Securing a stock engagement with Charles Gilfert, manager of the
Albany Theatre, he opened there in the early fall, and played for the
first time with Edmund Kean, then on his second visit to America. The
meeting with this extraordinary man and the attention he received from
him were foremost among the directing influences of Forrest's life. To
his last hour he never wearied of singing the praises of Kean, whose
genius filled the English-speaking world with admiration. Two men more
unlike in mind and body can scarcely be imagined. Until now Forrest
had seen no actor who represented in perfection the impassioned school
of which Kean was the master. He could not have known Cooke, even in
the decline of that great tragedian's power, and the little giant was
indeed a revelation. He played Iago to Kean's Othello, Titus to his
Brutus, and Richmond to his Richard III.
In the interval which preceded the opening of the Bowery Theatre, New
York, Forrest appeared at the Park for the benefit of Woodhull,
playing Othello. He made a pronounced success, his old manager sitting
in front, profanely exclaiming, "By God, the boy has made a hit!" This
was a great event, as the Park was then the leading theatre of
America, and its actors were the most famous and exclusive.
He opened at the Bowery Theatre in November, 1826, as Othello, and
made a brilliant impression. His salary was raised from $28 to $40 per
week. From this success may be traced the first absolute hold made by
Edwin Forrest upon the attention of cultivated auditors and
intelligent critics. The Bowery was then a very different theatre from
what it afterward became, when the newsboys took forcible possession
of its pit and the fire-laddies were the arbiters of public taste in
its neighborhood.
An instance of Forrest's moral integrity may be told here. He had been
approached by a rival manager, after his first success, and urged to
secede from the Bowery and join the other house at a much larger
salary. He scornfully refused to break his word, although his own
interests he knew must suffer. His popularity at this time was so
great that, when his contract for the season had expired, he was
instantly engaged for eight nights, at a salary of two hundred dollars
a night.
The success which had greeted Forrest on his first appearance in New
York, was renewed in every city in the land. Fortune attended fame,
and filled his pockets, as the breath of adulation filled his heart.
He had paid the last penny of debt left by his father, and had seen a
firm shelter raised over the head of his living family. With a
patriotic feeling for all things American, Forrest, about this time,
formed a plan for the encouragement or development of an American
drama, which resulted in heavy money losses to himself, but produced
such contributions to our stage literature as the "Gladiator," "Jack
Cade," and "Metamora."[14] After five years of constant labor he felt
that he had earned the right to a holiday, and he formed his plans
for a two years' absence in Europe. A farewell banquet was tendered
him by the citizens of New York, and a medal was struck in honor of
the occasion. Bryant, Halleck, Leggett, Ingraham and other
distinguished men were present. This was an honor which had never
before been paid to an American actor.
[Footnote 14: Of Forrest's performance of Metamora, in the
play of that name, W. R. Alger says, "Never did an actor more
thoroughly identify and merge himself with his part than
Forrest did in 'Metamora.' He was completely transformed from
what he appeared in other characters, and seemed Indian in
every particular, all through and all over, from the crown of
his head to the sole of his foot."]
He had been absent about two years when he landed in New York in
September, 1836. On his appearance at the Walnut Street Theatre,
Philadelphia, he was received with unprecedented enthusiasm. He gave
six performances only, on this occasion, and each saw a repetition of
the scene at the beginning of the engagement. The receipts were the
largest ever known in that house.
On September 19, 1836, Forrest embarked once more for the mother
country, this time with serious purpose. After a speedy and uneventful
passage he reached England, and at once set about the preliminary
business of his British engagement, which began October 17, 1836. He
was the first really great American actor who had appeared in London
as a rival of the English tragedians; for Cooper was born in England,
though always regarded as belonging to the younger country. His
opening part was Spartacus in the "Gladiator." The play was condemned,
the actor applauded. In Othello, in Lear, and in Macbeth, he achieved
instant success. He began his engagement October 17th and closed
December 19th, having acted Macbeth seven times, Othello nine, and
King Lear eight. A dinner at the Garrick Club was offered and
accepted. Here he sat down with Charles Kemble and Macready; Sergeant
Talfourd was in the chair.
It was during this engagement he met his future wife, Miss Catherine
Sinclair. In the latter part of June, 1837, the marriage took place in
St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden. Mr. and Mrs. Forrest soon after
embarked for America. The tragedian resumed his American engagements
November 15, 1837, at the old Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia.
Presented to his friends, his wife at once made a deep and lasting
impression. Her native delicacy of mind and refinement of manners
enchanted those who hoped for some such influence to be exerted in
softening the rough vigor and democratic downrightness of the man.
Domestic discord came too soon, however, and in an evil hour for
himself, in an evil hour for his art and for the struggling drama in
America, Edwin Forrest threw open the doors of his home to the
scrutiny of the world, and appealed to the courts to remove the
skeleton which was hidden in his closet. With the proceedings of that
trial, which resulted in divorce, alimony, and separation, this memoir
has nothing to do.
[Illustration: Forrest as Metamora.]
Edwin Forrest, leaving the court-room a defeated man, was instantly
raised to a popularity with the masses beyond anything even he had
before experienced. He began an engagement soon after at the Broadway
Theatre, opening as Damon. The house was crowded to suffocation. The
engagement of sixty nights was unparalleled in the history of the
American drama for length and profit. But despite the flattering
applause of the multitude, life never again had for him the smiling
aspect it had so often worn before. The applause which filled his
ears, the wealth which flowed in upon him could not improve that
temper which had never been amiable, and all the hard stories of his
life belong to this period.
On September 20, 1852, he reappeared at the Broadway Theatre, New
York. In February, 1853, "Macbeth" was produced in grand style, with
new scenery and appointments. The tragedy was played on twenty
consecutive nights, then by far the longest run of any Shakespearean
play in America. The cast was very strong. It included Conway, Duff,
Davenport, Pope, Davidge, Barry, and Madame Ponisi.
On September 17, 1860, after an absence of nearly four years, Edwin
Forrest appeared again on the stage. He was engaged by James Nixon,
and began his contract of one hundred nights at Niblo's Garden, New
York, in the character of Hamlet. The long retirement only increased
the curious interest which centred round his historic name. Upon his
opening night the seats were sold at auction. His success in
Philadelphia rivalled that of New York. In Boston the vast auditorium
of the grandest theatre in America was found too small to contain the
crowds he drew.
Severe attacks of gout were beginning to tell upon that herculean
form, sapping and undermining it; and in 1865, while playing Damon at
the Holiday Street Theatre, in Baltimore, the weather being very cold
and the theatre open to draughts, he was seized with a sudden illness,
which was followed by very serious results. Suffering the most intense
agony, he was able to get to the end of the part; but when his robes
were laid aside and physicians summoned, it was found to his horror
that he had suffered a partial paralysis of the sciatic nerve. In an
instant the sturdy gait, the proud tread of the herculean actor was
forever gone; for he never regained complete control of his limb, a
perceptible hobble being the legacy of the dreadful visitation. His
right hand was almost powerless, and he could not hold his sword.
In 1866 he went to California, urged by the manager in San Francisco.
His last engagement in New York took place in February, 1871. He
played Lear and Richelieu, his two greatest parts. On the night of
March 25, 1872, Forrest opened in "Lear" at the Globe Theatre, Boston.
"Lear" was played six nights. During the second week he was announced
for Richelieu and Virginius; but he caught a violent cold on Sunday,
and labored sorely on Monday evening through the part of Richelieu. On
Tuesday he repeated the performance, against the advice of friends and
physicians. Rare bursts of his old power lighted up the play, but he
labored piteously on against his illness and threatened pneumonia.
When stimulants were offered he rejected them, declaring "that if he
died to-night, he should still be his old royal self."
Announced for Virginius the following evening, he was unable to
appear. A severe attack of pneumonia developed itself. He was carried
to his hotel, and his last engagement was brought to an abrupt and
melancholy end. As soon as he was able to move, he left Boston for his
home in Philadelphia, resting on his way only a day in New York. As
the summer passed away, the desire for work grew stronger and
stronger, and he decided to re-enter public life, but simply as a
reader of the great plays in which he had as an actor been so
successful. The result was a disappointment. On December 11, 1872, he
wrote to Oakes his last letter, saying sadly, but fondly: "God bless
you ever, my dear and much-beloved friend."
When the morning of December 12th came, his servant, hearing no sound
in his chamber at his general hour of rising, became alarmed, opened
his master's door, and found there, cold in death upon his bed, the
form of the great tragedian. His arms were crossed upon his bosom, and
he seemed to be at rest. The stroke had come suddenly. With little
warning, and without pain, he had passed away.
The dead man's will was found to contain several bequests to old
friends and servants, and an elaborate scheme by which his fortune, in
the hands of trustees, was to be applied to the erection and support
of a retreat for aged actors, to be called "The Edwin Forrest Home."
The idea had been long in his mind, and careful directions were drawn
up for its practical working; but the trustees found themselves
powerless to realize fully the hopes and wishes of the testator. A
settlement had to be made to the divorced wife, who acted liberally
toward the estate; but the amount withdrawn seriously crippled it, as
it was deprived at once of a large sum of ready money. Other legal
difficulties arose. And thus the great ambition of the tragedian to be
a benefactor to his profession was destined to come almost to naught.
Of this happily little he recks now. He has parted with all the cares
of life, and has at last found rest.
Forrest's greatest Shakespearean parts were Lear, Othello, and
Coriolanus. The first grew mellow and rich as the actor grew in years,
while it still retained much of its earlier force. His Othello
suffered with the decline of his faculties, although his clear
conception of all he did was apparent to the end in the acting of
every one of his parts. Coriolanus died with him, the last of all the
Romans. He was greatest, however, in such parts as Virginius, William
Tell, and Spartacus. Here his mannerisms of gait and utterance were
less noticeable than in his Shakespearean characters, or were
overlooked in the rugged massiveness of the creation. Hamlet, Richard,
and Macbeth were out of his temperament, and added nothing to his
fame; but Richelieu is said to have been one of his noblest and most
impressive performances. He was in all things marked and distinctive.
His obtrusive personality often destroyed the harmony of the portrait
he was painting; but in his inspired moments, which were many, his
touches were sublime. He passed over quiet scenes with little
elaboration, and dwelt strongly upon the grand features of the
characters he represented. His Lear, in the great scenes, rose to a
majestic height, but fell in places almost to mediocrity. His art was
unequal to his natural gifts. He was totally unlike his great
contemporary and rival, Macready, whose attention to detail gave to
every performance the harmony of perfect work.
This memoir may fitly close with an illustrative anecdote of the great
actor. Toward the end of his professional career he was playing an
engagement at St. Louis. He was very feeble in health, and his
lameness was a source of great anxiety to him. Sitting at a late
supper in his hotel one evening, after a performance of "King Lear,"
with his friend J. B. McCullough, of the _Globe-Democrat_, that
gentleman remarked to him: "Mr. Forrest, I never in my life saw you
play Lear so well as you did to-night." Whereupon the veteran almost
indignantly replied, rising slowly and laboriously from his chair to
his full height: "Play Lear! What do you mean, sir? I do not play
Lear! I play Hamlet, Richard, Shylock, Virginius, if you please, but
by God, sir, I _am_ Lear!"
Nor was this wholly imaginative. Ingratitude of the basest kind had
rent his soul. Old friends were gone from him; new friends were but
half-hearted. His hearthstone was desolate. The public, to whom he had
given his best years, was becoming impatient of his infirmities. The
royalty of his powers he saw by degrees torn from his decaying form.
Other kings had arisen on the stage, to whom his old subjects now
showed a reverence once all his own. The mockery of his diadem only
remained. A wreck of the once proud man who had despised all weakness,
and had ruled his kingdom with imperial sway, he now stood alone.
Broken in health and in spirit, deserted, forgotten, unkinged, he
might well exclaim, "_I am Lear!_"
CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN
By DUTTON COOK
(1816-1876)
[Illustration: Charlotte Cushman.]
The Pilgrim Fathers figure in American pedigrees almost as frequently
and persistently as Norman William and his followers appear at the
trunk of our family-trees. Certainly, the Mayflower must have carried
very many heads of houses across the Atlantic. It was not in the
Mayflower, however, but in the Fortune, a smaller vessel, of
fifty-five tons, that Robert Cushman, Nonconformist, the founder of
the Cushman family in America, sailed from England, for the better
enjoyment of liberty of conscience and freedom of religion. In the
seventh generation from Robert Cushman appeared Elkanah Cushman, who
took to wife Mary Eliza, daughter of Erasmus Babbit, Jr., lawyer,
musician, and captain in the army. Of this marriage was born Charlotte
Saunders Cushman, in Richmond Street, Boston, July 23, 1816, and other
children.
Charlotte Cushman says of herself: "I was born a tom-boy." She had a
passion for climbing trees and for breaking open dolls' heads. She
could not make dolls' clothes, but she could manufacture their
furniture--could do anything with tools. "I was very destructive to
toys and clothes, tyrannical to brothers and sister, but very social,
and a great favorite with other children. Imitation was a prevailing
trait." The first play she ever saw was "Coriolanus," with Macready in
the leading part; her second play was "The Gamester." She became noted
in her school for her skill in reading aloud. Her competitors
grumbled: "No wonder she can read; she goes to the theatre!" Until
then she had been shy and reserved, not to say stupid, about reading
aloud in school, afraid of the sound of her own voice, and unwilling
to trust it; but acquaintance with the theatre loosened her tongue, as
she describes it, and gave opportunity and expression to a faculty
which became the ruling passion of her life. At home, as a child, she
took part in an operetta founded upon the story of "Bluebeard," and
played Selim, the lover, with great applause, in a large attic chamber
of her father's house before an enthusiastic audience of young people.
Elkanah Cushman had been for some years a successful merchant, a
member of the firm of Topliffe & Cushman, Long Wharf, Boston. But
failure befell him, "attributable," writes Charlotte Cushman's
biographer, Miss Stebbins, "to the infidelity of those whom he trusted
as supercargoes." The family removed from Boston to Charlestown.
Charlotte was placed at a public school, remaining there until she was
thirteen only. Elkanah Cushman died, leaving his widow and five
children with very slender means. Mrs. Cushman opened a boarding-house
in Boston, and struggled hard to ward off further misfortune. It was
discovered that Charlotte possessed a noble voice of almost two
registers, "a full contralto and almost a full soprano; but the low
voice was the natural one." The fortunes of the family seemed to rest
upon the due cultivation of Charlotte's voice and upon her future as a
singer. "My mother," she writes, "at great self-sacrifice gave me what
opportunities for instruction she could obtain for me; and then my
father's friend, Mr. R. D. Shepherd, of Shepherdstown, Va., gave me
two years of the best culture that could be obtained in Boston at that
time, under John Paddon, an English organist and teacher of singing."
When the English singer, Mrs. Wood--better known, perhaps, as Miss
Paton--visited Boston in 1835 or 1836, she needed the support of a
contralto voice. Charlotte Cushman was sent for, and rehearsed duets
with Mrs. Wood. The young beginner was advised to prepare herself for
the operatic stage; she was assured that such a voice would "lead her
to any height of fortune she coveted." She became the articled pupil
of Mr. Maeder, the husband of Clara Fisher, actress and vocalist, and
the musical director of Mr. and Mrs. Wood. Instructed by Maeder, Miss
Cushman undertook the parts of the Countess in "The Marriage of
Figaro" and Lucy Bertram in the opera of "Guy Mannering." These were
her first appearances upon the stage.
Mrs. Maeder's voice was a contralto; it became necessary, therefore,
to assign soprano parts to Miss Cushman. Undue stress was thus laid
upon her upper notes. She was very young, and she felt the change of
climate when she went on with the Maeders to New Orleans. It is
likely that her powers as a singer had been tried too soon and too
severely; her operatic career was brought to a sudden close. Her voice
failed her; her upper notes departed, never to return; she was left
with a weakened and limited contralto register. Alarmed and wretched,
she sought counsel of Mr. Caldwell, the manager of the chief New
Orleans theatre. "You ought to be an actress, and not a singer," he
said, and advised her to take lessons of Mr. Barton, his leading
tragedian. Her articles of apprenticeship to Maeder were cancelled.
Soon she was ready to appear as Lady Macbeth on the occasion of
Barton's benefit.
The season ended, she sailed for Philadelphia on her way to New York.
Presently she had entered into a three years' engagement with Mr.
Hamblin, the manager of the Bowery Theatre, at a salary of twenty-five
dollars a week for the first year, thirty-five for the second year,
and forty-five for the third. Mr. Hamblin had received excellent
accounts of the actress from his friend, Mr. Barton, of New Orleans,
and had heard her rehearse scenes from "Macbeth," "Jane Shore,"
"Venice Preserved," "The Stranger," etc. To enable her to obtain a
suitable wardrobe, he became security for her with his tradespeople,
deducting five dollars a week from her salary until the debt was
satisfied. All promised well; independence seemed secure at last. Mrs.
Cushman was sent for from Boston; she gave up her boarding-house and
hastened to her daughter. Miss Cushman writes: "I got a situation for
my eldest brother in a store in New York. I left my only sister in
charge of a half-sister in Boston, and I took my youngest brother with
me." But rheumatic fever seized the actress; she was able to act for a
few nights only, and her dream of good fortune came to a disastrous
close. "The Bowery Theatre was burned to the ground, with all my
wardrobe, all my debt upon it, and my three years' contract ending in
smoke." Grievously distressed, but not disheartened, with her family
dependent upon her exertions, she accepted an engagement at the
principal theatre in Albany, where she remained five months, acting
all the leading characters. In September, 1837, she entered into an
engagement, which endured for three years, with the manager of the
Park Theatre, New York. She was required to fulfil the duties of
"walking lady" and "general utility" at a salary of twenty dollars a
week.
During this period of her career she performed very many characters,
and toiled assiduously at her profession. It was then the custom to
afford the public a great variety of performances, to change the plays
nightly, and to present two and sometimes three plays upon the same
evening. The actors were forever busy studying new parts, and, when
they were not performing, they were rehearsing. "It was a time of hard
work," writes Miss Stebbins, "of ceaseless activity, and of hard-won
and scantily accorded appreciation." Miss Cushman had no choice of
parts; she was not the chief actress of the company; she sustained
without question all the characters the management assigned to her.
Her appearance as Meg Merrilies (she acquired subsequently great favor
by her performance of this character) was due to an incident--the
illness of Mrs. Chippendale, the actress who usually supported the
part. It was in the year 1840; the veteran Braham was to appear as
Henry Bertram. A Meg Merrilies had to be improvised. The obscure
"utility" actress was called upon to take Mrs. Chippendale's place.
She might read the part if she could not commit it to memory but
personate Meg Merrilies after some sort she must. She had never
especially noticed the part; but as she stood at the side scene, book
in hand, awaiting her moment of entrance, her ear caught the dialogue
going on upon the stage between two of the gypsies, "conveying the
impression that Meg was no longer to be feared or respected--that she
was no longer in her right mind." This furnished her with a clew to
the character, and led her to present it upon the stage as the weird
and startling figure which afterward became so famous. Of course, the
first performance was but a sketch of her later portrayals of Meg
Merrilies, yet she made a profound impression. "I had not thought that
I had done anything remarkable," she wrote, "and when a knock came at
my dressing-room door, and I heard Braham's voice, my first thought
was, 'Now what have I done? He is surely displeased with me about
something.' Imagine my gratification, when Mr. Braham said, 'Miss
Cushman, I have come to thank you for the most veritable sensation I
have experienced for a long time. I give you my word, when I saw you
in that first scene I felt a cold chill run all over me. Where have
you learned to do anything like that?'"
During her visits to England, Miss Cushman personated Meg Merrilies
more often than any other character. In America she was also famous
for her performance of Nancy, in a melodrama founded upon "Oliver
Twist;" but this part she did not bring with her across the Atlantic.
She had first played Nancy during her "general utility" days at the
Park Theatre, when the energy and pathos of her acting powerfully
affected her audience, and the tradition of her success in the part
long "lingered in the memory of managers, and caused them, ever and
anon, as their business interests prompted, to bring great pressure to
bear upon her for a reproduction of it." Mr. George Vandenhoff
describes Nancy as Miss Cushman's "greatest part; fearfully natural,
dreadfully intense, horribly real."