Stars of the stage in my studio--Miss Ellen Terry has a cup of
tea--Sir Squire and Lady Bancroft--Sir Henry Irving and the
cabby--We comply with a strange request.
People sometimes ask me how my portraits are taken, and how my subjects
sit to me.
It is very much with my work as it is with the work of a sculptor.
There is practically only this distinction in principle--the sculptor
reproduces his work in marble or bronze, and I execute mine in wax, both
working from a first impression in clay. Added to this there is, of
course, a difference in the matter of treatment.
Sitters have their own peculiar characteristics, and often require
humouring.
I once wrote to Miss Ellen Terry, asking her to do me the honour of
sitting to me; and she replied that she would be pleased to do so, making
no appointment.
A few days afterwards the vivacious actress found her way to my studio
door without anyone to guide her, and how she got there has always
puzzled me. I was engrossed in some urgent work, when a rap came and Miss
Terry sailed in, all smiles and animation.
She did not introduce herself. There was no need. I knew her instantly,
as I supposed she imagined I should. It was a very hot day, and she
said, “I am positively dying for a cup of tea.”
She told me she was just clearing off all her visiting arrears before
sailing, and added: “You see, Mr. Tussaud, I have not forgotten you.”
The cup that cheers was very soon brewed, and Miss Terry saw that I
noticed a gauntlet on her right hand as she raised the cup to her lips.
“I met with a slight accident on the stage,” she said.
I wish I could recall some of her delightful chat, and I regret that I
did not keep a diary instead of trusting entirely to memory. However, I
may derive some consolation from the conclusion, arrived at by an old and
experienced literary friend, that it is seldom what has been forgotten
would have been worth writing about had it been remembered.
When I had finished modelling, and not till then, Miss Terry apologised
for being in a hurry, and as she took her departure I found myself
wondering by what secret art or gift she could conjure up so much mirth
and sprightliness when the thermometer was registering ninety in the
shade.
After Miss Terry had gone my eye happened to catch the chair on which
she had been sitting, and I discovered that the back legs were within an
eighth of an inch of the edge of the high dais.
I trembled to think of what might have happened to the actress if the
chair had fallen to the floor while she occupied it. I suppose the reason
for its position having changed from that in which it was originally
placed was that the actress, who could hardly be described as a
reposeful “sitter,” had shifted it in her restlessness.
The carpenter had omitted to fix the fillet which should have been placed
to preclude any risk of the chair falling from its elevated position.
Only a few months ago Lady Bancroft, speaking at a matinée in aid of King
George’s Pension Fund for Actors, made an amusing allusion to Madame
Tussaud’s.
She had just been listening to the dialogue between Peg Woffington,
played by Irene Vanburgh, and Triplet, and she said:
“When it was arranged that my husband should come from his retirement to
play the part of Triplet, we were very much exercised where to find his
old costume.
“Then, all at once, we remembered the last time we saw that costume was
at Madame Tussaud’s.
“I said, ‘Of course you have been melted down by this time.’
“He said, ‘What do you think they have made of me? Perhaps Marshal Foch,
perhaps President Poincaré, perhaps President Wilson. I only hope my
figure has not been melted down to something in the Chamber of Horrors.’”
None laughed more heartily than the King at Lady Bancroft’s story.
It was in the spring of 1889, that the Bancrofts gave me several
sittings. The merry laughter of the actress made the time pass quickly
and my work a real joy.
[Illustration: SIR SQUIRE BANCROFT
Whose model as Triplet, together with the model of Lady Bancroft as Peg
Woffington, are on exhibition at Madame Tussaud’s.]
When the models of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft were added to the Exhibition,
in the characters of Peg Woffington and Triplet in _Masks and Faces_,
reference to this was made in our Easter announcement.
Sir Squire Bancroft tells the following story in this connection:
“A young man from the country visited the Exhibition on Easter Monday of
that year, and went straight to the Chamber of Horrors. He said he wanted
to see the ‘_squire who murdered a triplet_’!”
They tell me that Henry Irving came to see his portrait a year after I
had modelled him, but, unfortunately, I missed the great actor that day.
Mention of Irving takes my mind back rather a long way, to the time when
I had the pleasure of introducing his model and that of Miss Ellen Terry
to the Exhibition. They were on the eve of making their first journey
across the Atlantic, and they cheerfully consented to enable me to let
the public see them in their absence.
Irving was an ideal sitter, as might be expected of a great actor. He
adapted himself to my requirements in every detail, and gave me to
feel that he took great pleasure in my work. I very soon became aware
of Irving’s kindliness of heart and his sympathy with an artist at his
labours.
Conversation turned upon the question of insuring Madame Tussaud’s
against fire, and Irving remarked that money would be a very poor
compensation for the loss of our irreplaceable collection, especially
having regard to the relics of Napoleon and the heads of the French
revolutionaries.
The actor told me of an alarming experience he had while acting at the
Lyceum Theatre.
The play was nearing its most dramatic climax when he noticed that fire
had broken out in the “sky borders,” and the fear of a panic in the
audience rose in his mind lest any member of it should chance to see the
flames.
He admitted that it was an ordeal that required all his courage to face
without betraying signs of anxiety, but he succeeded in continuing
to play his part without a single person in the front of the house
suspecting that there was any cause for alarm.
Fortunately, the stage carpenters and attendants were able to extinguish
the fast-spreading flames without any interruption. The curtain was
eventually rung down on an applauding audience, quite oblivious of the
danger that had threatened.
Irving lighted his pipe on his departure, which set me thinking that he
would have enjoyed a smoke during the sitting, but was too courteous
and considerate to suggest one. He told me he hoped, on his return from
America, to visit the Exhibition and see his portrait. He came and saw
it, but I did not see him.
Sir Henry used to employ the same cabman to take him to the theatre each
evening. He asked him once if he had ever seen him act, and, the man
replying in the negative, Irving gave him five shillings with which the
cabman could procure seats for himself and his wife in the pit.
On the following day the actor asked the driver what he thought of him on
the stage.
“To tell you the truth,” said the ingenuous jehu, “we didn’t go.”
“Not go,” said Irving, “when I gave you the money for the seats!”
“Well, sir,” said the man, “it was this way. It was my missus’s birthday,
and I asked her which she would prefer to do--go to see you act, or go to
Madame Tussaud’s, and she said she preferred the waxworks.”
Irving often related this story against himself with the greatest gusto,
enjoying it quite as much as his hearers did.
On many occasions Madame Tussaud’s has been of service to the stage.
When the late W. G. Wills, the author of _Jane Shore_, a prolific
playwright in his day, was at the height of his popularity, my father was
approached by Mr. Coleman, manager of the Queen’s Theatre, Long Acre, to
produce for him a figure of Charles I.
The reason of this request was, surely, one of the strangest that ever
entered the brain of even the most enterprising of theatrical managers.
Mr. George Rignold was playing at that theatre a drama, written by Wills,
entitled _Cromwell_. This play was the successor of another by the same
dramatist, namely, _Charles I_, in which Irving played the part of the
King, and confirmed the reputation he had made in _The Bells_.
A bargain had been struck that if _Charles I_ succeeded, Wills should
write _Cromwell_ for Mr. Coleman. _Charles I_ proved a great success at
the Lyceum, but _Cromwell_ was a comparative failure at the Queen’s.
I come now to the reason of Mr. Coleman’s request for a waxen model of
the King.
He said he wanted it to repose in the coffin on the stage to stimulate
the imagination of the actor, Mr. Rignold, when rendering the long
oration delivered by Cromwell in the presence of the dead monarch.
The model was furnished with every detail, even to the clothing in which
the body was attired. I was afterwards told that only the manager, the
actor, and my father were aware of the realistic plan that had been
devised to accentuate an actor’s eloquence.