DEADLY DRAMA at the Lyric Theatre
Obsessed stagehand killed himself after shooting actress
On Mary Street, just north of King Street in downtown Hamilton, there is a patchy grass field surrounded by a chain-link fence with a big “No Trespassing” sign.
Sitting so barren and unused, it is hard to imagine that a hulking fourstorey piece of Hamilton history once stood there.
Originally built in 1913, the Lyric Theatre had more than 2,000 seats — nearly as many as the auditorium at FirstOntario Concert Hall (Hamilton Place) has today.
The Lyric began as a Renaissance Revival-style Vaudeville playhouse featuring all kinds of popular touring troupes that even included the Marx Brothers. Later, it morphed into a movie house known as the Century Theatre.
There was great controversy when the building at 14 Mary St. was knocked down in 2010. After many years of failed revival plans and neglect, the city issued a demolition order out of concern the structure was unsafe. Critics argued it should never have been allowed to get into that state in the first place.
But, there is another disturbing story in the winds of time that swirl around these empty grounds of lost heritage. A century ago this week, on Nov. 25, 1921, five shots rang out at the theatre in a horrible act of misogyny.
They were not blanks scripted for a scene of a play. The shots were real and intentionally fired.
During a dinner break between a matinee and evening performance of a musical comedy called “Under the Apple Tree,” a 320-pouind stagehand named John “Jack” Grubb, 42, from New York confronted actress Cecile Bartley, 21, from Chicago.
It was not the first time Grubb harassed her. According to the Hamilton Herald, “He had been forcing his attention on Miss Bartley for some time past, despite the fact that she had informed him that she did not wish to have anything whatever to do with him.”
Bartley had complained to her bosses about the harassment. And Grubb was warned to stay away from her, or he would be fired.
Bartley and another actress named Helen Campbell had just finished some sewing in a dressing room. It was 5:30 p.m. The theatre was nearly empty, and the women had climbed a staircase toward the stage when Grubb pointed his revolver at Bartley and struck her with three shots. She stumbled down the stairs, collapsing on the floor. Grubb then walked to the back of the stage, where he fired two shots into his chest. Campbell was not injured.
Grubb died on the way to hospital. Bartley was saved by surgeons who used gunshot treatment skills they had developed while serving with the Canadian Army Medical Corps. in the First World War.
Local playwright/producer Brian Morton learned about the story through his passion for theatre history in Hamilton. He wrote a popular musical that borrowed the title of the 1921 production “Under the Apple Tree.” It had two theatre runs in 2018, one as part of the Hamilton Fringe Festival and the other at the Pearl Company.
Morton wanted to restage an expanded version of the play this month — for the 100th anniversary of the shooting — but because of the pandemic he decided against it. He
According to the Hamilton Herald, “(Grubb) had been forcing his attention on Miss Bartley for some time past, despite the fact that she had informed him that she did not wish to have anything whatever to do with him.”
is hoping to pull something together for next year.
“I can’t let the story die,” he says. A big part of what interests him is how facts became mutated in the community.
It is a fascinating theme to explore. There is often a disconnect between lore and truth. People act on what they think is true so it can have major consequences.
He says the hasty, initial newspaper coverage had notable mistakes that seemed to linger in the community. Some early stories said Bartley had died. Indeed, a custodian of the theatre, interviewed by The Spectator nearly 60 years later, in 1979, said he understood it was a murder-suicide rather than an attempted murder and suicide.
Some first reports erroneously said the shooting happened during a performance in front of 2,000 people, Morton says. It must have sounded like a sensational attempt at attention seeking by Grubb in those early stories.
Morton is continuing his research, collecting what he can to add to a massive collection of articles and documents he has gathered. He says he is also working on a historical novel about the case.
But through it all, he lacks one essential detail – what happened to Bartley. He believes she quit show business and married a man named Costello. According to 1930 U.S. Census data, she was living as a widow in Chicago with a six-yearold daughter.
But, where she went from there remains a mystery.
Dundas memorial turns 100
The Dundas Soldiers’ Memorial — one of the first statues in Canada to honour the fallen from the First World War — turns 100 years old next month.
The statue created by revered Canadian sculptor Hamilton MacCarthy, at a cost of $7,000, is the subject of an exhibit at the Dundas Museum and Archives on Park Street West.
Austin Strutt, exhibitions co-ordinator at the museum, says the statue, which was unveiled on Dec. 11, 1921, was paid for by “funds collected from almost every man, woman, and child in Dundas at the time and was a true community effort.”
“By the end of the war, dozens of Dundas soldiers had lost their lives, many in the famous battles of Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele. The people of Dundas felt strongly that their sacrifice should be commemorated.”
The statue was originally erected at the corner of King and Sydenham streets but later moved to a spot in front of the Market Street Armoury that is now the Dundas Lions Memorial Community Centre.
COVID-19 prevented formal Remembrance ceremonies from taking place at the statue in 2020 and 2021, but there was a small impromptu gathering at the site on Nov. 11 this year when the upcoming 100th anniversary was acknowledged.