The Famous Dooley Family

THOSE of us who knew and esteemed the late H. Bart McHugh, Sr., recall the many-fold fine attributes of the man who was the heart and spirit of the annual Mummers Parade in Philadelphia for so many years. Our memories of the pageant, of the buffoons, comedians and gaudy-garbed participants marching to the accompaniment of countless bands and musical aggregations dates back to early boyhood. A few of the original mummers organizations have survived. Many of the vintage mummers organizations failed to withstand the financial scourge of the depression and like the Arabs the members seemed to fold up their tents and vanish. String bands add the musical embellishment of originality in the annual Broad street procession of mirth, music, merriment and color. Camden had the honor for many years to contribute its clubs, marchers and musical organizations. The local entrants many times walked off with coveted prizes. Perhaps one of the first musical outfits from Camden to walk those long, long miles on New Year's Day was a fife and drum corps we called "The Foggy Dudes." For that type organization the "Dudes" were considered tops away back there in our less opulent years. Every member of the organization had a mascot — a small boy who proudly marched to the strains of the fifes and the beat of the drums. And more than one youngster upon his weary return to home was administered a sound thrashing by an irate pater. The famous Dooley family of stage fame was reared in the neighborhood where "The Foggy Dudes" were organized—North Front street and "Frog Row." THE DOOLEYS In the years that followed, the late H. Bart McHugh opened a vaudeville booking office. The variety show flourished throughout the nation, in Canada and sections of Mexico. Booking agents were paid good commissions, and McHugh was about the most successful of all bookers in the Quaker City. He, too, started many young artists on the road to fame. Among them was Camden's famous Dooley Family. It was McHugh who "discovered" the Dooleys. He organized the "Twentieth Century Minstrels." Ray Dooley, now the wife of Eddie Dowling, famed New York producer and former musical comedy star, was a member of the minstrel aggregation which toured the country. The most successful of the Dooleys was Johnny, who once was the husband of Yvette Rugel, famous prima donna in musical comedy. Billy Dooley started in burlesque, graduated to vaudeville, and later was featured in musical comedy extravaganzas in New York's famous Winter Garden. Gordon Dooley, the youngest member of the stage-famed family, developed into an acrobatic comedian. He with his brother Billy were starred for two seasons with "The Count of Monte Cristo," a lavish production, which also featured the Watson Sisters, who, too reached Broadway from the stages of burlesque houses. In his late years the father of the Dooleys, a circus clown, returned to the stage and achieved success in a big time vaudeville act with his two sons, Billy and Gordon. He died suddenly while playing a New York engagement. Johnny Dooley died after an appendicitis operation. Billy was fatally hurt in a taxicab accident, and Gordon succumbed to pneumonia contracted while making motion picture shorts in the city where he was born—Camden. The Dooleys were famed as stage "greats"—but only for a short span of years.