Cherry Sisters

They were also the plaintiffs in a landmark 1901 legal case heard by the Iowa Supreme Court, Cherry v. Des Moines Leader, which was instrumental in establishing and confirming the right of the press to fair comment.

The Cherry Sisters' vaudeville act, Something Good, Something Sad, was infamous for its poor quality and the vehement responses it elicited by audiences, who threw vegetables and disrupted performances.

In several instances the audience's violence reached dangerous proportions: in one incident in Dubuque, a fire extinguisher was sprayed directly into one of the sisters' faces, and the show was stopped by the local marshals to prevent further harm.

[1][2][4][6][7] In 1896, the Cherry Sisters were brought to Broadway by impresario Willie Hammerstein in an attempt to attract attention to his floundering new venue, the Olympia Music Hall.

"[2] The theory was sound: Something Good, Something Sad saved Hammerstein from bankruptcy only twelve days after opening on November 16, and ran for six weeks, drawing audiences who were curious to see the act the New York Times referred to as "Four Freaks from Iowa".

In 1930, Time magazine noted, "In every town that the Cherry sisters played, it was an invariable custom for the editor of the local paper to review their act with a column and a half of humor, satire, parody and biting sarcasm.

"[4] In January 1893, Fred P. Davis, the city editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, reviewed their performance at Greene's Opera House, noting, "...their knowledge of the stage is worse than none at all."

Critic and newspaper editor Billy Hamilton's piece described the sisters as being "three creatures surpassing the witches in Macbeth in general hideousness" and continued, "the mouths of their rancid features opened like caverns and sounds like the wailings of damned souls issued therefrom."

[9] In response, the Cherry Sisters sued the Chronicle and the Leader for US $15,000, claiming that the unflattering descriptions of their physical appearance presented in the article constituted acts of "false and malicious" libel.

"[3] Cherry v. Des Moines Leader is considered to be a landmark decision confirming the right to fair comment and critical analysis in the press[12] and is still frequently held up as a precedent in contemporary court cases.