Ontario kings

Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Summer, 2002

The Canadian Kings of Repertoire, The Story of the Marks Brothers by Michael V. Taylor tells the true story of seven brothers from eastern Ontario who, along with their leading ladies, played to some eight million Canadians and unnumbered Americans on the vaudeville circuit. Beginning with one theatrical company in 1876, this stagestruck family from rural Lanark County had parlayed a natural affinity and no training at all into a four-company enterprise by the turn of the century.

Perthaps the book's greatest charm is the plenitude of charming portraits and playbills that illustrates almost every page, so redolent of the last era of show business before the onslaught of the mass media. (Natural Heritage Books 2001)