ASIDES & INTERLUDES

By JAMES CUNNINGHAM

Many years ago the motion picture and the stage had on their boards a rather successful comedian in the person of Billy B. Van. Born in 1870, some 66 years ago, Mr. Van, whose real name is Vandergrift, reached theatricals at age nine, when he appeared on the stage at the old North Broad Street theatre, in Philadelphia, in the chorus of the juvenile ”H. M. S. Pinafore.” Subsequently he played ”Dick Deadeye” in the same production, and that started him on a career that lasted for 48 years, through the theatre — in the circus, vaudeville, burlesque and finally reaching Broadway stage headlights in 1908. Motion pictures came along and made him a two-reel comedian.

Retirement eclipsed Billy Van at least half-a-dozen seasons ago, and nary a word has been heard of him since, until, the other day, he bobbed up as the author of a piece on ”successful salesmanship,” in the ”Executives’ Service Bulletin,” for which he had written in the capacity of president of the Pine Tree Products Company, of Newport, New Hampshire. Mr. Van’s company promises exhilaration with each package of Pine Tree pine salts for the bath.

Evidently the old comedian has carried with him to his new field of selling some of the imaginations of the theatre, now predicting, in the mind of an H. G. Wells, a salesman of the future who will make calls in rocket cars, at Keokuk in the morning and New Guinea at lunch. ”Before he can say ‘advertising allowance, ‘ the customer will have an order blank and pen in his hand. The pen will be equipped with a photoelectric cell and, as he signs, the customer’s order will be automatically transmitted to the home office and the merchandise in turn will rocket forth and arrive probably before the salesman leaves.”


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