Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects The 'Madegood Family' Slater Vincent O'Hare

"The Fairfield Daily Ledger"
Fairfield, Iowa
Saturday, April 25, 1925
Front Page and Page 4

NO. 3--MR. AND MRS. SLATER VIN-CENT O'HARE

The curtain is now rising; the orchestra will lead off with a few bars of slow music and the guy up next to the roof will please turn the spotlighting this way while we present to you Slater Vincent O'Hare and wife, Mrs. Esther O'Hare of Orpheum theater fame. The act may now proceed.

Never heard of Slater Vincent O'Hare? Oh, we see; you know him as S. O'Hare, for that is the plebian short cut he uses on an otherwise aristrocratic name. Slater's a great chap for short cuts anyway and will drive his car through a barbed wire fence and over a plowed field to get to a certain destination ahead of a rival film salesman. Mebbe 'Twasn't that which caused him to drop all the frills from his name and content himself with that S; mebbe 'twas pure perversity. Most men part their hair on one side and their names in the middle. Slater likes to be different, so he parts his hair in the middle and his name on one side.

It was most fortunate that we were enabled to get this snap shot of Slater for it shows him in one of his rare moods--that of dejection. You see, Slater was going out to Los Angeles to attend a big convention of moving picture magnates. He felt sure the convention could hardly settle down to business without a speech from him, so he set about preparing a bit of an extemporaneous talk with which he could knock them dead when the cries for "O'Hare" became deafening. Preparing that speech looked like 'twas going to be dead easy for him. He worte it (sic)--just kinda dashed it off--you know how these nimble minds work. Then he submitted the thing to Mrs. Slater. Like a good wife she praised it and even laughed at some of his witticisms, but she suggested he could do ever so much better if he'd try again. Slater was a little disappointed, but he tried again. Mrs. Slater still found room for improvement. He tried again and again but he didn't seem to be able to put the thing across on the missis. This picture was taken as she was reading his thirty-seventh effort and you will note that she doesn't appear to be what you might call hilariously enthused. Nor does Slater have the appearence of being so well sold on the speech that he's going to try to convince her that 'tis a good one.

Slater arrived at the convention several days ago but our telegraphic news reports have failed to notify us of any earthquake or other tremendous upheaval out in California. Course, it's possible Slater hasn't delivered that speech yet, so there may be important news from California; and if we here in Iowa should feel earth tremors from the westward we may know 'tis only the thunder of applause which greeted his speech.

Slater Vincent O'Hare came to Fairfield some three years ago and bought the Orpheum theatre. His coming was not at all secret, nor even what you might call quiet and unobtrusive. Fact is he began burning red fire, in a manner of speaking, immediately following his arrival. He started out to let the people of Fairfield and thirty-five or fourty adjacent counties, know he was here on the job and would like to have them come and see his shows. Slater isn't exactly a shrinking violet when he's got something to sell which he thinks you ought to know about. Every time he has a specially good film at his theatre he wants the world to know about it. If it is necessary to to wreck a car in the middle of Central park, or to get himself sensationally arrested, in order to advertise his picture Slater never bats an eyes but goes right to it (sic).

Because of his name he is suspected of being Irish. P'raps so, but he was born down in Louisiana. That's where he acquired his courtly manner. When his parents decided to move to New York City where his father could, and did, become one of the leading music composers, Slater, aged 10, dutifully went along. But the Big Town soon proved too slow for him and 'twasn't many years till he made his devious way down to Dallas, Texas, and fastened himself onto the motion picture business. So we find our hero launched on his career at the age of sixteen. Came to Iowa as a district manager for the Adams Theatre Syndicate, and that's how he discovered Fairfield.

His duties in this position took him to Knoxville where he found a very competent young lady susceptible to advice and suggestions about running the business. "She," quoting Slater, "was so meek, never talked back to me, and always did as I directed, so I thought a girl like that ought to make a preggy good wife. You understand, this was before we were married." However it may be now as to which one of this couple is the meek one, it is certain they're doing some good team work in the conduct of the Orpheum theatre here. What Slater doesn't know about the business his wife does. Fact of the matter is that Slater has found the business gets along without him as well as with him, so he has left the management in his wife's hands while he wheedles the theatre owners of southern Iowa into the notion of buying the Paramount pictures he sells.

Since the palmy days when Fred Jericho, Fred Spielman and Jack Fleagle made multi-millionaires of themselves as Orpheum owners, when the admission price was a dime, the old Orpheum hadn't enjoyed the best of health until the O'Hares took a try at it. The O'Hare idea was good pictures and plenty of advertising noise about them. Mrs. O'Hare secured the pictures and Slater furnished the noise. So, 'twixt their knowledge of the show business and Slater's inside pull at Paramount pictures, we get the new big ones here as you might say right off the reel. And maybe Slater Vincent will bring back to us a first run picture of the mob scene which occurred when he made his speech. 'Sall right if he doesn't insist on giving the speech too.