Biography of Neil Schaffner

Neil Schaffner was no country bumpkin, but his alter ego was a complete hick. When Schaffner put on his bib overalls, red wig and silly hat, and painted on his huge freckles, clown mouth and peaked eyebrows, he became the best rube around - Tobias T. Tolliver of Hogscratch, Ark. Toby's cornball antics delighted hundreds of thousands of Midwesterners for more than 40 years. Actor Schaffner became Toby for more than 8,000 performances throughout Iowa, northeastern Missouri and western Illinois. Schaffner loved his rustic other half. "He's not particularly bright, but good-natured," he said. Schaffner's lifelong helpmate was his wife, Caroline, who played Susie B. Sharp, a gal in pigtails with the same huge freckles, wearing a calico dress and a straw hat with a single blossom. Together, the Schaffners brought live theater to small-town audiences. They and their acting company were popular when tent shows prevailed and rural America was starved for entertainment. It wasn't unusual to see four generations of a family sitting in the audience enjoying the corny jokes and slapstick. Toby always outslicked the city slickers, and good always won over evil. It was country humor geared for Midwestern audiences. "We know what the common people like, and we give it to them." Schaffner said He spent just a fraction of his time acting. He also wrote the plays, produced and directed them, printed advertising, painted scenery and did everything else. He was the company's manager, booking agent, publicist, acting coach, repairman, tent rigger, stagehand, electrician, orchestra leader, sound-effects man and concessionaire. The work was exciting, rewarding - and grueling. Neil E. Schaffner was born in Fort Dodge, the son of John Schaffner, who had moved to the city - then just a trading post - from Dubuque in 1855. Schaffner started in theater at age 10, in 1902, distributing posters and pasting up handbills for a local theater. In 1906, at 14, he and a friend, Richard Colby, started their own theater over a blacksmith's shop. As a young adult, Schaffner had a short-lived career as a comedian in Minnesota, then joined a touring acting company. He subsequently became owner of the Robinson Touring Co., which circus owner "Yankee" Robinson founded in 1855 in Rock Island, Ill. The Toby show, and lead character, were not Schaffner's creations. Some say the Toby character originated with Shakespeare, but Schaffner and others say it was an evolvement of a character named Tobe Haxton in a 1911-12 play called "Clouds and Sunshine" by W.C. Herman. Schaffner himself played the part of Tobe Haxton in Fort Dodge in 1913. It's said that early in the last century, there were 50 touring troupes in the nation performing the Toby shows. The Schaffners had met in 1924 when Caroline Hannah was performing in a musical in Fort Dodge. He hired her the next year and they were married July 24, 1925. The Schaffner Players came into existence the following Oct. 10. The Schaffners had one son, Rome Schaffner, who became a Cedar Rapids physician. The Schaffner Players usually performed for a week per town with a variety of comedies. Between each act cast members presented vaudeville numbers. Schaffner insisted on using trained talent, and many of the actors were college drama students trying to get stage experience. Rounding out the company were veteran stage players, often a little past their prime. Through the years, before each season began, the Schaffners would gather their actors at Wapello, where their large warehouse was located, spend two weeks rehearsing, and have their opening before going on the road. The company traveled in a caravan of trucks and carried a tent that could seat 1,100. If needed, 500 more seats could be added. In the winters, the company played in opera houses. Also each winter, Neil Schaffner wrote plays for the following season, often taking his old plays and updating them. They had such titles as "The Girl Next Door," "Be Yourself," "Once in a Blue Moon," "Aunt Dody from Dodge" and "Mr. Wimple Has a Dimple." Two Schaffner plays that are still performed regularly by other acting companies are "Natalie Needs a Nightie" and "Right Bed, Wrong Husband." Radio helped spread the Schaffners' popularity, with the couple breaking into the medium on WCAZ in Carthage, Ill., in 1935. They later performed on an NBC "Barn Dance Frolic" out of Chicago and on WMT in Cedar Rapids in 1938. The Schaffners received high praise for their low comedy. In 1954, a Ford Foundation grant allowed their show to be documented on the highly regarded CBS television show "Omnibus." The segment won an international award. In 1955, they were on Dave Garroway's national TV program "Wide Wide World." And Schaffner was surprised to find that he was the subject of Ralph Edwards' "This Is Your Life" TV program. Neil Schaffner had a heart attack in 1961, and the couple did a farewell tour in 1962, with Schaffner receiving his first standing ovation at his last performance. But, he lamented, he was behind the scenes in his underwear changing into his next costume, and was unable to acknowledge the moment. The Schaffners sold their business in 1963 and retired to their homes in Wapello and Sarasota Springs, Fla., where Neil wrote his memoirs and Caroline began planning a theater museum to hold the couple's vast collection of theater memorabilia. Taking over the show in 1963 - and the role of Toby - was James V. "Jimmie" Davis, a veteran member of the Schaffner Players. His wife, Juanita, played the part of Susie from 1963 to 1979. The Davises were on the road for 15 weeks each summer with their young sons, Brant, Darren and Ryan. They also made yearly appearances at the Iowa State Fair. In 1970, for example, the Schaffner Players under the management of Davis performed for 70,000 people during a 10-day run at the fair. The year before that, the players performed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., as part of an American folklore festival. Jimmie Davis remarried, and he and his wife, Grace, were the company's final Toby and Susie, performing the last time on Feb. 18, 1998, at a school assembly, two days before Davis died of a heart attack at age 61. After 143 years, the tent theater company - said to be the last of its kind - closed the curtain on May 18, 1998, at an auction in Mount Pleasant that drew about 500 people. Auctioned off were the trucks, trailers, posters, chairs and costumes - and the big tent itself. Neil Schaffner had died in 1969 at age 78 at a Burlington hospital. Caroline Schaffner died at her home in Mount Pleasant in October 1998 of a blood infection. She was 97. The Schaffners are buried at Wapello. Their memories live on in their thriving Theatre Museum of Repertoire Americana in Mount Pleasant, which will present a Schaffner play, "How Funny Are People," Sept. 1-4 in conjunction with the annual Old Threshers Reunion. Toby, of course, will be there. (information courtesy of Nick Mullins - nick@nijomu.com