Drury Lane.--I nearly break my neck.--Stage-struck flappers.--Arthur
Collins.--Charles Warner.--“Drink.”--Ultra-realistic snow.--Harris’s
cure for nerves.--“Diamond Deane.”--Tom Thorne.--An awful
line.--“Formosa.”--Mrs. Langtry.--The responsibilities of
jewellery.--An unrehearsed scene.--Julius Knight.--The rise of
Augustus Harris.--How he secured Drury Lane.--Charles Harris and
his gift of language.--The Baddeley Cake function.--Jimmy Davis’s
inspiration.--The Marlborough House “set” invited.--A triumphant
evening.--Civic dignitaries on the stage.--A title, a cake and a glass
of punch.--A first-night muddle.--Sir George Alexander.
I signalized my first appearance on the stage of Drury Lane by nearly
breaking my neck. Diane de Beaumont was a fine and most exciting part,
and throughout the rehearsals Augustus Harris had taken every pains
with me to bring out my best, but on the first night I needed no spur.
At the end of the third act I had a big scene with Henry Neville, who
played the part of my father, and after an intensely dramatic speech
I had to rush off the stage, mounting a rostrum, from which I was to
descend by some steps placed behind the scenes. Utterly carried away, I
rushed to the rostrum, mounted it, and--instead of quietly descending
the steps, which were hidden from the audience--I jumped straight into
the arms of Augustus Harris, who was luckily standing in the wings and
had the presence of mind to catch me.
I do not know which of us received the bigger shock.
But so thoroughly wound up was I that at the time it affected me
little, and when the curtain fell on the scene I remembered nothing
until I found myself in my dressing-room sobbing hysterically in the
arms of my sister Lil. I knew much of the success of the play depended
on the close of that scene, and I felt desperate.
“Not a sound; not a single call!” I gasped; “I’ve damned the play!”
“Yes,” she said, sternly, “you _have_ damned the play! You’ve just
taken seven calls!”
It was fortunate for me, and for everybody else, that I had little to
do in the last act, for my strength was spent, and I struggled through
the rest of my part in a dream. It is nevertheless a curious fact that
seven times at the close of the big scene had I appeared before the
curtain, and when I reached my dressing-room a few moments afterwards
my mind was an absolute blank. The shock of the fall into Gus Harris’s
arms was the probable explanation!
Within a week or two after the production Mr. Terriss was compelled to
leave the cast to join Irving at the Lyceum, and his departure was, of
course, a great loss to the piece. He had, however, been anxious for
me to have a big chance for my first appearance at the Lane, and “Paul
Kauvar” gave me that chance, for in spite of Mr. Terriss’s departure
the play had a successful run and did well in the provinces. And it was
in consequence of my success in the piece that in 1890 I commenced a
three years’ engagement at Drury Lane under Augustus Harris, the autumn
drama being “A Million of Money.”
During my engagement at the Lane my two sisters, Lilian and Florence,
who were in their “flapperhood,” became stage-struck, and, coming to
me, announced their intention of going on the stage. If one of the
Millward family could make a success, why not others?
It seemed eminently reasonable, so I set them each a recitation to
learn, and told them that when they felt that they were word and action
perfect I would listen to them and give a sisterly opinion.
My sister Florence bore my decision that she had not the faintest spark
of histrionic ability with admirable philosophy, and wisely determined
to cultivate her very considerable literary talent, which she did,
and before long became confidential secretary to that distinguished
litterateur Mr. W. L. Courtney.
My sister Lilian had, I thought, distinct dramatic talent, and I
told her if she felt that she wished to go on the stage to set about
procuring an engagement.
“Why not try Augustus Harris?” I suggested.
Without saying any more to me, she and her girl chum, “Crede” Byron,
the daughter of H. J. Byron, sallied down to Drury Lane one afternoon
in search of Harris.
How the two girls of seventeen managed to pass the stage door-keeper
unchallenged was a mystery, but pass him they did, and after wandering
down various passages they at last found themselves on the stage
itself, where Harris, seated in his armchair, was conducting a big
rehearsal.
Calmly ignoring the excited whispers to “Get off!” the two “flappers”
marched down the centre of the stage to Harris, who sat speechless with
amazement.
“Who are you?” he gasped, and stopped the rehearsal.
“I’m Jessie Millward’s sister,” said Lil, “and this is my friend
‘Crede’ Byron.”
“Oh,” said Harris, choking, “and what do you want?”
“We want to go on the stage.”
“Engaged! Go on with the crowd!”
And within a month my sister found herself understudying Miss
Compton--I had passed on to her Mr. Fernandez’s advice to me: “Say
you can do _everything_”--and being called upon to play one night she
played the part admirably, rode a horse, never having ridden before,
and calmly fainted in her dressing-room, overcome with success and
excitement.
It was during my engagement at the Lane that I first met Mr. Arthur
Collins, who was then acting as assistant stage manager and scenic
artist, and formed a friendship which I am proud to say still exists.
Even in those days the Lane owed much to Mr. Collins, for brilliant as
Harris was, in flashes, he had not, in my humble opinion, either the
sustained brilliance or the business methods of his successor.
My earliest recollection of Arthur Collins is in connection with the
very trying part of Gervaise, which I played to the Coupeau of that
great emotional actor, Charles Warner, in “Drink,” the English version
of Zola’s “L’Assommoir.”
What a wonderful performance was Charles Warner’s Coupeau in “Drink”!
The simulated delirium tremens was horrifying; never had a stage
drunkard been more realistically played, and medical men asserted that
all the ghastly symptoms were reproduced with absolute faithfulness.
I shudder even now as I remember the vacant, staring eyes, the lolling,
protruding tongue, the hideous clutching at the imaginary snakes, and
the ghastly caressing of the last bottle of brandy before the horrible
death.
Poor Warner, a wonderful emotional actor on the stage, in private life
was a kindly, emotional man, and his death by his own hand came to few
as a greater shock than it did to me, for barely a week previously he
had visited me at my hotel in New York, and I had found him, to all
appearances, as well and as cheerful as ever.
My troubles in “Drink” began in the first act, in which her rival
in the play nightly picked up a tub of soapy water and deluged poor
Gervaise.
Although my dress was supposed to be waterproof I got a ducking each
night, and it did not comfort me in the least to be told that my French
predecessor in the past had died of pneumonia. And it was no slight
effort to play up to the terrific emotionalism of Warner; so, what
with one thing and another, I was generally in a state of physical
exhaustion when the last act came and Gervaise was found dying in the
snow.
One night Arthur Collins told me with quiet pride that he had
discovered something absolutely new in the way of stage snow, and that
the storm that night would be the last word in realism.
The snow began to fall: it certainly looked wonderful, and for realism
was miles and miles ahead of the old torn scraps of paper. It clung to
one’s clothes like real snow, but unfortunately it did not melt. And
as the snow began to fall I began to choke, and I choked all through
that terrible storm. Perhaps I ought not to give the secret away, but
I fancy the snow, for that night only, was composed of shavings from
old white kid gloves. It was realistic no doubt, but I know that I for
one was glad to see the old scraps of paper back again for the next
performance.
Some years afterwards the inventor of the snowstorm called on me in
New York. He had met and fallen in love with a beautiful Californian
girl and had asked her to marry him. It was all very sudden, and as
he had to sail in a few days, and naturally wished to carry his bride
home with him, he was anxious to be married at once, so he called on
me for a “character” to hand to his prospective father-in-law and
mother-in-law.
But Arthur Collins has never stood in need of a “character” from
anyone, and the happy couple sailed away at the end of the week.
Mr. Arthur Collins, besides understanding the art of the theatre, is
something more than a mere amateur in other arts. A painter of no small
ability himself, he is a fine judge of pictures, and, with reason,
prides himself on his collection. When, some years ago, he took a
delightful place in Surrey, he entrusted the hanging of the canvases to
a very local expert, who combined picture-framing with carpentry of a
more modest kind.
“Well,” said Mr. Collins one day, dropping down suddenly from town, and
surprising the expert at his labours, “what do you make of them?”
“Splendid, sir, splendid!” replied the expert. “I can truthfully say,
sir, that I’ve never handled such a lovely lot of frames in my life.”
Perhaps even in art criticism the wisest cobbler always sticks to his
well-known last.
Under the reign of Augustus Harris things were done in princely if
somewhat recklessly profuse style at the Lane, and it was under his
directorship that the cutting of the Baddeley Cake blossomed into a
function--a function at which the hospitality of the Drury Lane knight
was much abused.
Baddeley, the actor, who died in 1794, among other curious bequests,
left £100 Three per cent. Consolidated Bank Annuities to purchase “a
Twelfth Cake with wine and punch, which the ladies and gentlemen of
Drury Lane are requested to partake of every Twelfth Night in the Great
Green Room.”
Even in the dear, dead _ante bellum_ days beyond recall three pounds
did not go very far in wine and punch, and the sum was generally handed
over to the proprietor of the old Albion Tavern opposite the stage
door, with the request that he would do the best he could, and make the
three sovereigns go as far as possible.
When Harris first became manager of the National Theatre, the cutting
of the Baddeley Cake and the distribution of the liquid refreshment
was a very modest affair. Some twenty or thirty people at the
outside--mostly actors, members of the company and journalists--were
present, the cake was cut in solemn silence, a few carpenters and stage
hands stood round on the look-out for stray drinks, and after a brief
ceremony conducted by Mr. Terriss, who was then the secretary of the
Drury Lane fund, and old Mr. Fernandez, an adjournment was made to the
green room, where there was a supper of cold salmon, cold chicken and
champagne.
But within a year or two of Augustus Harris assuming control, the
Baddeley night blossomed into a great function, on almost the lines of
one of the famous Lyceum receptions, and this is how it happened.
A wonderful ballroom scene had been painted for the pantomime, and
one New Year’s Eve Harris stood on the stage watching it being set,
bursting with pride at its splendour.
“I wish I had thought of it before!” he exclaimed to Jimmy Davis,
later the Owen Hall of “Geisha” fame, who was at that time his guide,
philosopher and friend.
“Thought of what?” asked Davis.
“This is the very scene for a grand Baddeley affair--a big dance and a
supper on the stage, with half the celebrities in London present.”
“Well, why not?”
“Too late,” sighed Harris regretfully. “No time to get the invitations
out.”
“Too late be hanged!” cried Davis. “I’ll get all the celebrities in
London here. Whom do you want?”
“Well, first of all, send an invitation to every name that appears
“Under the Clock” in the “Telegraph”; then send to the dramatic
critics, the editors and any other pressmen you can think of, then----”
“But my dear Gus,” interrupted Davis. “What on earth is the good of
asking a lot of mummers and Fleet Streeters who’d go anywhere for a
free meal, and can’t do you a particle of good?”
“Well, whom would _you_ ask?”
“The Prince of Wales, for a start, and the Marlborough House set; any
duke who is in town; all the judges; as many members of the Jockey Club
as you can get hold of--in fact, get the Blue Book and go right through
it.”
The magnitude of the idea appealed to Harris, and Jimmy Davis had
orders to go ahead, so, as a preliminary, he went in search of a
friend at the Marlborough Club to ascertain if the Prince would be
in town and without an engagement for January the sixth. Finding the
engagement uncertain, an invitation was sent off that night through
a quarter which would at any rate ensure that it received attention.
Horace Lennard was asked to act as an informal secretary, and drew up a
card of invitation which was handed over to a printer at nine o’clock
the next morning, and by the next evening somewhere about two thousand
invitations had been sent off by an improvised staff of clerks.
Acceptances began to pour in, and a number of well-known people were
approached with a view to their being stewards. In addition, with his
usual generosity, Harris asked all his stage hands and “extra” people
to bring their wives and families, and arranged that they, with the
supers and ballet, were to be congregated in the stalls and would each
receive a slice of the real Baddeley Cake and a glass of punch.
Then on the morning of Twelfth Day it dawned on someone that at the
very least six or seven hundred people were likely to turn up, and all
that had been arranged for in the way of refreshment was the big cake
annually sent over from the Albion!
At that time Whiteley was re-decorating the foyer of the theatre, and
Whiteley’s was a name to conjure with. So off in a hansom to Westbourne
Grove tore the harassed secretary, and found the big firm quite ready
to provide a supper for six hundred at midnight. The cake problem was
solved at Buszards, and a liqueur firm in Holborn undertook to provide
the ingredients for the punch.
A Drury Lane fishmonger lent a monster tub, which was placed in the
little room where treasury was paid in those days, and with a supply
of borage, ice, castor sugar and the indispensable liquids, a crowd of
volunteers set to work to brew the historic punch.
Whiteley’s did the work well.
At the fall of the curtain the orchestra played for less than half
an hour, and in that time the ballroom scene was set, and the tables
laid. On the stroke of midnight Mr. Fernandez cut the Albion cake
and made his speech, and Harris responded from the dress circle. The
cheering from the stalls, where the punch had been supplied in cans,
was tremendous, and everyone agreed that there had never been such a
Baddeley affair.
After two hours of supper, Kate Vaughan led off the first quadrille
with a young peer who afterwards became a famous parliamentarian, and
Mrs. Bernard Beere was one of the belles of the evening. At six in
the morning coffee was served. The Prince of Wales was _not_ present,
but Marlborough House was represented, and the night was a brilliant
success and a wonderful advertisement.
The next year the function was developed still further.
The workmen and their wives no longer filled the stalls, but a mob of
civic dignitaries flitted across the scene. The pantomime was “Dick
Whittington.” So it was only appropriate that the Lord Mayor and
Sheriffs should be the guests of the evening. It was on this occasion
that Augustus Harris first hobnobbed with Gog and Magog, the magnates
of the Mansion House and the grandees of the Guildhall, and even then
his soul yearned for civic honours. He enrolled himself as a Loriner,
and determined to become a freeman of the city. These ambitions led to
his election as Sheriff, and it was while acting as Sheriff that he
became “Sir Augustus.”
So, in a sense, a title sprang from a cake and a glass of punch.
Harris had not the methodical mind and powers of administration
possessed by Mr. Arthur Collins, and sometimes by leaving things, in
the hope that they would be “all right on the night,” he used to get
himself into hopeless muddles. Nobody who saw it will ever forget the
first night of his pantomime “Sinbad the Sailor.”
Several of the scenes had actually never been set, and some of the
mechanical effects had never been tried. So, after the big bird which
was to carry off Sinbad refused to work, and the great whale lay
flabbily immovable on the stage, Harris had to come forward in his
dress suit and famous Inverness overcoat to ask the indulgence of the
audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he pleaded, for the gallery was getting
restive, “this is the heaviest pantomime I’ve ever produced----”
“By----it is, Gus!” shouted an impatient “god.”
And then Charles Lauri, who played the part of a poodle, frisked about
in the canvas waves to draw attention from the carpenters who were
dissecting the great whale, and as soon as there was room a front cloth
was dropped, so that the comedians, Arthur Roberts, Jimmy Fawn, Harry
Nicholls and Herbert Campbell, could “gag” while the leviathan was
being removed piecemeal behind.
Incidents such as these would have been impossible under the Collins
regime.
Somewhere about this time Gus Moore became a sort of “literary adviser”
to Augustus Harris, his chief duty, I believe, consisting in the
editing and revising of the conventional newspaper advertisements. But
one Boxing Day the Lane advertisement in the first column of the middle
page of the “Daily Telegraph” began:
“Drury Lane Theatre Royal. The Two Gus’s--Gus Harris and Gus Moore.”
And it was always said that a breakfastless Druriolanus made the
journey from Portland Place to Catherine Street, W.C., in the record
time of three and a half minutes!
Harris was wildly generous and kindness itself, but his methods were,
to say the least of it, impetuous.
It was some little time before I began to feel that I could settle at
Drury Lane: the theatre seemed so huge and strange. The noise and
hurly-burly, after the almost cathedral-like silence behind the scenes
at the Lyceum, for long dazed and bewildered me, and one fine day, in
a moment of nerves, I made up my mind that I simply could not go on in
the strange atmosphere, and the climax was reached when I was told by
Fred Latham that when the season finished in a few weeks I was expected
to go on tour.
Much against the advice of Mr. Terriss I sought out Harris in his
office.
“What is the matter?” he asked, looking up from his desk.
“I’ve come to resign. I don’t want to go on tour,” I blurted.
“I accept no resignations,” said Harris, rising. “You’re engaged to me
for three years, and for three years you stay here. But you needn’t go
on tour unless you like. However, there’s one thing you must do.”
“And what is that?” I asked despairingly.
“You must come out to lunch at once.”
And so Harris, Latham, Terriss and I went out to lunch at the old
Albion, and on reflection I became glad that my resignation had not
been accepted.
During my first year at the Lane I was twice “lent” by Harris to play
parts in other theatres, once to play Mercedes in “Monte Cristo” with
the American actor Henry Lee, at the old Avenue Theatre, now the
Playhouse, and again to create the part of Diamond Deane in the play of
that name by an American author, Henry van Dam.
“Diamond Deane” was produced at the Vaudeville Theatre, and from the
first I felt that the piece was a failure. It was the only real failure
I have ever been connected with, and the sensation was not pleasant.
The atmosphere got colder and colder: a wall of ice seemed to be
erected between stage and audience, and one grew to dread in advance
lines and situations of which one had never been too confident. But we
struggled through to the last act without a contretemps, and then poor
Tom Thorne, who played the part of a clergyman, had an interminable
speech in which he tried to reform Diamond Deane, the girl thief.
The house got restless: it seemed as though the speech would never end,
but Thorne stuck to it bravely. At last:
“Stop! You’ve said enough!” gasped the penitent girl thief.
“She’s right, Tom!” bawled a “god.”
And that was the end of “Diamond Deane.”
I returned to Drury Lane to play in a revival of “Formosa,” by Dion
Boucicault. Mrs. Langtry had been engaged to play the part of Formosa,
and I was to play the juvenile, but during the rehearsals Harris gave
the leading part to me. Formosa was a lady with a hectic past, and when
the play was first produced created a mild sensation, though nowadays
I rather fear that she would be looked upon as a very milk-and-watery
“sinner.” The girl who succeeded me in my part of the juvenile
subsequently became Mrs. J. M. Barrie.
I remember “Formosa” chiefly for a horrible little scare the possession
of some borrowed jewellery gave me on the first night.
As I have said, Formosa was a lady with a hectic past, and as,
apparently, every lady possessor of a hectic past is also the possessor
of trophies in the shape of elaborate jewellery, some valuable pieces
had been borrowed from a Bond Street firm to add realism to the part.
When I reached my dressing-room after the big confrontation scene, I
discovered to my horror that I had left the jewels on the stage wrapped
up in my handkerchief. My maid tore down and found them, and with a
sigh of relief I put them in a cupboard in my dressing-room. When at
last the curtain fell on all the excitement of a first night, my maid
and I drove off home, which I had no sooner reached than I suddenly
“remembered I had forgotten” those wretched jewels for the second time,
and that the cupboard had no lock. We rushed back to the theatre, to
find it closed, and at eight o’clock the next morning my faithful maid
went down, found the stones and returned them to the jewellers in Bond
Street with my blessing.
I thought then that if an adventuress in real life went through
one-tenth of the anxiety and stress over her ill-gotten gains that I
had undergone the game could hardly be worth the candle.
An unrehearsed scene at the Lyceum was an event of sufficient rarity
to be spoken of with bated breath, and to be talked of for months
afterwards as an “event” in Lyceum history--never was there a greater
contrast than that between the meticulous rehearsing of the Irving
method and the happy-go-lucky system of Harris--but at the Lane of
those days there were many, and in “The Prodigal Daughter” I was myself
responsible for an unexpected effect which fortunately was entirely
successful.
Once more I was associated with my brother’s old schoolmaster, Henry
Pettitt, who was part author of the play, and he afterwards told me
that from the first he had been unhappy about the effect in the second
act.
The prodigal daughter had eloped to Paris with her young man, and
Harris had provided an elaborate scene representing the courtyard
of the Grand Hotel. No expense had been spared--and the Drury Lane
knight was extremely lavish--the fountains, the coloured lights, the
“atmosphere” left nothing to be desired, but, in theatre language, at
rehearsal after rehearsal the big scene in which the girl learnt that
her lover did not intend to marry her went for nothing. And in a sense
I felt responsible, for the part of the young man was most excellently
played by Julius Knight, whom I had been instrumental in engaging.
When the play was being cast, Harris had consulted me as to whom he
should procure for the part, and I had suggested Harry Irving. But
Harry Irving was engaged, and when my sister introduced me to a young
actor, then entirely unknown in London, named Julius Knight, I thought
him ideal for the part. So he rehearsed on approval, and was promptly
engaged. But, do what we would, there was something in that courtyard
scene which never seemed to quite “get there.” Again and again did Mr.
Knight and I rehearse it, but Pettitt still wore a worried look and was
unable to suggest anything, so all we could do was to hope for the best.
On the first night of the play, so wound up was I with nervous tension
and over-anxiety that when I, as the girl, learnt that my lover did
not propose to marry me, I was completely carried away and struck Mr.
Knight a violent blow on the chest.
Never shall I forget the poor man’s astonished face as he staggered
back, nor my own horror when I realized what I had done, but there
was no time to gasp an apology. Before we could recover ourselves the
curtain was down to roars of applause, and we found ourselves taking
“call” after “call” in a scene of wild excitement, with Harris dancing
about triumphantly in the wings.
No sooner had I reached my dressing-room than Pettitt rushed in, and,
instead of reprimanding me, literally threw his arms round me.
“Why in heaven’s name didn’t you do that at rehearsal?” he demanded
wildly.
“Because I never thought of it,” I stammered, “and I don’t know what on
earth made me do it to-night!”
“Child,” he cried, “it makes the act, and _I_ never thought of it! The
anxiety, the sleepless nights I’ve had over that wretched ‘curtain,’
and I never thought of it!”
And again he hugged me in his delight.
After his success in “The Prodigal Daughter” Mr. Knight went to
Australia, where he became a great favourite and won a well-deserved
reputation as a very fine actor.
But for one horrible second I am sure he must have thought that I had
suddenly gone mad.
Augustus Harris was an extraordinary personality, and when he died,
still a young man, he had attained a unique position in the worlds of
theatre and opera.
He inherited from his father his instinct as a stage manager (but, I
fancy, very little else), and his first engagement was on tour with
Barry Sullivan at a pound a week. When on tour he got to hear that the
stage manager of Mapleson’s Opera Company--which was playing at another
theatre in the same town--had suddenly left, promptly applied for
the post, and was told to show his ability by setting the scenes for
“Rigoletto,” which was to be played that night. He set the scenes and
obtained the post.
Coming to London, he played with Sir Charles Wyndham in “Pink
Dominoes”--a farce which was at the time looked upon as the last word
in riskiness, but which would now, I fear, be regarded as very tame
indeed--and then joined Edgar Bruce at the Royalty, where he became
stage manager and part author of “Venus,” a burlesque put on as an
after-piece to George R. Sims’ “Crutch and Toothpick.”
A good story used to be told of his persistence in securing his
engagement at the Royalty.
Calling on Bruce one day: “Do you want a stage manager?” asked Harris.
“No,” replied Bruce. “I’m my own stage manager.”
“Do you want an acting manager?”
“No; I’m my own acting manager.”
“Do you want a treasurer?”
“No; I’m my own treasurer.”
“Do you want an actor?”
“No, I don’t. For heaven’s sake, Gus, go away! Can’t you see I’m so
busy that I don’t know where to turn?”
“Then you want help; I’ll stay and help you. What can I do?”
“There are a lot of show-girls waiting on the stage for me. I’ve got to
pick a chorus for ‘Venus.’”
“Right you are, I know all the best show-girls. I’ll go and pick your
chorus for you.”
Which he did, and, once inside the theatre, was soon part author and
stage manager, and at the end of the Royalty season was a bloated
capitalist to the extent of one hundred pounds.
Then came the news that Chatterton had failed and that Drury Lane was
to let.
With sublime audacity Harris sent in his application for the lease, and
then looked round for that useful person, a partner with capital. He
secured a promise, but when the critical moment of paying one thousand
pounds deposit arrived not a penny was forthcoming.
One day was left in which to find the money.
Harris’s mother, who ran a theatrical costumier’s business in
Wellington Street under the name of “Madame Auguste,” gave her name
to a bill of five hundred pounds on condition that she supplied the
dresses, and Dodsworth, the refreshment contractor, put up two hundred
pounds in cash, and there matters threatened to end, until his sister,
Nellie Harris, who was to be his wardrobe mistress, introduced him to
Frank Neck, a wealthy timber merchant with a leaning for theatrical
speculation, who put up the money in the nick of time.
(Nellie Harris afterwards married Horace Sedger, who died not very long
ago.)
When the partnership with Neck came to an end the financier received
ten thousand pounds, so the speculation was not a bad one.
Although I personally never came across him, Augustus Harris’s brother,
Charles Harris, had always the reputation of being the better producer
of the two. Someone once described Gus as the idealist and Charles as
the realist, and if half the stories that used to be told were true,
“Charlie” Harris was a realist in more ways than one.
It was said of him that he always got his way by strong will, strong
persistence, and, above all, strong language.
But even he was nonplussed once, when rehearsing a procession of
“vegetables” for the pantomime. Eight children dressed as carrots were
supposed to march behind eight children dressed as turnips, and, at a
signal, to wheel in procession behind eight vegetable marrows.
Again and again one diminutive carrot went wrong and Charles Harris
exploded.
“You blithering little idiot!” he bawled. “That’s what you are, a
blithering little idiot! For the last time, will you or will you not
keep with the carrots? Try again!”
But the same thing happened again, and the unhappy infant was in a
worse muddle than ever.
“Come here!” shouted Harris angrily, and the poor little carrot stepped
nervously up to him. “Why the this-that-and-the-other are you with the
wholly unmentionable turnips? You’re a carrot, aren’t you?”
“N-no, sir,” blubbered the child.
“Then what in heaven’s name are you?”
“A b-b-blithering little idiot, sir!”
Only I am afraid that the adjective was not “blithering.”
Charles Harris had his own methods of putting “life” into a
performance, and a good example of those methods was shown in the
production by Sir Augustus of an opera in which there was a scene of
intense excitement during a supposed eruption of Vesuvius.
The longer the rehearsal proceeded the greater became the indifference
with which the “crowd” of operatic supers regarded the phenomenon, and
anyone but Charles Harris would have given up the task of inspiring the
mob with life in despair.
On the night of the production, to the immense surprise of Gus, the
panic-stricken mob was all that could be desired; it was essentially
lively; its members darted about in wonderfully simulated dismay,
uttering frenzied shrieks, displaying every possible form of anxiety,
not to say discomfort.
And then it was observed that a monk, with a cowl over his face, was
moving about among the Neapolitans, and wherever he moved the ladies
in his immediate vicinity all suddenly showed signs of the greatest
animation.
The monk was Charles Harris, the stage manager, and a smart pinch
on the softest portion of any female frame that happened to be near
him was his method of imparting liveliness to the proceedings, and a
proper sense of the importance of such a phenomenon as the eruption of
Vesuvius.
But at times “Charlie” Harris was capable of the _suaviter in modo_ of
a brand peculiarly his own.
In the old Drury Lane Theatre the pillars were a nuisance from the
point of view of the unfortunate member of the audience who found
himself seated immediately behind one of them, and on one occasion
a gentleman (who had a lady with him) objected to his seats, as an
ornamental column practically obscured the view of the stage. Charles
Harris appeared, took the tickets from the objector, sent to the box
office for a guinea and returned the money.
“I hope you don’t consider me unreasonable,” temporized the patron,
surprised at his easy victory. “But really, those pillars, you
know--er--er--are----”
“Yes,” chimed in the lady, “they really are, you know----”
“Quite right, madam, quite right,” agreed Charles Harris warmly.
“They’re a perfect ---- nuisance, _as you say_. But you see, poor old
Gus has to have ’em to prop up the ---- house.”
Whereupon the couple left swiftly, never even stopping to say a word
until they reached the bottom of Catherine Street.
A rough diamond was Charles Harris, but a great stage manager.
“The Prodigal Daughter” was a great success, and when it was decided
to send it to America I was anxious to play my original part at the
Broadway Theatre, New York, but this time Irving, long-suffering as he
was, at last put his foot down, and told me that he wanted me.
The three years I spent at Drury Lane were happy years, and were a
valuable experience, with only one regret. Almost immediately after
I had signed my contract with Harris, George Alexander came to me,
and asked me to join him at the St. James’ Theatre, which he had just
opened after his big success in “Doctor Bill,” but it was too late, and
I lost the chance of an artistic association with a great actor and a
great gentleman.