Chief Os-ko-mon, Broadway Star

Can we really believe that the Broadway producer behind the HITCHY-KOO REVUE really enlisted an actual Native American into his troupe? Or that the Chief later appeared in another variety show?

And yet the noble Chief Os-ko-mon seems to have actually recorded a record or two. And in this essay, he is deemed a member of the Yakima tribe.

I toss out the question of his legitimacy to all WU-vies. Should he not be recorded as an early stalwart of Native American achievements, Broadway-style?

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Paul - Tue Jun 16, 2015
Category: 1920s | Actors | Native Americans

Comments

That music sounds awfully Hollywood Plains Injun to me.

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 06/16/15 at 09:55 AM

The chief could have been a rock guitarist - he had the back-arch pose.

Posted by KDP on 06/16/15 at 10:24 AM

Chief Os-Ko-Mon was touring in Hitchy Koo 1919 with Princess White Deer (Mohawk), they were two of the top billed and paid performers on this strange Cole Porter written musical revue. He was widely acknowledged by his tribe in the newspaper reviews at the time, as was Princess White Deer. He is part of a legacy of "Show-Indians" in the post- manifest destiny America.

Posted by Christiana on 10/26/15 at 05:25 PM

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