Chapter LV
WELCOME (!) HOME
The Australian sense of humor is peculiar. My last night at Sydney, at the end of the five-thousand-dollar-week, I interpolated in my speech of farewell a line from Shakespeare, "Parting is such sweet sorrow." The audience applauded vociferously!
We packed with joyous anticipation. We were going home!
After we got out of the theatre I made straight for a little hotel run by a New England woman and gorged myself on baked beans! On the way I ran across Arthur Hoops and Louis Payne.
"Governor," said Payne, "if we turn up aboard the ship to-morrow a bit squiffy or with a hold-over, you won't mind, will you?" "Go to it," responded I. "I may turn up that way myself." They kept their promise and I nearly kept mine!
There were hundreds of people at the pier to see us off. I wondered if they were inspired by feelings of gratitude! It sounded like a courteous farewell but I was never sure.
At Honolulu we had our first taste of the "Welcome home" we were all so fondly counting on. A new theatre had just been finished and a Mr. Marks, now one of the lessees of the Columbia Theatre in San Francisco, was on the ground making arrangements for its formal opening as agent for the Frawley company.
Almost as soon as we docked a dozen gentlemen approached me and asked that I give a performance that night in the new playhouse. I told them it was impossible; our wardrobes and scenery were packed in the hold of the ship; it would be out of the question.
"Never mind," said they, "go on in your street clothes!"
I explained we had no make-up even. My company was scattered all over the island, sight-seeing.
"We'll send out a posse and corral them," they insisted.
"But how will anyone know we're going to play?" I asked.
"We'll call everybody in town on the telephone and tell them," they replied.
And they did. And that night, in our street clothes and without make-up, we gave a performance that took in $1100, of which I got ninety per cent! It was a nice bit of spending money on the way to San Francisco.
Marks was very indignant. But the gentlemen told him that if he tried to prevent the performance they would cancel the contract with Frawley.
Altogether that stop at Honolulu was joyous. And as we sailed out of the harbor the next morning, followed by the strains of Aloha from the native band, we were a very happy lot.
We were amazed to find a solid jam of humanity waiting on the pier in San Francisco. Such a greeting had never entered our minds! When we opened the newspapers we found the reason. They were teeming with the most sensational matter concerning our goings on in Australia. It was indeed a "welcome home!"
We paid as little attention to the scurrilous slanders as possible and prepared for our opening at the Baldwin Theatre in "An American Citizen." As a measure of safety I announced "The Rivals" as the bill for the second half of the week. But capacity audiences was the rule during the whole engagement.
I was very nervous about doing "The Rivals." I knew comparison with Jefferson was inevitable. I had caught it in Australia for daring to play a rôle made classic by the "dean of the drama" and I feared for my presumption in invading his own bailiwick. I was afraid I could never avoid using Jefferson's methods as I had played with him so many times; but I finally hit on the plan of giving Bob a country dialect and this made him a very different characterization from Jefferson's. I received splendid reviews and one editorial.
Chapter LVI
NUMBER THREE
The series of malicious falsehoods concerning Maxine and me which were being published daily would have made us fit subjects for the penitentiary had they been true. Articles, hideous in their construction, were sent broadcast throughout the country purporting to picture our lives and conduct in the Antipodes. (And with what zest did the press of America copy them!)
By the time our opening in "An American Citizen" arrived we were so nervous we gave a performance fifty per cent below our best. But the next morning we were amazed to discover that we were a great aggregation of actors – Maxine and I scoring tremendously! The papers expressed much surprise that she had "improved" so much during her short association with me.
Poor, deluded critics! Never by any possible chance do you differentiate. Never do you disassociate the player from his part. A genius playing Osric would vanish into obscurity if a duffer were playing Hamlet. Maxine Elliott, be she good or bad, was quite as clever when I first saw her act as the night she opened with me in San Francisco. But now she was appearing in a star part, surrounded by a clever company, beautifully gowned and (pardon a little pride) very carefully edited! She had left a dollar aggregation, an extremely good competitor, Miss Blanche Bates (whose acting eclipsed Maxine's beauty), and a company of players all acting for individual hits irrespective of the ensemble. She returned a member of an organization noted for its team work whose motto was "One for all and all for one" – and that particular one Maxine! She appeared in a character molded to her charm and beauty and supported (!) by a star of twenty years' standing!
Naturally she scored in such an environment! She would have done as well months before under the same conditions, but the ever wise critic saw an "improvement."
Was it her acting or the unwholesome notoriety that preceded us that had opened his discerning eyes?
I wonder.
I sandwiched in "The Rivals" with "An American Citizen" as a matter of self-protection. Max was fairly smothering me in most of the cities we visited! I was shining in a reflected light, her effulgence forcing me back into the shadows. Also, and equally annoying to me, questions were beginning to be asked as to our marital intentions. Allusions to "Beauty and the Beast" were not infrequent. Happily a few of the critics were respectful and while none could pay homage to my beauty a few allowed that I had not lost the art of acting! This was encouraging and I endeavored to win the fair Maxine along those lines.
I finally succeeded!
But it was some endeavor!
I don't remember the date of the marriage. It is extremely difficult for me to remember dates. I know the place, however! It was the Hollenden Hotel in Cleveland. And I know I spent the previous evening with dear Dick Golden and Walter Jones and we three jolly bachelors had a bully time! It was a lucky thing that the marriage ceremony was only recovery for me! The boys had put me in no condition to learn a new part!
Max received two wedding presents – a diamond ring from me and an anonymous letter from some "Christian lady" warning her against the "Monster" who had lured her into "Holy Matrimony!"
We were very happy – at least I was – for a few months. I made the mistake of introducing her to a few conspicuous, powerful financiers who gave her tips on the stock market (and casual luncheons!). They also gave me tips. Mine lost invariably. Hers always won. How very strange!
As we toured through the country to splendid business I discovered her authority was growing. I was constantly being censured for my grammar. She began to stage-manage my productions without waiting for my suggestions. She complained of my companions whom she found "common." My previous marriages came in for a share of her disapproval.
I found this amusing inasmuch as she herself had made a previous plunge; as I had taken one of her family out of a lumber yard and tried to make him an actor; as I had taken a cousin from a picture gallery in Boston where she was going blind trying to copy miniatures and made her an actress, and as another member of her family had committed suicide in a disreputable place in San Francisco. With this genealogical tree waving in the background she still had the courage to pluck my friends from my garden and call them "vulgar."
Perhaps they were and are, but they all continue to be my friends!
It was during the run of "An American Citizen" that the first thought of the disruption of my union with Maxine clouded my mind. It is seldom I care to refer to the dead except in a kindly way, but her attitude and that of Clyde Fitch is sufficient provocation.
Fitch at this time (in 1897) was not especially prosperous. Two years earlier he had come to me with an idea of making a play out of the story of Nathan Hale's life. I had told him I thought it an excellent subject and to go ahead. When he finished the play he decided it was beyond my capabilities and submitted it instead to E. H. Sothern – who turned it down! Then he went to Mansfield with the script and again met with no encouragement. From Mansfield he peddled "Nathan Hale" to each of the three Frohmans – and they unanimously voted it no good.
Thus it transpired that I was in no friendly mood when I received the following letter: —
154, West Fifty-Seventh St.Oct. 24, 1897.
My dear Mr. Goodwin,
I am just returned to N.Y. & I am glad to find you here, at least I shall be glad if you let me read you my new play – "Nathan Hale" – & dont escape me as you did so successfully in London. If you liked the scheme & story at all, I feel pretty sure you will like the play itself twice as well, & if you had been at the new Columbia College the other day when they unveiled a bas relief of Knowlton– one of my characters – & heard the tremendous enthusiasm at the slightest mention of Hale, I think your interest in the play & subject would have immensely increased.
I can read it in two hours – or less, you can send me away as soon after I start as you like, if you dont care about it. I've no desire to choke the play down yr throat. All I want you to do is take one chance in it! & right away, as I am back here to sell this play to somebody & dont want to waste time. Wont you give me an appointment tomorrow? or the next day? or the next? (Any hour you like.) Go on! Do!
Yours,
Clyde Fitch
I must tell you the girl's part comes out rather important, but I hope you won't mind that.
And this is the gentleman who, a few years later, insisted on the transportation of an entire company from Philadelphia to New York because he was too weary to make the trip himself. (The company was rehearsing one of his plays and he insisted on personally supervising it.)
Even after his supplicating letter I dodged Fitch. I didn't like him in the first place and his shabby behavior with "Nathan Hale" made me disgusted with him. I broke a dozen appointments with him, but finally he cornered me and I had to hear the play. While I knew I could neither look nor suggest the character I did see possibilities for acting and I was sure the rôle of Alice Adams would fit Maxine down to the ground. For these reasons I agreed to produce the play.
From that day forward Clyde Fitch and my wife conspired against me. They exchanged endearing expressions through the mail – aided and abetted by the wife of a Chicago dentist who had committed suicide after one of his "best friends" had stolen his wife (who deserted her child to come to New York and aid other women with affinities!). Fancy, killing one's self! Why not kill her and her paramour?
They made a worthy trio! And they finally succeeded in hatching a scheme which developed in Maxine's starring alone in a play written for her by Fitch called "Her Own Way" – an appropriate title cunningly selected. They launched her as a star (on my money!) and broke up my home! They had to come to me to obtain bookings for a road tour. For putting up the cash I was to get one third of the profits. Abe Erlanger refused to go in with me for one dollar, insisting that Maxine would be an awful flivver on her own. But the play made an instant hit and her success was just as big.
Could I have possessed even a little bit of clairvoyance I should have then and there bought a ticket to Reno!
Chapter LVII
WHEN WE WERE TWENTY-ONE AND OTHER PLAYS
Our success with "Nathan Hale" was tremendous. For Maxine it was nothing short of a triumph. And during the season I signed a contract with Fitch for another play to follow it. He turned out "The Cowboy and the Lady." Neither Max nor I fancied our characters and although we did big business with the play we were most uncomfortable in our rôles. It failed miserably in London – where they recognize the real value of plays!
I think it was the summer of 1898 (but what difference does it make?) that I met Henry V. Esmond, the author-actor and a very clever young man. In any event it was in London and at the time of the failure of "The Cowboy and the Lady." He asked me how I would like a play founded on Thackery's poem "When We Were Twenty-One." I thought the idea immense and told him so. We made a contract for the play on the spot and six weeks later he delivered the manuscript!
Max and I were both delighted with it. We brought it back with us in the Fall but instead of producing it in New York immediately we revived "The Cowboy and the Lady." Poor as that play was it absolutely refused to play to bad business! I kept it on until about the middle of the season and took it off with a nineteen-hundred-dollar-house begging me to keep it going!
"When We Were Twenty-One" made the biggest and the most nearly instantaneous hit of any play I ever produced. It was a gold mine for me. But there is little I could say about it that any of you, dear readers, can't anticipate. I might say only that I never played the rôle I liked best in the play!
It was along about this time that I made a production of "The Merchant of Venice." And it was a production! And, although it was not so advertised, it was as nearly an "all-star" cast as many of the revivals of late years have been – if not more so! For four weeks my characterization of Shylock seemed to please the public and certainly attracted large audiences in spite of the fact that the critics in New York roasted my performance to a fare-ye-well. For one reason or another the critics have always resented me except as a comedian!
My next production was "The Altar of Friendship" which had been a failure with John Mason in the leading rôle. He had made a great personal success and the play had received splendid notices but the public stayed away. When the late Jacob Litt consigned the production to the storehouse I opened negotiations with him, bought the property and put it on. It proved to be one of the biggest money-makers Maxine and I ever had! But Maxine's bee for starring alone came buzzing by and deafened her to the tinkle of the box office receipts. It finally stung me and our professional partnership came to an end. "The Altar of Friendship" was our last joint vehicle.
"The Usurper" was my first production after our separation. It made a big hit on the road but failed in New York. I left Gotham at the end of two weeks and went to Boston where we did a tremendous week, continuing on for the rest of the season to splendid business.
It was during this time that Klaw & Erlanger approached me with an offer to open their new New Amsterdam Theatre. The bill was to be "A Midsummer Night's Dream," my rôle Bottom. It sounded good to me and I accepted. Erlanger gave it a most lavish production and announced it for a long run. The opening house was $2700! But the next night the receipts dropped to $1100. I have always believed it was due to insufficient advertising and to the fact that the theatre was new and in a strange locality (in those days Forty-second Street west of Seventh Avenue was strange – theatrically!).
Erlanger was much annoyed. He was not very keen for Shakespeare anyway. In his disappointment he rashly determined to end our engagement in three weeks. I argued and pleaded in vain. I could not make him see it was madness deliberately to kill all chances of our making any money on the road. And to quit in three weeks in New York was admission of failure beyond dispute.
It didn't take long for the trouble to start. Within a fortnight Alan Dale got in his choicest work. An illustrated page in the Hearst Sunday paper showed Maxine, costumed to represent Florence Nightingale, standing Juno-like with outstretched hands as if she might be Charity – or perhaps Hope! Below her was a caricature of Arthur Byron who had just failed in a play called "Major André." Maxine had moved into the Savoy Theatre as Byron was forced out. He was pictured running up a hill with a valise in his hand, saying, "She saved me, Nat!" I was down in the lower left hand corner at the back door of a theatre in a beseeching attitude. Out of my mouth issued these words: "Won't you please come in, Max?"
That alleged comic picture settled our road business once and for all. To make matters worse, if that were possible, Klaw & Erlanger acted on Dale's suggestion and insisted on Maxine's following my engagement at the New Amsterdam. I knew this was the last straw and fatal to whatever chances we might have had otherwise and I asked to be let out then and there. But Erlanger insisted that we go to Boston.
Our company numbered one hundred and fifty people! Our weekly expenses were $6,000!
Arrived in Boston I strolled into the Hollis Street Theatre where we were to open. There wasn't a soul on Hollis Street as I turned the corner from Washington Street. It was noon and I had expected to see a line extending half way to the corner. I found the treasurer in the box office smoking a cigarette. After the usual salutations I inquired casually if we were sold out.
"Pipe that rack," quoth the treasurer laconically as he indicated a forest of tickets arranged on a board.
"Are all those tickets for to-night?" I asked.
"Uh huh," grunted the treasurer and took a deep inhale of his cigarette.
We opened to less than $600. The performance made such a tremendous hit that we were sold out the last three performances of the week and the following week saw never an empty seat at any performance – and for all that we made no money! From Boston we went to Brooklyn where our opening house was $400. (Florence Nightingale was working her influence!) We played to gradually increasing business – but not enough to cover expenses – during the rest of the week. The next (and last) stand was Newark where we opened to $200! Again business increased with every performance but again we had a losing week. Then it was I insisted on closing. Florence Nightingale was an advance agent no attraction could hope to win out against. Thus Newark saw the last of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
And this is the record of a play which drew in two performances in one day more than $5,000! The day was the last Saturday of our three-weeks' run at the New Amsterdam!
Following this fiasco I entered into a contract with Charles Frohman under which we produced "Beauty and the Barge," by Jacobs, the English playwright. It should have run a year. It failed dismally. I knew it would after witnessing the dress rehearsal. David Warfield, Frohman and I sat out front at that rehearsal, my part being read so I could get an idea of the ensembles. I discovered my two ingenues might have been taken from the Forest Home! My two light comedians were so light I am sure they could have walked on water! An old man character insisted on hitting the hard stage with his cane – supposed to be a garden! I begged Frohman to postpone the opening. These five people had a twenty-two-minute scene before I came on. Warfield agreed with me.
A friend of Frohman's had come in meantime. He insisted that my "marvelous" acting would carry the play.
"Marvelous acting be damned!" I cried. "No human being could succeed with such incompetent surroundings."
I was voted down, however, and the next night we opened at the Lyceum Theatre. The play was dead before I made my entrance, a score of men leaving the house in the first fifteen minutes. My dressing-room was within five feet of the stage and I could hear every sound, from front and back. It wrung my heart as I heard the delicate, pretty little scenes I had worshipped when I had seen Cyril Maude's company play it in London just torn all to pieces! Point after point went for nothing. All the humor disappeared. It was awful!
Finally came my cue and I went on. My reception was vociferous and brought me out of my slough of despair. I even got a scene call after I made my exit. But the play was doomed. Afterwards I commiserated with Mr. Jacobs in London and told him it was only the acting that was to blame for its failure to run two years. It ran two weeks.
"Wolfville," Clyde Fitch's dramatization of those excellent short stories by Alfred Henry Lewis, was my next production. This time it was not the fault of the actors. Fitch was to blame. He had taken all of Lewis' characters and then tried to write an original story around them. Fitch couldn't touch Lewis when it came to Western types – or stories. Again, before the first performance, I told Frohman we would fail – and we did, the piece dying at the end of six weeks.
Frohman was at a loss to provide me with another play. He suggested that I take a steamship and see the first performances of two plays which he controlled, "Dr. Quick's Patient" and "The Alabaster Staircase." The latter was written by Captain Marshall of England who wrote "The Second in Command." John Hare was to enact the leading rôle. It looked good to me and I jumped across. My trip saved me two more failures as each of this pair of plays lasted just one week. Instead of either of them I brought back a manuscript of a comedy called "What Would a Gentleman Do?" – which proved as big a failure as any I ever had! Next I produced "The Master Hand" by a Mr. Fleming – whew! what a flivver! (The play, of course!)
But before I increase this list further let me hark back to matters more personal if no less gloomy!