Jack is Back

When we last left June Roper, she was dancing in Berlin with her brother, John. After the tour was over, John returned to the United States. John used his newly acquired expertise to design dance acts for a circuit of nightclubs in the southern U.S.

Jack Kinney returned to dance with June in new routines featured in the revues of the Casino de Paris. Mistinguett and Maurice Chevalier were headliners and these shows were the proving ground for a generation of new talent who would work in the theatre and film.

During this time, June worked with Mistinguett - coaching her in dance routines and deportment in her elaborate costumes. The team of Roper and Kinney gained a dedicated and adoring fan base in Paris and news of their skill reached G.B. Cochran. In 1928, Cochran hired the duo to work in his upcoming revue, Wake Up and Dream.

The new routine would include five numbers June and Jack performed in their act combined with the free-structured production. A stipulation was that Cole Porter provided the music for their dances. The tango, which the duo performed to Gade's Jealousy, was replicated in a piece called Agua Sincopada Tango Wake up and Dream. It opened in London on March 23, 1929.

The show was immensely popular and had 263 performances. Jessie Matthews was the ingenue and singing star; Australian Tilly Losch was principal dancer - she appeared in an exotic number choreographed by George Balanchine to the Porter ballad What is this Thing Called Love? and in a doll-shop sequence inspired by Coppelia - Oliver Messel designed the elaborate sets.

The show was headed for New York - with the same basic cast - and it opened there on December 30. Cochran needed a replacement for Jessie Matthews while she was in America so he suggested June remain in London. She would begin training to become an all-purpose musical actress who could assume the leading role in his revue projected for 1930.

This must have been agreeable with June because she made plans to join the Cochran forces in London after a vacation. Unfortunately, her plans were disrupted when, during the Atlantic voyage, Elizabeth Roper was stricken with an attack of angina pectoris. The attack was so severe that the physician wouldn't allow June to see her mother for several days.

Monday, I will tell you more about June and her mother and June's career. I am getting this information from the book June Roper Ballet Starmaker by Leland Windreich. If you are a fan of dance, I would advise you take a look at it. I am, of course, leaving a lot of facts out and the pictures are worth looking at the book.

I hope you have a great weekend. I am volunteering at the TEDxVancouver on Saturday - that should be fun!

I hope you find the beauty around you.

The Butterfly

While walking along Commercial Drive, I met up with this person. He was very passionate and very emotional, he was collecting signatures so he could run for mayor of Vancouver. He needed one hundred and had two if you count mine. This was the last day to collect signatures. I wonder if he made it?


June Roper's and Jack Kinney's partnership wasn't without it's problems. While Kinney's costume was the same basic evening-wear for most of the productions, June required gowns, which cost hundreds of dollars and she needed several garments for each season. Jack refused to adjust their salaries to help June with that expense.

The duo danced at Les Ambassadeurs, a popular night club in Cannes and the German impresario Hermann Heller offered them a featured spot in his Berlin revue. Kinney decided to go out on his own but June signed with the Heller Revue of 1925 and started to search for a new partner.

June chose her twenty-five-year-old brother, John. He was tall, well built and handsome though he had never studied dance. John was also June's childhood idol because he had been able to challenge their father's rigid philosophy.

John was working in the California oil fields when he got his sister's invitation. He enrolled in Belcher's studios and in May of 1925, June and her mother returned to California to plan the debut in Berlin. June had three months to turn her brother into a dancing partner.

The two spent their days working in the studio under Belcher's guidance. The evenings were spent at performance outlets in the community. The duo's earliest performances at amateur nights were disastrous but by the fourth try, they were winning prizes.

While June and Jack had been appearing at the Gallagher Club, a film producer had approached June to act as a stand-in for the actress Dorothy Mackall in a sequence involving a dangerous dive. June and Jack worked for weeks to determine the height from which should could be caught without risking her safety.

June decided to utilize these skills for the Haller Revue in a romantic adagio called The College Boy and The Butterfly. When June and Jack went to Berlin in the fall, they began training for this act. It involved a leap from a ten-foot platform into her partner's arms. John had to catch her below the bust and at thigh level. The brother and sister worked on this for more than a month, moving from a chair to the top of an upright piano and having one near disastrous accident but they perfected the move.

The Butterfly became the showstopper of the revue, which ran a full year in Berlin and had shorter engagements in Vienna and Hamburg. The dancing duo also appeared as featured dancers in the Winter Garden.

I want to thank Leland Windreich and his book June Roper Ballet Starmaker for the information on this woman. You may be wondering how June Roper is connected with Vancouver. I'm getting there and I hope you are enjoying her story so far.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

1945 Continues

On May 16, 1945 Prime Minister Mackenzie King opened the federal election with a speech from Vancouver. This speech was broadcast over Radio CBR. (now CBU)

May 22 was the day that the first veteran moved into the first of new veteran homes.

May 25, 1945 was the day that writer W.P. Kinsella was born in Edmonton. Kinsella has since lived in White Rock and Vancouver and currently lives in the Fraser Valley. Kinsella is a prolific writer and may be best known for his book Shoeless Joe. A quote from a lengthy article on the website Bookworld states:

"After a young American editor in Boston named Larry Kessenich saw a brief synopsis of W.P. Kinsella's short story called Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa in Publisher's Weekly, he contacted Kinsella and asked for a novel. Shoeless Joe became the basis for the 1989 Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams ..."

On June 11, 1945, former city mayor, Gerry McGeer, was named to the senate.

There is a photograph of 23-year-old 2nd Lieutenant Molly Bobak painting in London, England. Molly Bobak (Lamb) was born in Vancouver and studied art at the Vancouver School of Art from 1938 to 1941.

In 1942, Bobak enlisted as a draughtsman in the Canadian Women Army Corps (CWAC), the only woman to be hired as an official war artist. She worked on the design of the décor and the costumes for the Army Show in Toronto. At the National Gallery of Canada in 1944, Bobak took 3rd prize in the Canadian Army Art Exhibition. After V-E Day, Molly was posted to Holland where she painted the tasks and experiences of female soldiers overseas.

In 1950, Molly Bobak obtained a grant from the government of France, which allowed her to paint in France. Air France invited the Canadian artist back in 1960 to lead a tour in Paris and a Canada Council grant allowed her to spend much of that year painting in Europe.

On July 14, the Province newspaper published an interesting story concerning Ivan Knopski. Knopski ran a concession at St. Paul's hospital and was building his own home at the corner of Main Street and East 29th Avenue. You may not think that was newsworthy, but Knopski was blind.“His neighbors, as they watched him building, didn’t believe that. They were sure he was boasting, that he had some sight left. But when they heard his hammer going on into the night till 11 and 12 and no lanterns around, then they knew he must be telling the truth."

I want to thank The History of Metropolitan Vancouver website for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.