Lew Dockstader
{{short description|American singer, comedian, and vaudeville entertainer (1856-1924)}}
{{Infobox person | name =Lew Dockstader | image =Image:LewDockstader1902TopHatBlackface.jpg | image_size = | caption =Dockstader in blackface, 1902 | birth_name =George Alfred Clapp | birth_date = {{Birth date|1856|8|7}} | birth_place =Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1924|10|26|1856|8|7}} | death_place =New York City, U.S. | death_cause = | other_names = | known_for = | education = | occupation = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = }}
Lew Dockstader (born George Alfred Clapp; August 7, 1856 – October 26, 1924) was an American singer, comedian, and vaudeville star, best known as a blackface minstrel show performer. Dockstader performed as a solo act and in his own popular minstrel troupe.
Biography
He was born George Alfred Clapp on August 7, 1856, in Hartford, Connecticut, to Chester Clapp and Sarah Reed. He married Lucin Brown on December 20, 1883, in Hartford and had a daughter, Mildred Havlin Clapp, who married Warren Palmer. He legally changed his name to Lew Dockstader on April 20, 1887.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QnBZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1121|title=Laws of the State of New York|last=Jarvis|first=Nathaniel Jr.|date=1888|publisher=Banks & Brothers|location=Albany|page=1121|language=en}}
File:Coon Coon Coon sheet music cover 1901.jpg" from 1901 with photograph of Lew Dockstader in blackface inset]]
In 1898 he teamed up with George Primrose to form Primrose and Dockstader's Minstrel Men, which toured the vaudeville circuit till 1904. He appeared on film in a number of comedy shorts from 1904 to 1907.Charles Musser (1991) Before the Nickelodeon, University of California Press
On May 20, 1904 Dockstader was detained by the New York City Police Department for attempting to distribute a film "intended to caricature President Theodore Roosevelt and the office you hold." The film was "in the possession of the Edison Kinetoscope people and, if they had not been taken in hand at once, would undoubtedly have had a wide circulation through the various agencies and mechanism of that large organization."{{Cite web|url=https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record/ImageViewer?libID=o45413&imageNo=1|title=May 20, 1904 letter from William McAdoo, Police Commissioner of New York, to Theodore Roosevelt.|website=Theodore Roosevelt Center|access-date=2018-11-26}} Dockstader agreed to surrender the film to the New York City Police in exchange for the charges against him being dropped.
Unfazed by his detention in 1904, in 1906 Dockstader began impersonating Theodore Roosevelt as part of his vaudeville show.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1910/02/26/archives/roosevelt-lets-him-mimic-lew-dockstader-says-he-has-colonels.html|title=Roosevelt Lets Him Mimic|date=February 26, 1910|work=The New York Times|access-date=November 26, 2018}} He said Roosevelt had personally given him permission to do the impression.
Three years later, while Roosevelt was in British East Africa as part of the Smithsonian–Roosevelt African Expedition Dockstader commissioned a writer to prepare a sketch entitled "Dockstader in Africa, or Rescuing Roosevelt." He failed to pay the writer and was sued for non-payment. The sketch was never performed.
He played the title role in the 1914 feature silent film Dan.{{IMDb name|0230020|Lew Dockstader}}
His wife died in 1920. In January 1923 he was injured in a fall in New Brunswick, New Jersey, from his nascent cancer. His last performance was at Keith's Star Theater in December 1923. He died on October 26, 1924, in New York City of bone cancer on his left leg, at age 68. His funeral was at All Angels' Church and he was buried in Kensico Cemetery.{{cite news |title=Lew Dockstader, Minstrel, Is Dead. Famous Comedian Succumbs to a Bone Tumor at His Daughter's Home at 68 |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A06EED9103BE233A25754C2A9669D946595D6CF |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 27, 1924 |accessdate=2015-02-02 }}
Performers with Dockstader's Minstrels
- Will Oakland
- Al Jolson
- Cornelius J. O'Brien{{cite news |title=Neil O'Brien Dies at 85. Retired Minstrel Once With Primrose and Dockstader |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C0DE1D9173AE53BBC4C52DFB766838F649EDE |newspaper=The New York Times |date=January 14, 1954 |accessdate=2015-02-02 }}
References
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External links
{{Commons category}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20080505063612/http://www.archeophone.com/features/recordings/601.php Short biography and sample recording from 1905 on Archeophone.com]
- {{Find a Grave|6679072}}
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Category:Blackface minstrel managers and producers
Category:Blackface minstrel performers
Category:American vaudeville performers
Category:American male comedians
Category:Comedians from Connecticut
Category:19th-century American male singers
Category:19th-century American singers
Category:Musicians from Hartford, Connecticut
Category:Burials at Kensico Cemetery
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