José Ramón Reachi Fayad was born in Mexico on March 5, 1903, the son of Antonio Reachi and María Fayad. The Reachis were a family of Syrian origin that settled in the area of Chilpancingo, in the state of Guerrero, in the mountains of the Sierra Madre del Sur. José Ramón had at least 11 brothers and sisters. Don Antonio had a store in the center of town, and also traded silver from the mining area.
José Ramón's older brothers were Manuel (b. 1896) and Santiago (b. 1898). As their father was keenly interested in their Education he sent them to the Evangelical School, where they learned English and French at an early age. But José Ramón was different, he had some throat affliction and his parents were told by the doctors that he was going to die young, so they did not send him to School at all.
The Mexican Revolution started in late 1910, and the country entered a decade of wars and political instability. Santiago joined the Maderista campaign under General Juan Almazán in its takeover of the town of Iguala. Then the Federal Army killed Don Antonio. Mexico was in chaos and their lives were in danger. Around 1912 Manuel and Santiago escaped to San Francisco, and reached out for help from their uncle who lived in Scranton, PA.
Since 1908 Rev. Thomas Fayad had established a ministry among the miners in the Poconos Coal Region. Rev. Fayad was a hard working man, he built the St. Joseph Melkite Greek Catholic Church with his own hands, his congregation was poor. He lived with his mother.
On March 21, 1913, María Fayad embarked for New York from Veracruz on the Morro Castle. José Ramón and 4 of his younger siblings came. José Ramón was 10 years old, and he stayed in the US since.
The Reachis were destitute, it was the hardest times. They moved with their grandmother in a modest house a short block from the Church. Rev. Fayad had to rebuild the Church several times too, either because of fire or because the foundations were caving, the terrain in Scranton was very unstable as a side-effect of coal-mining. The kids worked during the day, shoe-shining, delivering newspapers, and attended School at night, except José Ramón. Once a year Rev. Fayad knew how to put together a big event at Scranton's Town Hall, to collect money for his impoverished parish.
Manuel and Santiago moved to New York after 1914. Manuel was a sympathizer of Venustiano Carranza, and worked for Roberto V. Pesqueira, Carranza's representative in the US. While World War I was raging in Europe, Manuel met then unknown taxi-dancer Rudolph Valentino in New York, and they became best friends, they both danced Tango in Rector's in Times Square. The War ended in late 1918, but then the Influenza Pandemic hit, life did not quite return to normal until Summer 1920. Since July 1920 Manuel worked in the US as a diplomatic liaison for the Mexican governments of Adolfo de la Huerta and Álvaro Obregón, promoting American investments in Mexico. He moved to Los Angeles.
Valentino moved to Hollywood and in 1921 his performance in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse turned him into the biggest Tango dancing star in the US, his iconic full-body dancing scene became a model to follow. A cadre of imitators followed, the great GauchoMania of the 1920s was on. Gaucho clothes were thought to be de rigueur for performers angling for authenticity. To make up for his lack of schooling, José Ramón started taking dance classes in Scranton and participating in local dance contests. In 1922 and early 1923 he danced the fox trot with one Blanche Kelley.
By 1923 Valentino was touring the country with his own "Argentine Orchestra", said to be the same that played for him in the production of the silent movie. On April 13, 1923, Valentino and his Orchestra came to Scranton on the Mineralava Tour. Having declared himself on strike against the movie studios, Valentino and his wife Natacha Rambova danced the Tango in 88 locations across the US, helping revive interest for a form that was popular before the Great War. Natacha personally supervised the costumes, the Valentinos were mobbed by adoring fans. José Ramón must have gone to the show in Scranton, and the dance contest that followed.
The same month José Ramón danced in two Tango exhibitions, at the Town Hall and at Saxon's. A few days later, Anton F. Scibilia's revue Land of Tango opened for a whole week at the local Capitol Theater. The revue featured Peruvian Tango dancer Alberto de Lima, Alita Vedesca, Matilde Carpos and Heriberta Martínez, and its own "Argentine players". José Ramón must have seen them.
Scibilia's Land of Tango was winding down as Dreamy Spain was ramping up. Huge forces were transforming the entertainment industry, the theaters were splitting time between live performances and movies, and the tradition of the wandering Vaudevillians was starting to wane.
On July 21, 1924, Anton Scibilia premiered his new revue Land of Joy at the Orpheum in Allentown, PA. It played there for 5 days only. The revue consisted mostly of Spanish song and dance numbers, which were accented by Bill Adams, a comedian that joked about his difficulties trying to communicate with the many beautiful “señoritas”. Of course Scibilia’s revue was not really new: from Land of Tango Scibilia brought Matilde Carpos and Heriberta Martínez; and from Dreamy Spain he drew Fidel Irazábal and Mlle Emilia Delirio for the Apache and the Tango numbers, and Señorita Albertini, a soprano. Even the plot and the comedian Bill Adams were inherited from Land of Tango, it was really In Argentina on steroids.
The name of the new revue was a homage to Quinito Valverde's homonymous revue that played in New York in 1917. Land of Joy was larger than any of its predecessors, more than 20 people were part of the troupe. Scibilia was bundling a few acts into a single revue to supplant the regular bill of acts. Scibilia had a second revue called "Flashes of the Great White Way" also touring the Northeast at the time, they were in Scranton the previous month too. The idea of a "super revue" had been tried before by the Shubert vaudeville circuit to mixed results, Scibilia was trying it in Keith's circuit this season. That first week he also presented a second revue called “Cubanola” alongside Land of Joy, but this act soon fizzled. In August, the Land of Joy went to the Majestic in Harrisburg, PA; the Rajah in Reading, PA; and the Poli in Bridgeport, CT.
Señorita Carmela (Babe Hanrick’s new artistic name) joined the troupe on September 1 when they opened at the Orpheum in Altoona, PA. She was doing the “Castagnette Evolution” with Mr. Vincent Martínez (said to be from Buenos Aires). She was 16 years old. They spent a week in Altoona, and the program and the cast were still fluid, the show was centered on Delirio and Irazábal. On the second half of the week, an alternative revue, Oh Those Cuban Babies, was presented by the same cast.
Notes
1. Santiago Reachi went to Mexico to help Pancho Villa escape prison in Christmas 1912, and then returned to the US in 1915. He became a very successful salesman, and later, as a publicist, he helped launch the career of Cantinflas, the legendary Mexican comic actor. Santiago became one of the most powerful men in the Mexican film business in the 1940s with his POSA Films. He later wrote a book about his life stories, in which he claimed that his brother Manuel taught Valentino to dance.
Bibliography
1. Agnes-Ayres.net
http://www.noelledewinterdesign.com/agnesayresweb/agnesrudolphtango.htm
http://www.noelledewinterdesign.com/agnesayresweb/agnesrudolphtango.htm
2. Santiago Reachi's Villa and the Revolutionist
Exposition Press, Hicksville, NY 1976
3. The fascinating blog "The American Menu" by Henry Voigt
https://www.theamericanmenu.com/2015/08/rectors.html
Dedicatory
To my friend Doña Carmen Robles in Acapulco ("el mar es pa'l que sabe!")
