Mary Lewis

Mary Sybil Kidd Lewis was possibly the most publicized singer of the 1920s. Using her childhood training, she climbed her way to grand opera , gaining stage experience through vaudeville and operetta. Her career included radio performances and recordings with His Master’s Voice (HMV), Victor, and RCA. Mary Kidd was born on January 29, 1897, in Hot Springs (Garland County) to Charles and Hattie Kidd. Her father died about the time her brother was born two years later. Her impoverished mother moved with the children to Dallas, Texas. After the children lived in a series of foster homes, her brother was sent to Chicago, Illinois, to live with relatives. Her mother remarried but was unable to care for her children, and the child Mary Maynard (having taken her stepfather’s surname) was sickly and malnourished. In 1905, an elderly Methodist pastor, William Fitch, and his wife, Anna, took the young child into their home after having provided the girl with food and clothing for some time. Their own son, Frank, was a minister and had three children about the same age as Maynard. Anna Fitch tutored Maynard in schoolwork, and William Fitch trained her in music. In August 1906, the family moved to Eureka Springs (Carroll County) , where Fitch was assigned to the First Methodist Episcopal Church. Maynard began to be noticed for her solos during the services. In early 1908, William Fitch was named pastor of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church in Judsonia (White County) , where Maynard’s vocal talents were noticed again. His health failing, Fitch was assigned to the Little Rock Mission in 1909. As a parsonage was not provided in this assignment, Anna Fitch returned to her home in Holmes County, Ohio, and asked her father for her anticipated inheritance; she soon returned to Little Rock (Pulaski County) carrying $4,000 in gold, which she used to build one of the first houses in the Pulaski Heights subdivision. This is the place Maynard called home. In about 1912, chafing at the restrictions in the Fitch home, Maynard left to live with Henry Franklin Auten, a friend and influential Arkansas politician, real estate agent, and entrepreneur. An oprhan himself, Auten had taken in other disadvantaged children. He had heard Maynard sing and believed that she could establish a career singing. She enrolled in Little Rock High School, her first classroom experience, and received vocal lessons from Alice Henniger. In 1915, Mary Maynard married J. Keene Lewis of Little Rock but left him to join a traveling vaudeville troupe. After she became famous, her ex-husband demanded his name not be used, so for publicity purposes she eliminated mention of the marriage and changed her birthday to January 9, 1900, making it appear that she left Little Rock as a teenager rather than a young married woman. She retained the surname of Lewis. Vaudeville took Lewis to Hollywood, where she appeared in silent films before moving to New York City. She signed a contract with Florenz Ziegfeld as a prima donna in his Follies of 1921 . Although all the Follies were spectacular, the Follies of 1922 was climaxed by Charles LeMaire’s “Lace Land,” featuring elaborate costumes which achieved a theatrical glorification. Lewis herself wore a famous costume of peasant design with the lace treated with radium. The newly identified element provided a novel, eerie glowing quality in the dark. When the lights were turned off, the ghost of the dress and Lewis’s face, luminous in the glow from the peasant cap of lace, were all that could be seen on stage while she sang “Weaving.” About a month after the show opened, her health broke down. She spent three months in the hospital, probably from radiation poisoning, the first indication of her many health problems. The salary of the Follies allowed her to undertake vocal studies with noted vocal coach William Thorner, who encouraged her to follow her dream of grand opera. After an audition with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Lewis pur