Hubert Henry Davies"s "Outcast" has made a hit, but he really has a wonderful woman--I should say the best young emotional actress on the stage--in Miss Ferguson. So he is in for a good thing.
_To Cyril Maude, in Boston, November, 1914:_
Yours to Chicago has just reached me here in New York. As soon as I heard that you were going to write me to Chicago I immediately left for New York.
I am glad you are doing so very big in Boston. They say you are going to stay all season. Things are terrible with me in London, and the interests I had outside of London have been shocking. I am hoping and believing, however, that all will be well again on the little island--the island that I am so devoted to.
In this letter, it is worth adding, Frohman made one of his very rare confessions of bad business. He only liked to write about his affairs when they were booming.
_To Margaret Mayo Selwyn, New York, November 30, 1914:_
I was glad to receive your letter. I have been thinking about the revival of the play you mentioned. In fact, the thought has been a long one--three years--but I haven"t reached it yet. I have been thinking more about the new play you are writing for me. I know you now have a lot of theaters, a lot of managers, and a lot of husbands and things like that, but, all the same, I _want_ that play. My best regards.
_Frohman loved sweets. He went to considerable trouble sometimes to get the particular candy he wanted. Here is a letter that he wrote to William Newman, then manager of the Maude Adams Company, in care of the Metropolitan Opera House, St. Paul:_
Will you go to George Smith"s Chocolate Works, 6th and Robert Streets, St. Paul, and get four packages of Smith"s Delicious Cream Patties and send them to me to the Knickerbocker Hotel, New York?
_Frohman had his own way of acknowledging courtesies. A London friend, Reginald Nicholson, circulation manager of the Times, sent him some flowers to the Savoy. He received this reply from the manager, scrawled with blue pencil on a sheet of hotel paper:_
A lot of thanks from Savoy Court 81.
Frohman"s apartment for years at the Savoy Hotel was Savoy Court 81.
_To Paul Potter, written from the Blackstone, Chicago, in February, 1915:_
Dear Paul:
I received your telegram, and was glad to get it. The sun is shining here and all is well. I hope to see you Sat.u.r.day night at the Knickerbocker.
C. F.
This is in every way a typical Charles Frohman personal note. He usually had one thing to say and said it in the fewest possible words.
_One day Frohman sent a certain play to his brother Daniel for criticism. On receiving an unfavorable estimate of the work he wrote him the following memorandum:_
Who are you and who am I that can decide the financial value of this play? The most extraordinary plays succeed, and many that deserve a better fate fail; so how are we to know until after we test a play before the public?
_In reply to Charles Burnham"s invitation to attend the Theatrical Managers" dinner, he wrote:_
Thank you very much, but my condition is still such that my game leg would require at least four seats, and as we now have at least several managers to every theater, and several theaters in every block, I haven"t the heart to accept the needed room, and thus deprive them of any.
_Writing to E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe, in April, 1915, he said:_
I wonder why you don"t both sail with me May 1 (_Lusitania_). As far as I am concerned, when you consider all the stars I have managed, mere submarines make me smile. But most affectionate regards to you both.
_Writing to John Drew, who was willing to prolong his touring season in 1915, he says:_
All right. Why a young man like you cares to continue on his long tours, I don"t know. I hope to get away on May 1st and to return shortly after you reach New York. Am in quest of something for you.
Our last talk before you left gave me much happiness.
_Refusing to book his attractions in a city for a week where three nights were sufficient, he said:_
My stars like week stands, but they don"t like weak business.
_To Haddon Chambers, in London:_
I am hoping to get off on the _Lusitania_. It seems to be the best ship to sail on. I shall be glad to see you.
_Writing to S. F. Nixon, a business colleague, regarding Miss Barrymore in "The Shadow":_
You are quite right as to the play being terribly somber. I thought it a good idea to show what a representative American actress of serious parts she was; so that next season we will offer a contrast, and make the audiences laugh so much that they will be compelled to crowd the theater. She will play then as humorous a part ("Our Mrs. McChesney") as she did so earnestly a serious one.
_To J. C. O"Laughlin, of the Chicago_ Herald:
We managers have certain ideas about plays. We produce a play and find our ideas and opinions often wrong. Our opinions are only sound, I think, as far as the question of a play being actable is concerned. My sympathetic feeling for all writers makes it very hard to venture an opinion detrimental to their work, especially as we find we are frequently wrong.
_To one of his leading women, April, 1915:_
I appreciate the expression of your affection. It almost makes me turn westward instead of eastward. However, we must do our jobs, and so I do mine. I am sailing Sat.u.r.day (per _Lusitania_). Heaven only will know where I am in July. I cannot tell this year anything about anything.
_To Booth Tarkington:_
I don"t suppose you have any idea of coming to New York. There are a lot of fine things here worth your while, including myself.
_Concerning Hubert Henry Davies, the author of "Outcast," Miss Elsie Ferguson"s very successful vehicle:_
He is a delightful, charming, simple, splendid fellow. You will be delighted with him, and Miss Ferguson will be more than delighted with him, because he will be so delighted with her. It is a fine thing to have so nice a man as Davies arrive, and entirely misunderstanding the person he is to rehea.r.s.e because the surprise will be all the greater. It pleases me, knowing what a fine emotional (one of the very best in the world) young actress our star is.
_To Harry Powers, manager of Powers Theater, Chicago, where his play "The Beautiful Adventure," with Ann Murdock, was then running:_
Regarding "The Beautiful Adventure," if I am doing wrong in making a clean situation out of one that is not clean, I am going to do wrong. The theater-going public in the cities may not always get a good play from me, but they trust me, and I shall try and retain that trust. We may not get the same amount of money, but if we can live through it we will get a lot more satisfaction for those we like and for ourselves.
_Some of the last letters written by Frohman were filled with a curious tenderness and affection. In the light of what happened after he sailed they seem to be overcast with a strange foreboding of his doom. The most striking example of this is furnished in a letter he wrote to Henry Miller on April 29th, a few days before he went aboard the_ Lusitania.
_He had not written to Miller for a year, yet this is what he said:_
Dear Henry: I am going to London Sat.u.r.day A.M. I want to say good-by to you with this--and tell you how glad I am you"ve had a good season.
Affectionately, C. F.
Miller was immensely touched by this communication. He wired to his son Gilbert to find out what steamer Frohman was taking, and send him a wireless. This message was probably the last ever received by Frohman, for no other similar telegram was sent him in care of the _Lusitania_.
_The last letter written by Frohman, before leaving the Hotel Knickerbocker on the morning the_ Lusitania _sailed, was to his intimate friend and companion Paul Potter. Potter, who had telephoned that he expected to meet him at the steamer, was much depressed, which explains one of the sentences in Frohman"s letter:_
Sat.u.r.day A.M., May 1, 1915.
Dear Paul: We had a fine time this winter. I hope all will go well with you. And I think luck is coming to you. I hope another "Trilby." It"s fine of you to come to the steamer with all these dark, sad conditions.
C. F.