American entertainer
Billy B. Van (born William Webster Van de Grift; August 3, 1870 – November 16, 1950) was a prominent American entertainer in the early decades of the 1900s. He was a star, progressively, in minstrel shows, vaudeville, burlesque, the New York stage, and movies. Under another name, he was a well-known dairy farmer and agriculturist. And, at the same time he was a manufacturer of soap products. Late in his career, he reinvented himself as a nationally known motivational speaker, and a Yankee goodwill ambassador.
Biography.
Early life.
Billy B Van was born William Webster Van de Grift in 1870, in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. (He sometimes stated it was 1871.) His parents were George W. Van de Grift, and Henrietta. His father was a railroad engineer. His grandfather was a dairyman from the Netherlands.
Early entertainer years.
Van's entertainment career spanned several decades, from about the late 1870s to the late 1920s. The changes in his career followed trends in popular American entertainment. He began with minstrel shows -- often in blackface, vaudeville and burlesque, then stage theatre. In addition to his live performances, he was an actor and producer in silent motion pictures.
The story is told that Van got his start after his family moved to Philadelphia. In 1879, J.C. Stewart, a well-known manager, advertised for a child to play in "H.M.S. Pinafore". Van auditioned successfully, but Stewart felt that the name was too long, so he changed it to Master Willie Van. Van later changed his acting name to William Van, then Billy Van, and finally to Billy B. Van, because there was another Billy Van.
At 14, he was in a minstrel troupe in Atlantic City, called Trocadero. He was being paid $10 per day. By 20, he was reported to be playing vaudeville and burlesque with a stock company in Washington, D.C.
Being in the theatre probably did not comport with his parents' goals. His father got him a job in his teens at the Brill Car Co., where he was reported to have spent his time entertaining the workers. He did not go far in formal education, saying later that he was a graduate of the school of hard knocks (though much later he was made an honorary member of the Dartmouth College Class of 1906).
Georges Mills, New Hampshire.
Van moved to the small village of Georges Mills, New Hampshire, around 1897. The village, which then had a population in the hundreds, is located on a harbor of Lake Sunapee, a large lake in the western part of the state. It is said he was diagnosed with tuberculosis while acting in Boston, and a fellow actor extolled Lake Sunapee. He describes himself in his quasi-autobiography, cited below, as poor and living in a barn for months to recuperate.
After returning to the stage, however, he accumulated enough money to begin to buy property in Georges Mills. This consisted first of considerable area on Prospect Hill, today 360 Prospect Hill, where he had Frank Holmes, a local contractor, build a large stone house and barns with a silo. Here Van had a large herd of registered Guernsey cows. Van was wearing his Van de Grift agricultural hat here, as explained below. The barns have seen later use as a summer stock theatre, stable and for many years an antique furniture barn.
He also established his presence on a large lot right on the harbor, constructing a casino and a playhouse. He had both an indoor and outdoor studio, dressing rooms and accommodations for 75 people. He named the place Van Casino and took to calling Georges Mills "Van Harbor".
In the summers, probably at a time when the New York stage was less active, he staged plays there. It is said that he brought up from New York such well-known stars as Ethel Barrymore, Jeanne Eagels, Marie Dressler and Fatty Hires, many of whom he acted with in the winter. A photo taken in Casino shows a lot of well-known stars.
In 1915 he essayed the filming of several silent movies. This he did as part of a New York company, Equity Motion Pictures. Two of these were "Zooloo Nightmare" and "The Lucky Hoodoo". 
Concerted effort in recent years has turned up some of his films and the work to find the rest continues. John Tariot, a historian and restorer of silent films, set up a website devoted to Van's movie career. He has found "Lucky Hoodoo", and another film Van made, "Where are the Husbands?" as well as others.
In filming these movies, Van used the local folks as bit actors, making some of them go in blackface. One of the actors was a local, Lee Collins, who later had a career as a choreographer on Broadway.
One article said, with some exaggeration, that Van owned all of Georges Mills except the jail. Another said that the initial thrill of local people with the stars and the technicians and the vehicles wore off. They disliked the actors "parading around in outlandish costumes and makeup and introducing their large snorting automobiles to the quiet village", not leaving room for the horse and buggies. An article stated that because of this he was run out of town—moving to nearby Newport, New Hampshire.
Long and varied stage career.
In the vaudeville days of his career, Van often performed with the Beaumont Sisters, Rose and Nellie. These were also then well-known vaudeville and variety show performers. For a while he had a company by the name of Billy B. Van and The Beaumont Sisters Co. In 1910 they appeared at the Manhattan Opera House in a variety show; other acts were the Five Juggling Jewels and Dunlap's Educated Horse. In one article it is stated Van had been married to Nellie.
A list of the plays in which Van appeared is available in the International Broadway Database (IBDB). With some notations added, these are:
In some of these Van was the star and in many he was quite popular. Indeed, at one point he was described as one of the most amusing men on the vaudeville stage. One of the most popular plays was "Have a Heart". He sang a song Napoleon, composed by Kern. The soundtrack of "Billy V. Van and the Peerless Quartet, 1916", is available on CD collections today; it was a Columbia recording. In addition to acting and singing, Van played the banjo, and there are recordings of his playing various pieces on purchasable CDs.
A most interesting part of Van's stage career is his association with the former heavyweight champion, James J. Corbett (Gentleman Jim). They appeared together in a sketch called "Spirited Travesty" in 1922 as part of a variety show. Together they toured the country and also went to Europe for eight weeks.
Van appeared with many actors and actresses remembered until this day, including Jeanette MacDonald, Fatty Arbuckle, Hal Roach, and Harold Lloyd. He is mentioned in the biographies of many with whom he was associated, including MacDonald, Wodehouse, and Corbett. The theatres of this day were in the area of Fourteenth St., and term Broadway shows came only after his time. Van also went on the road with many of these shows. He and the Beaumont Sisters played at the Orpheum in Los Angeles in 1915.
Elbert Hubbard, himself somewhat forgotten today, was enthusiastic about Van. In 1913 in his Philistine journal, he describes Van as he "frivols and frolics all day long, on and off the stage." He added, "He is the eternal rube who has lifted rubism to the realm of art."
Van was also the founder of The Equity Motion Picture Company which may have been an extension of the Van Harbor Casino Movie Co. What became of this company has several explanations. One is that it moved to Hollywood as part of the whole movement of the industry there. Another is that it merged with Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, or at least one of the three entities. And a third is that Van played a role in the establishment of MGM, which unless established seems like an exaggeration.
Van appeared in at least one movie, still in the silent area, "Beauty Shop", in 1922, based on a 1914 musical. He played the role of Sobini. Jim Corbett also appeared in the 70 minute film, which was about a beauty doctor.
Van also performed off the stage in New York and elsewhere. "The New York Times" reported that in 1925 he appeared with Al Jolson, Harry Hirshfeld, and others whose names are still recalled today at the New York Friars' Club for the first anniversary celebration of the [Gimbel Brothers] radio station, WGBS. The same year he was one of the entertainers in a vaudeville show by William Morris at the Royal Arch Masons Hall. Somewhat lower on the scale, he appeared with many other well-known names at a contest judging goats in Central Park in 1934, as part of a Bock Beer festival. Van also had for a period of time a half-hour radio show on the CBS network.
Van retired from the stage in 1927, one article implying it was due to health. He seems to have returned only once, in a Mae West show in 1949, Diamond Lil.
Negative press.
In 1916 a "New York Times" article reported that he had been taken to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan suffering from apoplexy, an old name for stroke. He was reported in serious condition. Police had been called to a hotel room on West 44th Street, where he had been staying related to his work on his Equity Motion Picture Co., and he lived at Van Harbor, New Hampshire. The police found an unregistered gun in his room and he was being held technically as a prisoner at Bellevue.
The "Times" printed a clarification on July 10, 1916, that it was minstrel "Billy Van" who was taken to Bellevue, not Billy B. Van, who was performing at the Brighton Theatre on the night in question.
A nastier article was that Van was being sued for breach of promise to marry by Miss Ray Myers, of Long Island City, an actress. The story in "The New York Times" in 1925 said that the suit, seeking $125,000 in damages, was coming to trial in a Queens, New York court. The suit claimed that instead of keeping his engagement to marry Ray, he had married Grace Walsh in 1923. The article states he had been married four times before. Myers' attorney stated that he had incriminating letters as evidence, and Van's defense was this was just "a little friendship". The "Los Angeles Times" later ran a picture of Myers, with the announcement that Van had paid $5000 to settle the claim.
Agricultural career.
A major "The New York Times" article in 1917 is the source of a picture of what might be called the two Vans: Billy B. Van, the New York audience knew as a performer, and William Vandegrift—his birth name—as an expert in dairy farming and other agricultural affairs. In fact, he is called one of the seven best-qualified authorities on dairy management. Since this is a story told to the reporter by Van, there is every possibility of exaggeration.
The article starts with a Nebraska businessman attending a Broadway play in which Van was a star. He recognizes him as William Vandegrift who had spoken at a Nebraska agricultural school. He goes backstage and learns that Van has a second career, which he seeks to keep apart. The reporter states that when Van goes on the stage somewhere around the country, he tries to find an agricultural college or society to speak at too.
Van's agricultural credentials traced back to his Dutch ancestors, and also practices his grandfather had which were not accepted at the time but Van was promoting now. Van could of course draw on his own experience as a dairy farmer in New Hampshire. The "Times" article also discusses other experiences of Van including being an advisor on usefulness for dairy purposes of a large lot of land in the San Joaquin Valley.
The "Times" article also contains a long discussion of a plan Van had of opening up retail butter stores in New York and elsewhere. It seems that he had invented a new method to make butter quickly and sell it at stores. His first store was planned to be opened soon in a wealthy section of Manhattan. People could bring in their own milk