“A tiny 8-year-old comedian”

As discussed back here, seven-year-old Elmer Lowry lost his contract with the Hal Roach Studio in the spring of 1927. By that fall he was trying the vaudeville circuit.

Later articles suggested that “Scooter” had performed in vaudeville before going to Hollywood in early 1926, but his stage experience seems to have been limited to local shows and amateur benefits. Now he was competing at the professional level.

Older Our Gang kids had made that transition. Ernie Morrison turned to vaudeville in 1924 at age eleven after his father unsuccessfully asked Hal Roach for a raise. Two years later the studio supplied a “trailer” of clips from Ernie’s movies to introduce his act.

Mary Kornman and Mickey Daniels outgrew the movie series in 1926 at age eleven and twelve, respectively. Roach filmed them “riding a goat cart from a movie studio to a vaudeville theater,” according to the Lucky Corner website, and they went out on the stage together. When Mary had to drop out of the tour for medical reasons, another Our Gang player, nine-year-old Peggy Eames, replaced her.

Once Mary Kornman had recovered in 1927, she was free to tour, and she joined Elmer “Scooter” Lowry and his older sister Lila in an act variously titled “Acting Out” and “Crashing Into Vaudeville.” Mary and “Scooter” had overlapped on only three movies, but she had been the series’ leading lady and films he’d performed in were still being released that fall, so they could draw audiences as movie stars.

In February 1928 the Chattanooga Times–Free Press, still claiming “Scooter” as a home-town boy, reported that he had “signed a two-year contract with the Keith circuit and has left for an eighty weeks’ tour throughout the United States.” Now the team was “Scooter,” Mary, and another former gang member Johnny Downs, age fourteen, as shown above. Their headlining act, “In and Out of the Movies,” included song, dance, and celebrity impressions.

Reviewers said good things about the kids’ act, and it’s striking how many singled out “Scooter.” For example, the May 8 Arkansas Gazette:

“Scooter” Lowry is easily the smallest and most popular of the three. He is only eight years old and he is a wonder for his years. . . . He caricatures Charlie Chaplin, dances and is a natural little comedian.

The June 18 Grand Rapids Press:

One of the hits on the highly entertaining new bill at Ramona is a tiny 8-year-old comedian, Scooter Lowry, the littlest and biggest member of the trio of clever youngsters from Hal Roach’s “Our Gang” film comedies who present the headline act. The kids are clever, Scooter’s imitation of Charlie Chaplin, his tap dancing and characterization of a “tough guy” would do credit to a comedian three or four times his age. . . . [Mary and Johnny] are good entertainers, but young Scooter is a riot.

The July 23 San Francisco Chronicle:

“Scooter” Lowry…is so preternaturally old, with a wizened, withered face, one rather places him among the midgets. He is tiny and wins the greater part of the applause for the act.

The July 20 Los Angeles Evening Express:

Roach Rascal Orpheum Bill Show-Stealer

A LAD about five hands high, and not very big hands at that, who talks out of the side of his mouth like George Cohan, walks like “The Brooklyn Kid,” and hoofs like George White, is the hit of the bill at the Orpheum this week. . . .

…it was little “Scooter” Lowry, the original tough guy of Hal Roach’s famous gang of rascals, who stole the honors last night. . . . The older pair dance and sing and pantomime very cutely, but “Scooter’s” swank and swagger lift the act into a featured niche.

The August 4 Billboard magazine:

Mary Kornman, Johnny Downs and “Scooter” Lowry, billed as “Our Gang” kids, scored in a manner that would make any performer envious, altho Lowry was the whole act. It is obvious he would not have fared as well without the support of the other two, whose dancing and personality made the act stand out more strongly.

Mary, Johnny, and “Scooter” toured together at least through August 1929.

TOMORROW: Back on the road.