Organist tickled pink to tickle the ivory at Orpheum Theatre’s 90th anniversary
On Nov. 24, a 96-year-old musician is performing at the 90th-birthday celebration of the Orpheum Theatre. Yes, the musician is older than the theatre.
The musician is Betty Haswell. She used to play the Mighty Wurlitzer organ in the theatre when she made a living as a performer with her husband Terry Forbes in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Haswell played the organ for many years at weekly variety shows hosted by Ivan Ackery, the Orpheum manager from the 1930s to the 1960s. Back then, playing the organ at the Orpheum meant making a dramatic entrance on stage.
During a performance, Haswell and the organ would slowly rise on a hydraulic system from the orchestra pit in the basement to stage level.
At the Orpheum’s 90th-anniversary concert, Haswell thinks she’ll start by playing There’s No Business Like Show Business followed by Stardust.
“That’s fine with me,” Haswell said when she was asked about being older than the Orpheum.
Haswell, born Betty Brown, grew up in Edmonton and started playing the piano when she was seven years old.
By the time she was 12, Brown was performing in operettas with her mother Hilda.
Three years later, she had a 15-minute radio show on CFRN called Betty Brown’s Ramblings. Callers could phone in their requests and she would play them on air.
In the 1960s, Haswell was the audition pianist for the CBC.
Her daughter Linda Kidder said her mother is performing at the 90th-anniversary concert thanks to Rob Haynes, president of the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame.
At an event, he told her about the concert. She told him that her mother used to play at the Orpheum.
“He got so excited and asked me if she would be willing to play for the party,” said Kidder, a singer and musician.
“That’s how it happened.” The organ at the Orpheum is being refurbished for the concert. It has been taken apart and cleaned of dust produced by the coal that used to heat the theatre.
The Wurlitzer has been at the Orpheum since opening night in 1927. It was used not only for vaudeville performances, but to provide musical accompaniment for silent films.
The organ is virtually built into the Orpheum. Pipes rise up from the front two corners of the stage behind the walls and up to about the fifth floor backstage.
Not only does it produce a full, dramatic sound, it also can create numerous sound effects such as violins, ocean waves, birds and an operatic choir. During historic performances of Phantom of the Opera, the organ would dramatically rise as smoke swirled around the stage.
The hydraulics are affected by water pressure. In its heyday, the organ had a tendency to drop below stage level when everyone flushed toilets during an intermission.
The Wurlitzer, according to Vancouver’s Orpheum: The Life of a Theatre, was purchased in the 1920s for $45,000 and is now worth millions. It is one of only a few remaining theatres in the world with their original Wurlitzer organ.
Orpheum 90 on Nov. 24 is a 1920s-themed birthday party hosted by Bill Richardson and Bramwell Tovey. The tribute to the theatre’s silent film and vaudeville days starts at 6:30 p.m. with a redcarpet event. People are encouraged to dress in 1920s style.
All tickets are $19.27. They can be purchased by phone by calling the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra box office at 604-8763434.
The Orpheum, formerly owned by Famous Players, was designated a National Historic Site in 1979. The 2,672-seat theatre is owned and operated by the city’s Vancouver Civic Theatres.
He got so excited and asked me if she would be willing to play for the party.
LINDA KIDDER, Betty Haswell’s daughter