Sam T. Jack

Sam T. Jack
Sam T. Jack from the frontispiece of the promotional biography How He Does It (1895)
Born	(1852-12-31)31 December 1852 Pennsylvania, USA
Died	1899 (aged 47)
Nationality	American
Occupation	Impresario
Known for	The Creole Show

Sam T. Jack (31 December 1852 – 1899), a burlesque impresario, was a pioneer of the African-American vaudeville industry in the USA with his Creole Burlesque Show. He was also known for staging increasingly risqué shows in Chicago, where young women appeared wearing only skin-colored tights.

Sam T. Jack was born on 31 December 1852 in rural Pennsylvania. According to an 1895 biography, which he may have commissioned and may be unreliable, he served in the army for a short period, and then in the oil business in western Pennsylvania. In 1872 he opened the Oil City Opera in Oil City, Pennsylvania. He opened other opera houses in nearby Franklin and Titusville that specialized in melodrama. His biography says that from 1873–77 he ran a showboat, and his Alice Oates Comic Opera Company toured the USA in 1880–84.

There are records of Sam Jack being the principal of the Sam Jack Stock Company in Oil City. Jack's Oil Region Circuit was able to provide far better entertainment than had been offered in the past. Thus at the start of the 1877-78 season he brought in the Berger family's troupe, providing a respectable entertainment of music and sketches, Duprey and Benedicts Minstrels, the Washburn troupe and the Union Square Theatre Company. Jack was manager of Eliza Weathersby's Froliques, a variety show, which also played in the oil region. In 1878 the recently remodeled opera house reopened under his management. He had other theater interests in the area. Thus on 13 December 1879 the Meadville Evening Republican reported, "Mr. Sam Jack, the manager, who has given Meadville and the towns of the region so many entertainments of the highest order this season, deserves the most liberal patronage of the public ... for his enterprise and good judgment as a caterer to the best classes of theatre goers."

In 1879 Jack became manager of the newly renovated Pillot's Opera House in Houston. Jack began his career as a burlesque manager in 1881, when he was responsible for the number two company of Michael B. Leavitt's Rentz-Santely review. It was based in Chicago and toured the western USA. Jack added risqué elements from Western honky‐tonk entertainments to the shows. After leaving Leavitt, Jack opened the Lilly Clay Colossal Gaiety Company, the first of his own burlesque shows. The star of the show, Lilly Clay, came from England. Leavitt says in his memoirs that he sold Jack the title "Lilly Clay Gaiety Company" for $5,000 in 1889. Jack's biography does not mention Leavitt at all, but portrays Jack as entirely self-made.