Milam County Historical Commission
Milam County, Texas
Milam County, Texas
All articles from the Temple Daily Telegram are published with the permission of the
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams and the Temple Daily Telegram
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams and the Temple Daily Telegram
Love, Drama on the Road
by Jeanne Williams - Telegram Staff Writer
Temple Daily Telegram - August 9, 2010
CAMERON — Not only did the traveling tent show circuit applaud Harley Herman Sadler with stardom and a lucrative livelihood, it also introduced him to the love of his life, Willie Louise “Billie” Massengale of Cameron.
The love story of Harley and Billie would have made an entertaining play for the traveling tent show stage but their lives ultimately could have been illustrated by Greek theater masks of comedy and tragedy.
Their story opened with happiness, with Billie cast as a Cameron city clerk who in the line of duty issued Sadler a permit to open his tent show in Cameron. Years later, the couple reminisced that they wed after a three-day whirlwind courtship, culminated by Billie’s dramatic exit through her bedroom window and a middle-of-the-night elopement.
Another version had Harley getting his permit, and later that night slipping the pretty city clerk a note scribbled on a gum wrapper asking her for a date. “Billy accepted the invitation; like many girls, she had a crush on the winsome young actor,” stated the biography “Harley Sadler and His Tent Show,” by Clifford Ashby and Suzanne DePauw May. “The infatuation apparently ripened into a true love. The next time the show came to Cameron, Billie feigned a head ache and sent her family to watch unknowingly the antics of their future son-in-law while she remained at home packing a suitcase.”
Later that night, when the family was asleep, she slipped out of her window into Harley’s arms, and sped into the night, witness in tow, for a proper midnight wedding.
The town marshal, William T. Massengale, Billie’s father, and her tall, muscular brother chased down the tent show the next day, but Billie remained with her new husband.
Not surprisingly, the Massengale family liked Harley and joined his tent show. Billie, described as “young, pretty and as likeable as her popular husband” served as business manager and the troupe’s leading lady. Gloria, the couple’s only child, born in 1922, performed in the vaudeville as soon as she could walk on the stage.
Sadler’s mother-in-law, Augusta Louise Carter Massengale, and other relatives worked in the traveling show. Billie also became a fashion icon among rural women, as she modeled the latest big-city fads as she sold ads, tickets, popcorn and bottled remedies.
Billed in Texas as “the first man to make a million dollars from a tent show,” Harley Herman Sadler left the family farm in Arkansas to seek his fortune on the traveling stage and wound up as an oilman and legislator, according to The Handbook of Texas On-Line.
Traveling tent shows of the 19th and 20th centuries brought the theater to rural America, not only staging plays, but offering sideshows and selling medicines. Tent shows, commonly charging 15 cents a head, played before a packed house of fans from big cities to small rural communities.
Sadler achieved fame and wealth with the tent show circuit. His show business beginnings were humble, starting as a high school dropout who joined a carnival troupe before moving around with roving repertoire companies. Sadler eventually signed up with Roy E. Fox’s Popular Players as a comedian and baritone horn player, advancing to the show’s top billed comic, becoming manager and buying out the company he renamed Harley Sadler’s Own Show.
Troupers were not trained performers, and a few moved into motion pictures and became stars, such as Jennifer Jones, Chill Wills, Will Geer, Lyle Talbot, Milburn Stone, Charles Winniger and Clark Gable, whom Sadler fired in the 1920s for stage fright. “I fired a million dollars,” Sadler said later.
Tent shows were pushed into the wings by motion pictures, and while the Sadler show experienced the financial ups and downs of business, the mask of tragedy changed the family’s course. Inconsolable after the 1941 death of their daughter, Gloria Sadler Allen, Sadler sold the tent show, entered the oil business and became Texas state representative and state senator from Sweetwater, serving multiple terms.
The family was unable to flee the mask of tragedy. Sadler died suddenly of a heart attack in 1954. Billie never recovered from her daughter’s untimely death in childbirth, became an alcoholic and, after her husband’s death, committed suicide at her home in Austin in 1955.
Today, in the Massengale-Sadler family plot in Cameron’s Oak Hill Cemetery, the famous show business family rests in peace, not prominence. Plain grave stones reveal names and dates, but not a whisper of the Sadlers’ flamboyant past and the adventurous circuit they traversed across Texas with their traveling tent show.
by Jeanne Williams - Telegram Staff Writer
Temple Daily Telegram - August 9, 2010
CAMERON — Not only did the traveling tent show circuit applaud Harley Herman Sadler with stardom and a lucrative livelihood, it also introduced him to the love of his life, Willie Louise “Billie” Massengale of Cameron.
The love story of Harley and Billie would have made an entertaining play for the traveling tent show stage but their lives ultimately could have been illustrated by Greek theater masks of comedy and tragedy.
Their story opened with happiness, with Billie cast as a Cameron city clerk who in the line of duty issued Sadler a permit to open his tent show in Cameron. Years later, the couple reminisced that they wed after a three-day whirlwind courtship, culminated by Billie’s dramatic exit through her bedroom window and a middle-of-the-night elopement.
Another version had Harley getting his permit, and later that night slipping the pretty city clerk a note scribbled on a gum wrapper asking her for a date. “Billy accepted the invitation; like many girls, she had a crush on the winsome young actor,” stated the biography “Harley Sadler and His Tent Show,” by Clifford Ashby and Suzanne DePauw May. “The infatuation apparently ripened into a true love. The next time the show came to Cameron, Billie feigned a head ache and sent her family to watch unknowingly the antics of their future son-in-law while she remained at home packing a suitcase.”
Later that night, when the family was asleep, she slipped out of her window into Harley’s arms, and sped into the night, witness in tow, for a proper midnight wedding.
The town marshal, William T. Massengale, Billie’s father, and her tall, muscular brother chased down the tent show the next day, but Billie remained with her new husband.
Not surprisingly, the Massengale family liked Harley and joined his tent show. Billie, described as “young, pretty and as likeable as her popular husband” served as business manager and the troupe’s leading lady. Gloria, the couple’s only child, born in 1922, performed in the vaudeville as soon as she could walk on the stage.
Sadler’s mother-in-law, Augusta Louise Carter Massengale, and other relatives worked in the traveling show. Billie also became a fashion icon among rural women, as she modeled the latest big-city fads as she sold ads, tickets, popcorn and bottled remedies.
Billed in Texas as “the first man to make a million dollars from a tent show,” Harley Herman Sadler left the family farm in Arkansas to seek his fortune on the traveling stage and wound up as an oilman and legislator, according to The Handbook of Texas On-Line.
Traveling tent shows of the 19th and 20th centuries brought the theater to rural America, not only staging plays, but offering sideshows and selling medicines. Tent shows, commonly charging 15 cents a head, played before a packed house of fans from big cities to small rural communities.
Sadler achieved fame and wealth with the tent show circuit. His show business beginnings were humble, starting as a high school dropout who joined a carnival troupe before moving around with roving repertoire companies. Sadler eventually signed up with Roy E. Fox’s Popular Players as a comedian and baritone horn player, advancing to the show’s top billed comic, becoming manager and buying out the company he renamed Harley Sadler’s Own Show.
Troupers were not trained performers, and a few moved into motion pictures and became stars, such as Jennifer Jones, Chill Wills, Will Geer, Lyle Talbot, Milburn Stone, Charles Winniger and Clark Gable, whom Sadler fired in the 1920s for stage fright. “I fired a million dollars,” Sadler said later.
Tent shows were pushed into the wings by motion pictures, and while the Sadler show experienced the financial ups and downs of business, the mask of tragedy changed the family’s course. Inconsolable after the 1941 death of their daughter, Gloria Sadler Allen, Sadler sold the tent show, entered the oil business and became Texas state representative and state senator from Sweetwater, serving multiple terms.
The family was unable to flee the mask of tragedy. Sadler died suddenly of a heart attack in 1954. Billie never recovered from her daughter’s untimely death in childbirth, became an alcoholic and, after her husband’s death, committed suicide at her home in Austin in 1955.
Today, in the Massengale-Sadler family plot in Cameron’s Oak Hill Cemetery, the famous show business family rests in peace, not prominence. Plain grave stones reveal names and dates, but not a whisper of the Sadlers’ flamboyant past and the adventurous circuit they traversed across Texas with their traveling tent show.