneys took notice of her brother, William, whose short stature made him the perfect size to race thoroughbreds. They offered to help train him as a jockey and make him part of the family’s profitable horse racing operation. Mother Mary was all in favor, thinking it provided him the possibility of a lucrative future as well as a male influence for her fatherless son. In the early years of the twentieth century, for reasons not entirely known, the Koenig family fell apart. Mae went her own way, severing con- 16 Mae Murray nections with her mother and her two brothers, William and Howard. For her, it was a complete break. Mae later told a reporter that she had been an only child and that her mother had disappeared to unknown places in Europe , leaving her grandmother in charge. She remained close to her grandmother , her father’s mother, who, approaching eighty and in ill health, had little control over the headstrong teenager. Anna Mary’s talent for dancing, coupled with her beauty and enthusiasm , made her prime material for the stage. The world of musical comedy, which was rapidly expanding on Broadway and across the country, provided anyone who was talented—and persistent—a chance to thrive. By 1903, over 25 percent of the productions playing in New York and on the road were musicals. The public was fascinated by the descriptions being given the productions: extravaganzas, spectacular fantasies, burlesque revues, vaudeville farce, and comic opera.4 In them, the soon-to-be star cleared her head of the past. Part of her cleansing involved shaving off a couple of years from her age and giving herself a new name. She took the name May Murray—May from the month she was born and Murray from one of her favorite hangouts , Murray’s Restaurant,5 on Forty-Second Street. The young hoofer got her start as a member of the chorus in The ShoGun , which opened at Walleck’s Theatre in October 1904 and ran for 125 Mae, age fourteen. Author’s collection. Dancing into the New Century 17 performances. She played one of the Gee Gee Girls in Coming Thro’ the Rye, another musical comedy that ran for thirty-four performances at the Herald Square Theatre in January 1906. It was while in the chorus of About Town that she became friendly with Lew M. Fields, the show’s producer, and director Julian Mitchell, who would soon be instrumental in bringing her to the attention of impresario Florenz Ziegfeld. She also became acquainted with the show’s star, William Blyth, who changed his name to Vernon Castle. About two months into the run, Fields condensed About Town, giving it a new plot and several additional songs. While reworking About Town, Fields developed The Great Decide, a parody of The Great Divide, a popular show running at the Princess Theatre. Mae was hired for the chorus. About Town and The Great Decide opened November 15 and played for fifty-three performances. When About Town closed on Broadway, several days after Christmas, the cast and...