more. He has exerted a powerful influence upon the Stage in every part
of our country. He has battled successfully against the iniquitous
Theatrical Trust and in a great measure contributed to the curtailment
of its oppressive power. He has developed and made efficient several
stars who, without his assistance, would never have gained the
prominence which, with it, they have attained. He has established and
now (1917) maintains one of the finest theatres in the world. To have
done all this,--to have raised himself from indigence and obscurity to
honorable distinction and actual leadership in an intellectual calling,
to have made his way by force of character, native talent, indomitable
resolution, patient, continuous, indefatigable labor; to have borne,
with unshaken fortitude, hardships, trials, disappointment, enmity, and
calumny, and to have risen above all the vicissitudes of fortune,--this
surely is to have shown the steadfast man of the old Roman poet and to
have merited the reward of prosperity and the laurel of fame. His
eminence in his vocation, accordingly, and the obligation to him of the
Theatre and the Public do not require the claim of imaginary
achievements to enhance his reputation. There never was any need that he
should have claimed that he had introduced a new style of acting. I do
not doubt, judging from what I have read of his many impersonations,
that Betterton, who performed on the London stage more than two hundred
years ago, could and did exemplify “quiet acting” as thoroughly as John
Mason does, performing on the New York stage to-day. Changes,
modifications of all kinds, have occurred, many varieties of personality
have been exhibited, in many varieties of speech and bearing, but the
radical, structural change in method that has been effected, the change
from extravagance and elaborate artifice to refined simplicity, has not
been wrought by any one person but by many persons, actuated by the same
influences that have changed the physical investiture of the Theatre,
and by the advance of intelligence, sense, and taste. It is peculiarly
deplorable that the authority of Belasco should even _seem_ to sustain
such carping criticasters as I have indicated (writers who, ignorant of
theatrical history and, apparently, of much else, seek to exalt the
Present by impudent disparagement of the Past), because many of that
tribe have, recently, taken to publishing idle and stupid detraction of
Belasco himself, on the ground that he is “unprogressive” and belongs to
“the old fashion.” He has done more by a single production such as “The
Darling of the Gods” than the whole swarm of his detractors has ever
done, or ever will do, in a lifetime of scribbling, and his name will
live as a beacon of achievement, in life as well as in the Theatre,
generations after they are all vanished and forgotten, like wind-blown
dust.
CONCERNING MATTERS OF FACT.
Genest, in his exceedingly valuable “Account” of the Theatre in Great
Britain,--a work to which every later writer on the subject finds
himself more or less indebted and which ought to be reprinted,--sagely
remarks that “In giving an account of the Stage a good story may
sometimes be admitted on slender authority, but where mere matters of
fact are concerned the history of the Stage ought to be written with the
same accuracy as the history of England.” The attainment of accuracy,
however, exacts scrupulous attention, ceaseless vigilance, patient
inquiry, and hard work, and only a few writers about the Stage have ever
taken the trouble to be thorough and exact. I had expected that
Belasco’s “Story” could be depended upon in every particular and that it
would prove of invaluable aid in writing this Memoir. I do not doubt
that he designed it to be literally true, but, as a conscientious
biographer, I am compelled to mention its errors of fact, and I deem it
my duty to specify and correct some of them, as an act of justice alike
to him and to his, and my, readers.
Belasco, as I have ascertained and stated, was born not in 1858 or 1859,
as various accounts of him have declared, but in 1853. He has himself
affirmed that in 1865, in San Francisco, he walked in a funeral
procession expressive of the public grief for the death of Abraham
Lincoln and at that time wrote a play, on the tragic and pathetic fate
of that illustrious American, expositive of his views of the motives of
Lincoln’s murderer. If we were to accredit the dates which are given as
authentic in various published sketches of his life,--which appear to
have been formally sanctioned,--we should find him to have reached only
to the age of five years and nine months when he walked in that
procession and wrote that play; we should find him,--according to such
wild statements,--when he acted, in Victoria, with Julia Dean and
Charles Kean, performing with those distinguished players about three
years after both of them had died; we should admire him when, before the
age of eleven, he was critically estimating the histrionic style of
Walter Montgomery; and when, between the ages of thirteen and fourteen,
he was giving counsel, which Raymond the comedian had solicited,
relative to the play of “The Gilded Age,” and also as acting as
amanuensis to Dion Boucicault. He states that Lawrence Barrett loved
John McCullough “like his son.” Barrett, born in 1838, was six years
younger than McCullough, born in 1832, and he could not have viewed that
stalwart comrade with anything like a paternal--or a filial--feeling. In
fact, though they dwelt in amicable association as managers and actors
(it would have been hard for anybody to dwell in association with
McCullough in any other way), there was no special affection between
them, as I personally know. Belasco’s statement that McCullough was at
one time Forrest’s dresser is incorrect. He admired Forrest and he
imitated him (until the veteran gruffly told him to leave off “making a
damned fool” of himself by so doing), but he never was Forrest’s servant
or lackey. Belasco says that Barrett’s first appearance as _Cassius_, in
“Julius Cæsar,” was made in 1870, in San Francisco, and that he “hated”
the part and wished to play _Antony_, but could not because it was
Walter Montgomery’s part,--the fact being that he played _Cassius_ for
the first time about 1855, when he was about seventeen years old, at the
Metropolitan Theatre, Detroit; that he _loved_ the part; that his
affinity with it was very strong, and that he esteemed it, as what
indeed it is, the moving impulse of the whole tragedy. Barrett first
played _Cassius_ in San Francisco March 9, 1869, at the California
Theatre, Edwards acting _Antony_; that is, about one year before
Montgomery visited San Francisco. I have talked with Barrett for hours
and hours about acting, and especially about the play of “Julius Cæsar,”
but I never heard him speak with enthusiasm about the part of _Marc
Antony_, or express any desire to act that part, though he thoroughly
understood it and knew its value. Another of Belasco’s mistaken
assertions is the assurance that Walter Montgomery,--who acted _Antony_
with Barrett as _Cassius_ and McCullough as _Brutus_,--was enamoured of
an actress named Rose Massey; that he (Belasco) witnessed their first
encounter, on the stage of the California Theatre, when Montgomery was
smitten speechless at the sight of the young woman; that he soon married
her; and that, after a quarrel with her, he committed suicide, aboard a
ship bound for England. Inquiry would have corrected his memory. Poor
Montgomery (a genial fellow and a fine actor) was easily and often
enamoured: as was said of the poet Heine, “His heart was a good deal
broken in the course of his life.” Rose Massey was an ordinarily pretty
woman, one of the many devotees of the Blonde Troupe
[Illustration: LAWRENCE BARRETT AS _CAIUS CASSIUS_.
IN “JULIUS CAESAR”
“_If we do meet again, we’ll smile indeed;_
_If not, ’tis true this parting was well made!_”
--Act V. sc. 1
From a steel engraving.
Author’s Collection.]
manager, Alexander Henderson, and I remember her as a female at whom it
was easily possible to gaze without blinking. Montgomery never married
her. Walter Montgomery (Richard Tomlinson, 1827-1871: Montgomery was his
mother’s name) married an actress called Winnetta Montague. Her real
name was Laleah Burpré Bigelow. She had been the wife of a Boston
gentleman, Arnold W. Taylor. Montgomery met her on the stage at the
Boston Theatre. She was attracted by him, followed him to England, and
captured him. Their marriage occurred on August 30, 1871, and on
September 2, in a lodging in Stafford Street, Bond Street, London, he
committed suicide, by shooting, and he was buried in Brompton Cemetery.
Winnetta Montague returned to America, resumed acting, allied herself
with an Irish comedian named James M. Ward, died in New York, in abject
poverty, in 1877, and was buried by charitable members of the dramatic
profession.
The excellent and famous personation of _Fagin_ which was shown
throughout our country by J. W. Wallack, the Younger, is ascribed by
Belasco to “Lester’s father,” J. W. Wallack, the Elder, who was “Jim”
Wallack’s uncle, and by whom the part was never played. The movable
stage introduced at the Madison Square Theatre in 1879 is designated
“an innovation” invented by Steele Mackaye, whereas, in fact, it was a
variant of the movable stage scheme introduced at Booth’s Theatre, in
1869, by Edwin Booth.
“Looking over theatrical history,” Belasco exclaims, “has it ever
occurred to you how many players have based their fame _on just one
rôle_?--Salvini as _Othello_, Irving as _Mathias_, in “The Bells”;
Booth as _Hamlet_, Raymond as _Mulberry Sellers_, Sothern as
_Dundreary_, Emmet as _Fritz_, Jefferson as _Rip_, Mayo as _Davy
Crockett_, Chanfrau as _Kit_?... Most of these men struggled a
lifetime and gained recognition as creditable actors. Then,
suddenly, they struck a particular part, a sort of entertainment, a
combination of all the excellent things they had done throughout
their lives but never before had concentrated on one rôle. And
there you are! _Any other actor might have become just as famous if
Fate had thrown the part first in his way._ I have seen three
_Rips_,--that of Jefferson, that of Robert McWade, and finally that
of James A. Herne. This last was a wonderful characterization, with
all the softness and pathos of the part. I was a _Dwarf_, to
Herne’s _Rip_, in the Maguire’s Opera House days. But _Fate_ chose
to thrust forward Jefferson as the only _Rip_ that ever was or ever
could be. _I happen to know better._ Jefferson was never the
Dutchman; he was the Yankee personating the Dutchman. But James A.
Herne’s _Rip_ was the real thing.... These actors of one part are
like the favored children of heaven; they are handed something on a
golden platter, _already created by the author_. It is _to the
author_, _the director_, _the stage manager_, that the true credit
of the creation belongs. Jefferson did not really create _Rip_;
through a certain undeniable art of his _he_ simply put into
visible form what _Washington Irving_ in the story suggested and
Dion Boucicault so cleverly fitted to his personality for the
stage; _he utilized every bit of the descriptive business of the
tale_.”
Seldom has so much error and injustice been packed into so small a
space! It is true that, in many instances, individual actors have
abundantly prospered by the long-continued repetition of a single
performance: this fact, I remember, was impatiently noticed many years
ago by Don Piatt, who testily expressed in a Washington newspaper an
ardent wish that old _Rip Van Winkle_ and old _Fanchon_ would get
married and both retire. It is not because the individual actor _finds_
“a particular part, a sort of entertainment, a combination of all the
excellent things” he has done throughout his life, that he often becomes
most famous in one part; it is because, in every art, the artist’s range
of _supreme_ merit is, comparatively, narrow; no matter how well he can
do fifty things, he can, as a rule, do one thing best of all,--that
thing being always one for which, whether he happens to like it or not,
he possesses a peculiar capacity, one with which he possesses a close
artistic and physical affinity, so that, in the doing of it, he can
make an ampler and more effective display of his talents than he can
make in any other way; and also because the public (with a generally
sound instinctive preference for seeing an actor in the thing which he
can do best) insists on seeing him in it and will not go in large
numbers to see him in anything else.
How much judgment is there in a statement which classifies performances
of _Othello_, _Mathias_, and _Hamlet_ among “entertainments”? Salvini
had played _nothing_ like _Othello_, Irving _nothing_ like _Mathias_,
Booth _nothing_ like _Hamlet_ before, respectively, they played those
parts. (Such performances as _Sellers_, _Fritz_, _Crockett_, and _Kit_,
well enough in their way, do not deserve thoughtful consideration as the
basis of histrionic “fame.”) “_Any other_ actor might have become _just
as famous_ if Fate had thrown the part first in _his way_!” That is,
according to this careless commentator, although a “one-part actor”
achieves his greatest success in a part which happens to combine “all
the excellent things,” the peculiar, individual merits, of _that special
actor_, nevertheless _any other_ actor could have achieved the same
success if he had been fortunate enough to receive the golden
opportunity first. Charles Harcourt played _Mathias_, under the name of
_Paul Zegers_, at the Alfred Theatre (the old Marylebone), London, in a
version of “The Polish Jew” by Frank Burnand, several months before
Irving ever played it--and Harcourt utterly failed in it. _Othello_ and
_Hamlet_ had been played by scores of contemporary actors before Salvini
and Booth, respectively, played those parts,--yet the effect produced by
those actors in those parts was not the less unique and extraordinary.
Irving’s _fame_ as an actor, moreover, rested and rests at least as much
on his _Hamlet_, _Shylock_, _King Louis_, _Mephistopheles_, and
_Benedick_ as on his _Mathias_. _Hamlet_ certainly was Booth’s most
typical performance, but also certainly he was more _popular_ as
_Richelieu_ than as _Hamlet_, and his _fame_ rests on that part and on
his _Brutus_, _Shylock_, _King Richard the Third_, and _Iago_ as much as
on his _Hamlet_. Salvini’s _fame_ rests as much on his _Corado_,
_Niger_, _King Saul_, and _Orosmane_ as on his _Othello_--and in all of
those parts he was finer than he was in _Othello_. Salvini, Irving, and
Booth were not “one-part actors,” nor does their fame rest on any one
performance, nor should the credit for their achievement be given to any
author, director, or stage manager--or to anybody but themselves. Booth,
Irving, and Salvini were stage directors and managers, and though they
did not write the parts which they acted, they certainly arranged them,
and as to some of them they supplied vital suggestions. The character
of _Mathias_, in “The Bells,” for instance, was completely reconstructed
by Leopold Lewis, _at Irving’s suggestion_, to adapt it to his
mysterious personality and peculiarities of style. _Lord Dundreary_,
when first given to Sothern by Laura Keene, was a wretched part, about
seventeen lines in length,--“a dyed-up old man” she called it, asking
him to accept it,--but the comedian eventually expanded it till it
dominated the play, and it is fair to say that, _literally_, he
“created” it.
THE FACTS ABOUT JEFFERSON’S _RIP_.
Jefferson was a youth when he was first attracted to the part of _Rip
Van Winkle_. He had seen it played by his half-brother, Charles St.
Thomas Burke, who was esteemed by his contemporaries a great comedian,
and had acted in the play with him, as _Seth_. He has himself told me
that long before he attained a position in which he could publicly
assume it he frequently made up for it and rehearsed it in private. The
play that he at first used was one Burke had made, which Jefferson
tinkered and improved. There were at least ten plays on the subject in
existence _before_ Jefferson ever appeared as _Rip_, and eight recorded
performers of that part. The first _Rip_ was Thomas Flynn, the second
was Charles B. Parsons; both of them acted it in 1828,--a year before
Jefferson was born. Their successors were William B. Chapman, 1829;
James Henry Hackett, 1830; Frederick Henry Yates, 1831; William
Isherwood, 1833-’34; Joseph Jefferson, the second (our Jefferson’s
father), about 183(8?), and Charles Burke, 1849-’50, or earlier.
Jefferson first acted _Rip_ at Caruso’s Hall, in Washington, in 1859,
and he continued to act it for forty-five years. I first saw him in it,
in the season of 1859-’60, at the Winter Garden Theatre, New York, and
was deeply impressed by his performance, which almost ever since I have
extolled in the press as one of the greatest pieces of acting that have
been seen in our time. Down to 1865, Hackett, by birth a Hollander, was
highly esteemed as _Rip_, but neither he nor either of the actors above
mentioned was ever “just as famous” in it as Jefferson became, though
“Fate” had thrown it in their way long before that deity had thrown it
in his. His achievement has been more or less disparaged ever since he
first won the public suffrage in it. His success has been ascribed to
almost anything except the real cause,--for example, to Chance, to
“Fate,” to Dion Boucicault, and to me,--which is mere nonsense.
Jefferson’s wonderful artistic triumph as _Rip Van Winkle_ was due to
just one person--_himself_. He would have gained it if all the persons
who have been credited with “making him” had never lived. His
impersonation was entirely his own conception and construction--a work
of pure genius. The play that Boucicault, in 1865, in London, made for
him, on the basis of the old version which he had used for more than six
years, was largely fashioned after suggestions _made by Jefferson
himself_, the most important of which being that in the mysterious,
supernatural midnight scene on the lonely mountain top the ghosts should
remain silent and only the man should speak. Jefferson had the soul of a
poet, the mind of a dreamer, the eye of a painter, the imagination and
heart of a genius, and he was a consummate actor. As an executant in
acting he operated with exquisite precision, and his art was infiltrated
with light, geniality, and humor. “It is to the author, the director,
the stage manager that the true credit of the creation belongs,” writes
Belasco, himself an author, a director, and a stage manager, and
therefore not an altogether impartial witness; forgetful, also, that
Jefferson was experienced in all those callings. The author of a play
provides _the soul_ of a part, the actor provides _the body_ and
vitalizes it with all his being, and shapes and adorns it, _revealing_
the soul, with all his art:
“But by the mighty _actor_ brought,
Illusion’s _perfect_ triumphs come,--
Verse ceases to be airy thought,
And Sculpture to be dumb!”
Jefferson used only the skeleton of the story of _Rip Van Winkle_ as
told by Washington Irving, in “The Sketch Book” (1819): the character,
as he portrayed it, is quite different from the commonplace sot
designated by Irving. As to Boucicault’s version of the play--that
dramatist disparaged it, did not believe in it, and actually assured
Jefferson, just before the curtain rose on its first performance
(September 4, 1865, at the Adelphi Theatre, London), that it would
_fail_; and after he had seen Jefferson’s performance he said to that
comedian, “You are shooting over their heads,” to which Jefferson
answered, “I am not even shooting _at_ their heads--I am shooting _at
their hearts_.” He hit them. Later, Boucicault discovered what Jefferson
meant (he could see a church by daylight as well as another!), and paid
him the compliment of devising for himself an Irish _Rip Van Winkle_,
under the name of _Conn, the Shaughraun_, which he admirably acted, as
nearly as he could, in Jefferson’s spirit and manner. “Jefferson,”
writes Belasco, “was the _Yankee_ personating the Dutchman.” Another
mistake. “Yankee” is an epithet of disparagement which the British
contemptuously applied to the rural inhabitants of New England in the
time of the American Revolutionary War. Jefferson did not possess _any_
of either the physical or mental qualities of a New Englander. He was of
English, Scotch, and French lineage. His grandfather was a Yorkshire
man; his father a Pennsylvanian; his mother a French lady (born in the
Island of San Domingo); himself a native of Philadelphia--and no more a
“Yankee” than J. A. Herne was, whose lineage was Irish, who was born at
Cohoes, New York, and whose performance of _Rip_ (a respectable one) was
based in part on Jefferson and in part on Hackett. It is idle to
disparage Jefferson as _Rip Van Winkle_. That impersonation will live in
theatrical history when all the Hernes, McWades, etc., are lost in
oblivion!
A LEADING LADY IN A PET.
Prior to presentment of “The Millionaire’s Daughter” (May 19, 1879) at
the Baldwin Theatre Maguire had made a contract requiring production
there, on May 24 and 25, of a play entitled “Cupid’s Lawsuit”: the
prosperous though not protracted career of Belasco’s melodrama was,
accordingly, interrupted on those dates and resumed on the 26th; it
ended on June 1. June 2 was signalized by the
[Illustration: JOSEPH JEFFERSON AS _RIP VAN WINKLE_
“Und see, I come back, und my vife is gon’ und my home is gon’. My
home is gon’, und my chil’--my chil’ look in my face und don’ know
who I am!”
--Act V.
Photograph by Sarony.
Author’s Collection.]
primary appearance in San Francisco, made at the Baldwin, of the
dashing, sparkling actress Rose Coghlan, then in the flush of opulent
beauty and the pride of bounteous success. Miss Coghlan came to the
American Stage when she was a girl of twenty, performing at Wallack’s
Theatre, New York (the Thirteenth Street House), September 2, 1872, as
_Mrs. Honeyton_, in “A Happy Pair,” and in association with the Lydia
Thompson Troupe, as _Jupiter_, in a revival of “Ixion; or, The Man at
the Wheel.” She played many parts during the ensuing seven
years,--gaining a memorable triumph at Wallack’s, September 21, 1878, as
_Lady Teazle_, when “The School for Scandal” was revived there with a
cast including John Gilbert as _Sir Peter_, John Brougham as _Sir
Oliver_, Mme. Ponisi as _Mrs. Candor_, and Charles F. Coghlan as
_Charles Surface_. Miss Coghlan’s emergence on the California Stage was
an event which inspired eager public interest. She had been engaged by
Maguire (who paid her $500 a week for her services, a large salary at
any time and an immense one in those days) in compliance with the
fervent importunity of Belasco, and the latter was somewhat disconcerted
at finding her attitude toward him that of arrogant disdain. “Maguire
brought her to the stage, for the first rehearsal,” Belasco has said,
describing to me their meeting: “and she took her stand near the stage
manager’s table, where I sat. I rose to greet her, but she looked _over_
me, _past_ me, and _through_ me; then she turned to Maguire and asked if
she might meet the stage manager. I was introduced to her, and at last
she condescended to _see_ me. ’What!’ she exclaimed: ’this _boy_ to be
my director, after I have come from Wallack’s! Never!’ It was rather an
embarrassing situation for me, but I had had too much experience of the
ways of leading ladies to take offence. ’Is it possible,’ she continued,
’that men like James O’Neill and Lewis Morrison act under the direction
of a _boy_! For my part, I won’t do it!’--and she turned toward where
Maguire had been standing, only to find that he had slipped
away,--delighted with my predicament,--leaving me to deal as best I
could with the celebrated actress _I_ had induced him to engage! ’Miss
Coghlan,’ I said, ’I trust you will find our stage competently managed;
at any rate, we’ll try to please you: for my part, I shall be most
thankful for any suggestions you may be kind enough to favor me with,
and you will not, I assure you, find me anxious to impose upon you any
business that might conflict with your own conceptions.’ With that,
O’Neill and Morrison came in, together, and I introduced them and called
the First Act. Before the rehearsal
[Illustration:
Photograph by Sarony.
Belasco’s Collection.
ROSE COGHLAN
From an old photograph.
The Albert Davis Collection.
NINA VARIAN
About 1879, when they first acted in San Francisco, under Belasco’s
direction]