In the 1880s, nobody of Albany was a more welcome and popular sight as Joseph Kline Emmet. Cordial, good-natured, generous, and often carry a trifle of tipsy, the renowned actor rule with the warmest greetings from all segments of society of the city was fulfilled as he took his almost ritualistic promenades along Pearl Street. "Fritz" was the stage name to use as it universally and lovingly responded in kind to the greetings known, including records of the day both Newsboys and bank President in his local army testify admirers and friends.
After all, Fritz was a big star in his day. When and where always took he cried to see your favorite comedian and no exporting on the stage full houses, it was said, offered a higher salary than the one-time Missouri mill workers. Well over a century ago floated Fritz's average annual gain to the 100,000 $-brand (the equivalent of more than two million dollars today).
But could be a star for Serendipity and a generally unsuspecting Albany public never become Fritz. The son first went poverty stricken Irish immigrants, Joseph Kline Emmet at the age of ten, as the sole support of his mother and two sisters in a St. Louis mill in return for $1.50 work a week and all the together could eat the ailing family. Emmet was only a few years on his own later by the death of his mother and his sisters early marriages.
Before long he found his way to the stage and into the minstrel circuit where he role of the "Fritz," America's first dialect comedy characters (think Katzenjammer kids) introduced. Understandably, at least a German philologist and has in recent years that rubbed cultural reality of the nineteenth century, but in the simple, unself-conscious ethnic caricature of Fritz's day, based the character landlord from his time in St. Louis rooming life loose one of Emmet.
Although Emmet already Fritz variety theatres and minstrel company was been portrayed for several years in New York City, it was his first appearance in a piece, the seine-- and Fritz's-glory backed up. In one tells the story, which is in itself, Fritz, melodramatic our cousin English was written during a hectic all-night session only hours before your scheduled opening on a Buffalo theatre. This is at least the local version.
With a bottle of ink on one hand and a bottle of liquor to the other Charles Gayler (some local stories have it "Gaylord"), then a leading figure of the American Theatre, scribbled furiously the game that has been to make rich and famous Emmet. The work was completed at the last minute and the spontaneous and uneducated actor took the stage.
The game was only moderately well received during the first week in Buffalo, but it was there that fate intervened and Emmet gave a much needed break. The closing tag of commitment was the theatre manager a telegram from the next scheduled performers, informing him that not in the position posting to keep would. Emmet was asked to fill. Unlikely, the scene repeated the following week, and the game ended with an impressive three-week do that seemed to refute the mediocre notices he had.
Emmet in Albany--arrived were two weeks late - audience convinced that advanced commitment must certainly mean a big hit. The enthusiastic, standing room only crowds the Emmet ensures here greeted his success and not played small part Fritz make a theatrical phenomenon. This is certainly the story Albany writer, the time recount. Perhaps more goal the accounts in the theatrical stories emerge note, that the game, the first of four scripts for Emmet character, Fritz von Vonderblinkenstoffen, written for a two-month run that actually July 1870 had opened in New York at Wallack's Theatre 11 followed one year-tour before the show returned to New York.
But it is clear that Fritz was immediately and then always a favorite of the Albanians and the feeling was fully reciprocated. A dozen years after his first, random visit of the city, Fritz returned, to make his home Albany. The imposing some garish mansion built in 1882 to Van Rensselaer Boulevard he there but after his early death at age 51 was passed as "Fritz Villa" known, during the ten years lived the property into other hands and underwent a name change.
Joseph Kline Emmet died on 15 June 1891, succumb to pneumonia and a general State of heat dissipation that he even attributed to "demand an insatiable sometimes alcohol." At his funeral, praised the Reverend Dr. Farrar of Trinity Methodist Church Fritz as a man ", which was all souled and kind, but his own worst enemy." Emmet was buried rural cemetery, like so many prominent Albanians through the centuries in Albany.
As for Emmet Albany estate his oversized home soon developed a meaning apart from his legacy to a central location for generations of Albanians. 1891 Not long after Emmet death, New York Governor David Hill purchased "Fritz Villa" and called it "Wolfert's Roost" under the new name of a Washington Irving history. It kept that name in later years, when it was one of the region are most popular and prominent country clubs.
Excerpt from Albany Scrapbook, vol. 1 by Kenneth Salzmann Copyright 2006 http://www.albanyscrapbook.blogspot.com http://www.literaryenterprises.com
Kenneth Salzmann is a freelance writer, which Albany Geschichte columns originally appeared in the magazine, Albany, New York, in the 1980s.
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