"I'm Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines,
I often live beyond my means;
I sport young ladies in their 'teens,
To cut a swell in the army."
Forgotten by one generation, this rollicking ballad of 1869 was revived for the next. In 1901 Charles Frohman produced Playwright Clyde Fitch's Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines. Female lead was pretty, 21-year-old Ethel Barrymore in her first starring role. The characters whistled and sang the old ditty but audiences blithely believed that both the dandified captain and his "Horse Marines" were something cooked up for their...
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