A Life in the Theatre: George Spelvin
By Mervyn Rothstein
24 Oct 2009
In our Q&A of the imagination, discover the history of this theatrical nom de plume — a name seen in many a play's billing over the past 125 years.
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From 1886 to 1987, George Spelvin was in the cast of more than 90 Broadway plays and musicals. His first Broadway appearance was in 1886 in Karl the Peddler by Charles A. Gardiner. His most recent was from 1985 to 1987, in the musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood with Betty Buckley.
Q. How did you get started in show business?
A. There was that 1886 show. But my career really didn't begin until 1906, when a writer named Winchell Smith used me in a play called Brewster's Millions. After that, I became a Broadway regular. (The play, about a young man who inherits millions, was based on a 1902 novel by George Barr McCutcheon and has been made into a movie several times. Richard Pryor and John Candy starred in a 1985 version. I wasn't in that one.)
Q. What are some of your major credits?
A. I was in Jerome Kern's Sitting Pretty in 1924 — one of the songs was called "Tulip Time in Sing Sing"; in a play no one has ever heard of called Bertha, the Sewing Machine Girl in 1935 (it ran for seven performances); the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 with Fanny Brice; High Button Shoes with Phil Silvers and Nanette Fabray in 1947 (that show had "Papa, Won't You Dance With Me?" by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn); the musical High Spirits with Tammy Grimes and Beatrice Lillie in 1964; the musical Cyrano with Christopher Plummer in 1973; and the comedy Sly Fox with George C. Scott and Jack Gilford in 1976.
Q. What was it like to work with George C. Scott, or with Christopher Plummer, or Fanny Brice? And how did you manage to have such a long career?
A. I wouldn't really know about Scott or the other two. And the reason I've been around so long — and, as you've probably guessed, the reason I can't tell you about those actors — is that I don't really exist. I'm an imaginary actor.
You see, back in 1906, Winchell Smith; his co-author, Byron Ongley; their star, Edward Abeles; and their producer, Fred Thompson, were struggling over the script when, to ease the tension, Abeles joked about a nonexistent actor named George Spelvin. (I have no idea who the 1886 guy was.) Their play called for one actor to double in two roles, and, certain that "Spelvin" would bring good luck, Smith insisted that the actor use the name in the cast list for one of the roles.
The play was a hit. Smith was convinced that I was responsible, and kept on casting me in his plays. My fame soon spread, and others started "hiring" me. (I wasn't really around, of course, but this is what Smith told The New York Times in 1916.)
I was used when a performer had more than one role in a play or musical and perhaps he or the producer thought the audience might be confused if he was listed as playing one character in the first act and another in the second act. Or by an actor who wanted to be anonymous — if, for instance, he was a member of Actors' Equity working in a non-Equity production and didn't want to be penalized by the union. Or if he considered it undignified to be cast in a minor role.
Sometimes I was a name used in a cast list for a specific plot purpose — by a mystery writer, for example, who didn't want to reveal an aspect of the mystery that would be obvious if a character wasn't listed. Or for a character who is talked about and you expect to arrive but never shows up. Or sometimes just for fun. Or for good luck.
(By the way, I also have an imaginary daughter, Georgette Spelvin, who appeared in a few plays in the 1920s and '30s, including Sidney Howard's dramatization of Sinclair Lewis' Dodsworth, in 1934. I've also been known as George Spelvinsky, or Giorgio Spelvino.)
Continued...
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