FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS.
The merchant who has anything to dispose of advertises it, and the most
successful men in any line of business are those who are most liberal
in the use of printers' ink. The theatrical fraternity thoroughly
understand this, and their first and foremost idea in everything they
do is to get themselves before the public, and, if possible, keep
themselves there. Their appreciation of the value of a puff or notice
is beautifully set forth in the following funny paragraph which I found
floating around in the newspapers:--
"A Leadville paper stated that a well-known actress who visited that
city went to a saloon after a performance, played poker, got drunk,
licked the bartender, and cleaned out the crowd. Of course she was
very indignant and was going to cowhide the editor, when the amazed
journalist explained to her that it was a first-class puff that would
get her an opening in society in Leadville. And then she thanked him
and gave him a dozen passes."
[Illustration: SERVING A WRIT ON FANNY DAVENPORT.]
Some actors, and some actresses, too, do not care a cent what the means
employed are or what the printed matter is, so the names are their own
and once more they are before the people. The great majority, however,
while anxious to appear in print as often and in as many columns as a
paper can spare without throwing out paying advertisements, are very
scrupulous about the character of the statements credited to them or
actions spoken of, while all affect to be utterly independent of the
press and to have no regard whatever for the good it can do them, or
the harm either. If they meant what they said they might be set down as
foolish; but they do not mean anything of the kind, and the fact that
day after day the most outrageous stories about professional people go
uncontroverted, is an indication that not only are they willing to have
such things published, but may have instigated them themselves.
The only kind of newspaper notice a Thespian might not court, but
which, once printed, would be looked upon philosophically as so much
printers' ink obtained for nothing--so much advertising had that wasn't
paid for--is such a one as the announcement of the attempt of a sheriff
to lasso Miss Fanny Davenport, in order that he might be able to hold
her long enough to read a writ of some sort to her.
Different actors and actresses have different ways of advertising
themselves. The interview is a favorite with some, and often the
interview is so arranged that the player can appear before the
newspaper man in some eccentric attitude that will attract more
attention than all the player could say if he talked for one hundred
years. Harry Sargent likes a reporter to see Modjeska, and as the
visitor enters he finds the Polish actress firing across the room
with a pistol at a small target, which she manages to hit every time.
Displaying diamonds is another scheme to catch the unwary newspaper
man. Sending along photographs is expected to throw an editor into
an ecstasy of liberality out of which he will come with at least a
half-column puff of the pretty creature whose counterpart presentment
has been sent to him. Diamond robberies are worth at least a column.
Falling heir to $5,000,000 or more will bring an interview that will
be worth almost as much as the legacy. In everything an actor or an
actress says and does the newspaper will find something worth printing,
and in printing it the paper does exactly what the actor or actress
wants--places him or her before the public. Mme. Janauschek gets a
slight jolt in going down the shaft of a Colorado mine, and the country
is immediately informed that she has had a narrow escape from death.
Minnie Maddern, a new star who expects to rival Lotta, is made a brevet
officer of the Continental Guards of New Orleans, and her manager feels
assured that the people of the United States would not sleep well if
they didn't hear about it within twenty-four hours, so he gets the
Associated Press to telegraph it in all directions, that at least a few
lives may be saved. A Bohemian prince presents Emma Thursby, at Prague,
with a pair of nightingales, and about ten lines of every newspaper
this side of the Atlantic are wasted in making the silly announcement.
The souvenir and flower "rackets" both carry a certain weight, and the
lithograph that fills the eye as one gazes into a shoe store window is
a glory that can never fade from the optic that has even for a second
of time dwelt upon it.
[Illustration: ERNESTI ROSSI.]
Minnie Palmer, if all reports be true, came to the front some time ago
with a new bid for a free advertisement. She entertained a Louisville
_Courier-Journal_ reporter with a display that must have made the
young man blush. "Our company has got into the chemise fever,"
exclaimed Minnie, artlessly, "and we're trying to see which can make
the prettiest one. I'll show them to you," and then, regardless of the
helpless man's blushes, she disemboweled a trunk and buried him beneath
an avalanche of snowy underwear. Their construction was minutely
explained, and then the conversation naturally led to flannels, which
Minnie confidentially remarked could not be worn by actors because of
the risk of colds when compelled to leave them off. The theme could
scarcely be pursued further than flannels, and the interview closed
with Minnie's confession that she didn't like to be hugged on the
stage in warm weather. In winter, and unencumbered by flannels, the
operation was not so distasteful. All of this may seem irrelevant, and
having very little to do with dramatic art, but it made a column for
Minnie all the same.
The Abbott Kiss, invented by John T. McEnnis, a reporter on the St.
Louis _Post-Dispatch_, but always claimed by Jimmy Morrissey, who was
her agent at the time, traveled everywhere and was printed in every
newspaper from New York to San Francisco. It had just about played
out when in 1881, during the prevalence of small-pox, Miss Abbott had
herself vaccinated on one of her lower limbs, and again the papers
advertised her. She afterwards acted in the capacity of interviewer
for the St. Louis _Globe-Democrat_, and was commissioned to get a talk
out of Patti, but spent all the time she was with the diva in kissing
and hugging her, and when she came away from her had nothing to write
about. Still Miss Abbott is a hard-working, gifted, and agreeable
little lady, and must be regarded as the best lyric prima donna America
can boast of.
Speaking about Patti: she came to the United States under foreign
management, and with all her sweetness and beauty of voice and the
greatness of her reputation, she could do nothing until an American
manager who understood the art of advertising took hold of her. He
began his work at once by decorating his theatre in lavish style for
her first concert, and completed his initial triumph by causing a crowd
of young fellows to unhitch the horses from Patti's carriage and run
with the vehicle through the streets to her hotel. The report next day
said the amateur horses were society swells, and so the news went into
every State of the Union. Neilson's carriage was dragged through the
street in the same way once at Toronto. Patti got another free "ad."
by visiting Paddy Ryan, the pugilist John Sullivan knocked out of time,
in his training quarters at New Orleans, just as Bernhardt went to see
Englehardt's whale at Boston for the sake of the advertisement she got.
Just as Schneider kicked herself into the good graces of the Parisians,
Catherine Lewis, of "Olivette" fame, managed to "fling" herself into
popularity here. The Lewis fling in the farandole was known and sought
after everywhere. It was a wild and wayward tossing of limbs and arms
that caught the eye and held the attention not so much because there
was anything artistic in it, but because one expected every minute to
see it grow less and less restrained until it broke out into something
like the reckless indecency of the cancan. It advertised Catherine
Lewis as she has not been advertised since, and as she probably never
will be again. As the "fling" is not dead yet I will try to describe
it. After the solo and while the first chorus is being given she moves
back with the other dancers, throwing her arms from right to left and
left to right again, when the dancers came to a standstill. _Olivette_
is seen posing in a lop-sided, Pisa-like attitude, with both arms
and head inclining to the left. The chorus is repeated, and as the
repetition begins the dancers turn themselves loose with _Olivette_ in
the van. "Oho" she sings and swings to the left; "Oho" to the right,
"Oho" to the left again, when out pops the left slipper, followed
swiftly by the right ditto, and the toe of the latter foot-covering
tumbles over the horizon of the orchestra leader's head, and there is
a confusion of embroidery and white linen and silk hose that fills the
eye of the man in the parquette with a flash of joy and causes a warm
still wind to roll in a breezeful way around his cardiacal region.
"Oho," "Oho" and "Oho" again, with more body throwing, and this time
the elevation of the toe of the left slipper above the line of vision,
just a little higher than before, followed by three more "Oho's," and
the quivering of the satin slipper on the right foot high over the
foot-lights and in close range to the man with field glasses to his
eyes who is sitting in the first row of the parquette. And that's
all there is to the farandole--nine swings or throws of the body and
three kicks every time she comes down the stage, the altitude of the
kick growing with each succeeding effort until the last spasmodic,
ærial evolution of the satin slipper brings about a display of linen
that would do credit to the lingerie counter of a dry goods store.
_Olivette_ has the attention of the entire audience while this is going
on. She goes up and comes down the stage twice, swinging and kicking
with an anatomical riot behind her, every female member of the company
from the chorus girl up to the _Countess_ vying with _Olivette_ in
sending the farandole off with a hurrah and multiplicity of "flings."
When the chorus has come to an end, there is a bold encore for its
repetition, and away they go again.
Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!
Then would they be missing,
Surely the girls went round about
So long it took them finding out.
Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!
Till something like kissing,
Told as plainly as could be
Where were he and she.
Miss Lewis at one time while in New York was freely advertised in both
meanings of the word, because she sold tickets for her benefit in her
room at the hotel, where all could apply to purchase them.
Maggie Duggan, a young lady until recently comparatively unknown, has
suddenly made herself famous by nightly kicking her slipper to the top
of the Bijou Theatre, New York. She is a comic opera singer. This is
lofty limb work that Mlle. Sara, the original high kicker, might envy.
[Illustration: SLIPPERS FOR FREE PUFFS.]
Emilie Melville, an operatic star of California, in looking over her
stock of presents could think of nothing more suitable or anything that
would prove more acceptable to the dramatic critics of San Francisco
and her friends than to give each one of her slippers. So she held a
reception; and, dressed in Oriental toilet, she presented each as he
came with one of the tiny silken slippers in which her tootsies used to
slumber on the stage. It was such a novel proceeding that Miss Melville
got more gratuitous puffing than she could have paid for with the
profits of one of her best seasons.
Henry Mapleson, whom I know has no fear of the newspaper man, but
rather courts his society and wooes the columns of his paper, made the
following ridiculous statement (to a reporter) concerning the manner in
which he and his wife, Marie Roze, were pestered by reporters on the
road: "They began early in the morning. When I first opened my bed-room
door I was sure to find one or two outside of it. No detail was too
small for them. They would follow us around and give scraps of our
conversation, and one fellow even sat at the same dinner-table with us
in Kansas City and printed a list of all the things my wife ate, making
it about five times as long as the truth called for, and adding such
trifles as four oranges, six pieces of cake, etc. My wife was so angry
when this account appeared in the afternoon paper that we determined
to have our supper in our room, and, as the landlord would not consent
to that, I bought a steak during the evening, and Marie Roze, still
dressed as _Helen of Troy_, began to cook it over a spirit lamp. We
were congratulating ourselves that no reporter would know anything
about that supper, when a knock was given on the door. 'Who's there?' I
called out. The answer came back through the keyhole: 'I am a reporter
of the _Morning Buzzard_, and I want to know what you had for supper.
That _Evening Crow_ fellow got ahead of me on the dinner, but I'll
fetch him on the supper.'"
A story that illustrates, in an exaggerated way, though, the tricks of
the dramatic profession, is told of a shrewd agent who found himself
in Mansfield, Ohio, with a company on his hands and pursued by bad
business so relentlessly that he began to have doubts that he would
ever see Union Square again. In this strait he called his never-failing
wits to his aid and devised a plan straightway that led him out of the
difficulty, as had happened to him many a time before. He went to the
room of his star--his leading lady--and knocked. He was admitted. "Why,
Sam," said she, "what do you want at this hour?"
"I want your ear," said he.
"Oh, is that all," said the leading lady, recovering from her pallor;
"I thought--but no matter; go on."
"You know business is bad," said he.
"Well, I should smile," said the artiste; "since I haven't had any
salary for four weeks. What's the new racket."
"It's this," said the agent: "If we expect to go out of this town we've
got to do something Napoleonic. And you've got to do it."
"You forget my sex," said she.
"No, I don't," said he; "there may be a Napoleon in petticoats as well
as in trousers."
"Very well, what is it?"
"I want to get a column in each of the daily papers."
"Well, I guess you'll want it, for all the newspaper boys know we've
got a snide show this time," she said.
"Well, I guess not, if you'll do what I tell you," said the artful
agent.
"What is that?" inquired the guileless actress.
"You know the railroad bridge outside of town?"
"That shaky old wooden structure of patched logs and sleepers?"
"Yes."
"Well, what of it?"
"That bridge will get us columns in every paper for forty miles around."
"You've got 'em, Sam, sure."
"No, I haven't. I'm solid on the biz. Now listen: I want you to go
to-morrow and stand in the middle of that bridge when the two 2:20
trains pass each other going in opposite directions."
"Well, you are fresh. What'll I do that for?"
"For an 'ad.'"
"And where will I be when the trains pass?"
"Why, if you're smart and listen to me, you'll be clinging to the
trestle-work underneath until they pass over you, then I'll head on
back to the hotel and have all the reporters come up and interview you,
and then there will be columns published, the house will be filled that
night and we will rake in a heavy stake."
The actress saw the point and had the pluck to execute the project of
the agent. She stood on the bridge at the appointed time. She shrieked
in the most frantic manner. The engineer reversed the engine and
whistled down brakes, but in spite of all the train passed over her.
There was a great sensation. She was dragged out from the trestle-work
and taken to the hotel. The papers which would not take the
advertisement of the show because the manager could not pay in advance
sent reporters to interview the actress on her narrow escape, and gave
columns to the company. The result was a series of full houses and the
"snides" made a triumphant march eastward on the impetus of the shrewd
agent's "gag."