Weber and Fields began as a two-man show in the genre of ethnic (German) humor. They were a funny man/straight man comedy duo, a precursor to such famous acts as
Abbott & Costello and
Laurel & Hardy. They later expanded their act into the genre of
vaudeville based on
burlesque, musical stage shows that broadly and somewhat raucously parodied other well-known contemporary Broadway shows, without the striptease acts with which the term was later associated. John "Honey" Stromberg, whose career began formally in
Tin Pan Alley, where he worked as an arranger for the Witmark musical publishing house, was already the writer of a popular song hit ("My Girl's a Corker, She's a New Yorker") before becoming the principal composer and orchestra conductor (with
Edgar Smith the principal writer) for these shows in 1896 with "The Art of Maryland," with which Weber and Fields opened their
Broadway Music Hall. Stromberg wrote the scores for ten productions, conducting nine of them. His most famous composition (the lyrics, however, credited to Robert B. Smith) was "Come Down Ma Evenin' Star" from
Twirly Whirly, written for the great diva of the day
Lillian Russell and (as the story goes) found in the pocket of Stromberg's coat after he had committed
suicide in July 1902, having ingested
Paris Green insecticide. ==Notes==