Fair" almost rivaled "The Old Homestead" in money-making ability. The
horse-racing scene became the most-talked-of episode on the stage at the
time, and Burgess cleared more than a quarter of a million dollars out
of the enterprise. Charles Frohman afterward admitted that his prejudice
against Burgess and his machine had cost his office at least one hundred
thousand dollars.
* * *
Frohman and Randall now launched an important venture. McKee Rankin, who
was one of the best-known players of the time, induced them to become
his managers in a piece called "The Golden Giant," by Clay M. Greene.
Charles, however, agreed to the proposition on the condition that Rankin
would put his wife, Kitty Blanchard, in the cast. They had been
estranged, and Frohman, with his natural shrewdness, believed that the
stage reunion of Mr. and Mrs. McKee Rankin would be a great drawing-card
for the play. Rankin made the arrangements, and the Fifth Avenue Theater
was booked for two weeks, commencing Easter Monday, 1886.
The theater was then under the management of John Stetson, of Boston,
and both Frohman and Rankin looked forward to doing a great business. In
this cast Robert Hilliard, who had been a clever amateur actor in
Brooklyn, made his first professional appearance. Charles supervised the
rehearsals and had rosy visions of a big success. At four o'clock,
however, on the afternoon of the opening night, Charles went to the
box-office and discovered the advance sale had been only one hundred
dollars.
"I tell you what to do, Randall," quickly thought out Frohman, "if
Stetson will stand for it we will paper the house to the doors. We must
open to a capacity audience."
When Frohman put the matter before Stetson he said he did not believe in
"second-hand reconciliations," but assented to the plan. Frohman gave
Randall six hundred seats, and the latter put them into good hands. The
_premiere_ of "The Golden Giant," to all intents and purposes, took
place before a crowded and paying house. In reality there was exactly
two hundred and eighty-eight dollars in the box-office. Business picked
up, however, and the two weeks' engagement proved prosperous. The play
failed on the road, however, and the Frohman offices lost over five
thousand dollars on the venture. Rankin had agreed to pay Frohman forty
per cent. of the losses. That agreement remained in force all his life,
for it was never paid.
In Charles's next venture he launched his first star. Curiously enough,
the star was Tony Hart, a member of the famous Irish team of Harrigan
and Hart, who had delighted the boyhood of Frohman when he used to slip
away on Saturday nights and revel in a show.
Tony Hart, during the interim, had separated from Harrigan, and in some
way Charles obtained the manuscript of a farce-comedy by William Gill
called "A Toy Pistol."
Charles had never lost his admiration for Hart, and when he saw that the
leading character had to impersonate an Italian, a young Hebrew, an
Irishwoman, and a Chinaman, Frohman said, "Tony Hart was the very
person."
Accordingly, he engaged Hart and a company which included J. B. Mackey,
F. R. Jackson, T. J. Cronin, D. G. Longworth, Annie Adams, Annie
Alliston, Mattie Ferguson, Bertie Amberg, Eva Grenville, Vera Wilson,
Minnie Williams, and Lena Merville.
This production had an influence on Charles Frohman's life far greater
than the association with his first star, for Annie Adams now began a
more or less continuous connection with Charles Frohman's companies. Her
daughter, the little girl whom Charles had met casually years before,
was now about to make her first New York appearance as member of a
traveling company in "The Paymaster." Already the energetic mother was
importuning Charles to engage the daughter. His answer was, "I'll give
her a chance as soon as I can." He little dreamed that this wisp of a
girl was to become in later years his most profitable and best-known
star.
Charles was, of course, keenly interested in "A Toy Pistol." He
conducted the rehearsals, and on February 20, 1886, produced it at what
was then called the New York Comedy Theater. It failed, however. The New
York Comedy Theater was originally a large billiard-hall in the Gilsey
Building, on Broadway between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth streets,
and had been first named the San Francisco Minstrel Hall. It became
successively Haverly's Comedy Theater and the New York Comedy Theater.
Subsequently, it was known as Hermann's Theater, and was the scene of
many of the earlier Charles Frohman productions.
* * *
Charles now became immersed in productions. About this time Archibald
Clavering Gunter, who had scored a sensational success with his books,
especially "Mr. Barnes of New York," had written a play called "A Wall
Street Bandit," which had been produced with great success in San
Francisco. Frohman booked it for four weeks at the old Standard Theater,
afterward the Manhattan, on a very generous royalty basis, and plunged
in his usual lavish style. He got together a magnificent cast, which
included Georgia Cayvan, W. J. Ferguson, Robert McWade, Charles Bowser,
Charles Wheatleigh, and Sadie Bigelow. The play opened to capacity and
the indications were that the engagement would be a success; but it
suddenly fizzled out. On Sunday morning, when Charles read the papers
with their reviews of the week, he said to Randall, with his usual
philosophy:
"We've got a magnificent frost, but it was worth doing."
This production cost the youthful manager ten thousand dollars.
* * *
Frohman still had control of "time" at the Standard, so he now put on a
play, translated by Henri Rochefort, called "A Daughter of Ireland," in
which Georgia Cayvan had the title role. Here he scored another failure,
but his ardor remained undampened and he went on to what looked at that
moment to be the biggest thing he had yet tried.
Dion Boucicault was one of the great stage figures of his period. He was
both actor and author, and wrote or adapted several hundred plays,
including such phenomenal successes as "Colleen Bawn," "Shaughraun,"
which ran for a year simultaneously in London, New York, and Melbourne,
and "London Assurance." There was much talk of his latest comedy, "The
Jilt." Frohman, who always wanted to be associated with big names, now
arranged by cable to produce this play at the Standard. Once more he
plunged on an expensive company which included, among others, Fritz
Williams, Louise Thorndyke, and Helen Bancroft.
For four weeks he cleared a thousand a week. Then he put the company on
the road, where it did absolutely nothing. Charles, who had an uncanny
sense of analysis of play failures, now declared that the reason for the
failure was that theater-goers resented Boucicault's treatment of his
first wife, Agnes Robertson. Boucicault had declared that he was not the
father of her child, and when she sued him in England the courts gave
her the verdict. Meanwhile Boucicault married, and in the eyes of the
world he was a bigamist. This experience, it is interesting to add,
taught Charles Frohman never to engage stars on whom there was the
slightest smirch of scandal or disrepute.
At Montreal Boucicault refused to continue the tour, and this
engagement, like so many of its predecessors, left Charles in a
financial hole. Despite all these reverses he was able to make a
livelihood out of the booking end of the office, which thrived and grew
with each month. Nor was he without his sense of humor in those days.
One day he met a certain manager who had lost a great deal of money in
comic opera. Frohman said to him that he heard that there was much money
in the comic-opera end of the business.
"So there is," replied the manager.
"You ought to know," responded Frohman, "for you have put enough into
it."
This remark, often attributed to others, is said to have originated
here.
* * *
Frohman was now an established producer, and although the tide of
fortune had not gone altogether happily with him, he had a Micawber-like
conviction that the big thing would eventually turn up. Now came his
first contact with Bronson Howard, who, a few years later, was to be the
first mile-stone in his journey to fame and fortune.
Howard's name was one to conjure with. He had produced "Young Mrs.
Winthrop," "The Banker's Daughter," "Saratoga," and other great
successes. Charles Frohman, yielding, as usual, to the lure of big
names, now put on Howard's play, "Baron Rudolph," for which George
Knight had paid the author three thousand dollars to rewrite. Knight
gave Frohman a free hand in the matter of casting the production, and it
was put on at the Fourteenth Street Theater in an elaborate fashion. The
company included various people who later on were to become widely
known. Among them were George Knight and his wife, George Fawcett,
Charles Bowser, and a very prepossessing young man named Henry Woodruff.
"Baron Rudolph" proved to be a failure, and it broke Knight's heart, for
shortly afterward he was committed to an insane asylum from which he
never emerged alive. It was found that while the play was well written
there was no sympathy for a ragged tramp.
Whether he thought it would change his luck or not, Charles now turned
to a different sort of enterprise. He had read in the newspapers about
the astonishing mind-reading feats in England of Washington Irving
Bishop. Always on the lookout for something novel, he started a
correspondence with Bishop which ended in a contract by which he agreed
to present Bishop in the United States in 1887.
Bishop came over and Frohman sponsored his first appearance in New York
on February 27, 1887, at Wallack's Theater. With his genius for
publicity, Frohman got an extraordinary amount of advertising out of
this engagement. Among other things he got Bishop to drive around New
York blindfolded. He invited well-known men to come and witness his
marvelous gift in private. All of which attracted a great deal of
attention, but very little money to the box-office. Frohman and Bishop
differed about the conduct of the tour that was to follow, and M. B.
Leavitt assumed the management.
While at 1215 Broadway Charles Frohman established another of his many
innovations by getting out what was probably the first stylographic
press sheet. This sheet, which contained news of the various attractions
that Frohman booked, was sent to the leading newspapers throughout the
country and was the forerunner of the avalanche of press matter that
to-day is hurled at dramatic editors everywhere.
* * *
The booking business had now grown so extensively that the office force
was increased. First came Julius Cahn, who assisted Randall with the
booking. Al Hayman took a desk in Frohman's office, which, because of
Hayman's extensive California enterprises, had a virtual monopoly on all
Western booking.
Now developed a curious episode. Charles, with his devotion to big
names, used the words "Daly's Theater Building" on his letter-heads.
This so infuriated Daly that he sent a peremptory message to the
landlord insisting that Frohman vacate the building. Frohman and Randall
thereupon moved their offices up the block to 1267 Broadway.
Charles Frohman made every possible capitalization of this change. Among
other things he issued a broadside, announcing the removal to new
offices, and making the following characteristic statement:
_Our agency, we are pleased to state, has been an established
success from the very start. We now represent every important
theater in the United States and Canada, as an inspection of our
list will show, and we will always keep up the high standard of
attractions that have been booked through this office, and we want
the business of no others. Mr. E. E. Rice, the well-known manager
and author, will have adjoining offices with us, and his
attractions will be booked through our offices. We transact a
general theatrical business (excepting that pertaining to a
dramatic or actor's agency), and are in competition with no other
exchange, booking agency, or dramatic concern. Neither do we have
any desk-room to let, reserving all the space of our office for our
own use._
Attached to this announcement was a list of theaters that he
represented, which was a foot long. He was also representing Archibald
Clavering Gunter, who had followed up "A Wall Street Bandit" with
"Prince Karl," and Robert Buchanan, author of "Lady Clare" and "Alone in
London."
Frohman and Randall stayed at 1267 Broadway for a year. Shortly before
the next change Randall, who had become extensively interested in
outside enterprises, retired from the firm. His successor as close
associate with Charles Frohman was Harry Rockwood, ablest of the early
Frohman lieutenants.
Rockwood was a distinguished-looking man and a tireless worker. The way
he came to be associated with Charles Frohman was interesting. His real
name was H. Rockwood Hewitt, and he was related to ex-Mayor Abram S.
Hewitt of New York. He had had some experience in Wall Street, but
became infected with the theatrical virus.
One day in 1888 a well-groomed young man approached Gustave Frohman at
the Fourteenth Street Theater. He introduced himself as Harry Hewitt.
He said to Frohman:
"My name is Hewitt. I would like to get into the theatrical business."
Gustave invited him to come around to the Madison Square Theater the
next day, and asked him what he would like to do.
"Oh, I should like to do anything."
Frohman then gave him an imaginary house to "count up."
Rockwood, who was an expert accountant, did the job with amazing
swiftness. Whereupon Gustave Frohman telephoned to Charles Frohman as
follows:
"I've got the greatest treasurer in the world for you. Send for him."
Charles engaged him for a Madison Square Company, and in this way
Rockwood's theatrical career started. It was the fashion of many people
of that time interested in the theatrical business to change their
names, so he became Harry Rockwood. In the same way Harry Hayman,
brother of Al and Alf Hayman, changed his name to Harry Mann.
In 1889 came the separation between Randall and Frohman. Randall set up
an establishment of his own at 1145 Broadway, while Charles, who was now
an accredited and established personage in the theatrical world, took a
suite at 1127 Broadway, adjoining the old St. James Hotel. In making
this change he reached a crucial point in his career, for in these
offices he conceived and put into execution the spectacular enterprises
that linked his name for the first time with brilliant success.
VI
"SHENANDOAH" AND THE FIRST STOCK COMPANY
With his installation in the new offices at 1127 Broadway there began an
important epoch in the life of Charles Frohman. The Nemesis which had
seemed to pursue his productions now took flight. The plump little man,
not yet thirty, who had already lived a lifetime of strenuous and varied
endeavor, sat at a desk in a big room on the second floor, dreaming and
planning great things that were soon to be realized.
Although staggering under a burden of debt that would have discouraged
most people, Frohman, with his optimistic philosophy, felt that the hour
had come at last when the tide would turn. And it did. At this time his
financial complications were at their worst. Some of them dated back to
the disastrous Wallack Company tour; others resulted from his impulsive
generosity in indorsing his friends' notes. He was so involved that he
could not do business under his own name, and for a period the firm went
on as Al Hayman & Company.
[Illustration: _WILLIAM GILLETTE_]
One of the very first enterprises in the new offices cemented the
friendship of Charles Frohman and William Gillette. While at the Madison
Square Theater he had booked Gillette's plays, "The Professor" and "The
Private Secretary." Frohman, with Al Hayman as partner, induced Gillette
to make a dramatization of Rider Haggard's "She," which was put on at
Niblo's Garden in New York with considerable success. Wilton Lackaye and
Loie Fuller were in the cast.
Gillette now tried his hand at a war play called "Held by the Enemy,"
which Frohman booked on the road. Frohman was strangely interested in
"Held by the Enemy." It had all the thrill and tumult of war and it lent
itself to more or less spectacular production. When the road tour ended,
Frohman, on his own hook, took the piece and the company, which was
headed by Gillette, for an engagement at the Baldwin Theater in San
Francisco. He transported all the original scenery, which included,
among other things, some massive wooden cannon.
The San Francisco critics, however, slated the piece unmercifully. The
morning after the opening Gillette stood in the lobby of the Palace
Hotel with the newspapers in his hand and feeling very disconsolate. Up
bustled Frohman in his usual cheery fashion.
"Look what the critics have done to us," said Gillette, gloomily.
"But we've got all the best of it," replied Frohman, with animation.
"How's that?" asked Gillette, somewhat puzzled.
"_They've_ got to stay here."
This little episode shows the buoyant way in which Frohman always met
misfortune. His irresistible humor was the oil that he invariably spread
upon the troubled waters of discord and discouragement.
It was while selecting one of the casts of "Held by the Enemy," which
was revived many times, that Charles Frohman made two more life-long
connections.
At the same boarding-house with Julius Cahn lived an ambitious young
man who had had some experience as an actor. He was out of a position,
so Cahn said to him one day:
"Come over to our offices and Charles Frohman will give you a job."
The young man came over, and Cahn introduced him to Frohman. Soon he
came out, apparently very indignant. When Cahn asked him what was the
matter he said:
"That man Frohman offered me the part of a nigger, _Uncle Rufus_, in
that play. I was born in the South, and I will not play a nigger. I
would rather starve."
Cahn said, "You will play it, and your salary will be forty dollars a
week."
The young man reluctantly accepted the engagement and proved to be not
only a satisfactory actor, but a man gifted with a marvelous instinct as
stage-director. His name was Joseph Humphreys, and he became in a few
years the general stage-director for Charles Frohman, the most
distinguished position of its kind in the country, which he held until
his death.
About this time Charles Frohman renewed his acquaintance with Augustus
Thomas. Thomas walked into the office one day and Rockwood said to him:
"You are the very man we want to play in 'Held by the Enemy.'"
Thomas immediately went in to see Frohman, who offered him the position
of _General Stamburg_, but Thomas had an engagement in his own play,
"The Burglar," which was the expanded "Editha's Burglar," and could not
accept. Before he left, however, Frohman, whose mind was always full of
projects for the future, renewed the offer made in New Orleans, for he
said:
"Thomas, I still want you to write that play for me."
* * *
With "Held by the Enemy" Charles Frohman seemed to have found a magic
touchstone. It was both patriotic and profitable, for it was nothing
less than the American flag. Having raised it in one production, he now
turned to the enterprise which unfurled his success to the winds in
brilliant and stirring fashion.
Early in 1889 R. M. Field put on a new military play called
"Shenandoah," by Bronson Howard, at the Boston Museum. Howard was then
the most important writer in the dramatic profession. He had three big
successes, "Young Mrs. Winthrop," "Saratoga," and "The Banker's
Daughter," to his credit, and he had put an immense amount of work and
hope into the stirring military drama that was to have such an important
bearing on the career of Charles Frohman. The story of Frohman's
connection with this play is one of the most picturesque and romantic in
the whole history of modern theatrical successes. He found it a
Cinderella of the stage; he proved to be its Prince Charming.
Oddly enough, "Shenandoah" was a failure in Boston. Three eminent
managers, A. M. Palmer, T. Henry French, and Henry E. Abbey, in
succession had had options on the play, and they were a unit in
believing that it would not go.
Daniel Frohman had seen the piece at Boston with a view to considering
it for the Lyceum. He told his brother Charles of the play, and advised
him to go up and see it, adding that it was too big and melodramatic for
the somewhat intimate scope of the small Lyceum stage.
So Charles went to Boston. On the day of the night on which he started
he met Joseph Brooks on Broadway and told him he was going to Boston to
try to get "Shenandoah."
"Why, Charley, you are crazy! It is a failure! Why throw away your money
on it? Nobody wants it."
"I may be crazy," replied Frohman, "but I am going to try my best to get
'Shenandoah.'"
Before going to Boston he arranged with Al Hayman to take a
half-interest in the play. When he reached Boston he went out to the
house of Isaac B. Rich, who was then associated with William Harris in
the conduct of the Howard Athenaeum and the Hollis Street Theater. Rich
was a character in his way. He had been a printer in Bangor, Maine, had
sold tickets in a New Orleans theater, and had already amassed a fortune
in his Boston enterprises. He was an ardent spiritualist, and financed
and gave much time to a spiritualistic publication of Boston called _The
Banner of Light_. One of his theatrical associates at that time, John
Stetson, owned _The Police Gazette_.
Rich conceived a great admiration for Frohman, whom he had met with
Harris in booking plays for his Boston houses. He always maintained that
Frohman was the counterpart of Napoleon, and called him Napoleon.
On this memorable day in Boston Frohman dined with Rich at his house and
took him to see "Shenandoah." When it was over Frohman asked him what he
thought of it.
"I'll take any part of it that you say," replied Rich.
"If I were alone," answered Frohman, "I would take you in, but I have
already given Al Hayman half of it."
Frohman was very much impressed with "Shenandoah," although he did not
believe the play was yet in shape for success. After the performance he
asked Mr. Field if he could get the rights. Field replied:
"Abbey, French, and Palmer have options on it. If they don't want it you
can have it."
Frohman returned to New York the next day, and even before he had seen
Bronson Howard he looked up his friend Charles Burnham, then manager of
the Star Theater, and asked him to save him some time.
Frohman now went to see Howard, who then lived at Stamford. He expressed
his great desire for the play and then went on to say:
"You are a very great dramatist, Mr. Howard, and I am only a theatrical
manager, but I think I can see where a possible improvement might be
made in the play. For one thing, I think two acts should be merged into
one, and I don't think you have made enough out of Sheridan's ride."
When he had finished, Howard spoke up warmly and said, "Mr. Frohman, you
are right, and I shall be very glad to adopt your suggestions."
The very changes that Howard made in the play were the ones that helped
to make it a great success, as he was afterward frank enough to admit.
Frohman now made a contract for the play and went to Burnham to book
time. Burnham, meanwhile, had been to Boston to see the play, and he
said:
"I saved six weeks for you at the Star for Shenandoah.'"
From the very beginning of his association with "Shenandoah" Charles
Frohman had an instinct that the play would be a success. He now
dedicated himself to its production with characteristic energy.
Scarcely had he signed the contract for "Shenandoah" than occurred one
of the many curious pranks of fate that were associated with this
enterprise. Al Hayman, who had a half-interest in the piece, was
stricken with typhoid fever in Chicago on his way to the coast. He
thought he was going to die, and, not having an extraordinary amount of
confidence in "Shenandoah," he sold half of his half-interest to R. M.
Hooley, who owned theaters bearing his name in Chicago and Brooklyn.
With his usual determination to do things in splendid fashion, Frohman
engaged a magnificent cast. Now came one of the many evidences of the
integrity of his word. Years before, when he had first seen Henry Miller
act in San Francisco he said to him:
"When I get a theater in New York and have a big Broadway production you
will be my leading man."