acting was excellent,--notably the performances of _Israel Cohen_ by
Frederic de Belleville, _William Prescott_ by William Morris, _Calvin
Stedman_ by R. A. Roberts, _Stephen Rodman_ by Frank Mordaunt, and _Mr.
Pendleton_ by Charles Leslie Allen. Roberts was specially admirable for
the manner with which he suffused his impersonation of the savagely
implacable attorney with an antipathetic but wholly veritable air of
saturated self-approbation in his cruel assumption of righteousness.
The whole moral doctrine of Belasco, not only in this play but in
several others of the same class,--a doctrine upon which he dwells with
what, considering the existing way of the world, seems rather a
superfluous insistence,--is comprised in four well-known lines by Robert
Burns which, on the programme, were used as an epigraph for this play:
“Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman,
Tho’ they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human.”
It is. But many things that are human are reprehensible. “To step aside”
sometimes causes sins that can never be expiated, sorrows that can
never be assuaged, wrongs that never can be righted. The most terrible
of all words is the word CONSEQUENCES.
HATCHING “THE UGLY DUCKLING.”
Belasco, while colaboring with De Mille in the writing of “Men and
Women” and subsequently while rehearsing, for Frohman, the company which
acted in that play, concurrently continued his tuition of Mrs. Carter;
but it was beyond even his aspiring spirit and indefatigable industry to
undertake at the same time the additional task of writing a new play for
her use. In this dilemma he presently effected an arrangement with Mr.
Paul M. Potter whereby that playwright agreed to furnish him with “a
comedy drama” for Mrs. Carter’s use, so that he was left free to work at
his other tasks and to seek for capital with which to launch his star.
His next step was to arrange with Edward D. Price, a person widely
experienced in theatrical affairs, to act as business manager of Mrs.
Carter’s tour, Price accepting the office on condition that Belasco
would provide a capital of $10,000, to be placed on deposit in a bank
before beginning the season. This Belasco undertook to do,--not at that
moment knowing how he was to do it, but feeling confident, nevertheless,
that it could be done. On conferring with Mrs. Carter and her mother he
was apprised that the latter had contrived to obtain the sum of $1,500.
On learning that this would be wholly inadequate for the production of
the new play, Mrs. Carter suggested that application for assistance
should be made, on her behalf, to wealthy friends of hers, Mr. and Mrs.
N. K. Fairbank, of Chicago, who had been kind to her throughout the
distressing ordeal of her domestic troubles and who evidently believed
in her integrity and ability. This application was at once made, and it
was successful. “We will deposit $10,000 to your credit,” said Mr.
Fairbank (so Belasco has stated to me), “and it is to be used for
launching Mrs. Carter as a star. If you need more, you can get it by
applying to my legal representatives in Chicago.” “The only restriction
that Fairbank stipulated for,” added Belasco, “was the very reasonable
one that I should keep an account of the expenditures,--which I did, to
the last penny.”
Having secured a competent business manager and, apparently, sufficient
financial support, it only remained to wait for the play and to improve
Mrs. Carter as much as possible as an actress. Mr. Potter soon forwarded
the manuscript of his play, which was called “The Ugly Duckling.” On
reading that fabrication Belasco,--who seems to have expected much from
Mr. Potter,--was chagrined to find it artificial, flimsy, and
insufficient. Instead of at once undertaking to rewrite it himself he
injudiciously employed for that purpose a person named Archibald C.
Gordon, who was commended to his favor as being qualified to perform the
required work. This Gordon, however, turned out to be not only a
blackguard who could not be tolerated but also to be wholly incompetent
as a playwright, and Belasco, in consequence, after much annoyance, was
ultimately compelled himself to rectify, as far as possible, the gross
inadequacies of the piece. Testifying on this subject, in court, in
1896, he said: “I cut out _everything_ that Mr. Gordon wrote.”
Notwithstanding all impediments, delays and vexations, a company was at
last engaged, a theatre was secured, rehearsals were effected, and, on
November 10, 1890, Mrs. Carter, acting _Kate Graydon_, made her first
appearance on the stage, at the Broadway Theatre, New York.
“THE UGLY DUCKLING.”--MRS. CARTER’S DÉBUT.
The play of “The Ugly Duckling” is founded, in part, on the idea of
Andersen’s fairy tale, from which its name is taken,--the idea, namely,
that the supposedly least promising and least esteemed member of a brood
may prove to be the finest and most worthy of admiration. The story
relates to domestic tribulations in a prominent New York family, named
_Graydon_. The youngest member of that family, _Kate Graydon_, returning
home from England, finds her more valued sister, _Hester_, engaged to be
married to an Englishman, _Viscount Huntington_, by whom she has herself
been courted, in London. She keeps her secret for her sister’s sake, and
_Hester_ becomes _Huntington’s_ wife. A vindictive Corsican, _Count
Malatesta_, believing that in _Huntington_ he has found the betrayer of
his wife, the _Countess Malatesta_, entices _Hester_ to his apartments,
and then causes _Huntington_ to be apprised of her presence there.
_Kate_, having followed her sister, liberates her from this scandalous
situation, at the cost of compromising herself.
The play will not bear consideration. That Mrs. Carter should not have
been irrevocably damned as an actress by making her first appearance in
such a puerile composition speaks much for her natural talent and for
Belasco’s skilful tuition and management. That he should have risked her
advent in such a fabric of trash is astounding. Since, ultimately, he
established her as a highly successful star, I suppose he would maintain
that his judgment has been vindicated. I cannot but feel, however,
[Illustration:
Photograph by Sarony. Belasco’s Collection.
MRS. LESLIE CARTER
About the time of “The Ugly Duckling”]
that, had he embarked her with a good play, he would have brought her to
public acceptance much earlier than he did. In Mrs. Carter’s performance
of _Kate Graydon_ there were moments in which she escaped the thraldom
of solicitude and self-consciousness and clearly indicated possession of
the faculty of vigorous dramatic expression. This was the original cast
of “The Ugly Duckling”:
_Douglas Oakley_ Arthur Dacre.
_Count Malatesta_ Edward J. Henley.
_Professor Graydon_ William H. Thompson.
_Viscount Huntington_ Ian [Forbes-] Robertson.
_Mr. Ernest Granly_ R. F. Cotton.
_Jack Farragut_ Raymond Holmes.
_Chevalier Raff_ Mervin Dallas.
_Randolph_ Thomas Oberle.
_Mrs. Graydon_ Ida Vernon.
_Hester Graydon_ Helen Bancroft.
_Kate Graydon_ Mrs. Leslie Carter.
_Mrs. Granly_ Helen Russell.
_Helen_ Ida Macdonald.
_Agnes_ Fannie Batchelder.
“If it had not been for the interest of Isaac Rich, of Boston,” Belasco
told me, “whose friendship and good will I had gained through my work on
Gillette’s dramatization of ’She,’ and who was kind enough to help me
when it seemed as though most of the rest of the world was against me, I
don’t believe we could have got a tour booked anywhere. However, we
_did_ manage to get a route--and lost a fair-sized fortune playing it!
Mrs. Carter was made a target all along the line.”
MORE FAILURE, AND A LAWSUIT.
During this tour, though Mrs. Carter revealed fine talent and won some
commendation, the business was uniformly bad until she appeared in
Chicago; there, for the first time, the receipts exceeded the expenses,
and it began to seem as though the tide had turned toward prosperity.
But the venture had already cost more than $40,000, and Fairbank,
becoming dissatisfied, suddenly withdrew his support. “On the strength
of Mr. Fairbank’s promise,” Belasco declared, “I had given mine, to many
creditors, and now, when they pressed for payment (as they did very
quickly when it became known Fairbank had withdrawn), I was unable to
keep it. I had no recourse but to bring suit against him to make good
his promise and, most unwillingly, I prepared to do so.” Mrs. Carter’s
first tour under Belasco’s direction and the life of “The Ugly Duckling”
were both peremptorily brought to an end by Fairbank, acting through one
of his attorneys, R. W. Morrison, in Kansas City, on March 14, 1891;
the theatrical company which had been acting in association with Mrs.
Carter was disbanded, and the perplexed manager and his dejected pupil
returned to New York, where arrangements were presently made by Belasco
to institute a lawsuit against Fairbank. Writing on this subject he has
said:
“The Fairbank lawyers came to New York to see what compromise I
would accept. I said: ’Here are all the bills. If you pay them, the
incident will be closed.’ But they refused. Mr. Fairbank had hoped
the tour would be a financial success, the lawyers said, and he
would never have entered into such a speculation if he had known
how much it involved. ’Certainly,’ I answered, ’he did not expect a
theatrical venture of this nature to cost nothing! I am sure of
Mrs. Carter’s ultimate success,’ I declared, ’and I am willing to
bind myself by a promise to pay everything back’; but the lawyers
refused. So I put my affairs in the hands of my friend, Judge
Dittenhoefer, and the suit began. The trial lasted for three
weeks.”
Belasco’s suit against Fairbank,--which was to recover $65,000, as
reimbursement of losses incurred in presenting “The Ugly Duckling,”
payment for professional services as Mrs. Carter’s dramatic instructor
(for which services Fairbank had agreed to pay), and other
items,--remained in abeyance for several years. It was, however, finally
brought to trial on June 3, 1896, before Justice Leonard Giegerich and
a jury, in Part V. of the Supreme Court of New York. Belasco’s action
was met by denial and a counter suit for $53,000 by Fairbank. The issues
were acrimoniously contested at every point, but on June 23 the jury
returned a compromise verdict (as one juryman described it) in favor of
Belasco, awarding him $16,000 and 5 per cent. interest,--$20,000 in all.
During that trial certain newspapers, manifesting singular partisan
bias, went to scandalous extremes of exaggeration and ridicule in their
reports of the testimony in effort to disparage Belasco and make him
appear contemptible. One fiction then originated has persisted,--the
fiction, namely, that Belasco instructed Mrs. Carter by “pounding and
bumping” her and dragging her about a room by the hair. That tale was
based on an allusion to rehearsal of the shocking Murder Scene in the
revolting play of “Oliver Twist.”
Mrs. Carter’s acknowledgment of her debt to Belasco and her appreciation
of his assistance and his forbearance toward her are significantly
denoted in a letter written by her, June 3, 1890, to Charles L. Allen,
one of Fairbank’s principal Chicago lawyers, from which the following
words are quoted:
“He [Belasco] feels he cannot go on with me unless he is able to
make things creditable. He has stuck by me in my struggle against
prejudice; he has stood up for me, and given his personal written
assurance on every contract I have that things will be creditably
and properly done. It is owing to him and his personal influence
among theatrical managers that I have succeeded in getting the best
route and the best theatres--he has committed himself and will not
have failure meet him.
“He has helped me without asking pay--he has given my play--his
name--his instruction--he has given up other things--to put me
through: he will produce my play--he will answer for my success--he
stands sponsor for my first night, and before the entire
public--and he does it all without asking pay--ready to wait until
I am started for his remuneration--and _he did all this on Mr.
Fairbank’s promise to see me through_....”
In his “Story” Belasco makes this kindly allusion to Fairbank, which
indicates that the clash between them resulted from meddlesome
interference of persons inimical to him and to his star:
“I never regretted anything more than being forced to bring suit
against Fairbank. He was courteous, kind-hearted, mellow, and
human. I am sure that when he and his wife started to aid Mrs.
Carter it was their intention to see her through. I met him in
after years, and in the course of conversation he admitted that all
I had done for Mrs. Carter was done wisely. ’It’s too horrible,’ he
said. ’I was badly advised by my friends. You should never have
been obliged to carry, the matter into the courts.’”
A POVERTY-STRICKEN STRUGGLE.
When Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Dudley, her mother, returned to New York after
the demise of “The Ugly Duckling,” in Kansas City (1891), they
established their residence at No. 63 Clinton Place. Belasco lodged at
No. 126 Waverley Place, and almost immediately he resumed his project of
writing, unaided, a new play specially designed for the use of Mrs.
Carter. Having no convenient place of his own in which to work, he
obtained the use of a room in Mrs. Dudley’s apartment, in which to write
his play, and there he completed the first draft of “The Heart of
Maryland,” and incidentally continued his tuition of Mrs. Carter. I
remember seeing them once at about that period at Delmonico’s old
restaurant, Twenty-sixth Street, where I chanced to be dining with
Augustin Daly and Ada Rehan, and years afterward, on one of the few
occasions when I have personally met Mrs. Carter, she mentioned
remembering the same incident, saying it was so unusual for them, in
those days of trouble, to visit that pleasant place. They were, she
added, celebrating some little favorable turn in their prospects; “I
looked at Mr. Daly and Miss Rehan,” said Mrs. Carter, “and whispered to
’Mr. Dave,’ ’Shall _we_ ever “get there” and be, like them, successful
and accepted?’” To which, she said, Belasco confidently answered, “Of
course we shall!”
Speaking to me lightly of that period of ordeal, which was, in fact, a
bitterly afflicting one for him to endure, Belasco said: “But
Delmonico’s was not for us in those days: my family were, fortunately
for them, in San Francisco, and many a time,--habitually, in fact,--Mrs.
Carter and her mother and I ’dined’ at a twenty-five cent _table d’hôte_
on Fourth Avenue--and were lucky to dine anywhere. We had put all we had
into launching and exploiting Mrs. Carter, and those two women were hard
put to it to keep their Clinton Place apartment. As for me,--well, I
had, of course, some income from my plays, and I gave private coaching
to beginners and professionals, anybody who would employ me (among
others, by the way, Georgia Cayvan, who always liked to have me rehearse
her, even after I left the Lyceum), and I kept going, after a fashion;
but I had expenses heavier than my resources would meet, and I was most
of the time poorer than I like to remember--and all the time I was
harassed with anxiety.”
Writing of that same period, he gives this glimpse of a poverty-stricken
struggle:
“It so happened that at this time the first of the ’beauty
doctors’ and the ’facial-massage’ school were making fortunes with
their lotions. It may be interesting to know that Mrs. Carter was
sorely tempted to enter this field and bring out a preparation for
the complexion. In fact, she negotiated with a well-known chemist,
who advised her to carry out her idea. Lack of necessary capital
prevented, however, and she kept to the stage instead of becoming a
business woman. The world may have lost a very good ’skin-food,’
but it gained a fine actress.
“When ’The Heart of Maryland’ was finished models of the scenes
were made and I found myself with a play and a star--but no
financial manager. Every one to whom I read the manuscript was
eager to accept it, but no one wanted Mrs. Carter, despite the
success she had made. Every manager had a leading woman far, far
better suited to the part of _Maryland_. I never heard of such
wonderful leading women! The town was alive with them! ’Mrs. Carter
is not a public favorite,’ I was told on all sides. ’However, the
play was written for her, and I’ve made up my mind not to take it
away from her,’ I answered. The Lord knows she had suffered enough
while waiting for it.”
Mrs. Carter, beyond demonstrating her possession of genuine though
nascent histrionic ability, obviously had not made any
“success,”--except in her approving preceptor’s mind. Indeed, the
disastrous fate of “The Ugly Duckling,” impending legal contentions, and
the general social oppugnancy to Mrs. Carter were strong, in fact
seemingly insuperable, reasons for managerial hesitancy in making any
venture vitally dependent upon her for its success. Belasco, though he
adhered to his resolve that only Mrs. Carter should act the part of
_Maryland Calvert_, which he had devised for her, felt himself almost
nonplussed. He was heavily in debt; he had no employment; he felt
himself to be the object of active journalistic animosity; he possessed
no financial resources; he seemed, in short, to be on the verge of
defeat. Charles Frohman chanced to meet him at that time and, mentioning
to him “a play with music” which had then recently been presented in
Paris, made a suggestion that led to their first partnership in
theatrical management. “The piece seems to have made a sensation,” said
Frohman: “the American rights are owned by Charles Wyndham. The leading
characters are a Quaker father and his daughter. The daughter is _the_
part. Can Mrs. Carter sing? Because, if she can and you want to produce
it with me, I’ll get an option from Wyndham: you and Mrs. Carter go to
Paris and see the piece--and, if you think she can play the part and
that it will be a go in this country, we’ll do it together.” Belasco,
although somewhat doubtful whether Mrs. Carter could successfully
sustain the requirements of a singing part, felt that the proffered
opportunity must not be neglected; after discussing the point with his
pupil a decision to essay the venture was quickly made, and, on April
15, 1891, laying aside for the moment all other plans, Belasco, Mrs.
Carter and her mother sailed for England on board the steamship City of
New York, and from Southampton proceeded at once to France. “When we
reached Paris,” writes Belasco, “we found the Bouffes Parisiennes
’selling out’ and ’Miss Helyett’ the talk of the town. It was so full of
possibilities that I cabled ’C. F.’ to secure the rights before I saw
the last act.” That recommendation was promptly heeded by Frohman.
Writing of an interview with Edmond Audran, author of the music, which
occurred soon after he had seen the play, Belasco records:
“I asked him to give me a letter in praise of the singer who was to
play the part, but without mentioning her name, for not only did we
wish to create a surprise in America, but to avoid complications
with Wyndham in London. I knew he would want us to engage a singer
of established reputation, so I avoided mentioning the name of the
artist who was to have the title-part, Wyndham was quite insistent
when I met him in London, but I handed him Audran’s letter, which
proved to be the magic stroke. Before the day was over, all
arrangements were made by cable.”
“MISS HELYETT” AND MRS. CARTER.
The production of the mongrel play with music, called in our Theatre
“Miss Helyett,”--a fabric which commingles comic opera with the farrago
known as “farce-comedy,”--was a minor incident in Belasco’s struggle for
advancement. Audran’s music, though not in his best vein, is generally
tuneful, gay, and spirited. The text was “rewritten from the French of
Maxime Boucheron by David Belasco,” and the play was first produced in
America, November 3, 1891, at the Star Theatre, New York, Mrs. Carter
then making her only appearance in a musical composition, and that being
also Belasco’s only association with comic opera, after he left the
Theatre of San Francisco. The scene is laid at the Hotel del Norte, in
the Spanish Pyrenees Mountains. The story, which is indelicate, relates
to a ludicrous accident to a young Quakeress, of demure appearance and
frolicsome disposition, whose hypocritical father is conducting her
through Europe in search of an advantageous marriage. This female, known
as _Miss Helyett_, falls over a precipice and is caught, buttock-end
uppermost, in a convenient tree, from which predicament she is rescued
by a strolling painter. She manages to conceal her face from her
deliverer, and she parts from him without ascertaining his identity or
disclosing her own. Later she determines to discover and to marry the
man who is already so familiarly acquainted with her “secret symmetry”
(as Byron calls it), and that purpose she ultimately accomplishes. Her
search for the unknown and her discovery and conquest of him constitute
the substance of this operatic farce.
Mrs. Carter’s personation of _Miss Helyett_, while not deficient of
piquancy, was insignificant. As a singer she was in no way unusual.
Belasco relates that, while in Paris with her, to see the French
original, he requested Audran to hear Mrs. Carter sing and, if he
thought well of her as a singer, to teach her the songs in “Miss
Helyett.” “Audran was charmed with her ability,” he says, “and gave her
a number of rehearsals. Then he recommended an instructor and even wrote
an extra musical number for her,”--which indicates that Audran, as a
musician, was easily pleased. His operetta was highly successful in
Paris, and hardly less so in London, where Charles Wyndham brought it
out, at the Criterion Theatre, under the name of “Miss Decima.” It was
generally, and justly, though without rancor, condemned by the press of
New York. Nevertheless it had a considerable though not very
remunerative career in the metropolis: it was acted at the Star Theatre
till January 10, 1892, and on January 11 was transferred to the Standard
Theatre, where it maintained itself till February 13,--the 100th
performance occurring there on January 29. Belasco seems to have set
some store by it at one time, but that was long ago. Wyndham’s London
presentation of the composition was made July 23, 1891. This was the
original cast of “Miss Helyett” in New York:
_Paul Grahame_ Mark Smith (Jr.).
_Todder Bunnythorne_ M. A. Kennedy.
_Obadiah Smithson_ Harry Harwood.
_Terence O’Shaughnessy_ G. W. Travener.
_Jacques Baccarel_ J. W. Herbert.
_Max Culmbacher_ N. S. Burnham.
_MacGilly_ Edgar Ely.
_Prof. Bonnefoy_ Gilbert Sarony.
_Señora Carmen Ricomba della Torquemada_ Kate Davis.
_Marmela_ Laura Clement.
_Mrs. Max Culmbacher_ Adelaide Emerson.
_Mrs. MacGilly_ Lillian Elma.
_La Stella_ Henrietta Rich.
_Miss Helyett (Smithson)_ Mrs. Leslie Carter.
After its New York engagement “Miss Helyett” was taken on a tour of
principal cities of the country and was performed until the close of the
theatrical season of 1891-’92. Notwithstanding its intrinsic paltriness
and vulgarity, that play was practically useful to Belasco and Mrs.
Carter, providing a temporary source of subsistence for both of them;
yielding the actress some useful experience of the stage; permitting the
dramatist some leisure for meditation and for rectification of his then
immatured Civil War play, and leading, indirectly, to the writing and
production of one of the best dramas with which his name is associated.
ORIGIN OF THE EMPIRE THEATRE.