Background
Both her father and brother ran a brush making business.
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Marie Cahill
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Her parents were Irish immigrants Richard and Mary (née Groegen) Cahill. She had an older brother named Richard. Marie began her career in the late 1880s first in her native Brooklyn and then on Broadway.
In 1902 in the show Sally In Our Alley she introduced the song Under The Bamboo Tree which became her signature song and one of the most famous songs from the turn of the century.
Also in 1902 in the musical The Wild Rose she premiered another hit song Nancy Brown. In 1903 the popularity of the Nancy Brown song was expanded into its own musical for Cahill, and became her favorite role.
She had a plump and jolly demeanor and in addition to being a singer she presented herself as a conversationalist in a style that at best anticipates the later Gracie Allen. Daniel Blum in Great Stars of the American Theatre c.
1952 relates that Cahill was a very proper woman who didn"t tolerate naughty behavior or salaciousness.
However in contrast she could don a pair of tights in a musical and exude sex appeal. Cahill recorded her voice and routines at several gramophone recording sessions in the years 1917 to 1924 all in the acoustical recording method. She also had recorded her signature song Under The Bamboo Tree in 1902.
In 1915 Cahill appeared in her first silent film, Judy Forgot, based on her musical comedy of the same name performed on Broadway in the 1911 season.
Several of her voice recordings (monologues), made between 1916 and 1924, are on file at the Library of Congress" National Jukebox. They include "Washing baby" (1921), "The symphony concert" (1923) and "At the theatre" (1924).
"At the theatre" takes the form of a telephone conversation with an unheard party in which Cahill, as "Mistress Pinthrop," describes goings-on—including the appearance of Marie Cahill ("Irish, I guess well, maybe she is Jewish") -- at the Palace Theatre.
