Juggler Paul Nolan with his wife Luella, visited Australia for a short tour under contract to the Tivoli theatre in 1915. Their stage name was Nolan and Nolan.
Paul, who was 27 at the time, was born in Sweden in 1889 as Axel Paul Noreen or Noren. As a child his parents contracted him to a circus, but unable to succeed as an acrobat, he turned to juggling. At 16 he took his juggling act to the United States, and a year later he married Luella, a dancer who was also a teenager. Whilst in Australia he was identified as Swedish and cited as an example of vaudeville’s international character.
Nolan and Nolan began their tour of Australia at the Sydney Tivoli in mid October 1915, and were quite popular. Paul was small and dapper, whilst Luella showed a ‘silken ankle’ which was much admired. They were billed as comedy jugglers. An unusual feature of the turn was a cabinet placed on stage with a placard declaring it a ‘swearing room’. Paul would retreat to the cabinet every time a trick went wrong, and strange sounds would echo through the theatre. This caused a great deal of amusement. The highlight of the act, and a trick that was positively reviewed, was Paul throwing a saucer, a cup, a spoon and sugar from his foot to his head and balancing the whole.
In Sydney the pair was featured in a photo, received warm reviews and played for about a month. During that time Paul, evidently a man who told embroidered tales, told a story about meeting the King of Sweden. The story varied in details, but the crux was that one Christmas 9 year old Paul attracted the attention of the king who generously bought the young boy some toys. It seemed that the young couple socialised in Sydney because the story was published in several newspapers with a sly aside talking about it being more a press story than an historical fact.
They moved to Melbourne in late November. There they juggled hats and continued the bit with the swear box and the cup and saucer. Nolan left his hats in Sydney thinking he could replace them in Melbourne, but apparently there was a lack of bell toppers in that city. In Melbourne Luella threw saucers to Paul from the wings and he then manipulated them. This was a much admired trick. One review said that they rated the Nolans highly for ‘grotesqueness and dexterity.’
However, it was in Melbourne that they received their only negative review. The scurrilous local tabloid, The Truth, said that apart from the saucer trick, ‘every scrap of the turn has been seen here time and time again.’
Shortly afterwards the press reported another story which was perhaps meant to endear the couple to Melbourne audiences. According to the newspapers, one day a fellow performer passed Paul and Luella outside the theatre and greeted them with ‘good afternoon’. The greeting elicited a burst of laughter from the couple. They explained that Paul was an awkward teenager when he met Luella in America, and he spoke little English. Hoping to impress the young woman, the Swede decided to practise. He managed to say ‘good afternoon’ to Luella, who took this as a marriage proposal. She said ‘yes’ and they got married.
The pair only stayed in Melbourne until Christmas.
Despite being encouraged to remain in Australia by their American agent Norman Jeffries, they only had one more brief appearance in Sydney before heading home on the Ventura on January 26th 1916. They returned to San Francisco on March 15 after stopping in Hawaii for a brief performance.
When they returned, according to Variety, they spoke highly of the treatment of American artists by Hugh McIntosh, the owner of the Tivoli. This was perhaps a rebuke of rumours that suggested McIntosh was underpaying American performers.
Nolan and Nolan continued as a duo until around 1920, but Paul continued his career as a juggler for decades afterwards. He passed away in 1966.
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