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On 23 March 1930, Broadway patrons opened the New York Times entertainment section to discover that Eddie Cantor, a fixture on the local stage since 1917, was abandoning the legitimate theater for the cinema. In an open letter to his loyal followers, Cantor proclaimed, This is to certify that I am in my right mind, white, free and rearin' to go to Hollywood.' The alert reader was probably not very surprised by this proclamation, having watched for more than two years as the Hollywood studios drained the top talent from the eastern stage for use in talking pictures. The overwhelming success of Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer sparked studio interest in the prospect of locating other stars with preestablished name recognition and strong box office draw. By 1929, Fox alone had more than two hundred stage-trained people under contract; the full extent of industry-wide recruitment would be hard to estimate.2 Edgar Selwyn, a noted stage producer, succinctly summarized the situation: Motion picture moguls have combed the stage of its good players, have baited the best with juicy contracts and have left the Broadway mart as dry of excellent actors as a glass eye.3 Of all the then current Broadway stars, Eddie Cantor seemed the most likely to achieve cinematic success. Photoplay wrote in late 1928 that Cantor appears to be the only possible contender to Al Jolson anywhere on the horizon.4 Cantor had spent twenty of his thirty-nine years in show business, moving from early successes at Brooklyn amateur night contests to vaudeville appearances with the popular team of Bedini and Arthur, in Gus Edward's Kaberet, and as part of a two-man comic act, Master and Man, with Al Lee. A brief engagement with the Midnight Frolics led Florenz Ziegfeld to offer Cantor a featured spot in the 1917 Follies, commencing a close (though often rocky) association that would continue until 1930. Cantor continued to make occasional forays into vaudeville but with each subsequent Ziegfeld show, Cantor played an increasingly prominent role. His success as an aggressive caddy in his first musical, Kid Boots (1924), attracted the interest of Paramount, who adapted the play to the screen as a silent comedy casting Cantor against Clara Bow. Kid Boots drew considerable praise and reasonable box office, causing many to predict that Cantor might
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