We sometimes speak and often hear of an instantaneous success, but in
reality there is no such thing as success or failure being immediate.
Every real achievement is the culmination of weeks and months, and
even years, of earnest and unremitting toil. The popular actor and
well-known author, William Hooker Gillette, furnishes a case in point.
The structure of his reputation bids fair to last indefinitely, but it
rests on foundations of preparatory work of which the public knows
but little. He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, July 24, 1855, being
the son of Francis G. (late United States senator from Connecticut),
and Elizabeth Daggett (Hooker) Gillette. Graduating from the Hartford
high school at the age of twenty, he afterward attended the New York
university for two years. From a lad he had given evidence of his love
for the stage. While at the university he obtained a minor position
in one of the theaters. In 1876, becoming a student in the Boston
university, he followed the same plan of studying by day and playing in
small parts at night. In this way he made himself thoroughly acquainted
with the “business” of the stage, as well as the first principles of
acting. Mr. Gillette made his first palpable hit in the title rôle
of A Private Secretary by playing a part which required a particular
delicacy of treatment.