The Footlights Fore And Aft Part 2

rogues gallery", detailing the manner in which the records of the young women were kept on the backs of photographs filed away in a room arranged for that purpose. _The World_ wanted the tale verified and inquired blandly if it might send up a reporter to inspect. We replied with equal politeness that it might--the next day. That afternoon we bought a rubber stamp and nearly a thousand old pictures, and all night long six of us worked on a "chorus girls' rogues' gallery" that would live up to its reputation. Our reward was a page in colors.

Sometimes things really do happen to actors and actresses, and so, not infrequently, there is a grain of truth in the news printed about them. Only a grain, mind you, for if a tenth of the events in which they are supposed to take part were actual, the inevitable end of life on the stage would be death of nervous prostration. The wide-awake press agent is quick to plant the grain of truth aforesaid, growing therefrom stories no more like the originals than a radish is like a radish seed. Grace George once telegraphed me to Chicago that she would not open at the Grand Opera House in "Pretty Peggy" on a Sunday.

She felt, quite rightly, that eight performances a week was the limit of her endurance. Staring at a pile of printed bills announcing an engagement beginning on the Sabbath, I concluded that this ultimatum had reached the limit of mine. Then an inspiration. Up went the original bills, to be covered a day later with others advertising the first performance for Monday. The newspapers were curious as to why the change had been made and we were willing, not to say eager, to satisfy their curiosity. Miss George did not believe in giving theatrical performances on Sunday. At least a dozen clerygmen read this and told their congregations about it the day before the postponed advent of "Pretty Peggy."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Sometimes things really do happen to actors_"]

Caught in a blizzard at Oswego, N. Y., eight years ago, I was informed that the only chance of my joining Miss George that night at Syracuse lay in making the trip in a special locomotive. That necessity got printed throughout the country, a vivid description of Miss George driving an engine through banks of snow in order to reach Syracuse for her performance of "Under Southern Skies." The woman who actually made the trip was a waitress from an Oswego hotel and she received $10 for it.

William A. Brady wanted a thousand girls in September, 1902, for his Woman's Exhibition at Madison Square Garden. They could have been obtained without the knowledge of the police, but secrecy was not the _desideratum_. "Wanted--1000 Women at Madison Square Garden at 8 P. M.

on Friday" was an advertis.e.m.e.nt which brought down upon us nearly thrice that number, together with a small army of newspaper reporters and photographers. This was the first gun fired in a campaign of advertising for a show during the existence of which we obtained nearly six hundred columns of s.p.a.ce in New York.

Truth is never important in a press agent's story, and there are some occurrences that he actually suppresses. Accounts of small fires, accidents, thefts and quarrels do not get into type if he can help it.

Several kinds of news items have been "faked" so often that no one would attempt to have them mentioned journalistically should examples of their cla.s.s really happen. He would be a brave publicity promoter, for instance, who sent to an editor the tale of his star stopping a runaway, no matter how firmly the tale might be based on fact. Miss George had stolen from her a valuable diamond necklace while she was playing in "Pretty Peggy" and knew better than to permit my sending out an announcement of the theft. "An Actress Loses Her Diamonds!" You laugh scornfully at the very idea. The papers no longer publish accounts of people standing in line before box offices all night in order to secure good seats in the morning, though I succeeded in obtaining mention of this feature of Sarah Bernhardt's last engagement but one in New York by injecting into the yarn a few drops of what theatrical managers call "heart interest." Five dollars and a little careful coaching secured for me a picturesque looking old woman who convinced her inquisitors that she once had acted with the Divine Sarah in Paris. Her vigil in the lobby of the Lyric received more attention than did the _bona fide_ line of three thousand persons that I rose at five to have photographed on the morning following.

This imposter's husband afterward figured at the Casino in the role of a man whose visit to "Happyland" was the first he had made to a theater since the night on which he had witnessed the shooting of Abraham Lincoln. The tale we told was that this spectacle had so affected him that the soothing influence of forty years was required to bring him again into the precincts of a playhouse. Interviewed by the representatives of several journals, he made a comparison between theatrical performances of ante bellum times and those of today that could hardly have been more convincing had my confederate's price not included two seats for the preceding evening at another place of amus.e.m.e.nt under direction of the Shuberts. This story, which went the rounds of the country, cost, all in all, ten minutes work and three silver dollars. I mention it as an instance of the simple "fake" that sometimes proves most effective.

An equally simple story, used almost simultaneously, came near being less inexpensive. Henry Miller was about to produce "Grierson's Way"

at the Princess Theater, and, rehearsals not progressing to his satisfaction, he determined to postpone the scheduled date of opening.

This determination we resolved upon turning to our own account. We advertised widely that Mr. Miller had lost the only existing ma.n.u.script of the play, without which the performance could not be given, and that he would pay $500 reward for its restoration. Two days afterward Mr. Miller called me up on the telephone. "An awful thing has happened!" he said. "I've actually lost a ma.n.u.script of 'Grierson's Way.'"

"What of it?" I inquired.

"What of it!" echoed Mr. Miller. "Supposing somebody brings the 'script to me and demands that $500?"

Fortunately, "Grierson's Way" was found by a stage hand who was satisfied with a small bill and an explanation.

It seems hardly probable that anyone will recall how a barber once delayed the beginning of a performance of "Taps" until half past eight o'clock, yet that tale was one of the most successful of simple stories. The only preparation required was posting the chosen tonsorialist and holding the curtain at the Lyric. Herbert Kelcey, according to the explanation given out, had been shaved when he discovered that he did not have the usual fee about him. "I'll pay you tomorrow," he had remarked. "I'm Herbert Kelcey."

"Herbert Kelcey nuttin'!" his creditor had replied. "Dat gag don't go!

You stay here until you get dat fifteen cents!"

A messenger, hastily summoned, was said to have released the actor shortly after the hour for "ringing up." The idea that a barber could keep a thousand people waiting for their entertainment was both novel and humorous, and, in the vernacular, our story "landed hard." The strike of the Helen May Butler Military Band at the Woman's Exhibition was arranged with equal ease and proved equally good. That exhibition was wonderfully fruitful. Almost anything the women did seemed amusing, and the show itself was so extraordinary that its smallest features were interesting.

As elaborate a tale as, for example, the famous Anna Held milk bath story, to which I have referred, requires more plotting and arranging than would the founding of a revolutionary society in Russia. One may spend weeks of work and hundreds of dollars on such a "fake," only to trace its subsequent failure to some trifling flaw in the chain of circ.u.mstance. Widely though a successful story of this sort may be chronicled, the reward is absolutely incommensurate with the labor involved, and I think few press agents would ever attempt one were it not for a gambler's love of excitement.

It was during Judge Alton B. Parker's presidential campaign that I evolved what I consider my most magnificent "fake." At that time I represented several attractions in New York, chief among the number two musical comedies, ent.i.tled "The Royal Chef" and "Piff, Paff, Pouf." I wired Judge Parker's secretary that the choruses of these productions had formed a club, which was to be known as The Theatrical Women's Parker a.s.sociation, and the purpose of which was to induce male performers to go home to vote. Would Judge Parker receive a delegation from this society? The wire was signed "Nena Blake," and, in due time, Miss Blake received a courteous and conclusive reply.

Judge Parker would not.

That message was a stunner. In the face of it, there was only one thing to do--send along our delegation on the pretence that no answer to our communication had ever been received. Nine chorus ladies were picked out in a hurry, placed in charge of a shrewd newspaper woman who pa.s.sed as another show girl, and the whole outfit was dispatched to Aesopus. The newspaper woman had instructions to register at a prominent hotel as a delegation from the Theatrical Women's Parker a.s.sociation, and to parade herself and her charges before all the alert correspondents in the little town on the Hudson. That done, we who had stayed behind got ready photographs of the pilgrims and waited.

The wait was not long. By nine o'clock that night the bait had been swallowed at Aesopus, and my office was crowded with reporters anxious to verify the story wired from up the river. Judge Parker, with characteristic kindness, had lunched the party, allowed it to sing to him, and sent it away rejoicing. Most of the boys "smelled a mouse,"

but the thing was undeniably true and much too important to be ignored. The Theatrical Women's Parker Club, "Piff, Paff, Pouf" and "The Royal Chef" were well advertised the next morning.

It was the failure of a prominent newspaper to mention either of our plays by name that drove me to further utilization of this scheme.

Such an omission is always unfair and unjust. A story is good enough to be printed or it is not; if not, n.o.body has cause for complaint, if it is, there is no reason why a newspaper should deny the expected compensation. Resolving that I would compel this payment, I immediately arranged for a public meeting of the Theatrical Women's Parker Club. The Democratic National Committee furnished us with a cart-load of campaign literature and with three speakers, one of whom was Senator Charles A. Towne. The other orators we provided. They were Eddie Foy, Dave Lewis, Nena Blake, Grace Cameron and Amelia Stone. The juxtaposition, I felt confident, was sufficiently grotesque to provoke comment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_A public meeting of The Theatrical Women's Parker Club_"]

I wrote nine political speeches for the occasion, held two rehearsals, and, when our advertis.e.m.e.nts failed to draw an audience, secured a fine one by sending to such congregating places as the Actors'

Society. The affair pa.s.sed off beautifully, Senator Towne adapting himself to circ.u.mstances and making one of the most graceful and agreeable addresses imaginable. I heard it from a nook in the fly gallery, where I remained until the meeting was adjourned. This "fake"

accomplished its purpose, the delinquent newspaper falling in line with the others in publishing the story.

It would tax your patience and your faith in the existence of modesty were I to go into detail regarding a score of similar "fakes" which come to mind. How this same Nena Blake was kidnapped from the Garrick Theater, Chicago, and sent to New York in the costume she wore in "The Royal Chef"; how her sister, Bertha, was sent to Zion to kiss the unkissed son of John Alexander Dowie; how a supposed German baron threw across the footlights to Julia Sanderson a bouquet from which dropped an $18,000 diamond necklace; how a chorus girl named Thorne created a sensation at a Physical Culture Show in Madison Square Garden by declaring the costume she was expected to wear "shockingly immodest"; how a niece of Adele Ritchie changed her name to Adele Ritchie Jr., and Miss Ritchie herself was sought in marriage by a Siamese millionaire--all of these anecdotes must pa.s.s with the mere mention that they were successful "fakes."

The manner in which a good story may go wrong merits more extended description. While an extravaganza, yclept "The Babes and the Baron", was in town, I resolved upon a news event so complicated that I wonder now at my temerity in undertaking it. The idea was that some well known doctor should find on his doorstep one morning a young and pretty girl, fashionably dressed and intelligent-looking, but quite unable to recall her name or to give an account of herself. The doctor, naturally enough, would report the affair to the police, who, in turn, would give it to the reporters. These gentlemen, deceived by the fact that no possible advertising could be suspected in the case of a woman who looked untheatrical and who did not even know her own name, were expected to give untold s.p.a.ce in the evening papers to the mystery. After the journals in question had been published, the girl was to be identified, so that her name and that of "The Babes and the Baron" might be printed in the morning.

It was necessary that, at this time, the victim should be able to give a good reason for her condition. The reason selected was as follows: During the performance of the extravaganza, some question had arisen as to the young woman's courage or cowardice. To prove the former, she had volunteered to hide in the Eden Musee and to remain all night in the "chamber of horrors." The terrible sights of this place had frightened her into hysteria; the porter, hearing her scream and believing her to be intoxicated, had ejected her; a kindly old gentleman had found her in the street and started to drive her to a hospital, when, becoming alarmed, he had decided instead to place her on the doorstep of a physician's house, ring the bell, and get away.

Anyone will tell you that the first essential to having roast goose for dinner is to get your goose. At least twenty chorus girls must have been interrogated before I found one willing and competent to try the experiment. Mabel Wilbur, afterward prima donna of "The Merry Widow", was chosen, and she spent eleven days being instructed in the symptoms of the mental disease known as asphasia. The officials of the Eden Musee, glad to share the advertising, carefully coached the porter in the story he was to tell. The stage manager of "The Babes and the Baron" was admitted into the secret and a bright journalist was engaged to hover about and superintend affairs. Of course, my appearance in the neighborhood of the sickroom would have been fatal to the "fake."

Miss Wilbur was left on the doctor's doorstep shortly after four o'clock one mild morning. From that time until night the scheme worked like a charm. Miss Wilbur, bravely enduring all sorts of physical and mental tests, pa.s.sed the scrutiny of a dozen detectives and medical men. After vainly buying a dozen editions of the evening papers in an anxious effort to learn how matters were progressing, I suddenly found the journals filled with the affair. "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab--Pretty Girl Left on Doctor's Doorstep in Dying Condition" and "Police Have New Problem" were headlines that flared across front pages. Up to that point the story had been a huge success. There remained only the matter of identification to connect with the other story, like two ends of a tunnel meeting, and this promised to be a delicate matter. Say "chorus girl" to a newspaper man and he immediately becomes suspicious. Our hardest work was before us.

At nine o'clock the stage manager of "The Babes and the Baron" was sent around to recognize Miss Wilbur. It was he who had challenged her courage, and, alarmed at her failure to report for the performance, he had hastened to pick up the clue given him by the evening papers. Miss Wilbur's ident.i.ty was established in the presence of a score of reporters and photographers, none of whom seemed to suspect anything.

"At the hour of going to press" we all felt certain that we had "pulled off" the biggest theatrical "fake" known to history.

Every paper in town had the story the next morning--but it was the true story. A City News a.s.sociation man had recognized my bright journalist, at that time pa.s.sing himself off as a brother of Miss Wilbur, and the net result of our fortnight's toiling and moiling was some six columns of ridicule.

These confessions would be incomplete if I did not admit here and now that this story was the most ill-advised of my career. It brought discomfit and discredit to a dozen persons, it involved an attempt to deceive some of my best friends, and it put me in a bad light at the very time that the approaching premiere of a play from my pen made that most undesirable. A great many city editors have never forgiven me my part in this particular "fake," although the owner of an evening paper wrote me the next day: "I was fooled from first to last. You're a wonder. Congratulations."

Another bad mistake was my story regarding the willingness of the management to pay $50 a week for exceptionally beautiful chorus girls to appear in "Mexicana." The story was printed all over the world, but it caused critics to stamp as ugly one of the most attractive ensembles ever brought to New York. "If any of these girls," said _The Sun_, "gets $50 a week her employers are ent.i.tled to a rebate." I cannot place in the same catalogue Madame Bernhardt's appeal to the French Amba.s.sador at Washington to protest against her exclusion from playhouses controlled by the so-called Theatrical Syndicate. Madame denied this over her own signature, but, from a press agent's point of view, it was an exceedingly creditable falsehood.

It is possible to discuss at endless length the real value of the "fake" and its place in theatrical advertising. Perhaps no one ever went to a theater merely because one of the performers at that theater was supposed to have bathed in milk or to have stopped a runaway horse. On the other hand, I am sure that no one ever went to a theater because he or she had seen the name of the play acted there posted conspicuously on a bill-board. The mission of the bill-board is to call attention to the fact that there is such-and-such an entertainment and that it may be seen at such-and-such a house. There is no question in my mind but that this much is done for a production by "fake" stories concerning it. In rare instances, where the story accentuates the importance of the presentation and its success, or awakens interest in some member of the presenting company, the service performed may be even greater. At all events, the average manager expects this kind of advertising from the publicity promoter to whom he pays a salary, and, naturally, the publicity promotor feels that it is "his not to reason why." The press agent realizes that to any failure on his part will always be attributed the misfortunes of the management with which he is connected. Productions do a good business because they are good productions, and a bad business because they have bad press agents.

Every theatrical newspaper man knows the anecdote of the German cornetist _en tour_ with a minstrel company. The organization was toiling up a steep hill that lay between the railway station and the town. The cornetist was warm and he was tired. "The camel's back"

broke when at last he stubbed his toe against a stone. Picking up the obstruction, he threw it as far away as he could. "Ach!" he exclaimed.

"Ve got a fine advance agent!"

_THE WRITING AND READING OF PLAYS_

Being a discussion as to which pursuit is the more painful, with various entertaining and instructive remarks as to the method of following both.

At my side lies an advertis.e.m.e.nt reading: "I will teach you to write plays for $10!"

If the professor means that he can teach you to write plays that will bring you ten dollars, he may be speaking the truth. If he means that for ten dollars, or a hundred dollars, or a hundred thousand, he can teach you to write plays, he is a liar!

Aunt Emma, who represents the palmy days of the stage, and "used to be with Booth and Barrett", once gave me her opinion of schools of acting. "One can learn to fence", she said, "and to walk and articulate properly. But one cannot learn to think or to feel, and without thinking and feeling there is no acting." Precisely the same thing may be said of playwriting.

Of course, there is a great deal that the dramatist must know about drama. W. T. Price's interesting volume on the subject contains about a hundred iron-clad principles that should be read, and re-read, and then forgotten. Such of the number as cling to your subconsciousness can't do you any harm, and probably will do you a lot of good. The others might help to make you a capable mechanic. Rostand's rooster, once he had been told how to crow, couldn't crow--fell to the ground, as it were, between two schools. Bronson Howard, asked to compile a book of rules for playwriting, declined on the ground that he feared being tempted to follow them.

To learn to do anything--do it! If you would know how to write plays write them, read them, go to see them. Then think a while, and write some more. If you feel sure you have a big idea--and sometimes it seems to me that the big ideas come most often to people who can't use them--pool it with the skill of someone who is willing to give craftsmanship for inventive genius--and watch him. Avery Hopwood collaborated on "Clothes" before he went single-handed at "n.o.body's Widow", and, midway, he leased his experience to the novelist who furnished the plot of "Seven Days." Harriet Ford helped Joseph Medill Patterson write "The Fourth Estate", and now Mr. Patterson is exhibiting signs by which one may predict that he will do something alone. Wilson Mizner worked with George Bronson Howard on "The Only Law", and with Paul Armstrong on "The Deep Purple", and we may expect soon a piece that will bear only the name of Wilson Mizner.

"What a lucky fellow!" we say occasionally of some new author who springs into notice. "His first play, and a huge success!" But every professional reader in town could tell you that this success _wasn't_ "his first play." While I was reading for the firm of Sam S. & Lee Shubert, I saw three or four ma.n.u.scripts from the pens of Rachel Crothers and Thompson Buchanan. "The Three of Us" did not surprise me, nor "A Woman's Way." I knew, and every man in my profession knew, that Miss Crothers and Mr. Buchanan had spent years turning out pieces they could not sell. They worked, and they studied, and they went to the theater thoughtfully until they could write pieces that would sell.

Poets may be born or made, according to the field they occupy, but playwrights must be born _and_ made. However, there isn't the least use of dwelling on this fact. To the end of time men and women who wouldn't think of trying to fashion a horseshoe without first having served an apprenticeship with some blacksmith will go on endeavoring to create comedies and tragedies without having made the least effort to shape their talents--even to whet their instincts.