78 RECORDS - JACK KAUFMAN'S PERSONAL SCRAPBOOK

Jack Kaufman's Scrapbook — Continued

The Kaufman Brothers in blackface, with unknown others, c. 1910–12

A telegram to the "Kuffman" brothers, November 1911. Bender, Coombs, Morgan,
Pearl & Robinson was a vaudeville act consisting of three Boston Athletics
pitchers, the Pearl Sisters (Kathryn & Violet), and theatrical manager
John Robinson. They toured for a time after the 1911 World Series.

Phil Kaufman has confirmed that this unidentified photo from the scrapbook is not Jack. Both of the Kaufman brothers were baseball fans and occasionally played exhibition games against stage hands and other vaudeville stars. Phil's antics in the outfield were even reported in Variety.

After Phil's death, Jack teamed with younger brother Irving, who had recently left
the Avon Comedy Four. Although not as successful in vaudeville, the new team
was in high demand in the recording studios. This Chicago handbill probably
dates from 1923–24. Note the presence of Jimmy Wade, a pioneering
black Chicago band leader.

Irving and Jack worked together less frequently as the 1920s progressed. This 1925 appearance at the Chicago Theatre might be their last documented public appearance as a team. The act split in 1926,
and Jack teamed for a time with veteran recording artist Albert Campbell.

Kaufman Brothers bannerhead from the scrapbook's inside back cover.

Some notes from Phil Kaufman: "My grandmother [Jack Kaufman's wife] was part of a dance troupe from England. She had eight children—three sets of twins and my father [Jack] and his sister. The twin girls Phyllis and Evelyn were dancers in the late stages of vaudeville. The youngest of the twins (there was a boy and girl, Philips and Sylvia), Sylvia, changed her name to Judy Clark and sang with Ray Noble and made over twenty films in Hollywood—mostly "B" westerns.

My father had a thirteen-piece band in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Jules Kaufman & his Mayfair Orchestra (a reference to where my grandfather and grandmother met in London).

I am the last of the Kaufmans in the entertainment biz. I wrote a book about my lfe in and out of the business, Road Mangler Deluxe. A film was made of one of the stories called "Grand Theft Parsons" and starred Johnny Knoxville as me."

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