Yvette Rugel

Yvette Rugel (1890s – September 20, 1975) was an American singer and vaudeville performer, sometimes billed as the "Miniature Prima Donna".

Yvette Rugel
A young white woman standing on stairs on the deck of a ship, smiling, wearing a dark hat and dress, and strings of pearls.
Yvette Rugel, from a 1910s news service photograph, Library of Congress.
Born1890s (various dates given in sources)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
DiedSeptember 20, 1975
San Rafael, California
Occupation(s)Singer, vaudeville performer

Early life

Yvette Rugel was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey,[1] and raised Philadelphia,[2][3] the daughter of Max Rugel and Fannie Nevyaski. Her parents were Russian Jewish immigrants; her father was a cigar maker. She was under five feet tall as an adult.[4]

Career

Rugel appeared in three Broadway productions: The Passing Show of 1917,[5] George White's Scandals (1919),[4] and Earl Carroll's Vanities (1926–1927).[6] She was billed as an "opera star" or "The Miniature Prima Donna" on vaudeville bills in the 1920s,[7][8] and performed music with her husband in some programs.[9][10] She recorded five songs for Victor in 1921.[11][12] and made several "sound shorts", a silent movie with a matching vinyl sound recording.[13] She greeted the advent of talking pictures with optimism for opera's future: "The talkies are attracting all the great singers and great song and musical effects are being produced to the great education and pleasure of a great mass of people," she observed in 1930.[14]

Reviews of her singing varied. "The quality of Yvette Rugel's singing is startling," noted critic Bland Johaneson in 1923, "she has chosen to continue singing the hackneyed vaudeville hits, but in a way which is different."[15] A later critic, Burke Henry, described her voice as a "lyrical spinto", after her 1930 appearances in Rome, Paris, London, and Venice, where she sang arias for Mussolini.[1] In 1938, New York columnist Dale Harrison called hers "one of the finest theatre voices in town."[16] She was still performing twice-nightly shows in Philadelphia in 1943.[17]

Personal life

Yvette Rugel married a fellow vaudeville performer,[18] Scottish-born comedian Johnny Dooley,[19] in 1917; they had two children, John and Mary, before they divorced in 1922.[20] She died in 1975, in her late seventies, in San Rafael, California.[21]

References
  1. Henry, Burke (1930-01-27). "Yvette Rugel Hobnobs with 10 Downing Street". The Standard Union. p. 24. Retrieved 2020-09-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. Slide, Anthony (2012-03-12). The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 443. ISBN 978-1-61703-250-9.
  3. "Opera is Goal of Singer at Orpheum". The San Francisco Examiner. 1927-09-19. p. 24. Retrieved 2020-09-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "In the Spotlight". Evening Star. 1919-05-18. p. 56. Retrieved 2020-09-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. "Winter Garden". The Theatre. 25: 344. June 1917.
  6. "One-Hit Wonders of the Acoustic Era". Antique Phonograph Monthly. 9: 11. March 1990 – via Internet Archive.
  7. "Yvette Rugel, Prima Donna, at Hennepin; Pantages Has Dobson". The Minneapolis Star. 1927-07-30. p. 24. Retrieved 2020-09-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. "Opera Star Heads Keith's New Bill". The Akron Beacon Journal. 1928-09-06. p. 22. Retrieved 2020-09-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. "Palace Music Hall, Various acts (September 7, 1914)". Chicago Public Library Digital Collections. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
  10. "Yvette Rugel". Broadway Brevities. 6: 6. June 1921 – via Internet Archive.
  11. "Yvette Rugel". National Jukebox, Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
  12. "Rugel, Yvette". Discography of American Historical Recordings. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
  13. Bradley, Edwin M. (2015-06-14). The First Hollywood Sound Shorts, 1926-1931. McFarland. p. 211. ISBN 978-1-4766-0684-2.
  14. "Opera Singer Says Talkies Killing Stage". The Miami News. 1930-02-10. p. 9. Retrieved 2020-09-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. Johaneson, Bland (February 1923). "The Two-a-Day". Theatre Magazine. 37: 42.
  16. Harrison, Dale (1938-11-11). "Don't Forget Yvette". Reno Gazette-Journal. p. 4. Retrieved 2020-09-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. "Swan Club (advertisement)". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 1943-01-15. p. 18. Retrieved 2020-09-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. "At the Big Vaudeville Houses". Dramatic Mirror and Theatre World. 83: 450. March 12, 1921.
  19. "Orpheum". Goodwin's Weekly. 25: 10. August 21, 1915.
  20. "Unexpected Entrance of Mr. Dooley's Alimony". The Times Dispatch. 1924-10-12. p. 57. Retrieved 2020-09-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. "Yvette Rugel (death notice)". Daily Independent Journal. 1975-09-22. p. 4. Retrieved 2020-09-10 – via Newspapers.com.
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