A Vaudeville Act So Bad it Set Legal Precedent

Before Mrs. Miller and William Hung, and even before Florence Foster Jenkins became famous for singing badly, there were the Cherry Sisters: Ella, Lizzie, Addie, Effie, and Jessie Cherry. While mediocre talent is soon forgotten, the Cherry Sisters were so bad that they found a place in history.

The trope of an angry crowd throwing vegetables at a bad performance may have come from the Cherry Sisters. Previous acts were surely pelted with produce before the Cherrys, but they seem to have been famous for it. When they first performed their show, Something Good, Something Sad, in their hometown of Marion, Iowa, audiences were polite, as it was mainly their friends and neighbors in attendance. But as soon as they took their act on the road, it was clear at least one half of that title was misleading. “Spectators routinely laughed, heckled, catcalled, booed, and threw vegetables,” according to their Wikipedia page. One audience member sprayed a fire extinguisher directly into one of the women’s faces to stop the show. They eventually began performing behind a wire mesh to avoid being hit by projectiles (although they later denied ever doing so).

Strangely the group soldiered on, and was booked for various tours and even a Broadway theater. The A.V. Club found the Cherry Sisters at Wikipedia and did some more research on this unconventional vaudeville act. Read about them, and how their refusal to give up led to a refinement in libel law.