"I don"t need actresses, but I need plays. Go home and write me one."
Mrs. Ryley up to that time had written plays only as an amateur. She went home and wrote "Christopher Jr." and it started her on a notably successful career as a playwright. In fact, she was perhaps the first of the really successful women playwrights.
Charles Frohman celebrated the opening theatrical season of the new twentieth century by annexing a new star and a fortune at the same time.
It was William H. Crane in "David Harum" who accomplished this.
Again history repeated itself in a picturesque approach to a Frohman success. One morning, at the time when both had apartments at Sherry"s, Frohman and Charles Dillingham emerged from the building after breakfast. On the sidewalk they met Denman Thompson, the old actor.
Frohman engaged him in conversation. Suddenly Thompson began to chuckle.
"What are you laughing at?" asked Frohman.
"I was thinking of a book I read last night, called "David Harum,""
replied Thompson.
"Was it interesting?"
"The best American story I ever read," said the actor.
Frohman"s eyes suddenly sparkled. He winked at Dillingham, who hailed a cab and made off. Frohman engaged Thompson in conversation until he returned. In his pocket he carried a copy of "David Harum."
Frohman read the book that day, made a contract for its dramatization, and from the venture he cleared nearly half a million dollars.
Frohman considered four men for the part of _David Harum_. They were Denman Thompson, James A. Hearne, Sol Smith Russell, and Crane. Thompson was too old, Hearne had been a.s.sociated too long with the "Sh.o.r.e Acres"
type to adapt himself to the Westcott hero, and Sol Smith Russell did not meet the requirements. Frohman regarded Crane as ideal.
His negotiations with Crane for this part were typical of his business arrangements. It took exactly five minutes to discuss them. When the terms had been agreed upon, Frohman said to Crane:
"Are you sure this is perfectly satisfactory to you?"
"Perfectly," replied Crane.
Frohman reached over from his desk and shook his new star by the hand.
It was his way of ratifying a contract that was never put on paper, and over which no word of disagreement ever arose. Crane"s connection with Charles Frohman lasted for nine years.
Frohman personally rehea.r.s.ed "David Harum." Much of its extraordinary success was due to his marvelous energy. It was Frohman, and not the dramatist, who introduced the rain-storm scene at the close of the second act which made one of the biggest hits of the performance.
Throughout the play there were many evidences of Frohman"s skill and craftsmanship.
It was just about this time that the real kinship with Augustus Thomas began. Frohman, after his first meeting with Thomas years before in the box-office of a St. Louis theater, had produced his play "Surrender,"
and had engaged him to remodel "Sue." Now he committed the first of the amazing quartet of errors of judgment with regard to the Thomas plays that forms one of the curious chapters in his friendship with this distinguished American playwright.
Thomas had conceived the idea of a cycle of American plays, based on the att.i.tude toward women in certain sections of the country. The first of these plays had been "Alabama," the second "In Mizzoura." Thomas now wrote "Arizona" in this series. When he offered the play to Frohman, the manager said:
"I like this play, Gus, but I have one serious objection to it. I don"t see any big situation to use the American flag. Perhaps I am superst.i.tious about it. I have had such immense luck with the flag in "Shenandoah" and "Held by the Enemy" that I have an instinct that I ought not to do this play, much as I would like to."
As everybody knows, the play went elsewhere and was one of the great successes of the American stage.
Frohman now realized his mistake. He sent for Thomas and said: "I want you to write me another one of those rough plays."
The result was "Colorado," which Frohman put on at the Grand Opera House in New York with Wilton Lackaye in the leading role, but it was not a success.
A few years later Frohman made another of the now famous mistakes with Thomas. Thomas had seen Lawrence D"Orsay doing his usual "silly a.s.s"
part in a play. He also observed that the play lagged unless D"Orsay was on the stage. He therefore wrote a play called "The Earl of Pawtucket,"
with D"Orsay in mind, and Frohman accepted it. When the time came to select the cast, Thomas suggested D"Orsay for the leading part.
"Impossible!" said Frohman. "He can"t do it."
[Ill.u.s.tration: _AUGUSTUS THOMAS_]
[Ill.u.s.tration: _SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO_]
Thomas was so convinced that D"Orsay was the ideal man that Frohman made this characteristic concession:
"I think well of your play, and it will probably be a success," he said, "but I do not believe that D"Orsay is the man for it. If you can get another manager to do it I will turn back the play to you, and if you insist upon having D"Orsay I will release him from his contract with me."
Kirk La Sh.e.l.le took the play and it was another "Arizona."
Frohman produced a whole series of Thomas successes, notably "The Other Girl," "Mrs. Leffingwell"s Boots," and "De Lancey." To the end of his days the warmest and most intimate friendship existed between the men.
It was marked by the usual humor that characterized Frohman"s relations.
Here is an example:
Thomas conducted the rehearsals of "The Other Girl" alone. Frohman, who was up-stairs in his offices at the Empire, sent him a note on a yellow pad, written with the blue pencil that he always used:
"How are you getting along at rehearsals without me?"
"Great!" scribbled Thomas.
The next day when he went up-stairs to Frohman"s office, he found the note pinned on the wall.
Such was the mood of the man who had risen from obscurity to one of commanding authority in the whole English-speaking theater.
X
THE RISE OF ETHEL BARRYMORE
While the star of Maude Adams rose high in the theatrical heaven, another lovely luminary was about to appear over the horizon. The moment was at hand when Charles Frohman was to reveal another one of his proteges, this time the young and beautiful Ethel Barrymore. It is an instance of progressive and sympathetic Frohman sponsorship that gave the American stage one of its most fascinating favorites. Some stars are destined for the stage; others are born in the theater. Ethel Barrymore is one of the latter. Two generations of eminent theatrical achievement heralded her advent, for she is the granddaughter of Mrs. John Drew, mistress of the famous Arch Street Theater Company of Philadelphia, and herself, in later years, the greatest _Mrs. Malaprop_ of her day. Miss Barrymore"s father was the brilliant and gifted Maurice Barrymore; her mother the no less witty and talented Georgia Drew, while, among other family distinctions, she came into the world as the niece of John Drew.
Despite the royalty of her theatrical birth, no star in America had to labor harder or win her way by more persistent and conscientious effort.
At fourteen she was playing child"s parts with her grandmother. A few years later she came to New York to get a start. Though she bore one of the most distinguished and honored names in the profession, she sat around in agents" offices for six months, beating vainly at the door of opportunity. Finally she got a chance to understudy Elsie De Wolfe, who was playing with John Drew, in "The Bauble Shop," at the Empire. One day when that actress became ill this seventeen-year-old child played the part of a thirty-two-year-old woman with great success. Understudies then became her fate for several years. While playing a part on the road with her uncle in "The Squire of Dames," Charles Frohman saw her for the first time. He looked at her sharply, but said nothing. Later, during this engagement, she met the man who was to shape her career.
About this time Miss Barrymore went to London. Charles had accepted Haddon Chambers"s play "The Tyranny of Tears," in which John Drew was to star in America. She got the impression that she would be cast for one of the two female parts in this play, and she studied the costuming and other details. With eager expectancy she called on Frohman in London.
Much to her surprise Frohman said: