The Broadway Anthology Part 3

Long Beach and pretty girls, big eats at the Ritz And the ice pitcher for the fellows who snubbed me.

How the other reporters laughed When I showed my first script and started to peddle!

"Stick to the steady job," they advised.

"Play writing is too big a gamble; It will never keep your nose in the feed bag."

I wrote a trunkful of junk; did a play succeed, I immediately copied the fashion; Like a pilfering tailor I stole the new models.

Kind David Belasco, with his face in the gloom, And mine brightly lighted, said ministerially: "Rather crude yet, my boy, but the way to write a play Is to write plays from sunrise to sunset And rewrite them long after midnight.

Try, try, try, my boy, and G.o.d bless you."

Broke and disgusted, I became a play reader And the "yessir man" to a manager.

I was a play doctor, too.

A few of my patients lived And I learned about drama from them.

How we gutted the scripts!

Grabbing a wonderful line, a peach of a scene, A gem of a finish Out of the rubbish that struggling poor devils Borrowed money to typewrite and mail to us.

It's like opening oysters looking for pearls, But pearls are to be found and out of the sh.e.l.l heaps Come jewels that, polished and set by a clever artificer, Are a season's theatrical wonder.

Finally came my own big idea.

I wrote and rewrote and cast and recast, Convinced the manager, got a production.

Here am I young and successful, And Walter and Thomas and Selwyn have nothing on me.

Press agents are hired to praise me.

Watch for my next big sensation, But meanwhile I hope that that play-writing plumber, Who had an idea and nothing else, Never sees this one.

TYPES

They've got me down for a hick, bo, Sam Harris says I'm the best b.o.o.b in the biz, And that no manager will cast me for anything else.

Curses on my hit in "'Way Down East"

That handcuffs me forever to yokels, And me a better character actor than Corse Payton!

That's how it is they're stuck on types, And the wise guy who plays anything Isn't given a look-in.

Listen to me, young feller, and don't ever Let 'em tab you for keeps as a type.

It's curtains for a career as sure as you're born.

Why, there's actors sentenced to comedy dog parts, To c.h.i.n.ks, to Wops, to Frenchmen and fluffs.

There ain't no release for them.

The producers and managers can see only one angle, And you may be a Mansfield or Sothern.

It's outrageous that's what it is, that make-up And character acting should be thrown in the discard.

You can sit in an agent's office for months Before a part comes along that you fit without fixin'.

This natural stuff puts the kibosh on art And a stock training ain't what it used to be.

Say, if ever I rise to be hind legs of a camel Or a bloodhound chasing Eliza, I'll kick or I'll bite The type-choosing manager.

GEORGE M. COHAN

Blessed be Providence That gave us our Cohan; Irreverent, Resourceful, prolific, steady-advancing George M.

Nothing in life Better becomes him Than his earliest choice Of Jerry and Helen For father and mother; Bred in the wings and the dressing room, The theatre alley his playground, Hotels his home and his schoolhouse, Blessed with a wonderful sister, And in love with a violin.

From baby days used to the footlights, With infrequent teachers of book lore In the cities of lengthy engagements Showing him pages of learning That he turned from to life's open volume, Acquiring indelible lessons, Loyalty, candor, clear seeing, Sincerity, plain speaking, love of his own, Pa.s.sion for all things American.

From Jerry, his father, Came Celtic humor, delight in the dance, And devotion to things of the theatre; From Helen, his mother, Depth, Celtic devotion to things of the spirit, Fineness of soul.

Early he turned from his fiddle To write popular songs And tunes so whistly and catchy That the music of a child Enraptured the nation.

Then followed comedy sketches, Gay little pieces that made public And player-folk chatter of Cohan.

Later, essaying the musical comedy, He wrote "Running for Office,"

To be followed by that impudent Cla.s.sic of fresh young America, "Little Johnnie Jones."

One followed another in rapid succession; His name grew a cherished possession, And ever his dancing delighted.

His manner of singing and speaking Provoked to endless imitation.

His personality became better known Then the President's.

Always he soared in ambition And, becoming a lord of the theatre, He ventured on serious drama, And out of his wisdom and watching Wrote masterful plays, Envisaging the types of our natives.

Truly a genius, Genius in friendship, genius in stagecraft, Genius in life!

Even in choosing a partner He fattened his average, Batting four hundred By taking a kindred irreverent soul, Graduated out of the whirlpool That wrecks all but the strongest, Born on the eastern edge Of Manhattan, Sam H. Harris, man of business, Who to the skill of the trader Adds the joy in life And the sense of humor, Coupled with pleasure in giving And helping That Cohan demands of his pals.

Together they plan wonderful projects, And the artist soul And the soul of commerce Are an unbeatable union.

Best of all about Cohan Is his congenital manliness.

He sees Americans As our soil and our air and our water Have made them; Types as distinct as the Indian.

He follows no school, Knows little of movements artistic.

A lonely creator, His friends are not writing men, Reformers, uplifters or zealots.

He writes the life he has lived So fully and zestfully, And over it all plays like sheet lightning A beneficent humor.

Growth is his hall-mark, Hard work his chief recreation; Not Balzac could toil with labor t.i.tanic More terribly.

George M. Cohan, Excelling in everything-- Beloved son, brother, father, partner, friend, Our best-beloved man of the theatre.

DAVID BELASCO

King David of old slew the Philistines; Our David has made them admirers and patrons; He has numbered the people Night after night in his theatres.

Will he ever, I wonder, send forth for the Shunammite?

Many there be who would answer his calling, For he has shown ambitious fair women To acting's high places.

As Rodin in marble saw wondrous creations To be freed by the chisel, So Belasco in immature genius and beauty Sees the resplendent star to be kindled At his own steady beacon.

Too varied a mind for our comprehension, Too big and too broad and too subtle To be understood of the bourgeois American Whom he has led decade after decade By a nose ring artistic.

Capable of everything, he has worked With the ease of a master, giving the public Marvelous detail, unfailing sensation and poses pictorial; Preferring the certain success to arduous striving For the more excellent things of the future.

Like David his forebear, a king but no prophet, Amazingly wise in his own generation.

A wizard in art of the everyday, Lord of the spotlight and dimmer, But nursing the unconquerable hope, the inviolable shade Of what in his dreams Oriental He fain would do, did not necessity drive him.

His the fascination of a great personality.

Who knoweth not him of the clerical collar?

Hair of the sage and eyes of the poet, Features perfectly drawn and as mobile As those of the inspired actor; With speech so much blander than honey And insight that maketh his staged stumbling in bargains Cover the shrewdness of a masterly trader.

None better than he knoweth the crowd and its likings, As to using the patter of drama artistic, That's where he lives.

With incense and color and scenery He refilleth the bottle of art so that the contents Go twice better than in the original package.

Thanks be to David for joy in the playhouse.

Wizard, magician, necromancer of switchboards, He hath woven spells from the actual, Keeping ideals and ideas well in the background.

Like Gautier, these things delight him: Gold, marble and purple; brilliance, solidity, color.

He can stage Tiffany's jewels but not Maeterlinck's bees.

Deep in his soul there are tempests Revealed in the storms of his dramas-- Sandstorm and snowstorm, rainstorm and hurricane.

That nature revealed in its subtle reactions Would show in its deeps the soul of an Angelo Subdued to success and dyed by democracy.

Opportunism hath made him An artistic materialist.

One work remains for David Belasco, And that is to stage with patient precision A cross section in drama of his own self-surprising, Making the world sit up and take notice With what "masterly detail," "unfailing atmosphere,"

"Startling reality" he can star David Belasco.

LO, THE HEADLINER

I was not raised for vaudeville.

Father and mother were veteran legits; They loved the Bard and the "Lady of Lyons."

I was born on a show boat on the c.u.mberland; I was carried on as a child When the farm girl revealed her shame On the night of the snowstorm.

The old folks died with grease paint on their faces.

I did a little of everything Even to staking out a pitch in a street fair.

Hiram Grafter taught me to ballyhoo And to make openings.

I stole the business of Billy Sunday And imitated William Jennings Bryan.

I became famous in the small towns.

One day Poli heard me-- He's the head of the New England variety circuit.-- "Cul," he said, "you are a born monologist.