New Commedienne
Kay Thompson spoofs stage stars and sex in a funny nightclub act
Life Magazine
January 26, 1948

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The slightly involved pantomime shown above is a high point in the funniest new act to tickle nightclubbers in recent months. It is a number called Pauvre Suzette in which Kay Thompson and four ex-vaudevillians named the Williams brothers tell the sad story of a girl with a Restoration bosom and four lovers. The girl ends badly - in Hollywood.

No Suzette in real life, Miss Thompson is a 35-year-old-stringbean who looks like a savage caricature of Beatrice Lillie. She began as a piano prodigy, drifted into radio and finally became a highly successful writer of funny movie songs - for other performers. But a few months ago Miss Thompson did some of her own satiric routines at Ciro's in Hollywood. Her loud, athletic imitations and burlesques made her an overnight sensation. Eupeptic Miss Thompson is now appearing in Chicago's Mayfair Room and in a few weeks will play Miami for $15,000 a week. Pleased, she judges her act as merely "the greatest that ever hit humanity."

(Three pictures of Andrews brothers and Thompson holding teacups and chatting. They are captioned as follows:

Takeoff with teacups spoofs a British actress like Beatrice Lillie. Here Thompson begins to tell a London party about jazz in "New Yawk."

Big British chuckle comes when she sings, "It's a new kind of talk, crazy people . . . of New Yawk have a boogie-boogie beat to their walk."

She wows them by reporting that jazz "is all the go" This momentous if belated news is delivered in a fishmonger's voice, with exaggerated gestures.)

She ribs Noel Coward Patter
(Picture of Thompson with Andy Williams captioned: Kay Thompson as "Gertrude Lawrence" sings with "Noel Coward.") In one of the funniest numbers, called Broadway, Kay Thompson takes satiric swipes at burlesque, opera, classical ballet and, in the dialogue quoted below, at a typical Noel Coward-Gertrude Lawrence tête-à-teˆte:

"Reginald!"
"Cynthia!"
"Back?"
"Yes."
"So soon?"
"Yes - Cynthia, we must talk."
"I know."
"You mean . . ."
"Quite."
"I'm leaving."
"Oh, so. Pamela?"
"No."
"Evelyn?"
"No."
"Cec-ily?"
"Pre-cicely."
"Ooh, tonight?"
"Tonight."
"I see."
"I'm glad. Hmm, and you?"
"I'm off, too."
"Oh."
"So."
"Algy?"
"No."
"Jerry?"
"No."
"Leslie?"
"Precisely."
". . . Well, chereo." (music begins)
"Cynthia, our tune."
"Oh, love me?"
"Terribly."
"Want me?"
"Frightfully."
"Marry me?"
"Instantly."
"Oh, Reggie, you've been a brick through the whole ugly mess."

(They go into a typical Coward love song.)

 

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