Wesley Morse, c. 1946
©2007 Talley Morse
Wesley Morse was born in Chicago in 1897. He began his art career drawing the horses that pulled the milk wagon he drove as a boy. As part of the 1920s Manhattan night club scene, he glorified the American girl for Flo Ziegfeld’s Follies and drew the cartoon strip “Switchboard Sally” for The Gleaner and “Kitty of the Chorus” for the New York Daily Mirror.
His work in the ’20s appeared in Judge, Colliers, Swank, The New York Graphic, and a host of other magazines and newspapers. In the ’30s he drew the “Beau Gus” strip and penned some of the infamous comic book pamphlets known as the Tijuana Bibles, most notably She Saw The World’s Fair, And How!. In the ’40s he drew the illustrations for Lou Walters’ Latin Quarter nightclub programs and menu, created the Copa girl logo for the Copacabana, and drew cover art for magazines like the December 1947 Cue cover depicting Cavanagh’s restaurant. In the ’50s he illustrated the cover art for the menus of El Morocco, The International, Basin Street East, Joe Howard’s Place and other New York restaurants and night clubs.
In 1954 he was approached by the creative director of the Topps Company to create a comic strip which became “Bazooka Joe and His Gang,” for which he is best known. He drew program art for the Las Vegas Tropicana and the Follies Bergere, and continued to draw the Bazooka Joe strip until his death in 1963.
"Kitty of the Chorus," in the New York Daily Mirror, March 23rd, 1925
©1925 Daily Mirror
"Switchboard Sally" trade ad in The Gleaner, July 7th, 1925
©1925 King Features Syndicate
Avonne Taylor, 1923
©2007 The Ziegfeld Club, Inc.
One of the ravishing beauties of the 1920s Follies, she was born Evangeline Taylor in 1899 in Springfield, Ohio. She made her way to NYC with a “vague idea of the stage in mind.” She joined the Follies in 1920 as Avonne Taylor, appearing in as many as three performances at a time, including ongoing roles in “Sally” and “Kid Boots.” Taylor was also featured on the Ziegfeld roof in the “Midnight Frolics.” She was a tabloid favorite, often referred to as the prettiest of Ziegfeld's glamorized showgirls.
Her beauty led her to Hollywood where she was chosen by Mary Pickford as a co-star in 1927’s My Best Girl. She chalked up six marriages, the most notable being to asbestos heir Tommy Manville. She lived many years abroad, and also in Palm Springs, California and Manhattan, where she maintained an apartment on East 57th Street.
Illness prompted her return to Ohio in 1989. She spent her last years there with her nephew’s family. In 1992 she was one of nine surviving original Follies girls. That same year she passed away at the age of 93.
Clipping's from Avonne's personal
scrapbooks. circa 1925
© 2007 Taylor Morse collection
One of Avonne Taylor's personal scrapbooks wherein the Taylor-Morse Collection artworks were found.
©2007 Taylor-Morse Collection
Upon Avonne Taylor’s death in 1992, the drawings that make up The Taylor-Morse Collection were discovered among personal scrapbooks packed away in a Palm Springs, California storage facility. Taylor’s family uncovered an intimate series of 79 drawings Morse did specifically of, and for, Taylor, created in 1922-23, each on his personal stationery. These images had remained unseen for 70 years. The personal nature of these “letters” was immediately evident as they depicted Avonne’s theretofore-unknown relationship with then-Ziegfeld artist Wesley Morse.
It was during the 1922 edition of the “Follies” that Ziegfeld coined his phrase “Glorifying the American Girl,” and Avonne Taylor certainly was the classic American Girl!
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