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about the possibility that his father might discover that his account of his dealings with Pender had not been entirely truthful. Elias, rightly or wrongly, accepted his son’s version of events, and reassured him that ‘if I get any letters from B. Pender or anybody else from New York I will do as you have asked me to do and not take any notice of them’.²⁶ Elias (who had just become a father again and was struggling to support his new family) also thanked Archie for ‘another ten shillings note’,²⁷ which suggests that the pressure on Archie Leach to find more lucrative forms of employment was particularly great at this time.

      At the end of the summer, Leach and other former members of the Pender troupe heard that the director of the New York Hippodrome, R. H. Burnside, was planning another extravagant variety show, Better Times, which would accommodate an act similar to that of the Penders. They began to practise together, and, in September, they returned to the Hippodrome for the new season, calling themselves ‘The Walking Stanleys’.²⁸ When Better Times closed, the troupe prepared a new vaudeville act which toured the Pantages circuit of theatres during 1924, travelling through Canada to the West Coast (giving Leach his first, brief, tantalising glimpse of Southern California) and back across the United States.

      Upon returning to New York, the troupe disbanded. A few more went back to England, disenchanted after another exhausting and relatively poorly paid tour.²⁹ Archie Leach, however, once again, stayed on, living at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street ‘where I was again permitted to run up bills while trying to run down jobs’.³⁰ The Club was a good place for making contact with other – often much better-known – performers, and, sometimes, substitute for them on stage. Leach had to improvise with little or no time for rehearsal or reflection. He worked in juggling and acrobatic acts; he had a short spell as a unicycle rider; in the guise of ‘Rubber Legs’ (a self-explanatory pseudonym that owed much to his years as a stilt-walker) he played in several comic sketches; he also appeared as ‘Professor Knowall Leach’ in a mind-reading act; and he was a straight man for a number of comics. The most memorable engagement that he secured at this time, he told people, was a spot as a straight man with Milton Berle in a variety show at Proctor’s Newark theatre. Also on the bill was one Detzo Ritter, a man who wrestled with himself on stage, spinning himself through the air, locking himself into an agonising half-nelson before pinning himself, exhausted, to the mat for a spectacular finale.³¹ Archie Leach’s sense of the absurd – which was already fairly pronounced – could not have remained unaffected by such sights: ‘The experiences were of incalculable benefit because it was during these one – and two-day engagements that I began learning the fundamentals of my craft.’³² It was the kind of work that demanded a considerable degree of self-discipline; there was no room for egotism. Archie Leach was learning how best to husband his own energy; it was, indeed, probably from this period that he started to acquire the lasting reputation as a man who took direction well and did not exert himself to assert himself needlessly at the expense of others.

      He learned a great deal from studying the best acts, such as George Burns and Gracie Allen, night after night, when they performed in New York:

      George was a straight man, the one who would make the act work. The straight man says the plant line … and the comic answers it … The laugh goes up and up in volume and cascades down. As soon as it’s getting a little quiet, the straight man talks into it, and the comic answers it. And up goes the laugh again.³³

      Archie Leach had stage experience, but only as a silent performer of physical comedy routines; he had not yet had cause to speak, but he was now, gradually, learning the techniques essential for verbal humour. As a straight man, he learned, in front of an audience, the importance of timing: ‘When to talk into an audience’s laughter. When not to talk into the laughter. When to wait for the laugh. When not to wait for the laugh. When to move on a laugh, when not to move on a laugh.’³⁴ As his performances improved, and he became more experienced and self-assured, he received more bookings; he once said that he felt at this time that he had played ‘practically every small town in America’.³⁵ The sheer variety, in terms of venue and composition and mood of audience, gave him further invaluable education in the art of comic technique:

      Doing stand-up comedy is extremely difficult. Your timing has to change from show to show and from town to town. You’re always adjusting to the size of the audience and the size of the theater. We used to do matinees, supper shows, and late shows … the response would change from night to night and from town to town. The people in Wilkes-Barre and the folks in Wilmington don’t necessarily laugh at the same things.³⁶

      While he was playing some short engagements in and around New York, he met Reginald Hammerstein, a stage director and the younger brother of Oscar Hammerstein II, who suggested, somewhat impetuously, that his true talent might lie in musical comedy. Receptive to the idea, Leach took voice lessons and was engaged on a ‘run-of-the-play’ basis by Arthur Hammerstein, Reginald’s uncle, for Golden Dawn, the opening production of the impressive new Hammerstein Theater.³⁷ Leach had a minor role as an Australian prisoner of war, and doubled as understudy of the juvenile lead. The production opened on 30 November 1927, and ran for 184 performances over a six-month period. Afterwards, Arthur Hammerstein re-engaged him for another musical, Polly, in the role that Noël Coward had taken in the London production.

      Polly opened to largely negative reviews in Wilmington, Delaware, where one critic remarked that ‘Archie Leach has a strong masculine manner, but unfortunately fails to bring out the beauty of the score’.³⁸ Leach was replaced before the show reached Broadway. He was not, however, out of work for too long. Marilyn Miller, the popular musical comedy star, chose him to replace her current leading man in Rosalie. The show’s producer, Florenz Ziegfeld, agreed with the choice and asked Arthur Hammerstein – his arch-rival – to release Leach from his contract. Hammerstein was not at all pleased, and, over Leach’s ‘complaining voice’,³⁹ sold the contract to J. J. Shubert instead.

      Shubert, along with his brother Lee, was Broadway’s biggest theatrical producer at the time.⁴⁰ Ironically, although Leach, impetuously, had tried to resist the move, the change could hardly have done his career more good. Within a few weeks, the Shuberts had cast him in a new musical, Boom Boom, with Jeanette MacDonald, and agreed to pay him $350 per week. For a young performer who had been in only two previous productions, one of which he had been fired from, this was a stroke of remarkably good fortune. Leach, to his credit, appreciated this fact, and worked hard to make a success of the role. The show opened in New York at the Casino Theater in January 1929. After a mere seventy-two performances it closed (Charles Brackett, The New Yorker’s critic, remarked acidly that Boom Boom could ‘teach one more about despair than the most expert philosopher’⁴¹), but both MacDonald and Leach were screen-tested at Paramount’s Astoria Studio,⁴² though no contracts were offered. Leach’s test was not positive; he was, according to the talent scout’s report, ‘bowlegged and his neck is too thick’.⁴³ This curt dismissal was not quite as injudicious as the now notorious verdict on Fred Astaire’s first screen test: ‘Can’t act. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.’⁴⁴ There was, after all, no shortage of young, tall,

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