character. Frohman developed a great admiration for Lincoln. Often he
would ask Gillette to read him the famous "Gettysburg Address." Simple,
haunting melodies like "The Lost Chord" took hold of him. Marie Doro was
frequently summoned to play it for him on the piano. Although his
courage did not falter, he looked upon men and events with a larger and
deeper philosophy.
During that first critical stage of the rheumatism he sank very low. His
two devoted friends, Dillingham and Paul Potter, came to him daily. Each
had his regular watch. Dillingham came in the morning and read and
talked with the invalid for hours. He managed to bring a new story or a
fresh joke every day.
Potter reported at nine in the evening and remained until two o'clock in
the morning, or at whatever hour sleep came to the relief of the sick
man. One of the compensations of those long vigils was the phonograph.
Frohman was very fond of a tune called "Alexander's Rag-Time Band." The
nurse would put this record in the machine and then leave. When it ran
out, Potter, who never could learn how to renew the instrument, simply
turned the crank again. There were many nights when Frohman listened to
this famous rag-time song not less than twenty times. But he did not
mind it.
In his illness Frohman was like a child. He was afraid of the night. He
begged Potter to tell him stories, and the author of so many plays spun
and unfolded weird and wonderful tales of travel and adventure. Like a
child, too, Frohman kept on saying, "More, more," and often Potter went
on talking into the dawn.
Potter, like all his comrades in that small and devoted group of Frohman
intimates, did his utmost to shield his friend from hurt. When Frohman
launched a new play during those bedridden days Potter would wait until
the so-called "bull-dog" editions of the morning papers (the very
earliest ones) were out. Then he would go down to the street and get
them. If the notice was favorable he would read it to Frohman. If it was
unfriendly Potter would say that the paper was not yet out, preferring
that the manager read the bad news when it was broad daylight and it
could not interfere with his sleep.
The humor and comradeship which always marked Frohman's close personal
relations were not lacking in those nights when the life of the valiant
little man hung by a thread. When all other means of inducing sleep
failed, Potter found a sure cure for insomnia.
"Just as soon as I talked to Frohman about my own dramatic projects," he
says, "he would fall asleep. So, when the night grew long and the travel
stories failed, and even 'Alexander's Rag-Time Band' grew stale, I would
start off by saying: 'I have a new play in mind. This is the way the
plot goes.' Then Frohman's eyes would close; before long he would be
asleep, and I crept noiselessly out."
Occasionally during those long conflicts with pain Frohman saw through
the glass darkly. His intense and constant suffering, for the time, put
iron into his well-nigh indomitable soul.
"I'm all in," he would say to Potter. "The luck is against me. The star
system has killed my judgment. I no longer know a good play from a bad.
The sooner they 'scrap' me the better."
His thin fingers tapped on the bedspread, and, like Colonel Newcome, he
awaited the Schoolmaster's final call.
"You and I," he would continue, "have seen our period out. What comes
next on the American stage? Cheap prices, I suppose. Best seats
everywhere for a dollar, or even fifty cents; with musical shows alone
excepted. Authors' royalties cut to ribbons; actors' salaries pared to
nothing. Popular drama, bloody, murderous, ousting drawing-room comedy.
Crook plays, shop-girl plays, slangy American farces, nude women
invading the auditorium as in Paris."
"And then?" asked Potter.
"Chaos," said he. "Fortunately you and I won't live to see it. Turn on
the phonograph and let 'Alexander's Rag-time Band' cheer us up."
He got well enough to walk around with a stick, and with movement came a
return of the old enthusiasm. A man of less indomitable will would have
succumbed and become a permanent invalid. Not so with Frohman. He even
got humor out of his misfortune, because he called his cane his "wife."
He became a familiar sight on that part of Broadway between the
Knickerbocker Hotel and the Empire Theater as he walked to and fro. It
was about all the walking he could do.
He kept on producing plays, and despite the physical hardships under
which he labored he attended and conducted rehearsals. With the pain
settling in him more and more, he believed himself incurable. Yet less
than four people knew that he felt that the old titanic power was gone,
never to return.
The great war, on whose stupendous altar he was to be an innocent
victim, affected him strangely. The horror, the tragedy, the wantonness
of it all touched him mightily. Indeed, it seemed to be an obsession
with him, and he talked about it constantly, unmindful of the fact that
the cruel destiny that was shaping its bloody course had also marked him
for death.
Early during the war he saw some verses that made a deep impression on
him. They were called "In the Ambulance," and related to the experience
of a wounded soldier. He learned them by heart, and he never tired of
repeating them. They ran like this:
"_Two rows of cabbages;
Two of curly greens;
Two rows of early peas;
Two of kidney-beans._"
_That's what he's muttering,
Making such a song,
Keeping all the chaps awake
The whole night long._
_Both his legs are shot away,
And his head is light,
So he keeps on muttering
All the blessed night:_
"_Two rows of cabbages;
Two of curly greens;
Two rows of early peas,
And two of kidney-beans._"
It was Frohman's intense feeling about the war, that led him to produce
"The Hyphen." Its rejection by the public hurt him unspeakably. Yet he
regarded the fate of the play as just one more phase of the big game of
life. He smiled and went his way.
The rheumatism still oppressed him, but he turned his face resolutely
toward the future. War or peace, pain or relief, he was not to be
deprived of his annual trip to England. He was involved in some
litigation that required his presence in London. Besides, the city by
the Thames called to him, and behind this call was the appeal of old and
loved associations. With all his wonted enthusiasm he wrote to his
friends at Marlow telling them that he was coming over and that he would
soon be in their midst.
Frohman now made ready for this trip. When he announced that he was
going on the _Lusitania_ his friends and associates made vigorous
protest, which he derided with a smile. Thus, in the approach to death,
just as in the path to great success, opposition only made him all the
more decided. With regard to his sailing on the _Lusitania_, this
tenacity of purpose was his doom.
Whether he had a premonition or not, the fact remains that he said and
did things during the days before he sailed which uncannily suggested
that the end was not unexpected. For one thing, he dictated his whole
program for the next season before he started. It was something that he
had never done before.
When Marie Doro came to his office to say good-by he pulled out a little
red pocket note-book in which he jotted down many things and suddenly
said:
"Queer, but the little book is full. There is no room for anything
else."
Just as he was warned not to produce "The Hyphen," so was he now
cautioned by anonymous correspondents (and even by mysterious telephone
messages) not to take the _Lusitania_. But all this merely tightened his
purpose.
He met the danger with his usual jest. On the day before he sailed he
went up to bid his old friend and colleague, Al Hayman, good-by. Hayman,
like all his associates, warned him not to go on the _Lusitania_.
"Do you think there is any danger?" asked Frohman.
"Yes, I do," replied Hayman.
"Well, I am going, anyhow," was the answer.
After he had shaken hands he stopped at the door and said, smilingly:
"Well, Al, if you want to write to me just address the letter care of
the German Submarine U 4."
Those last days ashore were filled with a strange mellowness. Ethel
Barrymore came down from Boston to see him. They had an intimate talk
about the old days. When she left him she saw tears in his eyes. That
night, just as she was about to go on in "The Shadow" in Boston, she
received this telegram from him:
_Nice talk, Ethel. Good-by. C. F._
The _Lusitania_ sailed at ten o'clock on Saturday morning, May 1, 1915.
Even at the dock Frohman could not resist his little joke. When Paul
Potter, who saw him off, said to him:
"Aren't you afraid of the U boats, C. F.?"
"No, I am only afraid of the I O U's," was the reply.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY DANIEL FROHMAN
_CHARLES FROHMAN ON BOARD SHIP_]
In his farewell steamer letter to Dillingham, written as the huge ship
was plowing her way down the bay, he drew a picture of a submarine
attacking a transatlantic liner. The last lines he wrote on the boat
were prophetic of his fate. Ann Murdock had sent him a large steamer
basket in the shape of a ship. The lines to her, brought back by the
ship's pilot, were:
_The little ship you sent is more wonderful
than the big one that takes me away from you._
Like most of his distinguished fellow-voyagers, and they included
Charles Klein, Elbert Hubbard, Justus Miles Forman, and Alfred G.
Vanderbilt, Frohman had frequently traveled on the _Lusitania_. By a
curious coincidence he had once planned to use her sister ship, the
_Mauretania_, for one of his daring innovations. He had a transatlantic
theater in mind. In other words, he proposed to produce whole plays on
shipboard. He took over a small company headed by Marie Doro to try out
the experiment. Early on the voyage Miss Doro succumbed to seasickness
and the project was abandoned.
The last journey of the _Lusitania_ was uneventful until that final
fateful day. Frohman had kept to his cabin during the greater part of
the trip. He was still suffering great pain in his right knee, and
walked the deck with difficulty. Occasionally he appeared in the
smoking-room, and was present at the ship's concert on the night before
the end.
At 2.33 o'clock on the afternoon of May 7th the great vessel rode to her
death. Eight miles off the Head of Kinsale, and within sight of the
Irish coast, she was torpedoed by a German submarine. She sank in half
an hour, with frightful loss of life, including more than a hundred
Americans.
Frohman's hour was at hand, and he met it with the smiling equanimity
and unflinching courage with which he had faced every other crisis in
his life. When the crash came he was on the upper promenade deck. He had
just come from his luncheon and was talking with George Vernon, the
brother-in-law of Rita Jolivet, the actress, who was also on board. They
were now joined by Captain Scott, an Englishman on his way from India to
enlist. When Miss Jolivet reached them Frohman was smoking a cigar and
was calm and apparently undisturbed.
Scott went below to get some life-belts. He returned with only two. He
had started up with three, but gave one to a woman on the way. Miss
Jolivet had provided herself with a belt.
Scott started to put one of the life-preservers on Frohman, who
protested. Finally, with great reluctance, he acquiesced. There was no
belt left for Scott. Frohman insisted that he get one, whereupon the
soldier said:
"If you must die, it is only for once."
There was a responsive look and a whimsical smile on Frohman's face at
this remark. He kept on smoking. Then he started to talk about the
Germans. "I didn't think they would do it," he said. He was apparently
the most unruffled person on the ship.
The great liner began to lurch. Frohman now said to Miss Jolivet:
"You had better hold on the rail and save your strength."
The ship's list became greater; huge waves rolled up, carrying wreckage
and bodies on their crest. Then, with all the terror of destruction
about him, Frohman said to his associates, with the serene smile still
on his face:
"Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure of life."
Instinctively the four people moved closer together, they joined hands
by a common impulse, and stood awaiting the end.
The ship gave a sudden lurch; once more a mighty green cliff of water
came rushing up, bearing its tide of dead and debris; again Frohman
started to say the speech that was to be his valedictory. He had hardly
repeated the first three words--"Why fear death?"--when the group was
engulfed and all sank beneath the surface of the sea.
No situation of the thousands that he had created in the theater was so
vividly or so unaffectedly dramatic as the great manager's own exit from
the stage of life. Smilingly he had made his way through innumerable
difficulties; smilingly and with the highest heroism he met his fate.
The only survivor of the quartet that stood hand in hand on those
death-cluttered decks was Miss Jolivet, and it was she who told the
story of those last thrilling minutes.
Charles Frohman's body was recovered the next day and brought to
Queenstown. A fortnight later it reached New York. On the casket was the
American flag that the dead man had loved so well. Though princes of
capital, famous playwrights, and international authorities on law and
art went down with him, the loss of Frohman overshadowed all others. In
the eyes of the world, the loss of the _Lusitania_ was the loss of
Charles Frohman.
His noble and eloquent final words, so rich with courageous philosophy,
not only joined the category of the great farewells of all time, but
wherever read or uttered will give humanity a fresher faith with which
to meet the inevitable. In a supreme moment of the most colossal drama
that human passion ever staged, fate literally hurled him into the
universal lime-light to enact a part that gave him an undying glory.
The shyest of men became the world's observed.
The last tribute to Charles Frohman was the most remarkable
demonstration of sorrow in the history of the theater. The one-time
barefoot boy of Sandusky, Ohio, who had projected so many people into
eminence and who had himself hidden behind the rampart of his own
activities, was widely mourned.
The principal funeral services were held at the Temple Emanu-El in New
York. Here gathered a notable assemblage that took reverent toll of all
callings and creeds. It was proud to do honor to the man who had
achieved so much and who had died so heroically.
At the bier Augustus Thomas delivered an eloquent address that fittingly
summed up the life and purpose of the greatest force that the
English-speaking theater has yet known. Among other things he said:
"A wise man counseled, 'Look into your heart and write': 'C. F.' looked
into his heart and listened. He had that quoted quality of genius that
made him believe his own thought, made him know that what was true for
him in his private heart was true for all mankind. That was the secret
of his power. It was the golden key to both his understanding and
expression.
"He was a fettered and a prisoned poet, often in his finest moments
inarticulate. Working in the theater with his companies and stars, with
the women and the men who knew and loved him, he accomplished less by
word than by a radiating vital force that brought them into his
intensity of feeling. In his social intercourse and comradeship, telling
a dramatic or a comic story, at a certain pressure of its progress where
other men depend on paragraphs and phrases he coined a near-word and a
sign, and by a graphic and exalted pantomime ambushed and captured our
emotions.
"His mind was clear and tranquil as a mountain lake, its quiet depths
reflecting all the varied beauty of the bending skies. He had the gift
of epitome. The men who knew him best valued his estimate, not only of
the things in his own profession, but of any notable event or deed or
tendency. Often his spontaneous comment on a cabled utterance or act
laid stress upon the word or moment that next day served as captions for
the significant review. The printed thought of the leading statesman,
the outlook of the financier, the decision of the commanding soldier, or
the vision of the poet found kinship in his sympathy, not because he
strove tiptoe to apprehend its elevation, but because his spirit was
native to that plane."
Coincident with the New York funeral, services were held at Los Angeles
at the instigation of Maude Adams; at San Francisco under the
sponsorship of John Drew; at Tacoma at the behest of Billie Burke; at
Providence under the direction of Julia Sanderson, Donald Brian, and
Joseph Cawthorn. Thus a nation-wide chain of grief linked the stars of
the Frohman heaven.
Nor did foreign lands fail to render homage to the memory of Charles
Frohman. A memorial was held at St.-Martins-in-the-Fields, in London,
almost within stone's-throw of the Duke of York's Theater, in which he
took so much pride. In the presence of a distinguished company that
included the chivalry and flower of the British theater, the sub-deacon
of St. Paul's conducted services for the self-made American who had
risen from advance-agent to be the theatrical master of his times.
In Paris the French Society of Authors eulogized the man who had been
their sympathetic envoy and sincere sponsor at the throne of American
appreciation.
Thus fell the curtain on Charles Frohman. As in life he had joined two
continents by the bonds of his daring and courageous enterprise, so on
his death did those two worlds unite to do him honor. He had not lived
in vain.
_Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off._
--"Macbeth," I, vii.
_Appendix A_
THE LETTERS OF CHARLES FROHMAN
Unlike many men of achievement, Charles Frohman was not a prolific
letter-writer. He avoided letter-writing whenever it was possible. When
he could not convey his message orally he resorted to the telegraph.
Letters were the last resort.
He had a sort of constitutional objection to long letters. The only
lengthy epistles that ever came from him were dictated and referred to
matters of business. They all have one quality in common. As soon as he
had concluded the discussion of the topic in mind he would immediately
tell about the fortunes of his plays. He seldom failed to make a
reference to the business that Maude Adams was doing (for her immense
success was very dear to his heart), and he always commented on his own
strenuous activities. He liked to talk about the things he was doing.
The really intimate Frohman letters were always written by hand on
scraps of paper, and were short, jerky, and epigrammatic. Most of these
were written, or rather scratched, to intimates like James M. Barrie,
Paul Potter, and Haddon Chambers.
As indicated in one of the chapters of this book, Frohman delighted in
caricature. To a few of his friends he would send a humorous cartoon
instead of a letter. He caricatured whatever he saw, whether riding on
trains or eating in restaurants. If he wanted a friend to dine with him
he would sketch a rough head and mark it "Me"; then he would draw
another head and label it "You." Between these heads he would make a
picture of a table, and under it scrawl, "Knickerbocker, Friday, 7
o'clock."
Frohman seldom used pen and ink. Most of his letters were written with
the heavy blue editorial pencil that he liked to use. He wrote an
atrocious hand. His only competitor in this way was his close friend
Barrie. The general verdict among the people who have read the writing
of both men is that Frohman took the palm for illegible chirography.
Frohman could pack a world of meaning into his letters. To a
fellow-manager who had written to Boston to ask if he had seen a certain
actress play, he replied: "No, I have had the great pleasure of _not_
seeing her act."
His letters reflect his moods and throw intimate light on his character.
He would always have his joke. To William Collier, who had sent him a
box for a play that he was doing in New York, he once wrote: "I do not
think I will have any difficulty in finding your theater, although a
great many new theaters have gone up. Many old ones have 'gone up' too."
His swift jugglery with words is always manifest. To Alfred Sutro he
sent this sentence notifying him that his play was to go into rehearsal:
"The die is cast--but not the play."
Through his letters there shines his uncompromising rule of life.
Writing to W. Lestocq, his agent in London, in reference to the English
failure of "Years of Discretion," he said: "It is a failure, and that is
the end of it. You can't get around failure, so we must go on to
something else."
* * *
The number of available Frohman letters is not large. The following,
gathered from various sources, will serve to indicate something of their
character:
_To an English author whose play, a weak one, was rapidly failing:_
No; it is not the war that is affecting your business. It is the
play--nothing else.
_To Cyril Maude, whose penmanship is notably indecipherable:_
I can't read your handwriting very well; but I wonder if you can
read my typewriting. Just pretend I typed this myself.... Speaking
of hits, Granville Barker arrived yesterday, and the city suddenly
became terribly cold--awful weather. Barker will do well.
_To Haddon Chambers:_
Last night we produced "Driven" against your judgment. The press
not favorable. But still I'm hoping.
_To a colleague:_
I announced "Driven" as a comedy. Next day I called it a play. But
soon I may call it off.
_To W. Lestocq:_
The American actors over here are worried about so many English
actors in our midst. I employ both kinds--that is, I want good
actors only.
_To an English author:_
As to conditions here being bad for good plays; that is a joke. The
distressful business is for the bad plays that I and other managers
sometimes produce.
_To one of his managers:_
Do not use the line "The World-Famous Tri-Star Combination." Just
say "The Great Three-Star Combination." It is easier to understand.
And all will be well.
_To one of his managers who spoke of the superiority of an actress who
had replaced another about to retire to private life:_
But now that her stage life is over we should remember her years of
good work. She had a simple, childish, fairy-like appeal. I write
this to you to express my feeling for one who has left our work for
good, and I can think now only of pleasant memories. I want you to
feel the same.
_To an English author, January, 1915:_
Over here they say the real heroes of the year are the managers
that dare produce new plays.
_To a business colleague about a singing comedian who was laid up with a
serious illness:_
I am sorry he is sick. But that was a rotten thing for him to
do--to steal our song. I suppose he is better. Only the good die
young.
_To Marie Doro:_
I saw you in the picture play. It and you were fine. What a lot of
money you make! When I return from London I'm going to see if I can
earn $10 a day to play in some of the screens. We are all going up
to the Atlantic Ocean Island to see them taking you in the "White
Pearl" pictures.
_Refusing to go to a public banquet:_
That's the first free thing that has been offered me this year. But
there are three things my physician forbids me from doing--to eat,
drink, or talk.
_To a manager:_
There are no bad towns--only bad plays!
_On hearing that an actress in his employ had reflected on his
management:_
In this message I am charged with neglecting your interests. This
is a shock to me, because when one neglects his trust, he is
dishonest. This is the first time I have ever been so accused, and
I am wondering if you inspired the message. I think it important
that you should know.
_Being adjured by one of the family to take more exercise:_
I drove out to Richmond. Then I walked a mile. Now I hope you'll be
satisfied.
_To his sisters (he lived then at the Waldorf, but joined the family at
a weekly dinner up-town):_
I am sending you a cook-book by Oscar of this hotel. You may find
some use for it.
When he came to the next weekly dinner he was offered several choice
dishes prepared from Oscar's recipes. "I see my mistake," he said. "I
wanted my usual home dinner. You give me what I receive all the time at
the hotel."
_To Alfred Sutro, in London:_