I am Engaged to Star part of the Season--Mr. Daly Breaks his
Contract--I Leave him and under Threat of Injunction--I meet Mr. Palmer
and make Contract and appear at the Union Square in the "Wicked World."
The third season in New York was drawing to its close, and by most
desperate struggling I had managed just to keep my head above water--that
was all. I not only failed to get ahead by so much as a single dollar,
but I had never had really enough of anything. We were skimped on
clothes, skimped on food, indeed we were skimped on everything, except
work and hope deferred. When, lo! a starring tour was proposed to me.
After my first fright was over I saw a possibility of earning in that way
something more than my mere board, though, truth to tell, I was not
enraptured with the prospect of joining that ever-moving caravan of
homeless wanderers, who barter home, happiness, and digestive apparatus
for their percentage of the gross, and the doubtful privilege of having
their own three-sheet posters stare them out of countenance in every town
they visit. Yet without the brazen poster and an occasional lithograph
hung upside down in the window of a German beer saloon, one would lack
the proof of stardom.
No, I had watched stars too long and too closely to believe theirs was a
very joyous existence; besides, I felt I had much to learn yet, and that
New York was the place to learn it in; so, true to my promise, off I went
and laid the matter before Mr. Daly--and he _did_ take on, but for such
an odd reason. For though he paid me the valued compliment of saying he
could not afford to lose me, his greatest anger was aroused by what he
called the "demoralization" my act would bring into his company.
"You put that bee in their bonnets and its buzzing will drown all
commands, threats, or reasons. Every mother's son and daughter of them
will demand the right to star! Why, confound it! Jimmie Lewis, who has
had one try at it, is twisting and writhing to get at it again--even now;
and as for Miss Davenport, she will simply raise the dead over her effort
to break out starring, and Ethel--oh, well, she's free now to do as she
likes. But you star one week and you'll see how quick she will take the
cue, while Miss--oh, it's damnable! You can't do it! it will set everyone
on end!"
"If you will give me a salary equal to that of other people, who do much
less work than I do, I will stay with you," I said.
But he wanted me to keep to the small salary and let him "make it up to
me," meaning by that, his paying for the stage costumes and occasional
gifts, etc. But that was not only unbusiness-like and
unsatisfactory--though he undoubtedly would have been generous
enough--but it was a bit humiliating, since it made me dependent on his
whims and, worst of all, it opened the door to possible scandal, and I
had but one tongue to deny with, while scandal had a thousand tongues to
accuse with.
It was a queer whim, but he insisted that he could not give me the really
modest salary I would remain for, though, in his own words, I should have
"three times its value." Finally we agreed that I should give him three
months of the season every year as long as he might want my services, and
the rest of the season I should be free to make as much money as I could,
starring. He told me to go ahead and make engagements at once to produce
"L'Article 47" or "Alixe"--I to pay him a heavy nightly royalty for each
play, and when my engagements were completed to bring him the list, that
he might not produce "Alixe" with his company before me in any city that
I was to visit. I did as he had requested me. I was bound in every
contract to be the first to present "L'Article 47" or "Alixe" in that
city. I was then to open in Philadelphia. I had been announced as a
coming attraction, when I received startling telegrams and threats from
the local manager that "Mr. Daly's Fifth Avenue Company" was announced to
appear the week before me in "Alixe," in an opposition house. Thus Mr.
Daly had most cruelly broken faith with me. I went to him at once. I
reproached him. I said: "These people will sue me!"
"Bah!" he sneered, "they can't take what you have not got!"
"But," I cried, "they will throw over my engagement!"
His face lit up with undisguised pleasure. He thrust his hand into the
open desk-drawer. "Ah," he smiled, "I have a part here that might have
been written for you. It is great--honestly great, and with this starring
business disposed of, we can get at it early!"
I rose. I said: "Mr. Daly, you have done an unworthy thing, you have
broken faith with me. If you produce 'Alixe' next week, I will never play
for you again!"
"You will have to!" he threatened. "I have broken the verbal part of our
contract, but you cannot prove it, nor can you break the written part of
the contract!"