Famous Prima Donnas Part 5

When Miss Glaser really gets down to business and makes fun wholly for her audience, she is a most entertaining little woman. Her talent for burlesque is unmistakable, although her characters do not always have the atmosphere of spontaneity. Her whole experience having been with Francis Wilson, it is not strange, perhaps, that she should have adopted some of his methods. A comic opera comedian, whose humor is so much a matter of individuality, is the last person in the world to be imitated.

In many cases he is an acquired taste, and almost always he is only conventional, trading on a trick of personality.

Lulu Glaser was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, on June 2, 1874, and continued to live there until she joined Francis Wilson's company in 1892.

"I surely inherited no longing for the stage," once remarked Miss Glaser, "for none of my family ever had any professional connection with the theatre. I just had a pa.s.sionate longing to sing. I talked of it incessantly, and finally father said to mother: 'Let her try it; she will never be satisfied until she does. You go with her to New York, and we shall see what comes of it.' So to New York my mother and I went, and through a friend who knew somebody else who knew Francis Wilson's leader of the orchestra, I got an introduction to this all-important personage.

"Well, I think it was all of a month we had to wait before the interview could be arranged, and then one eventful day I sang for Mr. de Novellis on the stage of the Broadway Theatre. No, strangely enough, I wasn't nervous in the least. The song, I remember, was 'My Lady's Bower;' and when I had finished it, Mr. de Novellis said that he would suggest that I should see Mr. Wilson,--'the great Wilson,' as I described him in a letter to my father after the first interview. The company was to produce 'The Lion Tamer,' and Mr. Wilson made me understudy to Miss Marie Jansen, meantime giving me a place in the chorus.

"My chance to sing alone came sooner than I antic.i.p.ated, before I was ready for it, evidently, because on the night when Miss Jansen fell ill, and I was to take her place, I fainted before the curtain went up. But I was not discouraged. 'She is sure to do splendidly now,' said Mr.

Wilson, when he heard of that faint. A few months later, Miss Jansen resigned to become a star, and Mr. Wilson informed me, while I was still in the chorus, that I was to have her place. And he regarded it as the greatest achievement of my life, that for the remaining weeks of the season I never told a soul of what was in store for me."

During her first season Miss Glaser played, besides Angelina in "The Lion Tamer," Lazuli in "The Merry Monarch." Then she tried Javotte in "Erminie," which performance added greatly to her reputation. It is perhaps, the best thing that she has ever done, and certainly bears comparison with the work of other soubrettes in the part. Her next role was that of Elverine in "The Devil's Deputy," and from this came still more praise. The rather sedate--for a soubrette--character of Rita in "The Chieftain" was her next exploit. This was what might be termed a "straight" part, and was only given to Miss Glaser after two other roles had been a.s.signed to her. "The Chieftain" was produced in the fall of 1895. When Mr. Wilson secured the opera the previous spring, he told Miss Glaser that she was to play Dolly.

"Very well," said she, not in the least surprised, for the role was precisely in her line. But she had scarcely begun to plan her conception of the character when somebody discovered that Dolly appeared only in the second and last acts.

"That will never do, you know," said Mr. Wilson. "I tell you what we will do, you must be Juanita, the dancing girl. That is the soubrette part, after all."

"Very well," said Miss Glaser again, with perfect confidence that she would be cast to the best advantage, whatever happened.

The season ended, Miss Glaser went with her mother to their summer home at Sewickley, just out of Pittsburg, and Mr. Wilson sailed for Europe.

He saw "The Chieftain" in London, and at once sent a cablegram to Sewickley: "You are to play Rita." This was indeed a surprise to Miss Glaser,--to be the dignified prima donna of the house bill! It almost took her breath away.

"Do you think I can do it?" she asked Mr. Wilson, when he returned.

"I will stake my reputation on it," was the prompt reply.

So when Sullivan's opera was produced at Abbey's Theatre in New York in September, the public and the critics declared that Mr. Wilson's leading woman was as strong in the "straight" parts as she had proved herself to be in the lighter lines in which she had first won her reputation.

"But, oh, wasn't I nervous that first night!" confessed Miss Glaser.

"And didn't I pick up the papers the next morning with fear and trembling!"

Miss Glaser, before the run of the opera was over, however, found her part in "The Chieftain" somewhat hampering, and she was pleased enough when Pierrette in "Half a King" placed her back in the ranks of the joyous and captivating soubrettes. Light-hearted, too, was her part in "The Little Corporal," a role which travelled all the way from the long skirts of a court lady to the not too tight trousers of a drummer boy in the French army.

In "The Little Corporal" one could not help but notice how great an influence Mr. Wilson's clowning methods had exercised on Miss Glaser.

Mr. Wilson, however, was artistic in his fooling, and was not given to overdoing the thing, which was not strange, for he had been at it a good many years.

Miss Glaser especially worked to the limit the old "gag" popular with variety "artists," of laughing at the jokes on the stage as if they were impromptu affairs gotten up for her especial benefit. She did it rather well, although she did it too much. Perhaps because the jokes were funny and one laughed at them himself, one liked to think that Miss Glaser--some time before, of course--did see something funny in Mr.

Wilson's remarks, and that she laughed at them now because she remembered how she had laughed at them at first. Marie Jansen used to laugh, too, when she was with Mr. Wilson, and her laugh was a wonderful achievement,--a thing of ripples, quavers, and gurgles. And this coincidence suggests a horrible thought. Possibly Mr. Wilson himself was to blame for these laughs. Possibly he stipulated in the bond that his soubrettes should laugh early and often at his jokes as a cue to the audience. In the early scenes of "The Little Corporal," regardless of laughs and all else, Miss Glaser was captivating, and her first song--it was something about a coquette, as I recall it--was a fetching bit of descriptive singing.

During the season of 1899-1900, Miss Glaser played Roxane in "Cyrano de Bergerac," and Javotte in "Erminie."

CHAPTER XII

MINNIE ASHLEY

[Ill.u.s.tration: MINNIE ASHLEY.]

Artless girlishness, remarkable personal charm, and skill as an imaginative dancer scarcely equalled on the American stage, account for Minnie Ashley's sudden success in musical comedy. Aside from her dancing, which is artistic in every sense, she is by no means an exceptionally talented young woman. Nature was indeed good to her when it endowed her with a most fascinating personality, a pretty, piquant face, and a slim, graceful figure, but it was by no means lavish with other gifts most desirable. Miss Ashley's range as an actress is decidedly limited; she is not to the slightest degree versatile, and she has no notion at all of the art of impersonation. Her singing voice is more of an imagination than a reality, although one is sometimes deceived into believing that she can sing in a modest way by the admirable skill with which she uses the little voice that is hers. She has a due regard for its limitations, and she delights one by the clearness of her enunciation and the expressive daintiness of her interpretation of the simple ballads that show her at her best.

Nothing could be more exquisitely charming than her art in such songs as "The Monkey on the Stick" and "The Parrot and the Canary" in "The Geisha," "A Little Bit of String" in "The Circus Girl," and "I'm a Dear Little Iris" and "This Naughty Little Maid" in "A Greek Slave." These songs are all of the same cla.s.s,--little humorous narratives, or, better yet, funny stories set to music. Miss Ashley seems almost to recite them, so perfectly understandable is every word, yet she keeps to the tune at the same time. Not a point in the story is overlooked, and every phase of meaning is captivatingly ill.u.s.trated in pantomime. Miss Ashley's pantomime, like her acting, is limited in quant.i.ty; so limited, in fact, that it suggests, after one becomes familiar with it, the fear that it is all mannerism. Even at that, I doubt if any one can escape its persuasive appeal, can remain absolutely cold and unresponsive before those eyes so full of roguish innocence, those lips smiling a challenge, and that pretty bobbing head shaking a negative that means yes.

However, if he be unmoved by Miss Ashley's singing, he surely cannot resist her dancing. It is as an ill.u.s.trative dancer that Miss Ashley is supreme. She is the one woman who comprehends dancing as something more than violent physical exercise, who appreciates the art of dancing in its cla.s.sic sense as a means of symbolic and poetic expression. Minnie Ashley dances with her whole body moving in perfect unity and in perfect rhythm. She is the personification of grace from head to foot, and there is vivacity and joy and fulness of life in the saucy noddings of her head, the languorous sway of her form, the sinuous wavings of her arms and hands, and the bewildering mingling of billowy draperies and flashy, twinkling feet. When Minnie Ashley kicks, she does so delicately and deliberately,--kicks that end with a shiver and quiver of the toe-tips.

It has been Miss Ashley's good fortune in most of her parts to be permitted to dance in long skirts. As Gwendolyn in "Prince Pro Tem,"

however, she wore the conventional soubrette skirt of knee length. It was surprising what a handicap it was to the full effectiveness of her dancing. Miss Ashley is not a whirlwind dancer; she does not sacrifice grace for speed, nor dignity for astounding contortions of the body.

Knowing full well the value of the artistic repose and the crowning fascination of suggestion, she handles her draperies with that rare skill which makes them seem a part of herself. Their sweeping softness destroys all crude outlines, and they are at the same time tantalizing provokers of curiosity. The short skirt--blunt, plain-spoken, and tactless--compelled the subst.i.tution of abandon for sensuousness, and consequently a sacrifice of coquetry and suggestiveness.

Minnie Ashley was born in Fall River, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1875. Her family name was Whitehead. When she was very young her father and mother separated, her mother going to Boston and taking Minnie with her. The mother afterward was married to a man by the name of Ashley, and it was as Minnie Ashley that the dainty actress was always known during her girlhood in Boston. She lived and went to school both in Roxbury and the South End; and she learned her first dancing steps, as thousands of city children do, by tripping away on the sidewalk to the grinding music of the hand-organ.

Her first appearances in public were made at the children's festivals on Washington's birthday in the old Music Hall, Boston. The first year she was the Queen of the Fairies with a number of other school-children as subjects; and the next year, after demonstrating that she could dance, she was promoted to the position of solo dancer, and a feature of the entertainment was her exposition of the intricacies of "The Sailor's Horn-pipe." Her native talent, so prettily shown at these children's festivals, attracted the attention of a teacher of dancing, who took Miss Minnie under her charge and gave the child the instruction that was necessary to develop her gifts to the best advantage.

During the summer the teacher took her promising pupil to the summer resorts in the White Mountains. There the guests were charmed, and the boys and girls of ambitious parents were instructed in the art Terpsich.o.r.ean. This lasted until Miss Minnie came to the conclusion that she was doing all the work while her companion was reaping most of the profits. So they quarrelled about it and separated, Miss Ashley returning to Boston firmly resolved to go upon the stage as a professional dancer.

At that time Edward E. Rice was organizing a company to produce the R.

A. Barnet spectacle, "1492," and to him Miss Ashley applied. She succeeded in getting a place in the chorus. When DeWolf Hopper brought out "El Capitan" in Boston in 1896, she was still in the chorus, although she was permitted to understudy Edna Wallace Hopper. Miss Ashley, however, had developed since the days of "1492," and although she was in the chorus, she was by no means of the chorus. Her individuality was so p.r.o.nounced, her magnetism so potent, that the largest chorus could not conceal her. She literally stood forth from the group, a graceful and beautiful figure, animated, interesting, and pertly captivating. She had something of the spirit of France about her, or at least what we think is the spirit of France; and it was not altogether strange, therefore, that her first engagement outside the chorus should have been to act a French girl. This occurred in a musical comedy called "The Chorus Girl," which was brought out at the Boston Museum after the close of the regular season in 1898. "The Chorus Girl"

was pretty poor stuff, but Miss Ashley's personal success was considerable.

The following season J. C. Duff put "The Geisha" and "The Circus Girl"

on the road, and Miss Ashley played Mollie Seamore in "The Geisha" and Dolly Wemyss in "The Circus Girl." In May, 1899, when "Prince Pro Tem,"

a musical comedy by R. A. Barnet and L. S. Thompson, which has never played a successful engagement outside of Boston, was revived, Miss Ashley appeared as Gwendolyn. Those who heard Josie Sadler sing "If I could only get a Decent Sleep" in "Broadway to Tokio," may be interested to know that this touching ballad was originally one of the chief hits of "Prince Pro Tem." "Prince Pro Tem," with its numerous deficiencies, had one thoroughly artistic character, Tommy Tompkins, the showman. Fred Lenox acted the part; and a capital bit of comedy it was, too, deliciously humorous in its depreciating self-sufficiency, wonderfully clever as a loving and sympathetic caricature, and thoroughly convincing as a sincere study of human nature, a Thackeray-like creation, which was worthy of a more pretentious setting than it received in Mr. Barnet's show.

When "A Greek Slave" was produced in New York in November, 1899, that city discovered Minnie Ashley and forthwith shouted her name from the housetops. "A Greek Slave" was not a success, but Miss Ashley's Iris was. As the "New York Telegram" said:--

"And there is Minnie Ashley. A slim, graceful, attractive young woman, with scarcely the suggestion of her wonderful magnetic power in her slender outlines. Two minutes after she had made her entrance, the house was hers and all that therein was. She couldn't sing in the same country with Dorothy Morton. She couldn't act in a manner to warrant attention on that score--and she knew it, and didn't make any harrowing attempts to reach what was beyond her. She knew herself. There was part of the secret. She didn't endeavor to gather in impossibilities. She simply came out and played with that audience as a little child would play with a roomful of kittens. 'You may purr over me and lick my hand and look at me with your great, appreciative eyes,' she told her kittens, 'and in return, I will stroke you and soothe you, and charm you.'

"And she certainly did charm that house. She has a pleasing little voice which she uses with utmost judiciousness. She has an innate grace and refinement that are most telling accomplishments. As she informed us in her opening song, 'I'm a Dear Little Iris,' a slave girl, who knows how to drape herself and how to execute the steps of the airiest, fairiest dances. There have been many times at the Metropolitan Opera House when great singers have been overwhelmed by the fierce applause of an emotional audience. Then the bravos have been shouted and the enthusiasm has reached a fever pitch. But before last night these scenes have formed no part of the programme at the Herald Square. Miss Ashley changed that old order, and changed it with the lightness and lack of perceptible effort which characterized her whole performance. The house simply went wild over this practically unknown girl. Her name was called again and again, and the encores of her pretty little songs stretched the opera out far beyond its legitimate length. The house admired the daintiness, the womanliness, and the suggestion of the thorough-bred in this young girl. The poise of her head, the poetical motion of her body, the total lack of self-consciousness, these were constant delights."

"To Minnie Ashley," declared the "Boston Transcript," a few weeks later, when "A Greek Slave" was played in Boston, "fell nine-tenths of the honors of the performance, and she gave another impersonation fully as charming as those with which she has been a.s.sociated in 'The Geisha,'

'The Circus Girl,' and 'Prince Pro Tem.' She was a dainty little slave, demure as was befitting the character, but with a way that was certainly irresistible. She is a real comedienne, and each of the points in the few funny lines that fell to her lot was capitally brought out.

Especially clever was the song about 'The Naughty Little Girl' in the second act, where she made the hit of the evening. Nature never intended her to be a prima donna, but it gave her the power to sing a song like that in a way that leaves nothing to be desired, and when she dances--well, it doesn't matter in what language she dances; Latin, j.a.panese or Yankee, the result is just the same."

While she was with DeWolf Hopper, Miss Ashley was married to William Sheldon, a half-brother of Walter Jones, from whom she was afterward separated.

CHAPTER XIII

EDNA MAY

A pretty face and a gentle, winning personality brought Edna May into prominence in the most dramatic fashion. Edna May Petty, the daughter of E. C. Petty, a letter-carrier in Syracuse, New York, lovely to look upon and demure in manner, had some talent for singing, but more for dancing, when her parents yielded to her entreaties and said that she might go to New York to study for the stage. She was only sixteen years old. Hardly had she settled down to her singing and dancing lessons, however, when along came Fred t.i.tus, at that time the holder of the hour bicycle record and one of the most prominent racing men in the country. They were married, but Edna May remained just as determined as ever to go on the stage. Her ambitions were forced for a time to be satisfied with occasional opportunities to subst.i.tute in church choirs. Her name first appeared on a playbill when "Santa Maria" was produced at Hammerstein's in New York, but the part was so small as to be practically non-existent. Then she was engaged for White's Farcical Comedy Company and appeared in Charles H. Hoyt's "A Contented Woman."

At this point there is a dispute as regards Miss May's next move, or at least there was a dispute until manager and star patched up their difficulties. George W. Lederer was wont to claim that Edna May joined the chorus of his prospective "The Belle of New York" company. At the last moment, the woman whom he had engaged for leading part disappointed him. He had to do something quickly, and he cast about in his own chorus for a girl who might fill the part for a night or two until he could find someone to take it permanently. His discerning eye fell on the plaintive prettiness of Edna May. "She'll look the part, anyhow," he declared. So in this haphazard fashion, Violet Grey, the Salvation Army la.s.sie, was pa.s.sed over to her, and, presto! her fortune was made.