Charles Frohman: Manager and Man Part 32

He and Belasco had paid her considerable royalties. He thought she would be gratified by a friendly call. Frohman and Potter obtained letters of introduction from bankers, consuls, and Florentine notables, and sent them in advance to Ouida. The landlord of the inn gave them a resplendent two-horse carriage, with a liveried coachman and a footman.

Frohman objected to the footman as undemocratic. The landlord insisted that it was Florentine etiquette, and shrugged his shoulders when they departed, seeming to think that they were bound on a perilous journey.

Through the perfumed, flower-laden hills they climbed, the Arno gleaming below. The footman took in their cards to the villa of Mlle. de la Ramee. He promptly returned.

"The signora is indisposed," he remarked.

The visitors sent him back to ask if they might come some other day.

Again he returned.

"The signora is indisposed," was the only answer he could get.

Potter and Frohman drove away. Frohman was hurt. He did not try to conceal it.

"That's the first author," he said, "who ever turned me down. Anyway, the pancakes at lunch were delicious." He met rebuff--as he met loss--with infinite humor.

Stars now crowded quick and fast into the Frohman firmament. Next came Virginia Harned. Daniel Frohman had seen her in a traveling company at the Fourteenth Street Theater and engaged her to support E. H. Sothern.

She later came under Charles's control, and he presented her as star in "Alice of Old Vincennes," "Iris," and "The Light that Lies in Woman's Eyes."

Effie Shannon and Herbert Kelcey followed. Their first venture with him, "Manon Lescaut," was a direful failure, but it was followed up with "My Lady Dainty," which was a success.

Charles Frohman had various formulas for making stars. Some he discovered outright, others he developed. Here is an example of his Christopher Columbus proclivities:

One day he heard that there was a very brilliant young Hungarian actor playing a small part down at the Irving Place German Theater in New York City. He went to see him, was very much impressed with his ability, sent for him, and said:

"If you will study English I will agree to take care of you on the English-speaking stage."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _JULIA MARLOWE_]

The man a.s.sented, and Frohman paid him a salary all the while he was studying English. Before many years he was a well-known star. His name was Leo Ditrichstein.

Frohman now got Ditrichstein to adapt "Are You a Mason?" from the German, put it on at Wallack's Theater, and it was a huge success.

Besides Ditrichstein, this cast, which was a very notable one, included John C. Rice, Thomas W. Wise, May Robson, Arnold Daly, Cecil De Mille, and Sallie Cohen, who had played Topsy in the stranded "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Company, whose advance fortunes Frohman had piloted in his precarious days on the road.

Just as Frohman led the American invasion in England, so did he now bring about the English invasion of America. He had inaugurated it with Olga Nethersole. He now introduced to American theater-goers such artists as Charles Hawtrey, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Charles Warner, Sir Charles Wyndham, Mary Moore, Marie Tempest, and Fay Davis, in whose career he was enormously interested. He starred Miss Davis in a group of plays ranging from "Lady Rose's Daughter" to "The House of Mirth."

In connection with Mrs. Campbell's first tour occurred another one of the famous Frohman examples of quick retort. He was rehearsing this highly temperamental lady, and made a constructive criticism which nettled her very much. She became indignant, called him to the footlights, and said:

"I want you to know that I am an artist?"

Frohman, with solemn face, instantly replied:

"Madam, I will keep your secret."

One of the early English importations revealed Frohman's utterly uncommercialized att.i.tude toward the theater. He was greatly taken with the miracle play "Everyman," and brought over Edith Wynne Mathison and Charles Rann Kennedy to do it. He was unable to get a theater, so he put them in Mendelssohn Hall.

"You'll make no money with them there," said a friend to him.

"I don't expect to make any," replied Frohman, "but I want the American people to see this fine and worthy thing."

The play drew small audiences for some time. Then, becoming the talk of the town, it went on tour and repaid him with a profit on his early loss.

One of the happiest of Charles Frohman's theatrical a.s.sociations now developed. In 1903, when the famous Weber and Fields organization seemed to be headed toward dissolution, Charles Dillingham suggested to Willie Collier that he go under the Frohman management. Collier went to the Empire Theater and was ushered into Frohman's office.

"It took you a long time to get up here," said the magnate. "How would you like to go under my management?"

"Well," replied Collier, with his usual humor, "I didn't come up here to buy a new hat."

The result was that Collier became a Frohman star and remained one for eleven years. He and Frohman were constantly exchanging witty telegrams and letters. Frohman sent Collier to Australia. At San Francisco the star encountered the famous earthquake. He wired Frohman:

"San Francisco has just had the biggest opening in its history."

Whereupon Frohman, who had not yet learned the full extent of the calamity, wired back:

"Don't like openings with so many 'dead-heads.'"

All the while, William Gillette had been thriving as a Frohman star.

Like many other serious actors, he had an ambition to play _Hamlet_.

With Frohman the wishes of his favorite stars were commands, so he proceeded to make ready a production. Suddenly Barrie's remarkable play "The Admirable Crichton" fell into his hands. He sent for Gillette and said:

"Gillette, I am perfectly willing that you should play _Hamlet_, but I have just got from Barrie the ideal play for you."

When Gillette read "The Admirable Crichton," he agreed with Frohman, and out of it developed one of his biggest successes. "Hamlet," with its elaborate production, still awaits Gillette.

In presenting Clara Bloodgood as star in Clyde Fitch's play "The Girl with the Green Eyes," Frohman achieved another one of his many sensations. The smart, charming girl who had made her debut under sensational circ.u.mstances in "The Conquerors," now saw her name up in electric lights for the first time. Frohman's confidence in her, as in many of his proteges, was more than fulfilled.

Charles Frohman, who loved to dazzle the world with his Napoleonic coups, launched what was up to this time, and which will long remain, the most spectacular of theatrical deals. He greatly admired E. H.

Sothern, who had been a.s.sociated with him in some of his early ventures.

The years that Julia Marlowe had played under his joint management had endeared her to him. One day he had an inspiration. There had been no big Shakespearian revival for some time, so he said:

"Why not unite Sothern and Marlowe and tour the country in a series of magnificent Shakespearian productions?"

At that time Julia Marlowe had reverted to the control of Charles Dillingham, while Sothern was still under the management of Daniel Frohman. Charles now brought the stars together, offered them a guarantee of $5,000 a week for a forty weeks' engagement and for three seasons. In other words, he pledged these two stars the immense sum of $200,000 for each season, which was beyond doubt the largest guarantee of the kind ever made in the history of the American theater.

It was just about this time that Joseph Humphreys, Frohman's seasoned general stage-manager, succ.u.mbed to the terrific strain under which he had worked all these years, as both actor and producer. William Seymour stepped into his shoes, and has retained that position ever since.

Charles was constantly bringing about revolutions. Through him Francis Wilson, for example, departed from musical comedy, in which he had made a great success, and took up straight plays. He began with Clyde Fitch's French adaptation of "Cousin Billy," and thus commenced a connection under Charles Frohman that lasted many years. With him, as with all his other stars, there was never a sc.r.a.p of paper.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _E. H. SOTHERN_]