# Bill matter

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{{Short description|Descriptive phrase identifying acts performing in vaudeville}}
[[File:Houdini, nothing on earth can hold Houdini! Fred Ray & Co. in an intensely funny "Roman travesty" .... LCCN2014636903.jpg|thumb|Vaudeville poster showing a ''bill matter'' beneath each performer's name, such as "Nothing on Earth Can Hold [Houdini](/source/Houdini)!"]]
In the American [vaudeville](/source/vaudeville) and British [music hall](/source/music_hall) traditions, the '''bill matter''' was the identifying phrase used in advertising material to describe and summarize the appeal and attributes of each performer or group of performers.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=XFnfnKg6BcAC&dq=%22bill+matter%22&pg=PA109  Frank Cullen, Florence Hackman, Donald McNeilly, ''Vaudeville old & new: an encyclopedia of variety performances in America'', Psychology Press, 2007, p.109]</ref> Each was considered as a [trademark](/source/trademark), not to be used by other performers.<ref>Roy Hudd, ''Roy Hudd's Book of Music Hall, Variety and Showbiz Anecdotes'', Robson Books, 1993, {{ISBN|0-86051-929-5}}, p.195</ref>  Examples in Britain included [George Robey](/source/George_Robey), "The Prime Minister of Mirth"; [G. H. Elliott](/source/G._H._Elliott), "The Chocolate Coloured Coon"; [Max Miller](/source/Max_Miller_(comedian)), "The Cheeky Chappie"; and [Billy Bennett](/source/Billy_Bennett_(comedian)), "Almost a Gentleman".<ref name=kilgarriff/>

According to writer [Michael Kilgarriff](/source/Michael_Kilgarriff): "The heydays for these showbiz strap-lines were the inter-war years, for prior to 1914 performers saw little need for a personalised slogan, contenting themselves with such bald descriptions as 'Singer', 'Comedian', or 'Dancer'".  By the 1950s, the use of bill matter was seen as old-fashioned.<ref name=kilgarriff>Michael Kilgarriff, ''Grace, Beauty and Banjos: Peculiar Lives and Strange Times of Music Hall and Variety Artistes'', Oberon Books, 1998, {{isbn|1-84002-116-0}}, pp.13-15</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

Category:Advertising
Category:English-language idioms
Category:Vaudeville tropes
{{Entertainment-stub}}

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