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 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE
 
 From a portrait hy Joseph Be Camp in the collection of The Players. 
 
 JOHN DREW
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN DREW 
 
 WITH A FOREWORD BY 
 
 BOOTH TARKINGTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 681 FIFTH AVENUE 

 
 Copyright, 1921, 1922, 
 
 By the CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Copyright, 1922, 
 
 By E. p. button & COMPANY 
 
 /ill Rights Reserved 
 
 First printing October, iq22 
 
 Second " October, iq22 
 
 Third " November , IQ22 
 
 Prlnteft In the tTnltefl States of America 
 
 • • • . t. t ., . . , , -, ,. 
 
 • CtC«IC •' « >•«( «4
 
 (N 
 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 How long ago is it, old schoolmate, since two 
 "middlers" from Exeter rollicked down to New York 
 for an Easter vacation, and on an imperishable evening 
 glamoured their young memories permanently with 
 Augustin Daly's company of players at Daly's Theatre 
 and The Taming of the Shrew? 
 
 What a good and merry town was brown-stone New 
 York then, when one stood at the doors of the Fifth 
 Avenue Hotel to see the pretty girls from all over the 
 country parading by after the matinee; when the 
 Avenue was given over to proud horses and graceful 
 women; when there were no automobiles and only a 
 few telephones; when Ada Rehan was playing 
 Katherine at Daly's and when those two Exeter school- 
 boys got the impression that the whole place belonged, 
 in a general way, to the Petruchio who tamed her, 
 John Drew! 
 
 The earth must have swung round the sun a few 
 times since then, my schoolmate, for now comes that 
 gay young Fetruchio before us with his Memoirs ! He 
 
 211619
 
 vi FOREWORD 
 
 feels that he has memories to entertain and to enlighten 
 us; he has now lived long enough to have seen some- 
 thing of the stage and of the world, it appears. For 
 one, I am willing to read him. I have listened to him 
 so often since that ancient night at Daly's; and though 
 the words I've heard him say were words suggested by 
 some paltry fellow of a playwright, yet I've had such 
 entertainment of the man, so much humor and delight, 
 I am even eager to hear him, now that he will speak 
 in his own words of himself and of his life, his art and 
 his friends. As to this last, though, he will have to 
 select with care; he could never tell us much of all his 
 friends, were Methuselah from birth to grave his 
 diligent amanuensis. 
 
 What he has played most congenially, and with the 
 manliest humor of his time, have been the roles of 
 gentlemen; and there is a certain thing about his book 
 of which we are already sure before we read it : therein 
 he cannot fail to add one more to the long, fine gallery 
 of portraits of gentlemen he has shown us ; and this one 
 must necessarily be the best gentleman of them all. 
 And it will be the one we have liked best, ever discern- 
 ing it behind the others; for it was always there, and 
 turned many a playwright's shoddy outline into a fine
 
 FOREWORD vii 
 
 fellow. John Drew would play Simon Legree into a 
 misunderstood gentleman, I believe. 
 
 The reason is a simple one: he was born with a 
 taste for the better side of things and the cleaner 
 surfaces of life. He has found them more interesting 
 and more congenial than mire, and if he should ever 
 deal with mire he would deal with it cleanly. Here 
 was the nature of the man always present in his acting; 
 and I think it has been because of that and because of 
 his humor — his own distinctive humor — that he has 
 charmed the best American public throughout so many 
 fortunate years. John Drew has been an actual feature 
 of the best American life ever since his youth — indeed, 
 he is one of its institutions; and there is a long grati- 
 tude due him. His Memoirs may properly be greeted, 
 in fact, as we should greet a birthday speech at the 
 banquet we are too numerous to make for him ; that is, 
 with cheers as he rises to address us. And then as we 
 settle down to listen we may be sure we shall hear of 
 many an old-time familiar figure besides himself, for 
 John Drew has known "pretty much everybody" of 
 his generation. His generation still continues, it is 
 pleasant and reassuring to know; for he admits us to 
 the intimacy of this autographical mood of his long
 
 viii FOREWORD 
 
 before the fireside years claim him. And he may speak 
 to us freely, with as good assurance as he has always 
 had, that whenever he speaks at all it is "among 
 friends." 
 
 Booth Tarkington 
 Kennebunkport, Maine. 
 July, 1921.
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 John Drew Frontispiece 
 
 Playbill, John Drew's First Appearance . Page 3 
 
 The Mother and Father of John Drew Facing page 6 
 
 The Earliest Picture of John Drew . " " 6 
 A Daguerreotype of Mrs. John Drew, Senior, as 
 
 Ophelia Facing page 10 
 
 "The Hero of Gettysburg" .... " " 14 
 
 The Old Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia Page 20 
 
 Playbill, The Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia 
 
 Pages 24-25 
 
 Playbill, The Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia 
 
 Pages 30-31 
 
 John Drew Before He Went on the Stage 
 
 Facing page 34 
 
 John Drew at the Time of His First Appearance 
 
 Facing page 34 
 
 Ada Rehan When She Appeared at the Arch Street 
 
 Theatre Facing page 34 
 
 Josephine Baker (Mrs. John Drew) . " " 38 
 
 James Lewis and John Drew in Augustin Daly's 
 
 Play "Pique" Facing page 42 
 
 Playbill of John Drew's First Appearance in New 
 
 York Page 44 
 
 Mrs. Gilbert, Miss Davenport, Miss Jeffrys Lewis, 
 James Lewis, Augustin Daly, and John Drew, 
 at the Entrance to the Consolidated Virginia 
 Mine Facing page 48 
 
 Fanny Davenport " " 48 
 
 Playbill of Booth in "Hamlet" .... Page $$ 
 
 ix
 
 X ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 An Early Picture of Maurice Barrymore 
 
 Facing page 62 
 
 Ada Reran and John Drew in "Dollars and Sense" 
 
 Facing page 70 
 
 John Drew and William Gilbert in "Red Letter 
 
 Nights" Facing page 74 
 
 Playbill, Daly's Theatre, "Needles and Pins" 
 
 Page 82 
 
 Otis Skinner, Ada Rehan, James Lewis, Mrs. G. H. 
 Gilbert, and John Drew, in "The Railroad of 
 Love" Facing page 84 
 
 Ada Rehan as Katherine .... " " 90 
 
 Ada Rehan as Rosalind, John Drew as Orlando, in 
 
 "As You Like It" Facing page 96 
 
 John Drew as the King of Navarre in "Love's La- 
 bour's Lost" Facing page 100 
 
 Otis Skinner, Edith Kingdon, and John Drew, in 
 
 "Nancy and Company" .... Facing page 106 
 
 John Drew and Ada Rehan in "The Squire" 
 
 Facing page 110 
 
 Ada* Rehan and John Drew in Farquhar's "The Re- 
 cruiting Officer" Facing page 1 14 
 
 John Drew as Petruchio in "The Taming of the 
 
 Shrew" Facing page 118 
 
 Playbill of "The Taming of the Shrew" at Strat- 
 
 ford-on-Avon Page 120 
 
 John Drew, Mrs. Gilbert, and James Lewis in 
 
 "7-20-8" Facing page 124 
 
 Playbill, "A Night Off," in Germany . . Page 129 
 
 Edith Kingdon Gould as She Appeared with the 
 
 Daly Company Facing page 132 
 
 John Drew as Robin Hood in Tennyson's Play 
 
 "The Foresters" Facing page 138 
 
 John Drew and Virginia Dreher in "The Country 
 
 Girl" Facing page 142 
 
 Cartoon from Punch " " 146
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS xi 
 
 John Drew, James Lewis, Ada Rehan, Charles 
 Fisher, Virginia Dreher, Mrs. G. H. Gilbert, 
 Otis Skinner and May Irwin, in "A Night 
 Off" Facing page 152 
 
 Georgie Drew Barrymore with Ethel, Lionel and 
 
 Jack Barrymore Facing page 156 
 
 Maude Adams and John Drew in "Butterflies" 
 
 Facing page 164 
 
 Elsie De Wolfe and John Drew in "A Marriage 
 
 of Convenience" Facing page 170 
 
 Arthur Byron and John Drew in "The Tyranny 
 
 of Tears" Facing page 170 
 
 Maude Adams and John Drew in "Rosemary" 
 
 Facing page 174 
 
 Maude Adams, Arthur Byron and John Drew in 
 
 "Rosemary" Facing page 178 
 
 Maude Adams and John Drew in "Christopher, 
 
 Jr." Facing page 184 
 
 Playbill, Maude Adams and John Drew in "Rose- 
 mary" Page 187 
 
 Mrs. John Drew, Senior, as Mrs. Malaprop in "The 
 
 Rivals" Facing page '188 
 
 John Drew and Frank Lamb in "The Liars" 
 
 Facing page 192 
 
 Ethel Barrymore as the Rustic Maid in "Rose- 
 mary" Facing page 200 
 
 John Drew, Guy Standing and Ida Conquest in 
 
 "The Second in Command" . . Facing page 204 
 
 John Drew and Billie Burke in "My Wife" 
 
 Facing page 208 
 
 Scene from Maugham's Comedy, "Smith" 
 
 Facing page 212 
 
 John Drew, Reginald Carrington and Lionel 
 Barrymore in "The Mummy and the Hum- 
 ming Bird" Facing page 216 
 
 John Drew at Easthampton, Long Island 
 
 Facing page 222
 
 xii ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Kyalami, John Drew's House at Easthampton 
 
 Facing page ill 
 
 Pavlowa and John Drew at the Time of the Re- 
 vival OF "Rosemary" .... Facing page lid 
 
 John Drew " " 230 
 
 JM. . 
 
 ^■i 
 
 
 -, ){xuS^ 
 
 .V--V ^'
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 WHAT a dreadful young man! I wonder what 
 he will be like when he grows up." 
 
 The friendly audience that had come to the theatre 
 on the occasion of a benefit for my sister, Georgie 
 Drew, was thrilled with merriment when my mother, 
 referring to me, interpolated the speech above. The 
 play was Cool as a Cucumber^ by W. Blanchard Jer- 
 rold, a one-act farce, and I was for my first appearance 
 playing the role of Mr. Plumper, The time was 
 March 22, 1873; the place, the Arch Street Theatre, 
 Philadelphia, then under the management of my 
 mother. 
 
 Before my debut the Philadelphia Inquirer printed 
 an armouncement that I was to appear for the first 
 time on Saturday night. The article ended: 
 
 John Drew (my father) belonged to a school 
 of actors that is passing away rapidly and leaving 
 no copy behind, we fear. Of that school Mrs. 
 Drew (my mother) is a noble representative, and
 
 2 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 we would like to hope that her daughter and son 
 are also representatives of it. Miss Drew has 
 appeared but two or three times upon the stage, 
 and the impression she then created was favor- 
 able. Her worst faults are her youth and inex- 
 perience, and both these time will overcome. Of 
 Mr. Drew we know nothing. But remembering 
 with profound gratitude the pleasure that the 
 mother and father of these children have given 
 the public, how great and conscientious an artist 
 Mrs. Drew is, and John Drew was, we trust for 
 their sakes that the old playgoers of Philadelphia 
 will unite on Saturday to give the young players, 
 just entering upon the career by which they are 
 to live, a substantial, hearty welcome. It may 
 be that for their own sakes they deserve such 
 welcome; but whether this be so or not they de- 
 serve it for the sake of those great artists whose 
 children they are, and who for so many years gave 
 of their best to the pleasure and entertainment of 
 the town. 
 
 We know of no opportunity so favorable for 
 the public to show its respect for the memory of 
 the great dead comedian, or gratitude to his wife, 
 who survives him, as that which will be presented 
 on Saturday night. 
 
 The first lines that I spoke on any stage give an idea 
 of the self-possession of the character of Plumper that 
 I played in Cool as a Cucumber^ even if they do not 
 indicate my own self-possession and confidence. I 
 was ushered on by a maid, a part played on that night 
 by my mother. I addressed her : "My name, did you
 
 MliS. JOH3V DREAV'S 
 
 ARCH STREET THEATRE. 
 
 BEUIMS AT UOARTEKUEKOttE EIGHT tCClXHJIC 
 
 biMJti^ Mkiuiger and Treiviurer Jos. D. Muhphy 
 
 Stage Msoager :..•....-.. Bakton Hill 
 UtntaU DlrMior, I'jioF. Chas. Webkb 
 
 SATURDAY EVENING, MARCH 22d, 1873, 
 
 M18S&E0B&IE MBEW 
 
 On uliirli o<Tfl»ii>ii lit-r Ilrotlifr, 
 
 Will niukt-liis First Aiippnraixe onJiny Sinse. 
 
 Tlifr Hfrfurmiini.'e will ronuneiice w lili tln' Couiwly, hi Two Arts, catlert 
 
 MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD: 
 
 |ji<ly Louetlale „ _„ MRS. JOHN DRKW 
 
 IJIIlfin, her ilungliler_„ .._. _ Miss Oeorgle Drew 
 
 Mri Ulnckmore .^..„ „..MiHs Mary XlaiMern 
 
 8Jr Charles Rocket _ _ „. Harton Hill 
 
 Lora lx»ne<lale „ „.„ Mr. Cieo. Melklff 
 
 .\ner wbidi, Mr. Charles Mathews' Coiunlfeltu or 
 
 0@©L As ^' rt'TfnTF-M^-p.ini^ o 
 
 Mr. Plamper ._ „ JOHN DREW 
 
 (His FIntI .Vupenriiiice ou any stnge.) 
 
 Mr. Btirklr.s .. „ _ „ Mr. .S. Hemple 
 
 KreileiHck Hnrkina „. . „..„ Mr. A. Lawrence 
 
 Jeiutie Uoilltuit...„„._ _ .„.„ .._ __ _ „ .M1S.S Rosalie Jark 
 
 \Vtg<ln«..„ - „„.Ml{S.JOHN l)Rt-;W 
 
 To eonoluile with the Melo-Drniiia. in Two .Acts, 
 
 TSS Sil€iMf ' 
 
 OR. THE VISION OF THE MURDER. 
 
 LIxette, the Sergennt'H Wife._ _ __ „ .Miss BlaiichR De Bar 
 
 Margot _ „ -MissG. DlclCMiu 
 
 OJil Cartouche ..„..._..„...„ „ _...__ Mr. Johu Parxelle 
 
 HergeaDl Ki'etlerlck _ ^ : Sir. Atkins Lftwroiu-c 
 
 Kerif<>«nt Ia>iiIs ..._ _ Mr. NuKle 
 
 s«rgt«iit Oeurge„..„„ _ _ _ „ Mr. V. Kninlit 
 
 (iuKpiu-do ._._..„_ _._ „....„ Mr. Cieo. .MPtliirt' 
 
 |i»iiuts.„.^ ._ ^ Mr. K, Wilxoii 
 
 Itot>ii|._..._.._.». .„. - _....Mr. Mark i^iiiiilnn 
 
 Solillert. Pfiisaiils. Ac 
 
 3IOXl>A.Y EVRNJNO, MARCH :>Jlli, llio BonulU^iI llraiDn rrom (be Fr<>ii<-li ufM. M. 
 D'En.vf.kv <t Ploumkh. b.v M Hakt Jackson, entitlctl 
 
 IS WHICH 
 
 MB. MABK SMITH 
 
 WIU nsiiUo hb GreAt Orlgloal C'h.ir:i<-icr, JACQUES FADV'EL, the Centenarian. 
 
 PXlZCEia OF ^.I^S^ISSZON- r 
 Oialn Jo orebeitm Boxej - • ■ ?L50 1 Orcbeslra Circle Tlckett • - 75 Cents 
 
 OrriiMm 6eata l.uclDre»t circle Tickets .... .10 Cents 
 
 lUcrrveil S*aU In tither Clicle • - l.OO | Family circle Tickets •' • • ^SCent.i 
 frivmeBoxM -....: <»,oe 
 
 4«iiic J. HuLxca. • Uox Book Keepeb. 
 
 %Wi 
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 MR. PLUMPER JOHN DREW 
 
 (First appearance on any stage) 
 
 3
 
 4 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 say? Oh I your master doesn't know my name. I say, 
 you don't keep the stairs very clean in this establish- 
 ment, Susan — your name is Susan*? You look like a 
 Susan." 
 
 I had approached my first performance with a great 
 deal of apprehension, but when the actual time to go 
 on came, I took the whole affair lightly and without 
 the nervousness that accompanies and should accom- 
 pany a beginner. In my case this is all the more 
 remarkable since I had never at any time played in 
 amateur theatricals, and I had not, even as a boy, 
 played at theatre. 
 
 My mother, who had picked out for me the charac- 
 ter of Plumper for my first appearance, went on in the 
 part of the maid that Plumper addressed as "Susan," 
 just to give me confidence. She was greatly annoyed 
 that I took the whole thing so lightly. She said that I 
 was too good. I could not see what she meant, but she 
 gave me to understand that I thought too much of 
 myself. 
 
 As a matter of fact, I did think at that time — 
 though I kept the belief to myself — that Joseph Jef- 
 ferson would have just about three or four years more 
 as a comedian. Hard experience, countless rehearsals 
 and the playing of many parts, in which I was very 
 bad, soon dispelled any such idea. My mother, who
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 5 
 
 had been acting continuously since she was eight, knew 
 that in the theatre success is not easy, though at times 
 it may seem a matter of luck. To do what she could to 
 save me from my self-esteem she interpolated at my 
 expense: "What a dreadful young man I I wonder 
 what he will be like when he grows up." 
 
 The papers sensed that though the part of Plumper 
 called for coolness, suavity and assurance in all situa- 
 tions — not that the situations were so very remarkable 
 — I was a little too confident, in fact, a little too 
 "Plumperish." 
 
 The Philadelphia Morning Inquirer, after saying 
 nice things about the family, recorded : "He must be 
 judged, if at all, as an amateur, and, so judged, his 
 performance of Mr. Plumper was a very respectable 
 one. If Mr. Drew had been a little more nervous, a 
 little less sure of himself, we would have been better 
 pleased, but he carried off the easily won plaudits of a 
 most friendly and sympathetic audience rather too 
 jauntily." 
 
 The same paper compared my performance to that 
 of Charles Mathews, the great comedian, who had 
 played the part of Plumper in the same theatre. I was 
 accused of smiling at my own jokes and the comic 
 situations in the part. The Philadelphia Transcript 
 said: "He never lost his self-possession," and the
 
 6 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Evening Bulletin: "Considering the circumstances, 
 his self-possession was remarkable." 
 
 Of course I had known the theatre almost from in- 
 fancy. Early among my recollections are conversa- 
 tions between my mother and my grandmother about 
 changed conditions in the theatre, and that what was 
 going on then at the Arch Street Theatre in Philadel- 
 phia and Wallack's in New York was very different 
 from the old days. These conversations between the 
 two actresses would always end with some such dis- 
 cussion as to whether it was the spring of *29 or *30 
 that they had played in Natchez, Vicksburg and other 
 places in the South. 
 
 This Southern tour seems to have been made in the 
 spring of 1829, for I have a volume of Shakespeare's 
 plays in which is written on the fly leaf: "This vol- 
 ume, comprising the entire works of the immortal 
 dramatist, is presented to Miss Louisa Lane as a feeble, 
 though an appropriate and sincere testimony of her 
 extraordinary genius and intellectual worth by C. 
 GrifHn, of Natchez, March, 1829.'* 
 
 At the time that inscription was written my mother, 
 Louisa Lane, was nine years old. The act. Twelve 
 Precisely^ which she played so successfully, seems to 
 have been a protean sketch or skit in which she as- 
 sumed five characters. There is a lithograph published
 
 From Tlictitre Collection, Harvard Uvircrsitii. 
 THE MOTHER AND FATHER OF JOHN DREW 
 
 THE EARLIEST PICTURE OF JOHN DREW
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 7 
 
 in Boston in 1828, which depicts Miss Lane, eight 
 years of age, in the five characters in Twelve Precisely . 
 Of this performance at the old Chestnut Street Thea- 
 tre in Philadelphia one of the newspapers said : 
 
 This astonishing little creature evinces a talent 
 for and a knowledge of the stage beyond what 
 we find in many experienced performers of merit. 
 The entertainment of Twelve Precisely is well 
 adapted to the display of the versatility of her 
 powers ; and in the Irish Girl she may, with truth, 
 be pronounced inimitably comic. Her brogue and 
 manner are excellent. The Young Soldier was 
 also admirably assumed. 
 
 In February, 1828, Louisa Lane appeared as Albert 
 to Edwin Forrest's William Tell. The latter seems 
 to have been so pleased that he presented my mother 
 with a silver medal on which is inscribed: "Presented 
 by E. Forrest to Miss L. Lane as a testimonial of his 
 admiration for her talents."
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 I WAS born in 1853, and my birthday was Novem- 
 ber 13 — the same day as Edwin Booth's. I was 
 christened January 10, 1854, in St. Stephen's Church. 
 This was my mother's birthday. My godfathers were 
 William Wheatley, who was associated with my 
 father in the management of the Arch Street Theatre, 
 and William Sheridan, who as William S. Fredericks 
 was the stage manager of the same theatre. My god- 
 mother was Mrs. D. P. Bowers, one of the best known 
 actresses on the American stage and a great friend of 
 my mother's. She played Lady Audley, East Lynne 
 and Camille through the country with great success. 
 I was bom at 269 (according to the new numbering 
 709) South Tenth Street, Philadelphia. Later we 
 moved to Buttonwood Street, and when my mother 
 took over the management of the Arch Street Theatre, 
 which had earlier been managed by my father and 
 William Wheatley, we lived first on Eighth Street and 
 then on Ninth, so that my mother might be near the 
 theatre which was at Sixth and Arch. 
 
 I vaguely remember the Buttonwood Street house
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 9 
 
 and I know that it was to this house that my father, 
 a successful portrayer of Irish comedy roles, came back 
 from one of his several trips to Ireland, bringing with 
 him an Irish donkey that was allowed to roam for a 
 short time in our back yard and was then sold. This 
 donkey seemed to me to be a huge steed and is, I think, 
 my earliest recollection. 
 
 I cannot remember a time when I was not interested 
 in games. Riding was always my favorite sport. At 
 a tender age I was sent to Madame Minna's Riding 
 Academy. I had only had one or two lessons when I 
 was thrown, and the horse stepped on the crown of my 
 hat. Before I had time to be frightened the riding 
 master put me back in the saddle, cramped my leg 
 down and said : "You're all right now." I think this 
 kept me from losing my nerve. 
 
 I do not remember when I learned to swim, nor do I 
 remember a time at which I did not row. I rowed on 
 the Schuylkill River and belonged to the Malta Boat 
 Club, of which I am still an honorary member. The 
 boys in my day played baseball, and, of course, we 
 played cricket, being Philadelphians. I was very fond 
 of fencing and took it up long before I decided to go 
 on the stage. In the Arch Street Theatre there was a 
 large space back of the balcony where we held fencing 
 classes. In my early years in the theatre fencing was
 
 lo MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 a very necessary part of the actor's equipment, for it 
 was supposed to lend grace to the carriage as well as 
 being necessary in so many of the plays. In later years 
 I won a fencing championship of the New York Ath- 
 letic Club. 
 
 It is the house at 119 North Ninth Street that I 
 associate with my boyhood. It was a conventional 
 Philadelphia house, with white shutters and white 
 steps. We were not in an exceptional or fashionable 
 neighborhood. A great many of our neighbors were 
 Quakers. My chief playmate was Isaac T. Hopper, 
 named for his grandfather, the great abolitionist. 
 Next to us in Buttonwood Street had lived the Quaker, 
 Passmore Williamson, who was much interested in the 
 underground railroad by which slaves were escaping 
 to Canada. 
 
 Passmore Williamson figured in a sensational case 
 in the late fifties. Colonel John H. Wheeler, the 
 United States minister to Nicaragua, was on a steam- 
 boat at one of the Delaware wharves. Three slaves 
 belonging to him were sitting at his side on the upper 
 deck. Just as the signal bell was ringing Passmore 
 Williamson went up to the slaves and told them that 
 they were free. The slaves did not wish to leave their 
 master but a negro mob took them ashore. The legal 
 action and arguments resulting from this consumed
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 
 A DAGUERROTYPE OF MRS. JOHN DREVV^ SENIOR, AS 
 
 OPHELIA
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE ii 
 
 much time and filled a volume. During part of the 
 time Williamson was defended by Edward Hopper, 
 the father of my playmate. 
 
 Young Hopper's mother was a daughter of Lucretia 
 Mott. I remember so well that wonderful woman, and 
 how much she impressed me even then. With my play- 
 mate I used to visit her country place, which in those 
 days seemed so far out of town. It was at City Line, 
 and the Mott place was called Roadside. First there 
 was a long ride in a horse car to the North Pennsyl- 
 vania train. Here on one occasion I saw Lord and 
 Lady Amberly, who were interested in abolition and 
 the reforms to which Lucretia Mott devoted so much 
 time and attention. While I do not recall now any 
 of the conversations, I remember that it was very dif- 
 ferent from what I heard at home and most of these 
 people talked what the Quakers called the "common 
 language." 
 
 I was taken to hear Wendell Phillips by the Hop- 
 pers and the Motts, I was impressed because they were 
 but I was really too young. 
 
 One day I came back from Roadside and told my 
 mother and grandmother that I had seen women sew- 
 ing on Sunday. In our own household the toys and 
 books of my sisters and myself were put away on Sun- 
 day. My grandmother was somewhat surprised that
 
 12 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 people would sew on Sunday. Her own idea of Sun- 
 day occupation was the Spirit of Missions, which she 
 read literally from cover to cover. My grandmother, 
 Mrs. Kinloch, had played in a number of theatrical 
 companies in this country and England, and had been 
 forced to withdraw from a company in New Orleans 
 because she refused to act on Sunday. Sunday per- 
 formances were then as now the custom in New Or- 
 leans. As a very young boy I can remember going to 
 St. Stephen's with my grandmother, who gave the re- 
 sponses in a very loud voice which seemed to me the 
 height of religious fervor. 
 
 Before I was ten I went to a school at a place called 
 Village Green, which was made a military school while 
 I was there. I hated to leave home, but going away got 
 me out of one difficulty. I had the greatest trouble 
 with my speech. I talked with that same accent or 
 intonation that Philadelphians, no matter of what de- 
 gree, always seem to have. 
 
 I can remember the extreme annoyance of my grand- 
 mother. She would protest to my mother: "Louisa, 
 I cannot understand a word the boy says." 
 
 I would try and pronounce words as they told me to 
 at home. It was no use, and while I probably im- 
 proved somewhat under the instruction of these two 
 actresses, who had been trained in the old school of
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 13 
 
 elocution, I was glad to escape to the street and my 
 playmates. 
 
 I spent my tenth birthday at Village Green. I have 
 a letter from my mother dated "Philadelphia, Novem- 
 ber 12, 1863": 
 
 My dear Son : I received yours of the ninth inst. 
 today. Tomorrow will be your birthday, my 
 darling — you are ten years old tomorrow. All 
 your family wish you many, many happy returns 
 of the day. I can't send you any birthday pres- 
 ent, as you are soon to come home. Sorry that the 
 shoes are too large, but if you can get along till 
 you come home, I will get you a pair to fit better. 
 Of course you can take your sledge back with you. 
 Take good care of yourself, and as it is cold early 
 in the morning, don't waste time in dressing your- 
 self. 
 
 All send love. God bless you dear. 
 Your affectionate mother, 
 
 Louisa Drew. 
 
 From Village Green I went to another boarding 
 school at Andalusia in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. 
 Here four of us had a room together, and we had to get 
 up in turn and make the fire in a Franklin stove. I 
 was very young, the youngest boy in the school, and 
 particularly poor at fire making. When my turn came 
 I received jibes and advice from my three schoolmates 
 in their luxurious and warm beds.
 
 14 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 This school was a sectarian one, and a place with 
 some reputation in Philadelphia; but a friend of the 
 family, who had boys in the school, thought it did 
 not give a good education in the classics, and so I was 
 taken out of boarding school and sent to the Episcopal 
 Academy in Philadelphia. I do not suppose that I 
 was a very good student. The things I liked, Latin 
 and French, I kept up for years afterward. In arith- 
 metic I was shocking. Together with the other boys of 
 the day, I regarded my teachers as natural enemies. 
 Most of the schoolboys were in some cadet corps. The 
 older boys were drilling, because they thought they 
 might be called to the colors in a year or two. I was 
 the youngest boy in the corps commanded by one 
 Major Eckendorf ; and there is a picture of me in uni- 
 form, taken at Germon's Photograph Gallery, on 
 Chestnut Street, which has always been called in the 
 family "The Hero of Gettysburg." This was taken 
 in July, 1863, just after the battle of Gettysburg. 
 
 My first recollection of an officer was not Major 
 Eckendorf, but my uncle, Edward Drew. On his way 
 to the front he came through Philadelphia and stopped 
 at our house. He was a captain in Berdan's sharp- 
 shooters. He woj:e one of those Civil War uniforms 
 with long, blue frock-coat effect, single-breasted, with 
 brass buttons. He had long side whiskers called Pic-
 
 THE HERO OF GETTYSBURG 
 
 This photograph of John Drew was taken in July, 1863, just after 
 the battle.
 
 I 
 
 i
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 15 
 
 cadilly weepers, which gave him a sort of Dundreary 
 appearance. He showed my father an entirely new 
 sighting device which was then being distributed to his 
 men. 
 
 School was much interrupted in Civil War days, 
 and my companions who had fathers, older brothers or 
 relatives in the war would disappear for a day or two 
 and then come back somewhat subdued and with some 
 evidence of mourning. 
 
 In a thoughtless way I felt somewhat out of things. 
 One morning I came down to breakfast to find my 
 mother and my grandmother in tears. My mother was 
 reading aloud a letter telling of the death of my uncle, 
 Edward Drew. He had been killed in action. 
 
 I hurried to school to declare myself in the "move- 
 ment" because I, too, had lost some one. My uncle had 
 seemed to me very smart with his brass buttons and 
 wonderful whiskers, but the satisfaction of being in 
 the "game" with my companions outweighed the loss 
 of an uncle that I really did not know. Still, the fact 
 that he was killed in action affected me more than the 
 death of my uncle, George Drew, who had been sent 
 back to Buffalo, where he died of wounds. 
 
 The fall of Richmond meant to us a half-holiday; 
 and then one morning on my way to school I heard that 
 Lincoln had been shot. I rushed back to the house to
 
 i6 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 tell my mother, who had not yet left her room and I 
 knew that she could not have seen a newspaper. 
 
 Soon after this a friend of the family took me with 
 two companions to Washington to see the grand review 
 of the Army of the Potomac. Though this trip had 
 been planned somewhat in advance, the man who took 
 us had not procured places and for a while it looked as 
 though three small boys would not be able to see the 
 soldiers. Opposite the reviewing stand there was a 
 roped-off inclosure to which we were denied entrance. 
 We pleaded with the officer who stood there, and when 
 he learned that we had come all the way from Penn- 
 sylvania he let us inside the ropes, for he was a Penn- 
 sylvanian also. 
 
 In the grand stand, just across Pennsylvania Avenue, 
 sat President Johnson, General Sheridan and General 
 Sherman. The latter I was to know well later and to 
 see often at the The Players in New York and at 
 Daly's Theatre. 
 
 I was greatly impressed by Sherman's Army. The 
 wonderful alignment, the splendid marching and 
 bright arms were so great a contrast to the tattered uni- 
 forms of the men who had seen much service. 
 
 One other general I remember that day. Some fool 
 person in the crowd rushed outside the line, well 
 guarded though it was, just as General Custer, that
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 17 
 
 wonderful figure with his long hair, rode past. The 
 bouquet that was offered to the general frightened his 
 horse, and the general was thrown on the Belgian 
 Blocks. He had a reputation of being one of the best 
 riders in the army, and when he remounted he made his 
 horse caracole just to show that he was master of the 
 situation.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 IN these late years, when I have been playing Phila- 
 delphia, I have made pilgrimages to the different 
 places that were associated with my youth. 
 
 My old school is one of them, the Episcopal Acad- 
 emy at Juniper and Locust Streets; the school has 
 moved out into the country towards Haverford, but 
 the building still stands. 
 
 I walk to Logan Square, where I attended a fair with 
 my mother in the early days of the Civil War. It was 
 called a Sanitary Fair, because it was held under the 
 auspices of the Sanitary Commission. I have an album 
 that my mother bought me there. 
 
 I go to St. Stephen's Church, Tenth Street near 
 Chestnut, now in a kind of sordid neighborhood. The 
 church was rehabilitated a comparatively short time 
 ago. The last time I was there I asked to see the bap- 
 tismal register and found out that I was christened on 
 my mother's birthday, January lo, 1854. 
 
 There was a young woman doing some work in the 
 
 church and, after I pointed out the entry on the regis- 
 
 18
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 19 
 
 ter, she said : "Oh, I have something that may interest 
 you." 
 
 She brought out a box containing a great many 
 odds and ends, and from it took a silver plate. It 
 brought back memories of going to Sunday School and 
 then being taken into church afterward and being dis- 
 missed by my grandmother, Mrs. Kinloch, before the 
 sermon. That silver plate had been on my mother's 
 pew in St. Stephen's for more than sixty years. On the 
 plate was engraved "L. Drew." 
 
 I walk down and look at the front of the Arch Street 
 Theatre, which holds so many memories. It has fallen 
 on different days and has been in turn a German, a 
 variety, a Yiddish theatre. 
 
 My mother took over the lease of the Arch Street 
 Theatre in 1861, and the first play that I remember 
 anything at all about is one called Scotto, the Scout, 
 an ephemeral thing that was a concession to the great 
 interest in the war. I do not know whether or not this 
 was the first play that I saw nor do I know who wrote 
 it. I imagine that it was hastily fashioned from stock 
 material with a little added war interest. So far as I 
 know it was never done in any other theatre. To the 
 usual stock characters of the day was added the then 
 prominent General MacDowell and a number of 
 negroes.
 
 20 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Another very early play I remember is Feter Wil- 
 kins, or The Flying Islanders. In this my mother 
 played the part of a boy and engaged in a two-sworded 
 
 OTiir.» i imi,i -i Mij 
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 
 THE OLD ARCH STREET THEATRE, PHILADELPHIA, WHERE JOHN 
 DREW MADE HIS FIRST APPEARANCE UNDER HIS MOTHEH's 
 DIRECTION 
 
 combat with a large, powerful man. Naturally she 
 vanquished him. I was seldom allowed to go back 
 stage, but we often entered the family box from the 
 stage so as to avoid the crowds in the lobby. My 
 grandmother usually accompanied us, and Friday 
 night was our theatre night as there was no school on 
 Saturday.
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 21 
 
 Of my father's performances I saw only a few. One 
 of his best parts was Gerald Pepper, in The White 
 Horse of the Peppers. Tyrone Power had been the 
 original Gerald in this play of Samuel Lover's, both 
 in England and in this country. Gerald disguises 
 himself as a "spalpeen" and comes back to annoy the 
 holder of his confiscated land. 
 
 From an early advertisement we read : "The drama 
 is replete with such incidents and situations as are 
 required in stage representations, while the dialogue 
 abounds with just sentiment, genuine wit, pure humor 
 and natural pathos." The scene of the play was in 
 Ireland about 1690, after the Battle of the Boyne. 
 
 In the original version Gerald says that if his plot 
 fails he will go to France : "Many an Irish refugee is 
 there : for the Lily of France gives glorious shelter to 
 the exiles from the land of the Shamrock." In the 
 Arch Street Theatre version this line was changed to 
 read that the flag of America would give "glorious 
 shelter," etc. The absurdity of this struck me, young 
 as I was, and I demanded to know of mother why this 
 change had been made. She explained that it was a 
 concession to popular taste, and that, of course, there 
 was no other reason for it. In 1690 there was no flag 
 of America, and the colonies were quite as English as 
 Ireland at that time.
 
 22 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 My father also appeared in Handy Andy, Knight of 
 Arva, or Connor the Rash, the Irish Emigrant and 
 Samuel Lover's Rory O'More, all successful and popu- 
 lar plays of the day. He did play other parts, and in 
 the Tallis edition of Shakespeare there is a picture of 
 him as Sir Andrew in Twelfth Night — a part I was to 
 play many years later in support of Adelaide Neilson. 
 But it was in the Irish roles that he made his great 
 success. He went to California by way of the Isthmus, 
 and from there he went to Australia and then to Lon- 
 don and Ireland. I have a letter from him, dated 
 "Melbourne, Victoria, October 17, 1859." It begins: 
 
 I went the other day to buy a book for your 
 dear little sister Louisa and among others I found 
 this. I have cut these leaves out and send them 
 to you because they speak of a little boy named 
 John Drew. 
 
 This is written on the back of the illustrated rhymes 
 which begin: 
 
 Who would have believed it. 
 
 If it were not proved true, 
 That so pretty a lad 
 
 As was little John Drew, 
 The pet of his sisters. 
 
 The hope of his dad. 
 Should have such an objection 
 
 To washing and dressing —
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 23 
 
 These verses go on to show how the youthful hero 
 of this sad tale degenerated until his clothes looked 
 like a coal sack: 
 
 His playmates forsook him, 
 
 What else could they do*? 
 And at length a man took him, 
 
 What else could they do? 
 
 — Alas I Johnny Drew — 
 Upon soot bags, to sleep, 
 
 In a cellar so deep, 
 And bound him apprentice, 
 
 To work as a sweep. 
 
 Upon his world tour my father was accompanied by 
 my elder sister and my aunt. He came back to Phila- 
 delphia early in 1862, played an engagement of sev- 
 eral months in his repertoire at the Arch Street Thea- 
 tre, and in May of that year he died. 
 
 The Freeman's Journal^ of Dublin, printed the fact 
 of his death with black rules or borders around the 
 column. He was very popular there and highly re- 
 garded as an exponent of the Irish drama, which in 
 those days was romantic comedy and nothing like the 
 Harrigan and Hart Irish plays done in New York at 
 a later period ; nor were they at all similar to the Irish 
 Theatre of Lady Gregory and Synge. 
 
 I saw a number of early performances that im- 
 pressed me greatly. Three of these were by the greatest
 
 ARCH ST. THSATRB 
 
 AKca frwnBme, above iiisTH. 
 
 lESSEE, - • • THOMAS J.HEMPHILL I ACTIW6& STAGE MAWA8ER, WM. S. FBEDE8ICKS 
 
 Pkiqntt, and Flnt uid Sscoad nan of B<na. 2S Cts. Seeared S«ati. 37( Cta. Orehettn Semta. SO Cte 
 Single Seats in Pnvate Boxes, 7S Cta. Private Boxes, t3. OaUery. 12i Cents. 
 
 Ttase AHe*e«^D»»r« apra qaarlrr k*l»rc T. Tk« PcrformaBC* wUl o — m » et •! «»»rt«» fSM » •••*•«•. 
 
 TKEASCBZB '• INOLia UATTBtMM 
 
 8K^S.ATdflLM IM I»AR.IS^:a 
 
 POR THE FIRST TlUK 
 
 TliinI ApimuM of Um CREaT PaVORTTES. Mr. »l Mm 
 
 JOHN DREW 
 
 VTHO ARE NUSUTLY RECiSTCO BY 
 
 CROWDED audience:^, 
 
 MR. DREW IN THREE PIECES! 
 MRS. DREW AS THE 
 
 All the Company in Favorite Characters 
 
 iSMPiiliiN IMtf ITIP! 
 
 On TVednesday Evening, Feh. 23d, 1853, 
 
 Wa W pKKUed CHaB1.es sei^BY'S «K«S»l Diiua. aUtt. 
 
 SATAN IN PARIS! 
 
 Or, l -ajb; MTSTEBIOUB 8THANQER 
 
 ■■■■■■■■i, Hn. JOHH VtXW 
 
 CBSaUET, . • Xr.JOHIDSXV 
 
 Oni BeifT te B««dU „ Ik CORlLAD CLaUE I Co>f«l .^^ _ lU MMSM 
 
 Ciptua Ckou^ , _ -Hr. ROBERTS i 
 
 C«i>tV.ulte „ Mr. as PALMER I HmIhm 4« SmmtjI* .'_„ JCa «ll«0. 
 
 DiflenM „ Mt.HAMILTON I Mad. 4> Lum*! \.^ „ Mm W1tM» 
 
 Oiiiti»l.„ ^ Ul.lLr srOHE I t£.i. i, Bmntw, ,.. _. ... Mn. UOBiaT 
 
 frtnam...: Mr BALL I Uxi 4« NaabU* MaaWMXIAU 
 
 Fiat „ Mt.rRAZ£R I UAVSoteaift IU»COOPI. 
 
 tjmff lit B8ADl.Kr < Um*titm.i Wa UZ2B JTCitUi 
 
 OVERT UKfi. ... ... .. OBOHBSTBA 
 
 T» t> Ubmtt k/ lb< SMcaofil Dnt^, ailed Iba 
 
 mZSB ISllII@RAlirT! 
 
 O'BSTAI, Hr.JOHBIUtEW 
 
 Ik wUek Ckaimeier k* will Bla* ' Tke Brisk Sastfrvai'i I«m««i« 
 
 •teGmiU..~. ......^..i _ M>.IIAM>LTON , WUIaa _.........._ Jk. KiUaB 
 
 lb.»««i«.. „..„.„.„..„„ ; Mi^PAUM.!" > lUlFlUialiM _ -^...^ Ib« rUCB 
 
 f— B i t i t .i l »... -UiiPAUfES ] M»7TT»<n .„_ _ lOaWILUAIM 
 
 BTin«Mn„ — ^,.,,,r...rrr.lft8"'«»™ ( >■- ''■Trg^tiki i i ~ "" 
 
 24
 
 (OVXBTCrBS, 
 
 OROHBSTHA 
 
 T« midoil* with tb« Ltv^dtM* rwt« ealM 
 
 THE IRISH TUTOR! 
 
 iKxrroi O'TOOLS, • 
 
 s, ••Praitr n«M, nilklsf k«r C«w.' 
 
 DLfMl..^ — .- Mr. PAULUN 1 I.tCoa«ttji» 
 
 Ck 
 
 Tilt>^.. 
 
 Mf. BOBERTS I UOMtujma 
 
 .Hr. BSARLKY I R<»> 
 
 .. Mr.NUNAN • Miry 
 
 Mr. JOHH DEEW 
 
 Mi.PRXKEK 
 
 , Mf. HAU. 
 
 !)•• wiLi.um 
 
 Hw UZyjK STfXU 
 
 TO-MOBBOW, TH0K8DAY. wfil be produced the 
 
 BEAlTTIFUIi DRAMATIC POEM AI\D SPECTACLE 
 
 Mastc, IfEarcheJS and Elegant E^fTectfik 
 
 SB. AID KBS. JOHl DREW WILL BOTH APPEAR. 
 
 Bn«a>i StMO-mnt Itb TttaUat OOca, l«d«Bt 
 
 PLAYBILL, AECH STREET THEATRE, PHILADELPHIA, 1853 
 
 2$
 
 26 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 actors of the day. At the Walnut Street Theatre I 
 saw Edwin Forrest in Richelieu, and Edwin Booth in 
 Tom Taylor's play, The FooPs Revenge, at the Chest- 
 nut Street Theatre, and E. L. Davenport as Sir Giles 
 Overreach in Massinger's play, A New Way to Fay 
 Old Debts. I also saw such popular performances as 
 that of Joseph Proctor in Nick of the Woods. And 
 then there was that fine actor William E. Sheridan in 
 a number of plays with the Chestnut Street Theatre 
 Stock company but I do not believe that I saw him in 
 any important role. Sheridan left the stage to enlist 
 and rose to be a captain. He was wounded several 
 times and one of his wounds disabled his hand. 
 
 Our house in Ninth Street was visited by these men 
 when they were playing in Philadelphia, and Sunday 
 night there was almost always some one connected with 
 the theatre for supper. My mother had played in so 
 many companies and had been in the theatre so long 
 that the Booths, the Jeffersons and many others were 
 intimately associated with the family. 
 
 I saw both the Prince of Wales and Charles Dickens 
 in the "sixties." My grandmother took me to see the 
 former. He appeared on the balcony of the old Con- 
 tinental Hotel, looking not unlike the present Prince 
 of Wales on his recent visit. There was nothing to 
 suggest the rather heavy, bearded man who, in the
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 27 
 
 summer of 1888, sent for Ada Rehan and myself to 
 come to his box in the Gaiety Theatre, London, during 
 a performance of The Taming of the Shrew. 
 
 I heard Charles Dickens give a reading from "Pick- 
 wick Papers" on his second American tour. So great 
 was the crowd that we were shown to our seats through 
 the stage entrance. My mother, grandmother, sisters 
 and Robert Craig, a young comedian in my mother's 
 company, went to hear the great novelist. 
 
 As I remember, the reading was in the old Concert 
 Hall in Chestnut Street where, with the Motts and 
 the Hoppers, I had heard Wendell Phillips. 
 
 Craig was late by reason of rehearsing, but he ar- 
 rived at the reading in time to get what he wanted of 
 the Dickens mannerisms and intonation and appear- 
 ance. Craig had marvelous powers as a mimic, and 
 he was particularly good in his imitation of the novel- 
 ist. Nothing he did in the Arch Street Theatre was 
 quite so popular as the skits he wrote and in which he 
 appeared as Dickens. 
 
 Upon the invitation of my mother Charles Dickens 
 visited the Arch Street Theatre and saw a performance 
 of Ours. This piece of Tom Robertson's was always 
 in the repertoire, just as it was at Wallack's, and was 
 a great favorite of my mother's. In asking Dickens 
 to come to the theatre my mother assured him that his
 
 38 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 visit would not be made known in advance, and that 
 he need not fear that he would be annoyed by curious 
 crowds. He wrote her a very gracious and charming 
 letter thanking her. 
 
 As there were no touring companies in those days, 
 plays were usually sold for the different towns. My 
 mother had an arrangement with Lester Wallack, by 
 which she had the first choice of all the plays that he 
 bought from the English authors. When she consid- 
 ered doing one of these, she would go to New York to 
 see the Wallack production and judge it not only for 
 Philadelphia audiences but with an idea as to its suit- 
 ability for the Arch Street Theatre company. 
 
 It was on one of these trips to look over a play that 
 I first saw New York, that is the New York of theatres, 
 hotels and restaurants. Before this I had been brought 
 over to see the Great Eastern on its arrival after its 
 first voyage by John Sef ton, an old friend of the fam- 
 ily. The boat was somewhere in the North River as 
 I remember. We left Philadelphia early in the morn- 
 ing and went back that same night. John Sefton, who 
 accompanied me, had been years in the theatre and in 
 the days before the railroads, when it was necessary 
 to cross the mountains in a coach, he had been a mem- 
 ber of a stock company in Pittsburg. 
 
 When I visited New York with my mother wc
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 29 
 
 stopped at The Irving House, which was at Broadway 
 and Twelfth Street, and dined at Delmonico's, that 
 celebrated shrine of epicures, then at Fifth Avenue and 
 Fourteenth Street. William Winter, who was then 
 and for so many years after, a dramatic critic, came 
 up and talked to my mother. Later, at Daly's Thea- 
 tre, I came to know him very well. We then went to 
 Wallack's to see Lost in London. Wallack's was at 
 Broadway and Thirteenth Street, and the Rialto had 
 had not moved so far north as Union Square, nor had 
 Palmer's Theatre in Union Square been built. 
 
 In Lost in London Madelaine Henriques was the 
 leading woman. She was one of the first women on 
 the American stage to acquire a reputation for dress- 
 ing parts well. The part of Gilbert Featherstone was 
 played by Charles Fisher, who was a member of Augus- 
 tin Daly's company when I joined it; and Charles 
 Rockwell and I, the two youngest members of the Daly 
 company, were ushers at his wedding many years after- 
 ward. 
 
 My mother's company at the Arch Street Theatre 
 was considered a very good one and ranked with Wal- 
 lack's in New York. The company remained from 
 year to year much the same. I remember a few of the 
 players: Robert Craig was first comedian, and Lizzie 
 Price, who married that famous actor, Charles Fechter,
 
 ,^^*: 'Tew ^*%» 
 
 , I !■. I II i-irmi-iiiiini-nr- i n 
 
 ACnva AID 8TA0I HAVAeSR. . ' WS. 8. niDSRICKB 
 
 BUSINESS AGBHT AID TRIA8USXB, ' JOS. S. ■TJSPET 
 
 This Saturday EiTenlng, Jane ^£5, 1^64 
 
 42dAND LAST NIGHT 
 
 Ot tlM Oreatlf SucCMrfgl EogagtlDeDt of 
 
 FRllIK DREf . 
 
 mass Bx WILL appeab in 
 
 Roaring Characters!! 
 
 Tb« Pkrioimuces vill commencs viib the Exeeneot CooMdittl* of 
 
 DEUCATE GROUND! 
 
 BAVQIXOIO. • • (Secood Bsd Lnt Appniuioe,)> , • ■ , . ^ nOOXX ■lIKTTBiB 
 
 ALPHOHSX, * • . I • Kr ORAIS 
 
 PAtJLINS, - • • ' • Km J08EPHIS£ HEV&T 
 
 TWO OF THE BOYS! 
 
 HBOTOB. . |n.T,»B.^j - PEAKK DHEW 
 
 tiMfuaM, • ' "J I ■ • . • Staart Robaoo 
 
 Mr Bnuebanpk • • .Mr Cnig Cuoliae, . • . . Wa E. fnet 
 
 Mr Batchclor, .,.- . . Mr Wtllia G|*u, . . Mn Ibrlow* 
 
 Jtam, .» . » ■ - • Mr StaO Mra TempkUm. . Mia Mary Ctrr 
 
 fcbj^ ,'\ .; _j' _ _ff Ht Worth I Butar, Mw ^aMphiM Hrafj 
 
 
 30
 
 Um «UA tfe Bulwtu <t 
 
 Or, The Merohant of Venice Preserved. 
 
 A* Eiitlnl; K« B«*diag «f SUkqMn. 
 
 SBYLOOK, FRANK ORBW 
 
 Antonio, 
 BuMoio, 
 Qntitoo, 
 Tub*!, 
 
 llrSull 
 
 Ur Waltoo 
 
 Ur Wtllis 
 
 Mr Cralt 
 
 Mr Wortb 
 
 Loreoxo, 
 
 Launcdott 
 
 Poflia, 
 
 ^er4Ma, 
 
 iemcm. 
 
 Mr Htnjui 
 
 Still rt EoMoo 
 
 MIm Jooepkioe RrvT 
 
 Mn Brdi<oii 
 
 ITm 0>rifl*er 
 
 Ttmucttit wilb Ux Siilt SpUtUsf CootdioHs tl 
 
 m mimmw^ mm 
 
 MR. TIMOTHY BROWN, 
 
 • FRANK DREW 
 
 
 Mr Joutlu* Smilk, 
 
 Mr Soaertov. 
 
 Un Tmoth; Brom, 
 
 ftnait BotiBoa | tin JoDttbu SoUb* 
 Mr Mvlowe I If n EoocrtoB, 
 Mn BreUbid | 
 
 Mr* Morlovt 
 Hi«B.PriM 
 
 acoivis.A.'! 
 
 i^m 
 
 Tbe t>1«D(eil Trtgedinoe, wilt tan the konor of oukinft ber Fint Appnrua is go cntirtlTmw SEH8 ATIOVAL 
 SSAHik adip'cd and imiignl exprasly for Mre. Beta by Oio. Hiixowe, Eiq.i of nikdelptua, asmM 
 
 tftf 
 
 XDA LBB' 
 
 -eBoxxA avsB 
 
 SBAXS ASB FBIVATZ BOZZS SZCtmZD TBBE£ DAYS IH ASTASCK 
 
 Soors open qnarter^ast 7 o'clock. Oommence qaarter of & predselv 
 
 nuoBs or abnxsszom 
 
 Puqnat and Draw Cirel0, - 60 Cnti 
 
 VamUyClnle, - • S5 " 
 
 OidMftnSMtv. . • - W *• 
 
 TMT4teBoxMaoooi41ngtoaMrI«oaUty. ■OEZTBA.C&ABaSK>BBECt7SXD8BAX8L 
 
 v. S. Btaam-Fower Job Fdnt, taiga BBiUlnn, FbUda. 
 
 PLAYBILL, ARCH 
 
 STREET THEATRE, PHILADELPHIA, I864 
 31
 
 32 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 had at one time been leading woman in her company. 
 This was before I went on the stage. Fechter lived 
 at Quakertown, near Philadelphia, on a farm; and I 
 saw him a number of times both in the theatre and in 
 the country, but there was nothing to suggest the hand- 
 some young actor who had been the first Armand Duval 
 in C ami lie. 
 
 In my mother's company was a man named Frank 
 Murdoch, a fine actor, who contributed to stage his- 
 tory by writing that famous play, Davy Crockett. 
 This play, which established Frank Mayo as a great 
 favorite, was really not a dramatization of the life of 
 the hero of the Alamo. The big scene of the play came 
 when Mayo as Davy Crockett put his arm through 
 the place in the door where an oak bar should have 
 been and kept the howling, hungry wolves out of the 
 cabin. 
 
 When I grew older and was allowed to go behind the 
 scenes and talk to the actors, I saw a great deal of 
 Louis James, who was then a handsome young man, 
 playing leading juvenile and understudying the lead- 
 ing characters. At this time the business in the theatre 
 was all according to very definitely defined rules; thus 
 there were leading men and leading juveniles and first 
 comedians and second comedians, old men and second 
 old men, first old women and second old women, cham-
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 33 
 
 bcrmaids, now soubrettes, and leading women and 
 juvenile women. The first old woman might be any- 
 thing, from the duchess to a rag picker, but there was 
 no doubt in anyone's mind as to who would play the 
 part. 
 
 When stars traveled in those days, they did so with- 
 out support — Edwin Booth, for instance. Booth had, 
 as I remember, a stage manager who came on ahead of 
 the star and told the theatre exactly what was wanted 
 and gave special instructions for the playing of cer- 
 tain scenes. This could easily be done, because the 
 lines of business were so well established. Then, too, 
 in those early days, the actors studied other parts than 
 those they were actually required to play. The reper- 
 toire was standard and made up largely of the plays 
 of Shakespeare and other classics. There were no so- 
 called society plays, and there was very little in the 
 theatre that had anything to do with contemporary 
 life. To study any one line of business was, however, 
 an education for that time, and all the actors absorbed 
 a great deal of the classic drama and the things that 
 pertained to it.
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 WHEN my mother took over the management of 
 the Arch Street Theatre, it was all renovated 
 and was in pretty fair condition for the time, but it had 
 been built in 1827 and had an unmistakable theatre 
 smell that was unlike anything else. I do not know 
 whether this came from the gas fumes or the combin- 
 ation of the gas fumes and the new paint on the scenery, 
 for there was always fresh paint in the theatre in spite 
 of the fact that the scenery was not elaborate in the 
 sense of today. A good deal of it was "flats" which 
 were pushed on from both sides and met in the center. 
 One half might be a cottage and the other a green 
 wood. 
 
 Occasionally there was a play that was called "a 
 production," and required, because of its elaborateness, 
 a good many extra rehearsals. One such, called Surf^ 
 by Olive Logan, I remember distinctly. The scene was 
 at Cape May, then a fashionable place for Philadel- 
 phians to go. Breakers were made by white cotton 
 
 cloth and barrels. Just how it was arranged I do j 
 
 34
 
 JOHN DREW BEFORE HE WENT ON 
 THE STAGE 
 
 JOHN DREW AT THE TIME OF 
 HIS FIRST APPEARANCE 
 
 ADA REHAN WHEN SHE APPEARED 
 WITH THE ARCH STREET THE- 
 ATRE COMPANY
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 35 
 
 not know, but in spite of the fact that the play was 
 rather indifferent, it had a run of eight weeks, which 
 at that time was considered a long run. Augustin 
 Daly bought the rights for New York, where he pro- 
 duced it with some share of success. 
 
 A day in the Arch Street Theatre started with a 
 rehearsal which began at ten o'clock in the morning and 
 lasted about four hours. Sometimes when the bill 
 was changing frequently there was more than one play 
 to rehearse. The afternoon we usually had to our- 
 selves for study. The performance began at eight, and 
 Saturdays were our only matinee days. 
 
 The season after I went on the stage a new young 
 woman was introduced to the company. She came to 
 the theatre with her sister, whose stage name was Hat- 
 tie O'Neill. Their eldest sister, Mrs. Oliver Doud 
 Byron, had written to my mother that she wanted her 
 sisters to play in the Arch Street Theatre. From Mrs. 
 Byron's letter my mother got the impression that the 
 name of the younger sister was Ada C. Rehan and, 
 thinking that a middle initial was of no help to an 
 actress, she had the name put in the bill as Ada Rehan, 
 although actually the name was Ada Crehan. Ada 
 made a hit, and so by this accident of my mother's there 
 was named for all time in the theatre an actress who 
 was to be the Katherine when I was Petruchio in the
 
 36 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 wonderful production of The Taming of the Shrew at 
 Daly's Theatre some years later. 
 
 From that day when she appeared at the age of six- 
 teen upon the stage of the Arch Street Theatre, I al- 
 ways had the most wholehearted admiration and affec- 
 tion for Ada Rehan. She became the confidante of my 
 sister, Georgie, who, though younger than myself, had 
 gone upon the stage before I had. 
 
 Ada Rehan had a fault, if such it may be termed, 
 which might have been a deterrent and a hindrance to 
 her success on the stage, and that was her utter inabil- 
 ity to keep from laughing if anything seemed at all 
 funny. I remember that in one of the first plays in 
 which we first appeared together, Kitty O'Shiel, I was 
 acting a red-coated British officer of the Third Geor- 
 gian period, and, of course, I wore a white wig. We 
 did not have dress rehearsals and when I came up 
 to her on the stage at the performance, she burst 
 out laughing and I under my breath tried to control 
 her. 
 
 When we came off the stage I demanded to know 
 what was the matter. 
 
 She said: "I couldn't help it; but you looked like 
 a sheep." 
 
 Ada Rehan never quite got over this upsetting ten- 
 dency and liking for the ridiculous at serious times.
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 37 
 
 Years afterward we were rehearsing at Daly's Thea- 
 tre The Foresters, by Tennyson. In one scene Maid 
 Marian had to say to Robin Hood: "Your horn is 
 known and feared through the forest." 
 
 Each time she would say this I covered my nose up, 
 and it set her laughing. 
 
 Daly, who was out in front, was always annoyed 
 when rehearsals were interrupted. The next time we 
 reached this same line, Maid Marian burst into un- 
 controllable laughter, and it was some minutes before 
 she gained her equilibrium. This time Daly demanded 
 to know what was funny about this line and, when 
 told that horn and nose were sometimes synonymous, 
 he very emphatically told Ada to cut the line out of 
 her part if she could not give it without laughing. 
 
 By that time the amusement that it caused was over, 
 and it was given in the play. It scarcely seems a 
 "funnyment" now; but Ada Rehan was so much a 
 healthy, good-natured girl, even in 1892, that one was 
 apt to laugh with her. 
 
 Somehow we did not take ourselves very seriously 
 in the days at my mother's theatre. I can remember 
 one night — it seems now the humor of a very youthful 
 schoolboy — filling the speaking tube which ran from 
 the prompter's box to the orchestra leader with face 
 powder. Just as the orchestra was about to play the 
 
 2' 
 
 iiGiy
 
 38 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 overture I lured the prompter from his place and then 
 blew through the tube as the leader answered the sig- 
 nal. A very pale and much whitened orchestra leader 
 received a great laugh from his men and the people 
 sitting down front. 
 
 As three or four other young people in the company 
 were accused in turn, I had to own up. The calling 
 down that I got from an infuriated manager-mother 
 had better be left to the imagination. 
 
 That same season Frank Chanfrau came to Phila- 
 delphia to play his celebrated character of Kit in The 
 Arkansas Traveler^ supported by the Arch Street Thea- 
 tre Company. Ada Rehan, her sister, Hattie O'Neill, 
 Georgie and I all played in this piece. Chanfrau was 
 related by marriage to Alexina Fisher Baker. Mrs. 
 Baker was a great friend of my mother's and had also 
 been something of an infant prodigy or, as Dickens' 
 Mr. Vincent Crummies would say, an "infant phe- 
 nomenon." My sisters and I had known the Baker 
 children, Josephine, who in September, 1880, became 
 my wife, and Lewis, almost from early childhood, and 
 Mrs. Baker was naturally interested in my career. 
 
 After the first night of Kit^ Chanfrau returned to 
 her house, where he was stopping, and Mrs. Baker 
 asked him how I was.
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard Univcrsitn. 
 
 JOSEPHINE BAKER (mRS. JOHN DREw)
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 39 
 
 "Oh, very bad," he answered. 
 
 Each night thereafter she would ask him and he 
 would say: "Worse." 
 
 Finally, one night without being questioned, he ex- 
 I ploded : "Oh, worse than ever. There is a red-headed 
 girl that he is making love to so much of the time 
 that he cannot remember his cues." 
 
 The red-headed girl was Ada Rehan's sister and, 
 while talking to her in the wings, I had missed a very 
 important cue. My part in The Arkansas Traveler 
 was that of Lord Fitzfoley, one of those preposterous 
 imitations of a traveling Englishman with an equally 
 preposterous valet. 
 
 Chanfrau, as Kit, was in a violent bowie-knife fight 
 with Manuel Bond, the bad man of the piece. I was 
 to fire the shot from off stage which kills the bad man. 
 There was no shot, and he was forced to die without 
 it. 
 
 To record that Chanfrau was annoyed is to put the 
 matter mildly. 
 
 The next season Ada Rehan went to Albany to play, 
 and I to New York. Charles Morton, the stage mana- 
 ger of the Arch Street Theatre, had written a play, 
 called Women of the Day. In this I had a very fine, 
 light comedy role, and Daly seems to have been im-
 
 40 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 pressed by my work. His company was playing in 
 Philadelphia at the time, and he wrote my mother and 
 asked her if she would allow me to join him. 
 
 From her he bought the rights to produce Women 
 of the Day in New York, and when it was played there 
 James Lewis, who was later to become my best friend, 
 played my part. 
 
 In spite of the attention that this play attracted, it 
 does not seem to have been any considerable success in 
 Philadelphia, for during the run of the piece the 
 North American said: 
 
 It is not complimentary to the liberal intelli- 
 gence of the play-going public that Mr. Morton's 
 new play at the Arch Street Theatre should have 
 met with but indifferent patronage. The author 
 has written it with much cleverness, and the dia- 
 logue is entirely free from any taint of vulgarity. 
 So far as the strength of the company permits the 
 cast is a strong one, and altogether the perform- 
 ance is thoroughly pleasing. We have already 
 spoken of the excellence of one or two of the 
 performers, and to the list we wish to add the 
 name of young John Drew. His improvement 
 within the last year has been very marked, and 
 in his present character we think he shows a de- 
 gree of ease and self-possession which give 
 promise of some high rank in his profession 
 in the future. The piece is really worth seeing, 
 and Mr. Drew is not the least attractive feature 
 of it.
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 41 
 
 I talked over Daly's offer wth my mother. I think 
 that she had become convinced by my work in Women 
 of the Day that I might have a career on the stage, and 
 she advised me to accept the offer. Some time early 
 in January, 1875, I went to New York and reported 
 for rehearsal at the green room of the Fifth Avenue 
 Theatre, which was then as now at Broadway and 
 Twenty-eighth Street. 
 
 I was ushered into a handsome room filled with 
 paintings, engravings and mezzotints of the people of 
 the theatre. Fanny Davenport, Mrs. Gilbert, James 
 Lewis, Sarah Jewett, George Parkes and others were 
 sitting there. 
 
 John Moore, the stage manager, introduced me in a 
 casual way: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. 
 Drew." 
 
 I was very lonely that first day. I fancied that the 
 others wondered why I was there. George Parkes was 
 the first to speak to me, and then Jim Lewis came over 
 and introduced himself. 
 
 The first play to be done was The Big Bonanza^ 
 which Daly had adapted from a German play. I had 
 not met Augustin Daly in Philadelphia, and I did not 
 meet him until the actual call for rehearsal was given 
 that day.
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 WHEN I joined the company at the Fifth Ave- 
 nue Theatre, Augustin Daly was in the late 
 thirties. He had been in theatrical management about 
 thirteen years and had already had a varied, if not 
 always successful, career. With his own play, Under 
 the Gaslight — the first play in which a person is tied 
 to the railroad tracks only to be released just as the 
 locomotive appears on the stage — he had made con- 
 siderable money at the Old New York Theatre. In 
 1875 he was confirmed in his ideas, and he possessed 
 the courage of his convictions to an extraordinary de- 
 gree. He was always willing to fight for the things 
 he wanted, and he had a determination that seemed 
 at variance with his slight build. 
 
 Even at this time Daly had adopted the famous 
 black hat which he wore upon all occasions. The 
 somewhat conical shape of the crown accentuated his 
 slimness. These hats seem to have been standardized, 
 and one followed another without noticeable change. 
 
 Richard, Daly's faithful black servant, who had 
 
 42
 
 From Theatre CoUcction, lUnvard T'nlrrrxit ii. 
 
 JAMES LEWIS AND JOHN DREW IN AUGUSTIN DALY S PLAY, PIQUE
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 43 
 
 nothing special to do in the theatre and was seldom out 
 of it, received the discarded hats. Years after Daly- 
 was dead I noticed one of these on a figure ahead of 
 me in Sixth Avenue. It was Richard, and he still held 
 his head very proudly. 
 
 During the early rehearsals of The Big Bonanza^ 
 Daly was often impatient with the actors. He was 
 tireless in the theatre and seldom went elsewhere. He 
 was an excellent producer of plays, and he knew how 
 to manage his stage. I think that his countless re- 
 hearsals had much to do with the smoothness of the 
 plays, for by the time a play reached production, it 
 was cut and dried and there was no need for a tryout 
 at Atlantic City or some other place near New York 
 to find out what the play was like. 
 
 Jim Lewis used to refer often to a conversation 
 that he said he had with Daly. 
 
 "And where would you be if you weren't in the 
 theatre rehearsing'?" the manager was supposed to have 
 asked. 
 
 "Oh, out somewhere enjoying ourselves," was Lewis* 
 reply in the conversation that he had invented. 
 
 As a matter of fact, we were all young and there 
 was no reason whatever why we should not have re- 
 hearsed at ten o'clock every day. But if in dealing 
 with us he was not always patient, Daly did have the
 
 -L 
 
 DAITS FIFTH AYEinJE TEEATEE. 
 
 MR. AUGUSTIN DALY, 
 
 Proprietor and Manager 
 
 ItejfiHJi at 8 pr^^tsetjf, i'tirrl'ta^* watf b^ orHer*^ for 10.30 ^etoek, 
 
 TWENTY-SIXTH \VECK-6th SEASON. 
 WEDNESDAY NIGHT, FEBEUAEY 17th, Ur-j5 
 
 FIRST PRODUCTION OF AN ORiniMAL SOCIEFT NOVELTY, wrltteo eiprcMly 
 (or tblE Tbentre. ana eDCUled 
 
 THE BIG BillANZA 
 
 To be pie«CDted ofler CAREFUL PREPARATION, wiU) Jlew Scenei bj KB. 
 
 JARGS ROBERTS ud MR. CHARLES ^. WITBAU ; New Fublooible 
 
 Tolletiee; Dew PnrcnnrealasKxIe ; ^ew Hartc bjDODWOhTB, tod a 
 
 Cast that iDcladee ALL TBS FAVORITE ARTISTS, 
 
 JonathaD Ca^Ta11llder, Esq., Banker, Broker and Bondholder ; is f lOt, 
 
 the representative of "Money," Mr. Charles Fisber 
 
 Professor Cavallader, hisCoasis, an " A. M," "M. 8." ''F. G. a." 
 4c., ic. ; in fcct, the Teprose->t«ll»e of " Brains,". . ,Mr. James Levis 
 
 Uncle Rjmple, a sagacious old son! Mr. W. Davidge 
 
 Bob Raggles, straight from the Big Bonanza, (his first appearance 
 
 here) Mr. John Drew 
 
 Jack Ljmer, M D., in want of practic!>nd a patient Mr. B. T. Bioggold 
 Mr. AIpbonsQS De Hass, » seioB of the ancient bmil; of De Haaea. . 
 
 Mr. George Parkes 
 
 MoDser, a part; who lires b; fumiahing " Points,* lit. Oven Fawcett 
 
 Crampets, a valuable family retainer Mr. J. W. Jennings 
 
 Tafferty. Upholsterer Mr. W. Beekmaa 
 
 Izard, Cashier Mr. J. Deveaa 
 
 John, Porter , Mr. SoJliTan 
 
 Mr& Lncretia Cawallader, wife of the Banker, vitb a eonl above 
 
 money Mias &nniA.Grib»m 
 
 Eugenia, her daughter, heroine of a romance beginning at the depot 
 
 and lasting for eight blocks nilh iinexpected results 
 
 Miss Fannv Davenport 
 Mr. Ctroline Cavatlader, wife of the Professor, with a eonl above 
 
 science Mrs. G. H. Gilbert 
 
 Virgie, her daughter, heroine of a romance tinged with dissolving 
 
 views Mis* Emily Eigl 
 
 Mile. De Vinoey, " Modes Parisieno^" Miss Varian 
 
 Balder, with a ■■ Floor to Let," Mies Nellie Mortimer 
 
 Eliza, a maid at the Banker's MissGr.fflths 
 
 AT 1.30, of 
 
 '.* 1U>K Shoot now opou lor ten dnys! aliead- 
 
 MIL A. I. UOOAKTs PATENT FLKCTWrAL 0*» LIOBTIHO APPABAIX'S It 
 
 riul>1>>y,->l ttt liclitiiic •InmUaUrtilplT all of Ibe i^aa ieU of tbi, tb atT*. 
 
 -.f Tl>.' t'tLKBKATED DEl'KEB PIA>IOS are tbc on)]; Plasoa atei 
 at lbi« Tb.-ctri-. 
 
 llC:>lMi^S MAMAGBB. 
 
 . Ml. 8TErBE.N mxK 
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 JOHN DREw's FIRST APPEARANCE IN NEW YORK 
 
 44
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 45 
 
 interest of his theatre at heart and for many years he 
 maintained a standard of production and acting that 
 has lasted in the minds of old theatregoers. 
 
 After the first day of rehearsal of The Big Bonanza, 
 my shyness wore off somewhat and I felt less lonely. 
 I was cast ior Bob Ruggles, a young and impecunious 
 lover of the heroine, the part to be played by Fanny 
 Davenport. Daly was disappointed because I could 
 not play the piano. I had taken lessons from one of 
 the women of the Arch Street Theatre Company when 
 I was quite young, but I had not been encouraged to 
 keep up studying, and I never really got beyond the 
 "When-a-feller-needs-a-friend" stage of the Briggs 
 cartoon. In the first play in New York I went through 
 all the motions of piano playing while some one played 
 off stage. 
 
 The Big Bonanza turned out to be a bright and 
 amusing play, and was a great success. It would seem 
 very thin now, this story of the aged bookworm who 
 gets his market tips from a secondhand bookseller who 
 has a stall in Wall Street. When told to sell "Big 
 Bonanza," he buys it because he has none to sell. 
 
 The New York papers were kind to me upon my 
 debut. The Times said : "Mr. John Drew, of Phila- 
 delphia, made his first appearance in this city. Proof 
 that Mr. Drew is still a novice was not wanting but an
 
 46 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 agreeable freedom from affectation and a frank and 
 welcome heartiness of style were perceptible in his 
 effort here and augured well for his future." The 
 Evening Mail's comment was: "He acts with intel- 
 ligence and energy and although by no means a para- 
 gon gives promise of marked excellence." 
 
 Daly had adapted The Big Bonanza from the Ger- 
 man play Ultimo, by Von Mosher. He had made 
 many adaptations from the German, and it was from 
 this source that he got some of his biggest successes 
 in later years, Nancy and Company, A Night Oif, and 
 The Railroad of Love. This play brought together 
 three of the performers who were later to be associated 
 in so many plays, Mrs. Gilbert, James Lewis and my- 
 self. With the addition of Ada Rehan we later became 
 what was jestingly known as "The Big Four" — named 
 from the railroad. The program of the Fifth Avenue 
 Theatre contained this announcement: 
 
 The Big Bonanza is the second of the series of 
 contemporaneous comedies with which Mr. Daly 
 follows his season of old comedy revivals. The 
 comedy is placed upon the stage under Mr. Daly's 
 personal superintendence, with new scenery, new 
 toilettes, new furniture, and appointments. The 
 cast embraces the favorite artists of the company, 
 and introduces to the New York public Mr. John 
 Drew, who, aside from his own merits, ought to 
 
 [
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 47 
 
 be welcome on account of the fame of his mother, 
 the celebrated Philadelphia actress and manager- 
 ess, and the memory of his father, who was one 
 of the Irish comedians of the day. 
 
 During the run of The Big Bonanza the Daly Com- 
 pany played a special holiday matinee in Philadelphia 
 and returned to play the night performance as usual. 
 According to The Philadelphia Age the trip was made 
 "without accident of any sort." 
 
 In June, Daly decided, having made a pronounced 
 success with The Big Bonanza^ to make a trip across 
 the continent. Chicago was our first stop. We took 
 with us, not only our New York success, but a number 
 of other plays. There was Boucicault's London Assur- 
 ance; Byron's Weak Women^ which had been done by 
 the company before I joined; a popular farce. The 
 Rough Diamond; Gilbert's Charity^ and a version of 
 Oliver TzvisL Fanny Davenport was very fond of 
 the last two, as they gave her character roles which 
 were a contrast to the well-dressed, light-comedy char- 
 acters that made up most of the Daly repertoire. On 
 this tour we also played Bronson Howard's famous 
 play, Saratoga, with which, under the title of Brighton, 
 Charles Wyndham made so great a hit in England. 
 
 San Francisco in 1875 was a live town. We stayed
 
 48 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 at the Occidental, and on July twelfth we opened with 
 London Assurance in Piatt's Hall. According to the 
 playbill of that night, this play was to be "As repre- 
 sented at the Fifth Avenue Theatre to crowded and 
 laughter-convulsed audiences." Also from the play- 
 bill: "The new scenery to be unfolded this evening 
 will be found in Act 2 — The park, and in Act 3 — 
 Oak Hall, Gloucestershire," It turned out that there 
 was little room for all this scenery and after two 
 nights we moved to Emerson's Minstrel Hall. 
 
 The Big Bonanza was not a success here, for Crane 
 and James O'Neill had already played another ver- 
 sion of the same play. We visited Chinatown and 
 saw some of the interminable plays in the Chinese 
 Theatre, at least we were told that one of the plays 
 that we saw had still some days to go. Outwardly 
 Chinatown was a very different place from the place 
 that I saw on numerous later trips. 
 
 In San Francisco I met John McCullough, who 
 was running the California Theatre on regular stock 
 lines, playing the usual plays that were popular at the 
 time. On this first trip I met John Mackay, the father 
 of Clarence Mackay, and James Fair, of the celebrated 
 mining outfit, Mackay, Fair, Flood and O'Brien. They 
 owned the Consolidated Virginia Mine in Virginia 
 City, Nevada.
 
 OFFICE. 
 
 IN THIS GROUP ARE MRS. GILBERT, MISS DAVENPORT, MISS JEFFRYS 
 LEWIS, JAMES LEWIS, AUGUSTIN DALY, AND JOHN DREW, MADE UP IN 
 WORKING CLOTHES, AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE CONSOLIDATED VIR- 
 GINIA MINE 
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard Univcrsitu. 
 FANNY DAVENPORT
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 49 
 
 We visited the mine, and there is a picture of Mrs. 
 Gilbert, Miss Davenport, Miss Jeffrys Lewis, James 
 Lewis, Augustin Daly and myself at the entrance to 
 the mine, all made-up in workingmen's clothes. We 
 went down to the depth of some two thousand feet, 
 and then to some lower level on a very small lift. It 
 was very warm in this big silver mine, and Mr. Fair 
 had a man following us with iced champagne and we 
 stopped to partake now and then. 
 
 Virginia City was really impressive to us in those 
 days. It was crude and new, and the streets were 
 crowded with men; but they were most deferential and 
 respectful to the women of our company. There was 
 an Indian reservation near there, and we saw a fight 
 between a white man and an Indian. Neither had any 
 idea of science, but the crowd did not seem to mind, 
 and the combatants dealt each other horrible blows. 
 The white man finally overcame the Indian who, we 
 were assured, was in no way hostile, and the fight was 
 purely a personal affair. 
 
 On our way back East we played in Salt Lake City. 
 The theatre, which had been built in the late fifties or 
 early sixties, was a very fine one. I have played in the 
 same house many times since, and it has always been, 
 as then, well run and well cared for ; but in those days 
 it had a big, fine green room, which was later changed
 
 so MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 into a dressing room. In this theatre, when it was 
 the home of a stock company, Maude Adams' mother, 
 whose real name was Kiskadden, played leading 
 women for many years. 
 
 Curiously enough, the play selected for our opening 
 bill in Salt Lake City was Bronson Howard's Sara- 
 toga. Elsewhere the complications resulting from the 
 pursuit of the hero. Bob Sackett, by three infatuated 
 women had been considered excruciatingly funny, but 
 the Mormons, as Brigham Young himself pointed out 
 to us, would have solved a problem like Sacketfs so 
 easily that there would have been no play. 
 
 The day after we opened. Miss Davenport, Mrs. 
 Gilbert, Jim Lewis and Mrs. Lewis, Daly and I went 
 to call upon Brigham Young, who gave us a sort of 
 audience at his official residence. He seemed a famil- 
 iar figure and looked very much like his pictures, ex- 
 cept that he was older and somewhat feeble, and he 
 had a growth or goiter that was said to have been 
 caused by drinking snow water from the mountains. 
 Of course this must have been false, for the water was 
 perfectly pellucid. 
 
 He expressed a great deal of interest in our work 
 and particularly in the play, Saratoga. "But why," 
 he asked, turning to Lewis, who played the part of
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 51 
 
 Bob Sackett, the pursued hero, "should the author have 
 made such a complication out of the efforts of your 
 character to get away from the three women who are 
 in love with him?" 
 
 Jim Lewis was somewhat puzzled by the question. 
 "What else," he asked, "could Sackett do but try to 
 escape?" 
 
 "Marry them all," was Brigham Young's answer. 
 
 He said this so seriously that none of us knew 
 whether he meant his solution as a wheeze or not, and 
 we talked of other things. 
 
 He told us that when he was a young man he could 
 speak with such distinctness and with so much volume 
 that he could be heard for great distances. I hesitate 
 to guess now what these figures were, but they were 
 very impressive, even taking into consideration the 
 rarified atmosphere. Our visit to Brigham Young was 
 not so profitable in experience, nor did it yield so much 
 material as Artemus Ward got out of his visit to the 
 Mormons. 
 
 The manager of the hotel in Salt Lake City pro- 
 vided us with excellent horses, and we rode round on 
 these to see the surrounding country. We visited 
 Camp Douglas, which had been established as an army 
 post when the Mormons proved rebellious. It was
 
 52 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 here that I first met General Sheridan, who was then 
 on a tour of inspection. 
 
 Before we left we played The Rough Diamond, and 
 the Salt Lake City papers made much of a line that 
 Lewis interpolated. As I looked young for the char- 
 acter I was to play, I made up with a very elaborate 
 beard. 
 
 As I came on the stage Lewis who had a way of inter- 
 polating lines naturally and still letting the audience 
 in on the joke, said: "Here comes the Prince of 
 Wales." He who was later Edward the Seventh had 
 made the wearing of a beard the fashion in the early 
 seventies and the jest, though feeble, went well in 
 Salt Lake City. 
 
 I remember another occasion, some years afterward, 
 when Lewis, annoyed at having to play on Sunday 
 in Chicago, took a great many liberties with the text 
 of his part. The seats down front were all occupied 
 by circus people, who did not have to work on Sunday. 
 They had come to see a former colleague, Miss Rose 
 Stokes, who appeared in one scene where there was a 
 Maypole dance. She had been a rider, but after 
 an accident had given up the tanbark ring for the 
 stage. 
 
 Charles Fisher played an old man and wore white, 
 muttonchop sidewhiskers. He was just about to make
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 53 
 
 a dignified entrance when Lewis who was on the stage 
 called to him, "Walk right in, Mr. Forepaugh." 
 
 The circus people were delighted and stopped the 
 play for some minutes. In truth, Fisher looked not 
 unlike the dignified kindly old gentleman whose pic- 
 tures adorned circus bills for many years.
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 IN October of that year we — that is, the Daly Com- 
 pany — appeared with Edwin Booth. The season 
 had been postponed, as Booth had been thrown from 
 a carriage, and when he first appeared at rehearsals his 
 arm was in a sling. In Hamlet, Charles Fisher was 
 Polonius; William Davidge, the Grave Digger; Har- 
 kins, the Ghost; Hardenberg, the King; Maurice Bar- 
 rymore, who was soon after to be my brother-in-law, 
 Laertes; Jeffrys Lewis, Ophelia; and Alice Grey, the 
 Queen. I played Rosencrantz. 
 
 Of my performance the only criticism I can remem- 
 ber is that of William Winter, who wrote : "The gen- 
 tleman who played Rosencrantz evidently had an en- 
 gagement with a friend after the performance, so 
 hurried was his speech and so evident his desire to get 
 through with his part." In those days I was very much 
 inclined to speak too rapidly. 
 
 Of that long cast only Jeffrys Lewis and I are alive 
 
 today. A few years ago, when The Scrap of 'Paper 
 
 was staged at the Empire Theatre, Miss Lewis played 
 
 54
 
 DALY'S FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE. 
 
 MR. AUGUSTIN DALY. - • - - Sole Proprietor and Manager* 
 
 Begins at 8 pre«4«ely. Carriages majr be ordered foi II o'clock. 
 
 SBVENTH SBASON TUinT££NTU WEEE 
 
 84th to 9l3t PERrOBMiSWCE. 
 
 Mr. Daly has pleasure in introducing 
 For the First Time in this Theatre, and for the First lime in New York aincfi 2 years. 
 
 i^anddg ^vetiinq, §ct 25, 1875, 
 
 win be presented, after elaborate and costly preparation, Shakespeare's Tragic PIbj;> Iq: 
 
 6 Acts, entitled 
 
 HAMLETI 
 
 With 
 MR. EDWIN BOOTH... as... HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK 
 
 And the following very strong distribution of the other characters : ' 
 
 Mr. Charles Fiaber M PoloniuB 
 
 Mr.D. H. Harkins as Tne Ghost 
 
 Mr. Hardenberg as The King 
 
 Mr. W.Davidge •• as,..,^, The Gravedigger 
 
 Mr. Maurice Barrymore as Laertes 
 
 Mr. George Paikes as Osrio 
 
 Mr. B. T. Ringgold as HoraUo 
 
 Mr. John Drew as ^ Rosencrantz 
 
 Mr.JohuMoore as First Player 
 
 Mr ForrcBt as..., Guiidenstern 
 
 Mr. Deveau - as Second Player 
 
 Mr. Hamilton as Marcella? 
 
 Mr. Beekmon -» -. .-. as Bernardd* 
 
 Mr. Evans as Francisco 
 
 Mr. Hastings as Second Gravedigger 
 
 Monks, Lords, Ladies, Pages, Etc. 
 
 Miss Jeffreys Lewis as^ « Ophelia 
 
 Miss Alice Grey - • as •• The Quean 
 
 MlsaGrffiiths ,,.8S... ... .,.^ FiratActresa 
 
 IN "hamlet" with BOOTH 
 
 55
 
 56 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 the old woman's role. In that revival, my niece, Ethel 
 Barrymore, was Suzanne, and I, Prosper. 
 
 During this engagement in the fall of 1875, Booth 
 played Richard II. I had great pride and satisfaction, 
 because I was on the stage with him in the last scene. 
 It fell to me as Sir Fierce of Exton to stab him in the 
 back, and I can remember even now my great nervous- 
 ness for fear that I might actually stick this great man 
 instead of merely pretendmg to stab him. 
 
 In one of the scenes Richard calls for a mirror and 
 
 reads : 
 
 A brittle glory shineth in this face: 
 As brittle as the glory is the face. 
 
 Then he throws the glass down and it is supposed to 
 be dashed to pieces. On the first night, instead of 
 falling flat on the stage, the mirror struck on the side 
 and flew out into the audience. I was playing Lord 
 Willoughby in this scene, doubling this character with 
 Sir Fierce of Exton. No one could tell how the thing 
 happened. 
 
 Booth's performance was touching and beautiful as 
 this intellectual, but despondent and superstitious king. 
 With him it was always a favorite role. It had some- 
 times been played by his father and Edmund Kean 
 and Macready gave it occasionally but Richard II 
 has on the whole been neglected in the theatre.
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 57 
 
 The action being largely political and possessing 
 little of theatrical effectiveness the play did not prove 
 popular when the Daly company appeared in it in 
 support of Edwin Booth. Writing of this engagement 
 in his biography of his brother, Augustin, Judge Daly 
 records that while Hamlet drew average nightly re- 
 ceipts of $1855; four performances of Richard II aver- 
 aged only $73 1 . 
 
 In Othello, with Booth, I played the part of Lodo- 
 vico^ Maurice Barrymore was Cassio, Jeffrys Lewis 
 was Desdemona and as Booth played I ago, Harkins 
 was Othello. 
 
 At the rehearsals of Richelieu, in which I was to play 
 Frangois, I was extremely nervous. Frangois is the 
 character that Richelieu sends to get the paper con- 
 taining the names of the plotters, Gaston, Orleans and 
 the others. Franfois is also the character to whom the 
 famous lines are spoken: 
 
 In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves 
 For a bright manhood, there is no such word 
 As "fail." 
 
 When Franfois returns with the important paper 
 which will confound all those who have plotted against 
 the king, he kneels and says: "My lord, I have not 
 failed." For some reason or other I said: "My liege." 
 
 Booth said : "Don't say that : it isn't 'my liege.' "
 
 58 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 During rehearsals I made the same mistake several 
 times. Edwin Booth was, as always, gentle and kind, 
 and fortunately when the actual performance came I 
 spoke the line correctly. 
 
 I played Francis^ in The Stranger^ with Booth. 
 Francis is what is known in the business as a "liny" 
 part. By that we mean that the speeches are very 
 short, broken lines. They have no semblance of con- 
 tinuity and are constantly interrupted by the other 
 characters. Almost every actor, particularly the young 
 actor, has had difficulties with a part of the sort. When 
 I played Francis with Booth I had a good memory, 
 and I thought that I had mastered the broken speeches. 
 During the performance I tripped a number of times, 
 and when I apologized to Booth afterwards he was 
 very gentle, very nice. He patted me on the shoulder. 
 Evidently he had been through it himself, or perhaps 
 he had seen many others go wrong in this thankless 
 role. 
 
 I thought that I had done with The Stranger for- 
 ever, but some years after, in London, Maurice Barry- 
 more and I went to Kings Cross Station to take a train 
 for the country. We were ahead of time and near 
 the station was a small theatre with alluring bills. We 
 decided to kill half an hour with W alb erg, the Avenger. 
 The play was on when we entered, and it seemed
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 59 
 
 strangely familiar. It turned out to be the old fash- 
 ioned play, The Stranger. Barrymore remembered 
 that in this piece one of the characters refers to The 
 Stranger by his right name which was Walberg. The 
 actor playing this character was unusually bad and 
 suggested the actor in W. S. Gilbert's ballad "who 
 mouthed and mugged in simulated rage." 
 
 After the engagement with Booth I played with 
 Adelaide Neilson in Twelfth Night and Cymbeline. 
 In the latter play I was Cloten^ which is supposed to 
 be the comedy part: it wasn't — as I played it. After 
 my head is supposed to be cut off Imogen discovers 
 my body and thinking that it is her husband, Posthu- 
 mous^ throws herself upon me. It was rather uncom- 
 fortable, as my head was covered with some dusty 
 grass mats. My discomfiture was added to on the first 
 night by the fact that I could tell that Miss Neilson 
 was laughing. 
 
 "What was the matter*?" I asked her immediately 
 afterwards. 
 
 She merely continued to laugh. 
 
 "Did my head show, or was something wrong with 
 my costume*?" 
 
 "Oh, no, everything was all right," she told me; 
 "but I once played that scene with a very portly Cloten^ 
 and when I threw myself upon him I rebounded and
 
 6o MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 bounced. I have never been able to play that scene, 
 serious though it is, without laughing under my 
 breath." 
 
 Things had been going very badly with Daly for 
 some time, and he lost the Fifth Avenue Theatre. I 
 played with my mother's old friend, Joseph Jefferson, 
 in Rip Van Winkle for a while at Booth's Theatre, 
 which was at Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. 
 At first I was the innkeeper, Seth^ who chalks up drinks 
 for Rip at the beginning of the play and later I was 
 Henrick Vedder^ the sailor, who comes in on the fourth 
 act, when Rip has reappeared after his sleep. This 
 part is played by a child in the first act. 
 
 The next summer, with my old friend of Philadel- 
 phia days, Lewis Baker, I went abroad. That was the 
 year of the exposition at Paris, and all the boats were 
 crowded. We were very much on the cheap and sailed 
 on an inferior boat of a Scotch line. 
 
 In London we saw Herman Vezin play a drama- 
 tization of "The Vicar of Wakefield" called Olivia. 
 Vezin was an American, born in Philadelphia, but 
 he was always identified with the English stage and 
 never played here. This same play, Olivia^ by W. G. 
 Wills, was later played by Henry Irving, who was then 
 playing his wonderful melodramatic success, The 
 Bells.
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 61 
 
 In Paris we saw Sarah Bernhardt play UEtrangere^ 
 at the Comedie Frangaise with Coquelin, Mounet-SuUy 
 and the other fine actors of that great theatre. This 
 play was later done in New York by Daly under the 
 title of The American. 
 
 On our return to England we saw the Columbia four- 
 oar crew win the Stewards' Cup at Henley. The only 
 friend we met on this trip was J. S. Clarke, who then 
 had the lease of the Haymarket Theatre. He had 
 been associated with my father in Philadelphia. He 
 made quite a success as a comedian in London, but 
 he was not acting when Baker and I met him. 
 
 When we got home I went directly to Philadelphia, 
 where I played Charles Surface for the first time, in 
 the screen scene in The School for Scandal, at the 
 Arch Street Theatre. The occasion was a benefit for a 
 local charity. In order to play Charles, I shaved off 
 my mustache, and this has been considered on the part 
 of some actors a great sacrifice. It was especially so 
 regarded in the seventies. Edwin Forrest, as his pic- 
 tures will show, never would remove his side whiskers 
 no matter what the period or the character.
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 1NEXT went on tour with my brother-in-law, Mau- 
 rice Barrymore. He and Frederick Warde had 
 purchased the road rights to the great Wallack's Thea- 
 tre success, Diplomacy. I was engaged to play the 
 juvenile part, Algie Fairfax. As the venture was not 
 proving profitable, Warde and Barrymore, a short 
 time after we had gone on tour, decided to split. 
 Warde was to take part of the company and go West. 
 Barrymore was to keep some of the actors, engage a 
 few additional ones, and play the Southern territory. 
 I stayed with Barrymore and from then on played 
 the part of Henry Beauclerc^ which had, up to this 
 time, been played by Warde. Maurice Barrymore 
 played Julian Beauclerc^ the younger brother. H. 
 Rees Davies, an actor of considerable experience, was 
 Baron Stein and Ben Porter played Count Orlof. 
 Porter was a good-looking man in the early forties, 
 who had played in the Furbish Company which did 
 for a time the old Daly play, Divorce. Countess Zicka 
 
 was played by Ellen Cummings, an attractive young 
 
 62
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 63 
 
 woman who had been in the Louisville Stock Com- 
 pany. In this same company Ada Rehan had played 
 for a time after the days at the Arch Street Theatre and 
 before her engagement by Augustin Daly. 
 
 It was on this tour — at Marshall, Texas — that Ben 
 Porter was killed and Barrymore severely wounded. 
 We had played at the Opera House that night in 
 March, the sixth anniversary of my appearance on the 
 stage, and were waiting for a train to take us to Tex- 
 arkana. 
 
 We were stopping at the Station Hotel, and most 
 of us went directly there after the play; but Barry- 
 more, Porter and Miss Cummings decided to have 
 something to eat, and they went to the only lunch room 
 that was open, the one at the station. 
 
 This lunch room was a sort of bar as well. One man 
 was waiting on both parts of the room. A man named 
 Jim Curry, an employee of the railroad and a deputy 
 sheriff, began using offensive language and affronted 
 Miss Cummings. 
 
 Barrymore demanded that he stop. 
 
 *T can do any of you up," said Curry. 
 
 "I suppose you could," answered Barrymore, "with 
 your pistol or knife." 
 
 T haven't got any pistol or knife. I'll do it with 
 
 <n
 
 64 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 my bunch of fives," said Curry, as he proudly displayed 
 a fist like a sledge hammer. 
 
 "Then," said Barrymore, throwing off his coat, 
 "I'll have a go at you." 
 
 But Curry did have a gun and he shot Barrymore, 
 wounding him in the shoulder. When Porter rushed 
 to Barrymore's aid, Curry shot him. Porter died al- 
 most immediately, on the station platform. 
 
 I heard the shooting at the hotel, and I ran along 
 the station platform and entered the only place that 
 was lighted, the lunch room. As I entered, the man 
 with the gun grabbed me. Why he did not shoot I 
 do not know. In another minute or two the sheriff of 
 Marshall arrived, took the gun away from his deputy 
 and locked him up. 
 
 We stayed on in Marshall for some days, till Barry- 
 more was out of danger. When the physician showed 
 him the ball that had been cut out of the muscle of his 
 back, Barrymore said: "I'll give it to my son Lionel 
 to cut his teeth on." 
 
 Our hotel at the station was some distance from 
 the town itself, and the next night when I was going to 
 the druggist's to get a prescription filled for Barry- 
 more, the train dispatcher called me aside and said: 
 "You'd better take my pistol."
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 6j 
 
 I did so and walked along the dark road to the 
 town with some little apprehension. The shooting at 
 the lunch room had made us rather conspicuous in 
 Marshall. 
 
 There was only one house lighted along the road 
 and when I was just opposite that a woman called to 
 me: "Where are you going^" 
 
 I told her: "To the druggist's, and then back to 
 the hotel." 
 
 She said: "When you go back to the station will 
 you tell my husband, he's train dispatcher" — the very 
 man who had given me the gun — "that there are some 
 tramps hanging around here. They've been in here 
 to demand food." 
 
 I went on to the druggist's, obtained the medicine 
 and started back on the long, dark road, now without 
 a single light. The pistol gave me confidence of a 
 sort, but of course I didn't want to use it; I never had 
 used one. 
 
 With my hand on the gun, which was in my side 
 pocket, I looked anxiously at the one or two persons 
 I met on the way. When I returned the pistol to its 
 owner I told him of his wife's fears, and he and another 
 man went up to his house and apprehended two men 
 who were put in jail. And though I had been anxious
 
 66 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 along the road, happily there were no other casualties 
 during our visit to Marshall. 
 
 The people of Texas, to show their detestation of 
 the whole affair and their sympathy with the company, 
 offered us the hospitality of a number of towns that 
 no touring company would have thought of visiting. 
 I do not suppose these towns would have been espe- 
 cially attractive or profitable for a "one-man show" at 
 that time. Mesquite was one of these, and Eagle Ford 
 another. We were promised good houses; but of 
 course we could not play Diplomacy with two of our 
 leading characters missing. 
 
 We played two or three farces, which we studied for 
 the occasion. One of these was an old piece called 
 The Little Treasure. In this the property man played 
 a young English fop. He wore clothes of Barrymore's 
 that didn't fit him, and a light-yellow wig that slipped 
 badly and either showed his dark hair at the temple or 
 at the neck in back. This was a sort of "town hall 
 tonight" tour. When there was no theatre, we played 
 in a hall and once in the dining room of a hotel. 
 
 Curry was twice brought to trial, but acquitted. 
 There were witnesses in court to testify that Curry had 
 shot Porter and Barrymore in self-defense. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, at the time of the shooting there was no 
 one in the lunch room except the participants and the
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 67 
 
 man who was waiting upon them. He was spirited 
 away and never appeared in court. 
 
 The night of the second acquittal Barrymore, who 
 had twice gone to Texas at great expense and incon- 
 venience, was sitting in front of the hotel — this time 
 the hotel in town — airing his views upon Texas jus- 
 tice. In no mincing words he was telling a citizen of 
 the place what he thought. 
 
 Just then a man walked past them into the hotel. 
 
 "Do you know who that was*?" asked Barrymore's 
 companion. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "That was the lawyer who defended Curry." 
 
 Barrymore leaned back and heard the lawyer ask 
 the hotel clerk in a voice that sounded truculent to 
 him: "Is Mr. Maurice Barrymore here*?" 
 
 "He's right outside," said the clerk. 
 
 The lawyer came out and stood in the light from 
 the door and asked: "Is Maurice Barrymore here'?" 
 
 Barrymore who noticed that the lawyer had his hand 
 on his hip pocket declared himself present a little re- 
 luctantly. He thought that there might be another 
 shooting imminent. 
 
 "Here," said the lawyer, taking his gun from his 
 pocket and holding the butt out to Barrymore, "is the 
 pistol that killed Porter and wounded you."
 
 68 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Barrymore took it, thanked the lawyer, examined 
 the gun gingerly and handed it back. 
 
 We heard later that Curry was killed in a brawl in 
 New Mexico. 
 
 By easy stages the company, which had gone through 
 so much in Texas, worked its way to Texarkana, Pine 
 Bluff, and by way of Little Rock to St. Louis. In Chi- 
 cago the Western company, which was headed by 
 Warde, joined us, and we managed to give, once more, 
 some fairly respectable performances of Diplomacy. 
 But the play was not a great success then, and when 
 we closed there was so little money that I set out for 
 Philadelphia in a smoking car. It meant two uncom- 
 fortable days and nights. When we reached Altoona 
 a telegraph boy called my name in the smoking car. 
 He had a telegram for me. It was from Mother. She 
 cautioned me to be sure to stop off at Philadelphia, for 
 she had a part for me to play the next night. I had 
 no intention of going any place other than Philadel- 
 phia. I had no money. 
 
 I arrived at two o'clock in the morning and went 
 directly to our house where my mother gave me the 
 part I was to play that night. This was Mr. Bronzley 
 in an old comedy. Wives as They Were and Maids as 
 They Are. I sat up all night and studied. At ten 
 o'clock the next morning I attended rehearsal. At
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 69 
 
 eight I appeared in eighteenth century finery as Mr. 
 Bronzley and though I should not call my perform- 
 ance either spirited or good, I did know the lines. 
 
 I suppose it was youth, but in those days we all had 
 a capacity for memorizing. That is, all of us except 
 Barrymore. My sister, Georgie, could study a part 
 in no time at all, and she couldn't understand why 
 Barrymore could not commit things to memory easily. 
 She used to hear him say his parts over and over 
 again. While he had a marvelous memory for things 
 he had read, poetry or prose, or anything he had studied 
 while he was at Oxford, he couldn't commit his parts 
 easily. 
 
 This was the end of my first and only experience in 
 a barnstorming company, for I was so fortunate as to 
 come into the theatre in the days of resident companies 
 and to play most of my career under two managements 
 — that of Augustin Daly and that of Charles Frohman. 
 
 When I had rested from this long trip in a smoking 
 car and the difficulties and fatigues of this added stunt 
 of playing a performance with less than twenty-four 
 hours' notice, I went to New York to lay siege to the 
 office of Augustin Daly, who was, I heard, about to 
 open a new theatre.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 WHILE I was in Texas, Daly had been abroad, 
 where he bought the rights to the play made 
 from Zola's famous book, "L'Assommoir." Under the 
 title of Drink, in a version written by Charles Reade, 
 this play was done by Charles Warner for five thou- 
 sand nights in England. In New York, when pro- 
 duced by Daly at the Olympic Theatre, it was a com- 
 plete failure and ran only a short time. In the cast 
 were Maude Granger, Emily Rigl, B. T. Ringold, 
 Frank Sanger; my uncle, Frank Drew ; and Ada Rehan. 
 Gardner, the manager of the Arch Street Theatre, had 
 recommended Ada Rehan to Daly, and in this play 
 she played for the first time under his management. 
 Olive Logan, who wrote the play Surf, which had a 
 record run at the Arch Street Theatre and had also 
 been produced by Daly, made the version American 
 in all respects, but not sufficiently different to account 
 for the failure here and the great success when played 
 by Warner. 
 
 This failure did not discourage Daly or his chief 
 
 backer, John DuflF, his father-in-law, and they set out 
 
 70
 
 From Theatre CoUrction, Harvard University. 
 
 ADA REHAN AND JOHN DREW IN "DOLLARS AND SENSe'
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 71 
 
 to find a new theatre early in 1879. ^^ ^^^ West side 
 of Broadway between Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth 
 streets was an old building which had been Banvard's 
 and later Wood's Museum. Downstairs was an exhi- 
 bition hall which was chiefly famous as the place where 
 the Cardiff giant was displayed. 
 
 The auditorium was up a flight of steps and very 
 small. Daly's architect contrived by a series of steps 
 some feet apart to give the impression when the place 
 was made over that the theatre was on the ground 
 floor. As a matter of fact, the stage had been lowered 
 somewhat and a new proscenium arch made. Because 
 the building was old and so far out of the theatrical 
 district the rental was low. There was great pessi- 
 mism over the location of the theatre, so far uptown. 
 
 When he had finished the physical changes in the 
 theatre and had redecorated the whole, Daly gathered 
 together a company. As in the opening of the Fifth 
 Avenue Theatre, he selected mostly young players. 
 After some correspondence and a visit or two I was 
 engaged. I asked for forty dollars a week, but Daly 
 would only give me thirty-five. 
 
 In a letter I had written him I mentioned that since 
 the Fifth Avenue Theatre days I had had quite a little 
 experience and had improved in my enunciation. He 
 wrote me that he was glad to hear that I had improved
 
 72 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 but that I should not make him "pay for all the im- 
 provements." A year later when I was married, he 
 voluntarily raised my salary to fifty dollars. 
 
 Ada Rehan had written Daly that she had a number 
 of offers, but as they would take her out of town she 
 would be willing to accept an engagement with him if 
 he would pay her forty dollars a week. She did not 
 feel that she could accept anything less than this sum, 
 but she finally agreed to take thirty-five. 
 
 Salaries were low everywhere in those days, and the 
 only advantage the actor had was that he was engaged 
 by the season and not for one part only. We were 
 seldom idle, for if there was a musical piece running, 
 those of us who did not appear in it went on tour. 
 
 The stage entrance of Daly's was through the hall- 
 way of a tenement house in Sixth Avenue and into a 
 little courtyard out of which the actual stage door 
 opened. Later, Daly bought a house in Twenty-ninth 
 Street and the entrance was through this. Also many 
 of the dressing rooms were moved over, and the whole 
 arrangement was made more comfortable. 
 
 In the early days we dressed in small rooms under 
 the stage which had partitions only part of the way 
 up. There was a green room, of course, for then every 
 theatre had one. This was not a handsome room, like
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 73 
 
 the one in the Fifth Avenue Theatre under Daly's 
 management. There being no space at all in the new 
 Daly theatre except under the stage, the green room 
 was small and uncomfortable, as were the dressing 
 rooms. 
 
 One end of the room had a large mirror. The other 
 walls were covered with framed quotations from Bul- 
 wer-Lytton, Doctor Johnson and Shakespeare. There 
 were one or two slogans — and this was before the days 
 of printed slogans and office mottoes — promising hap- 
 piness and careers to "those who minded their own 
 business." 
 
 In that very charming book, "The Diary of a Daly 
 Debutante," written by a woman who for a short time 
 played very minor parts with the Daly Company, there 
 is this description of the green room : 
 
 This place is not very attractive ; it is long and 
 narrow, with a full-length mirror at one end of 
 the room ; next to the mirror is a door leading into 
 Mr. Daly's private office. There is a green velvet 
 carpet on the floor, and around the walls runs a 
 leather-covered bench. A few chairs stand here 
 and there, and a fine Weber piano occupies one 
 corner. Several good pictures and some curious 
 old English play-bills hang on the walls. There 
 is only one window, so the room is dark and 
 gloomy by daylight, except just by the window.
 
 74 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 though at night it is light enough. A door opens 
 into one end of the property-room — a place where 
 all sorts of things are kept that are used on the 
 stage — and through that we pass out to the stage. 
 
 At the time of the opening Daly's theatre was, of 
 course, lighted by gas. The flames were protected by 
 wire netting and the jets were lighted by spark. Later, 
 when electric lighting was first installed, there was no 
 plant in the theatre, the supply coming from the city 
 power house. 
 
 Often the lights would go out, and the explanation 
 was always that they were changing a belt. 
 
 It was not very reassuring for the audiences to sit in 
 darkness; nor was it comfortable for the players, who 
 had come to a complete standstill on the stage and 
 were waiting for the lights to come on. 
 
 From the beginning Daly was insistent that no one 
 should be allowed back stage on first nights. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, it was impossible to get to the stage or 
 dressing rooms at any time, so zealously was the door 
 to the stage guarded by a large, unlettered, rough, but 
 kindly Hibernian, named Owen Gormley. 
 
 He seemed very surly; but of course he was only 
 doing what Daly wanted him to do, and he did keep 
 people out of the theatre. Owen could not read, and 
 he regarded everyone who presented a letter or card
 
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard Unireraity. 
 
 JOHN DREW AND WILLIAM GILBERT IN RED LETTER NIGHTS
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 75 
 
 with a good deal of suspicion. It was hopeless to try 
 to get mail from him. 
 
 Owen had the distinction of having kept Mark 
 Twain out of the theatre when he came by special ap-. 
 pointment to see Daly. After the one-hundredth per- 
 formance of The Taming of the Shrew, Daly gave a 
 supper at a large round table on the stage of the thea- 
 tre. Twain was introduced by General Sherman, and 
 we then heard, for the first time, how Owen had kept 
 him from his appointment. 
 
 Twain began by saying: "This is the hardest thea- 
 tre in New York to get into, even at the front door." 
 He then went on and described in an excruciatingly 
 funny way his encounter with Owen after he had found 
 his way through the long hallway into the backyard 
 which led to the stage. 
 
 The first night of Daly's theatre was really not an 
 auspicious occasion. Daly had failed so completely 
 with the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and his attempt to 
 come back with UAssommoir had been so unfortunate 
 that perhaps at no time in his career of management 
 did his name mean so little to the public as when he 
 opened his own theatre on September 18, i879« 
 
 Nor was the opening bill a success. There was a 
 one-act play called Love's Young Dream, in which Ada 
 Rehan, May Fielding, Charles Fisher and George
 
 76 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Parkes appeared. This was followed by 'Newport^ 
 subtitled The Swimmer^ The Singer and The Cipher. 
 According to the program I was Tom Sanderson^ a 
 master bather with an overmastering secret. The cast 
 was: 
 
 Hon. Peter Porter Charles Leclercq 
 
 Hon. U. B. Blode William Davidge 
 
 Ben Boulgate Hart Conway 
 
 Capt. Chickering George Parkes 
 
 Tom Sanderson John Drew 
 
 Captain Blackwell Frank Iredale 
 
 Crutch Reynolds Walter Edmunds 
 
 Undo Frank V. Bennett 
 
 ToGGs Maggie Barnes 
 
 Midget Laura Thorpe 
 
 Thompson Earle Stirling 
 
 Ginger E. Wilkes 
 
 Officer P. Hunting 
 Hon. Mrs. Peter Porter Catherine Lewis 
 
 The Widow Warboys Mrs. Charles Poole 
 
 Miss Belle Blode Georgine Flagg 
 
 Cosette Annie Wakeman 
 
 In this comedy with songs Olive Logan had at- 
 tempted to repeat the success which she had attained 
 with her earlier play about a fashionable summer re- 
 sort, Surf. She failed to get from Newport what she 
 had found in the background of Cape May and the 
 public stayed away from the new theatre. 
 
 Divorce^ a success of a few years before, was revived
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 77 
 
 as soon as possible and rehearsals begun on a new 
 play by Bronson.Howard called Wives. This was an 
 adaptation from Moliere's two plays, UEcole des 
 Femmes and UEcole des Maris and so far as I can 
 ascertain this is the first time that Moliere, so often 
 adapted and borrowed from, was given credit on an 
 American playbill. 
 
 The cast for this five-act comedy produced October 
 18, 1879, was: 
 
 Arnolphe, Marquis of 
 Fontenoy 
 
 SCANARELLE LaMARRE 
 ViCOMTE ArISTE 
 
 Chrisalde 
 
 Horace de Chateauroux 
 
 Captain Fieremonte 
 
 DORIVAL 
 
 Alain 
 
 Jean Jacques 
 
 Captain Ballander 
 
 The Commissary 
 
 The Notary 
 
 Agnes 
 
 ISABELLE de NeSLE 
 
 Lenora de Nesle 
 
 LiSETTE 
 
 Georgette 
 
 Charles Fisher 
 William Davidge 
 George Morton 
 John Drew 
 Harry Lacy 
 George Parkes 
 Hart Conway 
 Charles Leclercq 
 F. Bennett 
 W. Edmunds 
 Mr. Hunting 
 Mr. Sterling 
 Catherine Lewis 
 Ada Rehan 
 Margaret Lanner 
 Maggie Harold 
 Sydney Nelson 
 
 During this first season neither James Lewis nor 
 Mrs. Gilbert was in the company, and it was not till
 
 78 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 the following September that we were all cast together 
 in a play called Our First Families^ by Edgar Fawcett. 
 
 The playbills at Daly's theatre always had a synop- 
 sis with the character. Thus, in An Arabian Night, I 
 was Mr. Alexander S pinkie, "a retired broker and 
 ex-Caliph; a devoted young husband with a fatal pas- 
 sion for the Arabian Nights." And Ada Rehan was 
 Miss Kate S pinkie, "an American girl brought up 
 abroad, and astonished at the ways at home." In The 
 Way We Live I was Clyde Monograme "who lives the 
 best way he can since his wife lives for everybody else." 
 And Ada Rehan was Cherry Monograme, "who lives 
 in her carriage and makes short calls at home." 
 
 Both of these were plays which Daly had adapted 
 from the German. In the first I had the so.t of light 
 comedy part that I played so often in the Daly Theatre 
 and in the second Ada Rehan and I played opposite 
 each other as we were to do for so many years after- 
 ward. 
 
 At the end of the season we opened a spring tour in 
 Boston with An Arabian Night. This rather light 
 comedy did not fill the vast spaces of the Boston 
 Theatre. On the first night a pony that was brought 
 on in one of the scenes stepped on my foot and cracked 
 my patent-leather shoe. Otherwise this visit to Boston 
 was quite uneventful, except that it gave me an oppor-
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 79 
 
 tunity to call upon that fine actor, William Warren. 
 He was an old friend of my mother's and had been as- 
 sociated at one time or another with other members of 
 the family. 
 
 I never had the good fortune to act with him. At 
 the time I visited him he was the idol of the Boston 
 Museum, where he played for many years. 
 
 I called upon him at Miss Amelia Fisher's boarding 
 house in Bullfinch Place, where he was a perpetual 
 guest and liked by everyone. To call Miss Fisher's 
 house a theatrical boarding house is not a fair descrip- 
 tion, for it was really a delightful place and nothing at 
 all like the boarding house which Helen Green has 
 celebrated under the name of "Maison de Shine." 
 
 I talked to William Warren of our play. He 
 sympathized with our company for having to play so 
 frothy a piece in so huge a theatre. "It is like," he 
 said, "trying to tell a funny story across the Common." 
 
 A great many members of the profession did not 
 care to stay at Miss Fisher's because she never gave her 
 guests a latch key, but would sit up and wait for them 
 to come home. She always let her guests in herself. 
 I can remember when Charlie Stevenson went to Bos- 
 ton. He thought that it would be fine to stay there 
 where so many of the profession had been. It had 
 always seemed so pleasant when he had visited friends
 
 8o MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 who were living in Miss Fisher's house. But he felt the 
 restraint when he lived there himself. He did not 
 want to keep the old lady sitting up for him after the 
 theatre, and he did not want to come home on cue.
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 
 THE second season of Daly's opened with Tiote^ 
 a romantic melodrama with the scene laid in 
 Wales. It was a prompt failure. Then came Our 
 First Families, which brought together the four play- 
 ers who were to be associated through the eighties and 
 early nineties. 
 
 Mrs. Gilbert was an old dear. Even in the days of 
 the Fifth Avenue Company we called her "Grandma." 
 Ada Rehan was handsome and attractive. She was 
 big, whole-hearted, good-natured and one of the most 
 lovable of women. She had fine, expressive eyes, 
 which counted much in the theatre. 
 
 Jim Lewis was the most companionable of men, and 
 
 I never had a better friend. There is no use discussing 
 
 his great talent and his great ability. That does not 
 
 mean much now, but there is a story concerning him 
 
 which means much to me. The summer before I 
 
 played Rosemary we were all living together at West 
 
 Hampton, Long Island — the Lewises, Henry Miller 
 
 and his family, my mother, the Barrymore children and 
 
 my wife, daughter and myself. Lewis saw a Sunday 
 
 8i
 
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 i- l^-?MWS.THEJCrREf 
 
 m oiTLT nuni nsa isi sou uiimon ar 
 
 MP. AUGUSTIN DALY. 
 
 SECOND YEAR OF THE HEW THEATRE. 
 
 Twelfth l^eek. 
 
 ICle^hty-slxtlk PerA>rinonco. 
 
 Tbe Molo on the Ad Drop : ** Fmlwtam fu* mrntit/mt ;" — Wl bim bear Ute p*\m who bu wna tt. 
 
 *■ UM Nan 
 
 !'»?. JAMES LfWIS 
 
 wd brfa h» kM kMa sumaf a poetic 
 .MR. CH4 
 
 THIS TUESDAY EVENING. NOVEMBER 9, 1880, 
 
 WJ] tM MUd flM ibe &nt tine u My Su4t) A HOLIDAY COMEDY U* f^-tt Acu. by MR AUCUSTIM 
 ^^ ' OALY-4iL>r<J OB * pUy by ik« Mubot of "DIE CITRONEN. ' .»uii«i~ 
 
 NEEDLES AND FINS! 
 
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 MB CHRISTOPHER VANDUSEH.(» tttini M.tchui 
 
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 HANNAH. MoUu - • .MtSS LXVERK 
 
 CHARACTERS IN THE MAS4JUC AHI> NURSEBY COTILLON. 
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 ^^ rVB°* **^ ** Dk)f*i Tleitic ftrt ncIotHtfl frooi l>« ocUbfflad how* of Hauus BkOK 
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 
 a typical daly comedy from the german with the bio 
 
 four" in the cast 
 
 82
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 83 
 
 paper in which a certain writer of theatrical affairs 
 drew a rather personal comparison between my acting 
 and that of Charles Wyndham, who had played Rose- 
 mary in London. It was the conviction of the writer 
 of this article that the part of Sir Jasper was too serious 
 for me and somewhat beyond my depth; in fact, that 
 I should fail in Rosemary. Lewis took the trouble to 
 cut this out of all the copies of the paper in the house 
 so that I would not see the disparaging remarks while 
 I was studying the part I was to play the last of 
 August at the Empire Theatre, and so that my family 
 would not see them. It was most thoughtful and so 
 characteristic of Lewis! As a matter of fact, Rose- 
 mary was a big success. 
 
 The second season at Daly's had not started out too 
 bravely, but when Needles and Pins was produced the 
 success of this theatre, so far above the theatrical dis- 
 trict, seemed to be assured. Needles and Pins was an 
 adaptation of Rosen's Starke Mitteln. It had a run 
 of a hundred nights. Miss Rehan and I played oppo- 
 site each other. She was a young girl in her 'teens, 
 and I a young lawyer captivated by her youthful 
 charm. Mrs. Gilbert played one of those elderly 
 spinsters trying to grow young, and James Lewis was 
 an elderly bachelor in love with her.
 
 84 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 From this second season of the new Daly's Ada 
 Rehan was an assured success. E. A. Dithmar at a 
 somewhat later date wrote: "Miss Ada Rehan has 
 no lack of appreciation and she is growing in her art. 
 Her record belongs to the future ; but it has been inter- 
 esting and profitable to watch her artistic work from 
 the days of Needles and Pins, in which Miss Rehan 
 as a kittenish girl acted as a mediator in the mature 
 romance of a bald and bashful bachelor and a gushing 
 yet timid spinster, portrayed by Mr. Lewis and Mrs. 
 Gilbert." 
 
 The plot of Needles and Pins was complicated and 
 sentimental, and it was not a play that could live any 
 number of years in any theatre, but the comedy scenes 
 were genuine good fun. I suppose that its most con- 
 spicuous merit was that it was unlike anything to be 
 seen elsewhere in New York at that time. It belonged 
 to the group of plays that Daly adapted from the 
 German. Some were better than others, but the stand- 
 ard did not change much. They were always very 
 pleasing, light and clean. 
 
 The company and the performances were beginning 
 to attract attention and it was somewhere around this 
 time that Mark Twain and other people prominent in 
 literature and art began to come to the theatre. I 
 remember that Mark Twain told me in those early
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 85 
 
 days that he had thought of writing a play for the 
 Daly Company. It was a grand, brilliant and original 
 idea. At least so he thought when he began to work 
 upon it. The play was a dream play, and in the end 
 it all came out right and the disasters that happened in 
 the play were mere distortions of the imagination. 
 Before submitting the play to Daly he thought that he 
 would take it to some friend who knew something 
 about dramatic construction; so he submitted the 
 manuscript to Sinclair McKelway of the Brooklyn 
 Eagle. 
 
 All this Twain told me with that characteristic 
 drawl which, had anyone perfected and imitated it on 
 the stage, would have been labeled at once as down- 
 right impossible. 
 
 When Twain got his play back from his friend there 
 was no comment, just a list of the hundreds of differ- 
 ent plays from 400 B. C. to the time he was writing 
 which had had this same original idea of violent hap- 
 penings that turn out to be merely dreams. 
 
 With Needles and Pins, then, we had settled down 
 to the success and prosperity which lasted all through 
 the eighties. It was less than eight years before that 
 Ada Rehan and I had played together for the first time 
 on the stage of the Arch Street Theatre. With all the 
 praise and attention that were shov/ered upon her Ada
 
 86 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Rehan's point of view never changed. She was always 
 the same unaffected, natural person of the early days. 
 
 I felt that I had made quite an impression, and I am 
 afraid that I conveyed this idea to Joseph Jefferson in 
 a talk that I had with him. He was an old friend of 
 my mother's and I think that he, with the best of good 
 nature, took upon himself the task of correcting any 
 false idea I might have about my position in the 
 theatre. 
 
 To point a moral and to convince me that, however 
 big I might think myself, there was certain to be some 
 one a little bigger, he told me that when he had made 
 his great success with Rip Van Winkle — the play that 
 was to immortalize him and that he was to do every- 
 where for years to come — he thought himself fairly 
 important and that everyone knew of his success. At 
 the very least he felt that he had put Washington 
 Irving on the map with this Boucicault version of Rip. 
 
 One night, after the theatre, as he was going to his 
 room in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, a stockily built man 
 with a grizzly beard got into the elevator. 
 
 "Are you playing in town now, Mr. Jefferson?'* he 
 asked. 
 
 Jefferson, as he replied in the affirmative, rather 
 pitied the man for his ignorance and his total lack of 
 understanding of what was going on in the world.
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 87 
 
 What a simpleton he must be who did not know that 
 Rip was having a record run! 
 
 When this man reached his floor and got out Jeffer- 
 son asked the elevator boy: "Who was that*?" 
 
 "Why," said the boy, in his turn pitying Jefferson 
 for his ignorance, "that's General Grant I"
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 
 GET onto Jacob Earwig," said James Lewis, who 
 was standing back of me. He looked over my 
 shoulder toward the prompt-entrance. 
 
 He was playing Gru??iio^ one of my servants in The 
 Taming of the Shrew, but in all the excitement and 
 tenseness of that night, January i8th, iSqj — the most 
 important first night in the history of Daly's Theatre — 
 he was sufficiently calm to call attention to a man in 
 evening dress sitting in the first entrance and holding 
 out a magnificent, beaten-silver ear trumpet. . 
 
 Later, when I got a chance to look that way I saw 
 that it was Horace Howard Furness, the Shakespearian 
 scholar. He was very deaf. Certainly, for no less a 
 person than Furness would Daly have departed from 
 his rigidly enforced custom of allowing no one behind 
 the scenes. I did not dare look at Lewis during the 
 rest of the performance for fear that I, in my first- 
 night nervousness, might laugh and blow up. 
 
 As with most actors, Lewis remembered the parts he 
 
 himself had played, and in an old farce called Boots 
 
 88
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 89 
 
 at tile Swan there was a deaf old man, the low-comedy 
 character, and his name was Jacob Earwig. 
 
 The production of The Taming of the Shrew was 
 much heralded in advance. All during rehearsals we 
 were led to believe that this was to be a great and 
 history-making production. The strange fact is that it 
 was. Nothing that Daly had hoped for the production 
 before the first night turned out to be too extravagant. 
 It was at once taken up and acclaimed by the press. 
 For years afterwards this performance of The Taming 
 of the Shrew was talked of as an historical event, and 
 certainly it was the highest point of achievement in 
 Daly's career of many successes. It was perhaps a sur- 
 prise to the public, but no more so than it was to us, 
 that a company which had made its success in light 
 comedies from the German should reach its highest 
 point in a Shakespearian comedy. We had not been 
 very happy or successful in The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor. 
 
 By 1887 the four principal actors of the Daly 
 Theatre were so firmly intrenched in the public's favor 
 and so much identified with the succession of plays that 
 Daly would not run the risk of leaving one of this 
 group out of the cast. Accordingly, into the trivial and 
 unimportant role of Curtis., a retainer of Petruchio^ he 
 put the ever popular Mrs. Gilbert. Curtis is really a
 
 90 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 man's role, but there was precedent for Daly's putting 
 Mrs. Gilbert into the part, as a Mrs. LeBrun had 
 played Curtis when Clara Morris played Katherine 
 and Louis James Petruchio at the Academy of Music 
 some years before. In the whole line of light comedies 
 Mrs. Gilbert and Lewis had played opposite each 
 other, and Curtis enabled her to play a low-comedy 
 scene with Grumio, which was played by Lewis on this 
 occasion. 
 
 At the end of the performance Horace Howard 
 Furness, being already on the stage, was the first to 
 reach us. He congratulated Ada Rehan, the Kath- 
 erine^ and me, the Petruchio. I do not see how he 
 could have heard any of the play even from his vantage 
 point in the first entrance, for he was so deaf that it 
 was necessary to shout into his ear trumpet. 
 
 Katherine was that night, and always remained, the 
 greatest part in Ada Rehan's long list of performances. 
 Petruchio was to me the most grateful role that I have 
 played. It has everything that the player of high 
 comedy can desire: telling speeches and effective situa- 
 tions ; in fact, everything that makes for and makes up 
 a great part. Since Petruchio is a great Shakespearian 
 character, it may be imagined how gratifying it was 
 to be told by everyone whose opinion and judgment I
 
 Photo, by Saroni/. 
 
 ADA REHAN AS KATHERINE
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 91 
 
 regarded that I had come out of the effort successfully. 
 
 The Taming of the Shrew was really a novelty in 
 1887. A short version of the play known as Katherine 
 and Petruchio had been played by a number of trage- 
 dians when they wanted a rest. This garbled version, 
 which consisted mainly of the horse-play scenes in 
 which Fetruchio brandishes his whip and the leg of 
 mutton about the stage, had been played by Edwin 
 Booth. It was this version that Clara Morris and 
 Louis James had played ; in fact, for stage use the play 
 had come to be known as Katherine and Petruchio. 
 The Daly production went back to the play as written 
 and The Induction was restored. Presumably, the 
 characters in The Induction were then played for the 
 first time in America. 
 
 Christopher Sly, a drunken tinker, is observed by a 
 lord and his servants as they are coming from a hunt. 
 Sly has been thrown out of an alehouse. It occurs to 
 the lord to dress this fellow up and when he comes 
 round to serve him with all ceremonies and make him 
 believe that he is a great lord. The real lord has his 
 page, a part very well played by the youthful Willie 
 Collier, dress up as a woman and pretend to be the wife 
 of Sly. When everything is ready the real lord, 
 dressed as a servant, comes to him and says :
 
 92 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Your honor's players, hearing your amendment, 
 Are come to play a pleasant comedy: 
 For so your doctors hold it very meet. 
 Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood, 
 And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy ; 
 Therefore, they thought it good you hear a play 
 And frame your mind to mirth and merriment, 
 Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life. 
 
 Sly answers : "Marry, I will ; let them play it." 
 By this time they have made Sly believe that he is 
 really a lord. He and the page, dressed as his lady, 
 sit at the side of the stage down left, and then the play 
 begins. They are removed after the first act and they 
 do not appear again, but the whole action of the play 
 is supposed to be before this tinker and his lady. 
 
 After the one-hundredth performance of The Tam- 
 ing of The Shrew there was a supper on the stage of 
 the theatre. Of this the New York Herald recorded: 
 
 Mr. Augustin Daly's supper, given to his com- 
 pany and a few invited guests on the stage of his 
 theatre yesterday morning, was a remarkable 
 event in several ways. It commemorated the one- 
 hundredth night of a Shakespearian revival of 
 more than usual splendor and it brought together 
 many remarkable men. 
 
 The company sat down at one-half past twelve 
 and rose at five in the morning. A great circular 
 table occupied the entire stage. Its center was a 
 mass of tulips and roses. Around its outer edge 
 sat forty participants. Think of a supper at
 
 ./^p"^' 
 
 
 % 
 
 From Tluutrc Collection, Harvard Viiircrtiiti/. 
 
 AN EARLY PICTURE OF MAURICE BARRYMORE
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 93 
 
 which General Sherman acted as toastmaster, at 
 which Horace Porter made an unusually clever 
 speech, Mark Twain told a story, Bronson How- 
 ard and Wilson Barrett spoke, at which Miss Ada 
 Rehan made a neat and charming response when 
 her name was called, at which the ever young 
 Lester Wallack commended in the heartiest 
 way the brother manager whose guest he was, at 
 which Willie Winter read a poem of home manu- 
 facture. Imagine all this and add to it countless 
 witty stories that were told around the board, 
 think of the wine glasses that clicked, think of the 
 champagne that bubbled, think of the pretty 
 women, think of the weird surroundings (the 
 dark cave-like auditorium and the brilliantly 
 lighted stage). 
 
 The Taming of the Shrew was the most successful 
 but not the first of the Shakespearian plays to be pro- 
 duced during my days at Daly's. On October 14, 
 1886, we had performed The Merry Wives of Wind- 
 sor with this cast : 
 
 Sir John Falstaff Charles Fisher 
 
 . Master Slender James Lewis 
 
 Sir Hugh Evans Charles Leclercq 
 
 Doctor Caius William Gilbert 
 Host of the Garter Inn Frederick Bond 
 
 Mistress Page Virginia Dreher 
 
 Mistress Quickly Mrs. G. H. Gilbert 
 
 Fenton E. Hamilton-Bell 
 
 Master Shallow John Moore 
 
 Francis Ford John Drew 
 
 George Page Otis Skinner
 
 94 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Ancient Pistol Geo. Parkes 
 
 Corporal Nym John Wood 
 
 Bardolph H. Roberts 
 
 Robin Bijou Fernandez 
 
 Simple William Collier 
 
 Rugby E. P. Wilkes 
 
 Mistress Ford Ada Rehan 
 
 Anne Page Edith Kingdon 
 
 This revival was not especially successful, and it 
 had a run of only thirty-five performances. Nor did 
 the members of the company shine in this, except per- 
 haps Otis Skinner, who had recently joined the com- 
 pany. He had been playing Shakespeare with Law- 
 rence Barrett and his Page was a sound performance. 
 
 Our third Shakespearian performance was A Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream which was produced early in 
 1888. Lewis was Bottom, Otis Skinner was Lysander. 
 I was Demetrius. Joseph Holland was Theseus, Bijou 
 Fernandez was Fuck, Ada Rehan was Helena, Virginia 
 Dreher was Hermia and EfRe Shannon was Titania. 
 
 Appropriately enough, we were playing A Midsum- 
 mer Nighfs Dream on that Monday night in March, 
 1888, when the great blizzard occurred. There were 
 more people on the stage than there were in the audi- 
 ence. The house was sold out for some performances 
 to come and Daly would not postpone the performance. 
 I walked to the theatre under the Sixth Avenue Ele-
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 99 
 
 vated tracks and arrived with little inconvenience. 
 Ada Rehan had gone to South Brooklyn to visit her 
 mother and had great trouble in getting to the theatre. 
 The carriage that Daly sent for her earlier in the day 
 managed to get back with her, but it was a long, diffi- 
 cult drive. As I remember, only Leclercq and one 
 other member of the cast failed to appear. They had 
 gone out of town for Sunday. 
 
 The production of A Midsummer Night's Dream 
 was elaborate, but not so elaborate as the Shakespearian 
 productions of Henry Irving. Moreover, it showed 
 one of the limitations of the Daly Theatre, and that, 
 that a desire for novelty sometimes led the manager 
 astray. Henry Irving and many others called attention 
 to the extraordinary and fussy confusion of the stag* 
 ing. At the end of one of the acts there was a great 
 panorama which moved across the back of the stage 
 to suggest the moving of the barge of Theseus. At the 
 very end profile figures on wings or side pieces were 
 pushed onto the stage; painted people were waving 
 things and these canvas people did not jibe with the 
 real people on the stage. Irving thought it worse than 
 stupid. 
 
 In the revival of As You Like It Ada Rehan was 
 Rosalind^ Henrietta Crosman, Celia, Isabel Irving, 
 Audrey^ James Lewis was Touchstone, George Clark,
 
 96 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Jaques^ Hobart Bosworth, Charles^ and I was Orlando. 
 This was the first appearance of Henrietta Crosman at 
 Daly's Theatre. I had played in a scene from As You 
 Like It once before and that was at a benefit for Fanny 
 Davenport at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. On that oc- 
 casion I played Jaques de Bois, the second son of old 
 Sir Rowland de Bois. This is a small part and the 
 character only comes on at the end of the play. In that 
 performance Lawrence Barrett was the Jaques. After- 
 wards he came over and talked to me. I had never 
 met him. He had known my father, and he knew my 
 mother. 
 
 The following spring we played As You Like It on 
 the lawn of the Farwell estate at Lake Forest, near 
 Chicago. It had been raining for many days and the 
 ground was so damp that it was necessary for the 
 women to wear rubbers. It was of course a daylight 
 performance, and we did not know how to make up; 
 that is, adapt our regular make-up for daylight. We 
 appealed to William Gilbert, who had once been with 
 a circus, but as he had been a clown his ideas of make- 
 up were not very helpful to those of us who were sup- 
 posed to be living in the Forest of Arden. 
 
 George Clarke suggested that we use some stuff 
 called bolarmenia. This is a brownish make-up that is 
 used for Indian characters, and he thought that a little
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard Unlrersity. 
 
 ADA REHAN AS ROSALIND^ JOHN DREW AS ORLANDO, IN AS YOU LIKE IT
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 97 
 
 of this on our cheeks would give us the healthy appear- 
 ance of people who live in the open air. He imparted 
 this information with so much assurance that we 
 thought he must know what he was talking about. I 
 went on with this stuff on my face. My appearance 
 in the mirror was not too reassuring, but I fancied that 
 the distance of the spectators from the stage in this 
 beautiful amphitheatre would take care of things and 
 offset to some degree, at least, the strange-looking 
 image that I saw in my mirror. 
 
 In the scene where they try to dissuade Orlando 
 from wrestling with the great fellow Charles^ Celia has 
 a speech: 
 
 Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for 
 your years. You have seen cruel proof of this 
 man's strength; if you saw yourself with your 
 eyes or knew yourself with your judgment, the 
 fear of your adventure would counsel you to a 
 more equal enterprise. We pray you, for your 
 own sake, to embrace your own safety and give 
 over this attempt. 
 
 During this speech Ada Rehan looked at me for the 
 
 first time, and apparently she had never seen anything 
 
 so funny; and she laughed so much that she was 
 
 scarcely able to give the speech of Rosalind: 
 
 Do, young sir; your reputation shall not there- 
 fore be misprised; we will make it our suit to the 
 duke that the wrestling might not go forward.
 
 98 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 "You looked like an effeminate Indian," she told me 
 afterwards. 
 
 My long-haired wig added to this impression. We 
 found out later that George Clarke had just tried out 
 an experiment on us and that he had not played under 
 similar conditions before. 
 
 In the wrestling scene upon this occasion Hobart 
 Bosworth, who was the Charles — the giant that Or- 
 lando throws — did not take the ordinary precautions 
 that we took in this scene upon the stage. He thought 
 that the soft, damp ground would protect him. When 
 he was thrown he landed on the point of his shoulder, 
 and it was so painful that he uttered a ringing oath. 
 Fortunately, the distances were so great that he was 
 heard only by the actors. Altogether our open-air 
 performance was not a happy one. 
 
 There was an all-star performance of the same play 
 — As You Like It — for some charity given on the 
 property of Agnes Booth at Manchester on the Massa- 
 chusetts coast one summer. Crane, Robson, Frank 
 Mayo, Rose Coghlan and many other famous people 
 were in the cast. Mayo, who was a great popular 
 favorite, was the Jaques. He had some very long 
 waits and as it was a very warm day, he had walked 
 over to the hotel for a cooling glass. In the midst of
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 99 
 
 a conversation with a friend, he was interrupted by a 
 call boy. Jaques was wanted. It was his great en- 
 trance into the Forest of Arden. It was time for the 
 speech, "The Seven Ages of Man." Thinking to save 
 time, he took a short cut, which led over some fences. 
 As he got near where the stage was he began reciting 
 his speech to give the impression that he really wasn't 
 late but was on the job all the time. This is an old 
 dodge, often resorted to in the theatre, but Mayo had 
 not calculated his distances very closely and when he 
 arrived on the scene, panting and breathless, his speech, 
 "The Seven Ages of Man," was all gone. 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost was the last of the Shake- 
 spearian revivals that I played in at Daly's. After I 
 had left, Ada Rehan played both Viola and Portia^ 
 but Katherine was always her great character. 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost had been produced by Daly at 
 The Fifth Avenue Theatre in 1874 and at that time, 
 which must have been one of the first productions of 
 this play in New York, Ada Dyas, Fanny Davenport, 
 Davidge, Harkins, Fisher, Louis James and Hart 
 Conway .appeared. 
 
 Though his first production of this little acted play 
 was not a success Daly decided to revive it in March, 
 1891, with this cast:
 
 loo MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 The King of Navarre 
 
 longaville 
 
 Don Adrian© de Armado 
 
 Sir Nathaniel 
 
 Holofernes 
 
 The Princess of France 
 
 Jacquenetta 
 
 BiRON 
 
 Boyet 
 
 Mercade 
 
 Dull 
 
 Costard 
 
 Rosaline 
 
 Maria 
 
 Moth 
 
 Katherine 
 
 John Drew 
 Hobart Bosworth 
 Sidney Herbert 
 Charles Leclercq 
 Harry Edwards 
 Ada Rehan 
 Kitty Cheatham 
 Geo. Clarke 
 Charles Wheatleigh 
 Wilfred Buckland 
 William Sampson 
 James Lewis 
 Edith Crane 
 Adelaide Prince 
 Flossie Ethel 
 Isabel Irving 
 
 Willie Collier, who made his first appearance on the 
 stage in Shakespeare, as the page in The Induction of 
 The Taming of the Shrew, came into the theatre as 
 a call boy. Even as a boy he had an extraordinary 
 manner of saying perfectly absurd and ridiculous 
 things with the utmost seriousness. Lewis, a comedian 
 himself, took the greatest delight in Collier and en- 
 couraged him greatly. Collier was an excellent mimic, 
 and his imitation of Daly was uncanny. 
 
 One day Collier was talking to Lewis and myself in 
 a dressing room and imitating Daly. John Moore, the 
 stage manager, was looking for Daly to consult him 
 about something upon which an immediate decision
 
 Photo, hij Saroni/. 
 
 JOHN DREW AS THE KING OF NAVARRE IN "LOVE'S LABOUR S LOST' 
 
 **_ ^ _ *^
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE loi 
 
 was required. He heard Daly talking in our dressing 
 room. He stood aghast outside the door, for the things 
 that the supposed Daly was saying were unlike any- 
 thing that Daly could possibly have said. The matter 
 was urgent, and he had to interrupt. When he knocked 
 and entered and found that Daly really wasn't there 
 he was so dazed that he left the room without a word. 
 
 We never heard further from the incident, but we 
 impressed upon Collier that he must keep his imitations 
 of Daly for our ears alone. Lewis enjoyed them so 
 much that he was loath to give them up altogether. 
 
 We were all very sorry when Willie Collier left the 
 company. I was especially so, because it broke up our 
 baseball club. He was a capital pitcher and an ex- 
 tremely good organizer. We had no catcher and 
 usually recruited someone from the property room of 
 the theatre we were playing to fill that position. Some- 
 times a scene shifter received Collier's delivery. Steve 
 Murphy, who later, as Steve Grattan, played a number 
 of parts at the old Lyceum, was really a good first base- 
 man. Otis Skinner played second and I played short. 
 Joe Holland was at third. In right field was Wood, 
 a son of Mrs. John Wood, that splendid comedienne 
 and a great favorite of the London stage. Frederick 
 Bond was in left field and Thomas Patten, ex-Post- 
 master of New York, played center. We had great
 
 102 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 fun, and it kept us all in splendid physical shape. 
 When we had no games to play we practiced every 
 morning. We played on tour with local teams. In 
 Chicago, on one trip, we had two fine games — one with 
 the team of the Union Club and the other with a team 
 representing the Board of Trade.
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 OF the light comedies produced at Daly's perhaps 
 the most successful was A Night Off. It was 
 typical of the long line of plays. Daly made this from 
 the German of Franz and Paul Von Schonthan. The 
 original of the play was called Der Raub der Sabin- 
 erinnen. We did this play later in London and in 
 Germany. In New York it was produced early in 
 March and ran through the rest of the season. It was 
 revived many times and always seemed uproariously 
 funny. As a play it was the cleverest and the most 
 interesting adaptation that Daly made from the 
 German. 
 
 In this play a fly-by-night manager produces a play 
 written by an old professor. James Lewis was Profes- 
 sor Babbitt^ and Leclercq was the theatrical manager. 
 The whole action centers around this play. Miss 
 Rehan had the ingenue part of Nisbe; Mrs. Gilbert 
 played the wife of the professor. I played Jack Mul- 
 berry^ a younger son of an important English family. 
 As he could not act he had drifted into this bad 
 
 theatrical company. Otis Skinner was Damask and 
 
 103
 
 104 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 May Irwin was Susan, a soubrette. Daly had seen 
 May Irwin at Tony Pastor's. As ever in his career, he 
 liked to find his own people. What went on in other 
 theatres he considered trivial and always of secondary 
 importance to Daly's. He found May Irwin and she 
 joined the company to play this part of Susan. She 
 was an extraordinary hit and very funny in a type of 
 soubrette role which has almost disappeared from the 
 stage. 
 
 On the last night of A Night Off a rhymed tag or 
 epilogue, written by Edgar Fawcett, the author of Our 
 First Families, which had first served to bring together 
 the four players who were most closely associated with 
 Daly's during the eighties, was read by the actors, each 
 one having a couplet. This ended with some sort of 
 an introduction of Augustin Daly. The manager 
 would then come on and make a speech of acknowl- 
 edgment for the season which had just passed. This 
 always happened at the end of the season, and Daly 
 never appeared on the first night of a new production 
 or the first night of a season. 
 
 Sometimes Fawcett varied this epilogue and one or 
 two of the players would have something a little longer 
 than a distich to recite. On one occasion, to make a 
 rhyme or a quantity correct Fawcett referred to Daly 
 as "the colonel." Daly objected to the rank thus con-
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE lo^ 
 
 f erred upon him, and Fawcett changed the lines so that 
 he should be called "the governor." From that time 
 on we — that is, those of us who were close to the man- 
 ager — always called Daly, "governor." 
 
 It would be difficult to imagine a company in which 
 there was greater accord than there was at Daly's. 
 Everything was so fine, and the associations were so 
 pleasant. No one took offense if the morning greeting 
 was not as friendly as it should have been; for we were, 
 in a sense, like a family. Once, playing cricket in 
 Chicago, I hurt my foot very badly. I spent an eve- 
 ning of torture on the stage trying to disguise my hurt. 
 Mrs. Gilbert and Miss Rehan were devoted in their 
 attention during the next few days. Both in and out 
 of the theatre each had consideration for the others. 
 Our relations were more than cordial ; they were affec- 
 tionate. We were interested — that is, the so-called Big 
 Four ; we had an interest in the theatre. We were not 
 partners but every year we received a bonus or a pres- 
 ent. I have a gold cigarette case which Daly gave me 
 one year at the end of the season. Inside was a check 
 which represented my share of the profits. This semi- 
 partnership gave us a feeling of responsibility, though 
 I am unwilling to think that the knowledge of that 
 bettered our performance. 
 
 By the middle eighties first nights at Daly's had
 
 io6 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 come to be important affairs. As performances they 
 were in no way different from any other performance. 
 Rehearsals were so constant that first nights were as 
 smooth as later ones. But the audiences were very 
 fine and made up of brilliant and prominent people. 
 General Sherman, General Horace Porter, Mark 
 Twain, H. C. Bunner, George William Curtis, Charles 
 Dudley Warner, Frank R. Stockton, Edmund Clarence 
 Stedman, Stanford White, F. D. Millet, Edwin A. 
 Abbey and many others became very closely interested 
 in what went on at Daly's, and they usually tried to 
 be present at the first night of a new play or the revival 
 of an old one. 
 
 Mark Twain once wrote the theatre asking that 
 tickets be reserved for him for the first night of a 
 revival. He ended his letter: "I have written wonder- 
 ful books, which have revolutionized politics and re- 
 ligion in the world; and you might think that this is 
 why my children hold my person to be sacred; but it 
 isn't so; it is because I know Miss Rehan and Mr. 
 Drew personally." 
 
 Many critics thought that our best light comedy was 
 Nancy and Company. It was a clever adaptation of 
 Rosen's Halbedichte^ with the scenes and characters 
 transferred to New York. Ada Rehan and I played 
 familiar characters opposite each other.
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard Univcrsitij. 
 
 otis skinner, edith kingdon, and john drew in 
 "nancy and company"
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 107 
 
 In Love on Crutches I was Sidney Austin^ the anony- 
 mous writer of a sentimental novel and Ada Rehan was 
 Annie Austin^ my wife, who is dissatisfied with her 
 home and yearns for a freer existence. She has entered 
 into a correspondence with an author. She does not 
 use her real name. Thus, these two young people who 
 believe themselves unhappily married, conduct a secret 
 correspondence with each other in the belief that they 
 have found their affinities. The happy ending is 
 always in sight. This play, though of little substance, 
 was well acted, and it introduced to Daly audiences 
 Edith Kingdon, the late Mrs. George Gould. As 
 Margery Gwyn, she gave a spirited and beautiful 
 comedy performance. 
 
 The Railroad of Love, taken from Goldfische by 
 Rosen, was a light comedy which may not have been 
 an exact picture of American society, but it was re- 
 ceived with enthusiasm and held the stage for some 
 months. Miss Rehan was Val Osprey and I was Lieu- 
 tenant Howell Everett. Her part was that of a widow 
 experienced in coquetry. The lieutenant was expert 
 in the subtle arts of the lady-killer. 
 
 Edward A. Dithmar writing at the time described 
 the action of this play as follows: 
 
 They had met briefly before, but the gentleman 
 did not immediately recognize the lady when they
 
 io8 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 were introduced at Mrs. Van Ryker's ball. She 
 remembered vividly, however, and could not sup- 
 press her smiles when she recalled him in the act 
 of captivating two simple little frauleins in a 
 German railway carriage. They flirted, of course. 
 He employed all his arts, but she outwitted him. 
 Then chance or Cupid favored him and she was 
 defeated. It was, at first, a merry war of wit and 
 mock sentiment, but before two days had passed 
 they were desperately in love. Then, before they 
 fully understood each other, that venomous rep- 
 tile. Jealousy, had crept across their flower-strewn 
 path, and when it had slinked out of sight again 
 the woman had written a letter that had to be 
 recalled before he knew of its existence and she 
 was at her wit's end to accomplish this purpose. 
 There was a scene, then, full of passion and emo- 
 tion, which lifted the comedy far above the level 
 of frivolous entertainment. The picture of Drew 
 and Miss Rehan exchanging soft words from 
 either side of a half-open boudoir door remains 
 vividly in the memory of folks who saw The Rail- 
 road of Love, when it was a new play. The scene, 
 too, in which Drew, as the blind slave of Love, 
 sat obediently and patiently bending over an em- 
 broidery frame and bungling the stitches, "one, 
 two, three, four, cross," was novel and taking. 
 
 This play was typical of a long line of plays. And 
 the description of the action of The Railroad of Love, 
 might almost be substituted for the synopsis of a num- 
 ber of others. The acting and the direction of the 
 stage made these plays. The success of the Daly
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 109 
 
 Company was due to these two things rather than to 
 the plays. 
 
 But all the adaptations from the German were not so 
 successful as Needles and Pins, A Night Off, Nancy 
 and Company, The Railroad of Love, and Love on 
 Crutches. The Passing Regiment was well played, 
 but the effort to transplant a typically German mili- 
 tary story to American soil was not very happy. The 
 visit of a crack militia regiment to a fashionable sum- 
 mer resort was scarcely an equivalent for the quarter- 
 ing of professional soldiers upon the residents of a 
 town by government order. Some of the happenings 
 were as foreign to American soil as anything could be. 
 
 Dollars and Sense, After Business Hours, Love in 
 Harness, An International Match, and The Great 
 Unknown were all from the German and maintained 
 a fair standard, even if they were not extraordinary 
 successes. 
 
 We did, for the first time in America, a number of 
 Pinero's plays: The Squire, Dandy Dick, Lords and 
 Commons — a failure, The Cabinet Minister and The 
 Magistrate. The Squire resembled Hardy's story, 
 *Tar From the Madding Crowd." There was a law- 
 suit over this in England. Pinero insisted that the 
 story had been told him, and that he had not read the 
 Hardy book. Comyns Carr made a dramatization of
 
 no MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Hardy's story and this was done in England and at the 
 Union Square Theatre in New York, where Frederick 
 de Belleville played the leading part. Daly was in 
 no wise involved in this suit. In our version Ada 
 Rehan was Kate Verity and I her impetuous lover, 
 Lieutenant Erick Thorndike. 
 
 In Dandy Dick I played the caricature role of Major 
 Tarver. This play was not a real success, nor was The 
 Cabinet Minister. When Ada Rehan heard and read 
 the part that was assigned to her in the latter, she re- 
 fused to play it. She insisted, and with a great deal 
 of justification, that the leading woman's role offered 
 her no opportunities. Isabel Irving played it instead. 
 
 When we played The Magistrate^ Pinero came over 
 to superintend the production. Daly wanted to put 
 Ada Rehan into the part of Cis Farringdon, the boy 
 whose mother will not allow him to grow up, as this 
 will fix her own age. Daly thought that because Ada 
 Rehan had made a success as a boy in some of the old 
 comedies she could do this modern boy. Pinero would 
 not have it. He threatened to take his play away from 
 Daly if the latter were to persist in this casting. 
 
 Pinero, himself, brought over from London E. Ham- 
 ilton-Bell to play the boy and he was very good in the 
 part. Bell later designed the costumes for The^ Tarri'
 
 Photo, hi/ !<<(roiiy. 
 
 JOHN DREW AND ADA REHAN IN THE SQUIRE, BY 
 ARTHUR WING PINERO
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE in 
 
 ing of The Shrew. Ada Rehan played Mrs. Posket, 
 the mother of the boy Daly wanted her to play. 
 
 The American production of The Magistrate was 
 not altogether a happy time for Pinero. He did not 
 like the idea of my playing Colonel Lukyn^ nor was I 
 too happy at the prospect of playing the part. The 
 colonel is a choleric, Anglo-Indian officer. John Clay- 
 ton had played the character in London, and he was at 
 that time just what the part called for — a big, stout, 
 explosive man. For the first time at Daly's I played 
 an old man. I had to pad, to puff out my cheeks, wear 
 side whiskers and sparse white hair. 
 
 When I came to where Daly and Pinero were stand- 
 ing on the stage at the dress rehearsal I waited for 
 Daly to offer some criticism of my make-up, but he 
 merely nodded and walked away. 
 
 "Do you think the governor is displeased with my 
 appearance*?" I asked Pinero. 
 
 The author was amused at Daly's attitude; he 
 chuckled a minute and then said: "He merely thinks 
 that in acquiring a stout old man he has lost a slim 
 leading man." 
 
 On the opening night Pinero was not in the theatre. 
 He walked around New York until the play was nearly 
 over. He should have been there to respond to a cur-
 
 112 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 tain call at the end of the second act. As he had been 
 nervous about the whole production, he had absented 
 himself and thought that if there would be any dem- 
 onstration for the author it would be at the end of the 
 play, as is the case in London. When he got to the 
 theatre and saw the people filing out silently he 
 thought the play was a failure. 
 
 He came behind the scenes and shook his head ; "It 
 didn't go, I suppose*?" 
 
 We told him that it was a big success and that the 
 play had gone very well. There had been a call for 
 him. We explained that there seldom is any great 
 amount of applause at the end of a play in New 
 York. If a speech is called for from the author it is 
 almost always at the end of the second or third act, as 
 the people here always seem to be in so great a hurry 
 to get out of the building at the end of the play. 
 
 The cast for The Magistrate was : 
 
 Mr. Posket James Lewis 
 
 Mr. Bullamy Charles Fisher 
 
 Col. LuKYN John Drew 
 
 Captain Vale Otis Skinner 
 
 Cis Farringdon E. Hamilton-Bell 
 
 AcHiLLE Blond Frederick Bond 
 
 Inspector Messiter Augustus Yorke 
 
 Agatha Posket Ada Rehan 
 
 Charlotte Virginia Dreher 
 
 Beatie Tomlinson Edith Kingdon 
 
 PoPHAM May Irwin
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 113 
 
 A. M. Palmer, produced a great many plays from 
 the French. Daly in my time in his theatre, found 
 little inspiration in the French authors. We did do 
 Sardou's Odette, which was rather grim and somber. 
 It scarcely seemed to fit the Daly repertoire. It was 
 interesting only in that it gave Ada Rehan a chance to 
 do, with great success, an emotional role. We also did 
 Sardou's Golden Widow, which was called Marquise 
 in the original. 
 
 I played Adolphus Doubledot in The Lottery of 
 Love. This play was an adaptation from the French 
 of MM. Bisson, and Mars. Coquelin played it in this 
 country in French with the original title: Les Sur- 
 prises du Divorce. Before his season opened he came 
 to Daly's and saw our version. He congratulated Ada 
 Rehan upon her acting in what was a rather minor 
 role, but he said nothing at all to me and I gathered 
 he did not altogether approve of my performance. A 
 short time afterwards he was playing the original play 
 across the street at Palmer's Theatre. 
 
 Augustin Daly was fond of the old comedies, and he 
 spent a great deal of time, patience and rehearsal upon 
 these plays. They were not always successful, for the 
 spirit had, in a number of cases, fled long before these 
 revivals. It was quite impossible to breathe life into 
 Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer. When Daly did 
 this in February of 1885 it had not been given in New
 
 114 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 York for forty-two years. The previous performance 
 was at the old Park Theatre in Park Row. In this 
 production my mother acted Silvia^ the part played at 
 Daly's by Ada Rehan. 
 
 This play is important in the history of New York, 
 for, according to Allston Brown in "A History of 
 the New York Stage," The Recruiting Officer was one 
 of the first plays to be given in New York. It was 
 performed as early as 1734, and it had an important 
 production at the first Nassau Street Theatre, Septem- 
 ber 30, 1750. This was the opening of the season. 
 
 Our production was given February 7, 1885, with 
 the parts distributed as follows : 
 
 Captain Plume John Drew 
 
 Capt. Brazen George Parkes 
 
 Justice Ballance Charles Fisher 
 
 Sergeant Kite James Lewis 
 
 Worthy Otis Skinner 
 
 Bullock William Gilbert 
 
 Appletree Frederick Bond 
 
 Pearman Edward Wilks 
 
 Stewart W. H. Beekman 
 
 Mistress Melinda Virginia Dreher 
 
 Rose May Fielding 
 
 Lucy May Irwin 
 
 Sylvia Ada Rehan 
 
 The revival lasted only about two weeks and then 
 She Would and She Would Not was revived. Colley
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard Unirersiti/. 
 
 ADA REHAN AND JOHN DREW IN FARQUHAr's "tHE RECRUITING OFFICER*
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 115 
 
 Cibber had written this play in imitation of the Span- 
 ish comedy of intrigue. As was the case with The 
 Recruiting Officer, this play had to be shortened and 
 edited for use at Daly's. The role of Hypolita, which 
 was played by Miss Rehan, and that of Don Phillip, 
 which fell to me, were artificial and by no means easy 
 to perform. Both of these performances gained in 
 later years by repetition. 
 
 The Country Girl, which was Garrick's adaptation 
 of Wycherly's The Country Wife, was still further 
 altered so as to include scenes from Congreve's Love 
 for Love. In this Ada Rehan was Peggy Thrift, and 
 I played the leading juvenile, Belleville. Ada Rehan's 
 Peggy was a matchless portrayal. Her success in this 
 was so great that she kept the play in her repertoire 
 for many years. 
 
 Of course one of the finest of the old comedy pro- 
 ductions was The School for Scandal. This time Daly 
 did not make the mistake that he had made at the Fifth 
 Avenue Theatre. Then he so rearranged Sheridan's 
 comedy as to destroy the continuity of the scenes. In 
 his second production the text was altered, but not to 
 so great an extent. He did, however, change the card 
 party at Lady SneerwelVs to a dance. I had never 
 played the part of Charles Surface before, except 
 in the screen scene which had been done at a benefit
 
 ii6 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 performance at the Academy of Music in Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 The second Daly revival of The School for Scandal 
 was a great success and the cast was: 
 
 Sir Peter Teazle Charles Wheatleigh 
 
 Sir Oliver Surface Harry Edwards 
 
 Sir Benj. Backbite Sidney Herbert 
 
 Sir Harry Bumper James Macauley 
 
 Mrs. Candour Mrs. G. H. Gilbert 
 
 Lady Sneerwell Adelaide Prmce 
 
 Lady Teazle Ada Rehan 
 
 Joseph Surface George Clarke 
 
 Charles Surface John Drew 
 
 Crabtree Charles Leclercq 
 
 Careless H. Bosworth 
 
 MosES James Lewis 
 
 Rowley John Moore 
 
 Trip Frederick Bond 
 
 Snake Sidney Bowkett 
 
 Maria Edith Crane 
 
 John Ranken Towse, in his "Sixty Years of the 
 Theatre," has been so gracious as to record: "As 
 Charles Surface John Drew gave one of the most ar- 
 tistic performances of his career. His impersonation 
 was second only to that of Charles Coghlan. Espe- 
 cially was it praiseworthy for its artistic restraint in 
 the drinking scene. He was perhaps a trifle too cool, 
 insufficiently mercurial for the reckless company he 
 affected, but he evidently remembered that Charles^
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 117 
 
 with all his follies, was a decent fellow at bottom and 
 not wholly unworthy of the eulogies of his old friend 
 Rowley. His manner was elegant, and he spoke his 
 lines without exaggerated emphasis, but with a full ap- 
 preciation of their humor." 
 
 In all these productions of old comedy I had one 
 very great advantage which the other members of the 
 cast did not have. During the rehearsals of one of 
 these plays I always talked over both the play and the 
 part I was to play with my mother. She knew how 
 the characters were to be built up, and their traditions, 
 and she knew the stage business which had been tried 
 and found successful.
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 Wilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays 
 And twenty caged nightingales do sing. 
 
 THESE words, which were accompanied by a 
 chorus of voices off stage, were my general cue 
 for getting ready — that is, putting on my wig and the 
 final touches of my make-up, before going on to the 
 stage as Petruchio in the play proper of The Taming of 
 the Shrew. This speech from The Induction is in the 
 scene in which the real lord, dressed as a servant, is 
 trying to convince Sly that he, one Christopher Sly, is 
 really not a tinker, but a lord. 
 
 On a night in August of 1888, when I heard these 
 lines, I was leaning out of a window of a turretlike 
 dressing room in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre 
 at Stratford-on-Avon. It was in the long, English 
 summer twilight and an eight came into sight on the 
 river. As the music which had always been my cue 
 sounded, the coxswain gave the order to cease rowing, 
 and the eight floated past the theatre. The rowers were 
 
 appreciative listeners to the chorus. They did not 
 
 118
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard Unirrrsitii. 
 
 JOHN DREW AS PETRUCHIO IN "tHE TAMING OF THE SHREw'
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 119 
 
 know that an American company was playing The 
 Taming of the Shrew in Shakespeare's home town. 
 
 Actually, the performance that night was no differ- 
 ent from the one we ordinarily gave, but I think it was 
 the most picturesque night I have ever spent in the 
 theatre. 
 
 The house bill announced that at The Memorial 
 Theatre, Friday, August 3, 1888, Mr. Augustin Daly's 
 company of American Comedians would give for the 
 benefit of the memorial library fund Shakespeare's com- 
 edy The Taming of the Shrew, as presented by them 
 for one hundred twenty-five nights in New York and 
 lately played with great success at The Gaiety Theatre, 
 London. The bill went on to add : "This comedy, as 
 presented by Mr. Daly's Company, will be performed 
 for the first time in Stratford-on-Avon, and the pro- 
 ceeds will be generously devoted to the Library Fund 
 of the Shakespeare Memorial." 
 
 Earlier that day we had gone to Stratford. We 
 were personally conducted by William Winter, who 
 was always at the Daly parties in New York or Lon- 
 don, and on special trips like this he invariably ac- 
 companied us. As he had written books about the 
 Shakespeare country, he was the acknowledged head of 
 the expedition and in front of the Shakespeare house he 
 made a speech. We were quite a crowd, for in addi-
 
 I 
 
 memorial mbeatre, @ttatfor5sonsja;von, 
 
 Friday Evening, August 8rd, 1888, 
 
 AT 7.30, 
 
 A UCUSTIN DALY'S COMPANY OF COMEJDUNS 
 
 m 8iiAK£iiI>EARE-S COMEDT, 
 
 W^e Warning of tl^$ ^l^vutw, 
 
 (Proimrwl for the occasion by AUQUSTIN DAI/T). 
 
 Characters in the "Induction." 
 
 * '""'' -" - - - Mr. Oeobob C1.A11KR 
 
 r|,ri«l<,|,).<,r Hly A dnutim Tinhr Mr. Wii.uam G.LBtET 
 
 A """'""'"' .„ Mr. Euo£XK Okiiom> 
 
 'Hi.. 1I.«I««. MIssLmiK St. QUEXT.X 
 
 ^ 'H"' - JitpracHtinj a ladf MbsUt W. Coujbr 
 
 """'«""" - Messrs. nKT-.M, MuBPiiY, ntid Finx»v 
 
 "">■"" lle8srs.BoKr)nn.lWoot. 
 
 Persons in the Comedy. 
 
 llftlifiHta ...._ A rich sfnlUmm cf Pndm Mr. CiUElM Fishkb 
 
 V"'<""1>" ^ An old gmlUnum of 1-ita _ Mr. Joun Moobe 
 
 liiiouiitio Son to Vinetntio, lacing Jlianca Mr. Otis 8ku»seb 
 
 rntriicio ... .„ A ffmlltm/ut of Veronn, tuilor to Kalhtritu.. Mr. Jou.f Dbbw 
 
 **"-■""" An old gmtteman I SuUori to ^ ...Mr. (Jm.vbles I-ECLsn<4 
 
 lIortonHio „ A young gentleman I liianca ] ... Mr. Joseph Hotuisn 
 
 A r»bmt ^.An oUfcUow, ut up to represent Fi^centio Mr. Joirv Wood 
 
 """•»'■> Sencing man to Petrueio Ma. James Lens 
 
 i'::'t"^' I S^rr^toLu^entio i Mr. R P. Woks 
 
 T™n'0 i { Mr. FftEDEaicK BoTO 
 
 Ouojdx, &«., hj lliantM CJompboU, Soars, Conron, Vislniro, FerrcU, Cooke, &o. 
 
 ^*1"'"««' TJu Shrew Miss Ada Eehax 
 
 "'""^ ^'r Ki,ter Miss Pikebb Ecssnx 
 
 A Widonr Who marrlet Ifortauia BIi«s AucB Hoon 
 
 '^«^'» 0/ rctrueio; hausekoU Mw. O. IL OlwicsT 
 
 ,31 
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 
 AUGUSTiN Daly's most famous production 
 
 120
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 121 
 
 tion to the entire cast for a big Shakespearian produc- 
 tion there were Daly, his wife and his brother ; William 
 Winter; an American playwright, Henry Dam; the 
 attendant stage people and all the London correspon- 
 dents of the American newspapers. 
 
 In front of the Shakespeare House, just as Winter 
 was making his speech, two natives were attracted to 
 this unusually large crowd, thinking that something 
 had happened, that someone had dropped dead or had 
 had a fit. They listened a minute to Winter. 
 
 "Aw, come on. Bill," said one of them; "it's the 
 same old game." 
 
 They had seen American tourists before, and on the 
 rest of our long walk to Anne Hathaway's cottage we 
 attracted little attention. 
 
 In the afternoon we rowed on the river. Daly, who 
 always stage-managed things, even to the seats the 
 minor people were to occupy on trains, arranged us in 
 boats. Otis Skinner and I rowed the boat in which 
 Daly and Mrs. Daly and Ada Rehan were seated. At 
 one point one of the other boats threatened us. As it 
 was part of Daly's scheme that he should be first, we 
 were urged to new effort and were soon in the lead. 
 
 During our stay in Stratford we stopped at the Red 
 Lion Inn. On the night of our arrival we dined at 
 Clopton Hall, the residence of Sir Arthur Hodgson,
 
 122 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 the mayor of Stratford. The Lord of The Induction of 
 The Taming of the Shrew is supposed to be the Baron 
 Clopton of Shakespeare's time, and the hall where the 
 play is supposed to be given before Christopher Sly, 
 the hall in which we were now entertained. The next 
 day we had luncheon at Avonbank, the residence of 
 Charles Flower,, and Robert Laffan, the headmaster of 
 the King Edward VI Grammar School, entertained us 
 at tea. 
 
 The attention that we received on this visit to Strat- 
 ford was very different from the reception that we got 
 on our unheralded first visit to London in the summer 
 of 1884. Then the social season was over, and we were 
 really too late to do well. We played in a little thea- 
 tre, Toole's, in King William Street, just off the 
 Strand. 
 
 Before our opening Jim Lewis and I went to see 
 Charles Wyndham and Mary Moore at the Criterion. 
 This graceful comedian, who had been a surgeon in the 
 American Civil War and was always a great favorite 
 in this country, was playing one of those delightfully 
 done English comedies that he and Mary Moore did for 
 so many years. 
 
 Lewis and I came away from this performance 
 gloomily. We did not think that our company could
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 123 
 
 succeed where people were accustomed to such work 
 as Wyndham and his associates were giving. We 
 opened in y—20—8^ one of our numerous plays from the 
 German. We were required in London to call this 
 play by its subtitle, Casting a Boomerang. Yorke 
 Stephens had copyrighted a play from the German 
 original and had used the title y—20-8. We did Dol- 
 lars and Sense, also a modern play; but our greatest 
 success was won with the old comedy, She Would and 
 She Would Not. After our London engagement we 
 returned to New York. The venture was not signally 
 successful, nor yet so discouraging as to prevent our 
 returning. 
 
 The second visit to London was in May, 1886. This 
 time the season was right. The company opened in 
 A Night Off. *'It was a greeting to dear old friends, 
 and in spirit at least there was a hearty shaking of 
 hands across the footlights, with Mr. Lewis and Mrs. 
 Gilbert, Mr. Drew and Miss Rehan, Mr. Skinner and 
 Miss Dreher and their clever companions," observed 
 The Era. The same paper also said: "Nowhere is 
 greater regard paid to the sex, and this, of course, is 
 reflected upon the stage. There women are placed on 
 a nearly equal status with men, in personal liberty, in 
 intellectual attainments; comedy is likely to flourish;
 
 124 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 and if the comedy of America has hardly as yet taken 
 the highest place, there is little doubt as to its ultimate 
 development, influence and power." 
 
 Of our performance in Nancy and Company, which 
 followed, the Saturday Review said: "There is not 
 now in London, an English company as well chosen, 
 as well trained, as brilliant in the abilities of its indi- 
 vidual members, or as well harmonized as a whole, as 
 the admirable company which Mr. Daly directs. They 
 suggest the Comedie Frangaise at its very best, when 
 it is not frozen stiff by its own chill dignity. Every 
 performance shows that they are controlled by a single 
 mind strong in the knowledge of its own aim and 
 ability." 
 
 Of course by this time we were very successful and 
 had acquired a tremendous following. We were talked 
 of and asked about a great deal. At a reception a 
 woman asked me: "Have you seen the Dalys^" 
 
 I said : "Oh, yes, I glanced over The Post and The 
 Telegraph" 
 
 "Oh, no," she protested, "I mean the Dalys." Then 
 she recognized me as one of the players. 
 
 Henry Labouchere, that great journalist and editor, 
 wrote in Truth: "When Daly first came to England, 
 the company was pronounced by our theatrical guides, 
 philosophers and friends as a complete failure. At
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 
 JOHN DREW, MRS. GILBERT, AND JAMES LEWIS, IN "7-20-8," THE FIRST 
 PLAY DONE BY AUGUSTIN DALy's COMPANY IN LONDON
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 125 
 
 present, although the company is the same and the 
 plays are the same, everything is declared to be perfec- 
 tion." 
 
 Royalty attended our performances, and one night, 
 when we were playing at the Gaiety Theatre, the Prince 
 of Wales, later Edward VII, asked Ada Rehan and my- 
 self to come into his box. With him was his wife, now 
 the dowager Queen Alexandra, and a young relation 
 of hers from Denmark. The Prince of Wales was 
 very affable, but he rather ignored Daly who ushered 
 us into the box. In the managerial department of the 
 London theatres everyone wore dirmer clothes. Daly 
 never dressed for the theatre. 
 
 The Prince of Wales asked us whether or not Shakes- 
 peare was popular in America. He had seen the ad- 
 vance billing that we were to do The Taming of the 
 Shrew. The play that night was Love on Crutches, 
 and he did not seem to care for it. This play never 
 did go so well in London as it had in New York. 
 
 When we got back to the stage some of the other 
 players crowded round us. They wanted to know 
 about our reception. 
 
 "Who was the other man in the box*?" asked Le- 
 clercq. 
 
 "He is one of the Princes of Denmark. The Prin- 
 cess of Wales is his aunt," I explained.
 
 126 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 "What's he doing over here?" 
 
 "I don't know. They did not let us in on the pur- 
 pose of his mission." 
 
 "I know what he's doing here," said Jim Lewis; 'lie 
 has come over here from Denmark to collect royalties 
 from Henry Irving for Hamlet"
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 ON our trip abroad in 1886, we went to Germany 
 and played in Hamburg and Berlin. This was 
 the first and only time that an entire American com- 
 pany visited Germany. This jaunt, which Daly under- 
 took as an advertisement of the company, was really 
 a greater success than might have been supposed. Of 
 course, in neither German city were they particularly 
 pleased with the adapted version of their own plays, 
 played by an English-speaking company. The writers 
 of these plays were extremely glad to see us, as they 
 had made a good thing out of the Daly adaptations 
 and, because of the higher royalties paid, they made 
 more money out of the American rights. 
 
 In Hamburg six plays were given: Love on 
 Crutches, A Night Off, Nancy and Company, A Wo- 
 man's Won't, The Country Girl and ^he Would and 
 She Would Not. For the two English plays. The 
 Country Girl and She Would and She Would Not full 
 arguments were printed in the program. It was taken 
 for granted that the German farces would be familiar, 
 
 and merely the title and author of the German plays 
 
 127
 
 128 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 were given. It so happened that Love on Crutches^ 
 that is to say, the German play from which it was 
 made, had never been given in Han;burg, and the audi- 
 ence was as much bewildered as if the play were to- 
 tally foreign. The performance started out with a 
 good deal of vivacity, but as scene after scene went by 
 without any appreciation or laughter the players nat- 
 urally became subdued and a little bewildered. 
 
 In Berlin we opened in A Night Off. This play had 
 been an enormous success when done in the original 
 and, while it was allowed that our performance was 
 smooth, the whole was declared to be lacking in distinc- 
 tion. The estimate of the players varied. One critic 
 wrote that Miss Rehan was a "good soubrette" and 
 another that "Miss Rehan, the darling of the company, 
 was ridiculous in tasteless gowns." The general opin- 
 ion seemed to be that Mrs. Gilbert was not funny. 
 Some critics thought Lewis too funny to be natural, 
 and others found his naturalness astonishing. Skin- 
 ner and I got off easily and were said to give value to 
 our dry humor. 
 
 The two old comedies. She Would and She Would 
 Not and The Country Girl, were highly praised, espe- 
 cially the acting. Nancy and Company met a better 
 fate than A Night Off in which we opened. The orig- 
 inal German of this had not been successful, and the
 
 Soimabend Abend, den 28. August 1886. 
 
 Letztes Gastspiel und zweite Aufiihrung 
 
 VOD 
 
 Herrn .^-u.grujs'tlis. Uaiy's 
 
 amoribanische Bearbeitnng des weltberQhmten Schwinks in 4 Aiifzilgen 
 
 ,J}er Baab der SabiQerinnen" von F. und 1*. v. Schuothiio, 
 
 ODter dem neuen Titol: 
 
 A IVig^ht Off. 
 
 PER80NEN: 
 
 Jrstifjom.Bahbiit,- Profcgaor- icr VorgBir^iiP- 10 der 
 
 CniveTsitSt m Camptown Mr. JAMES LEWIS 
 
 Harry Damask, dessen Scbwiegersohn Mr. OTIS SKINNER 
 
 Jack Mulberry, ein Gl&cksj^er, noter dem NamcD 
 
 „Chom]ey" Mr. JOHN DREW 
 
 Lord Mulberry, doMcn Valer Mr. WM. GILBERT 
 
 Marcos Bmtns Snap, Director einer Schauspielertroppe Mr. CHARLES LECLERCQ 
 
 Prowl, Tbarstehcr an der DniversiUt Mr. P. BOND 
 
 Mrs. Zantippa Babbitt, Frao Professorin, Vorstaod des 
 
 Hauswesens , . Mrs. 6. H. GILBERT 
 
 Angelica Damask, deron alteste Tochter . , . . . Miss VIRGINIA DREHER 
 
 Susan, Dienstmadchen bei dem Professor Miss MAY JRWIN 
 
 Maria, Dienstmagd bei Dr. Damask Miss MAY SYLVIE 
 
 Nisbe, der jftngste „Dnhold" dor Familie Miss ADA REHAN 
 
 Ort der Haodluag: Abwechselod bei dem P* fcssor nod in Dr. DamasVs Wobnap^. 
 
 Zeit: Gegftrfcart 
 
 AN AMERICAN COMPANY TAKES AN ENGLISH VERSION OF A 
 GERMAN PLAY BACK TO GERMANY 
 
 129
 
 130 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 critics were shocked to find that it was more humorous 
 in the adaptation than in the original. 
 
 Of the performance the Berliner Tagehlatt said: 
 "We see them on their strongest side, an exuberant hu- 
 mor which passes all bounds, and which our Germans 
 have not courage to attempt for fear of lapsing into 
 the coarse." 
 
 The English-speaking people all attended our per- 
 formances. 
 
 When we were in Berlin the King of Portugal was 
 visiting the old Kaiser, and I saw the whole royal fam- 
 ily. There was a great crowd on Unter den Linden, and 
 I asked a policeman what they were waiting for, and 
 he told me that the Kaiser was coming from Potsdam 
 and would be along shortly. The carriage came into 
 sight presently. Amid the acclaim of the crowd, the 
 German emperor touched his helmet in salute with 
 white gloved hand. In the next carriage were Freder- 
 ick Wilhelm, then the crown prince, and the King of 
 Portugal. In the third carriage was this last Kaiser, 
 now in exile. I was told that the old emperor lived in 
 the utmost simplicity, and that he had a camp bed in 
 his palace. 
 
 When we left London for Hamburg just three mem- 
 bers of our company could speak any German — Henry 
 Widmer, who was in charge of our orchestra, Otis Skin-
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 131 
 
 ner and myself. Widmer was a German-American, 
 Skinner knew some German, and I knew a little. One 
 other member of the company claimed to know some 
 German, but as he told Lewis that a sign on a car in 
 the station "Nicht Rauchen" (No Smoking) meant 
 "Night Riding" or a Pullman Car, we lost confidence 
 in his knowledge of the language. 
 
 In Hamburg we played at the Thalia Theater and 
 stayed at the Alster Hotel. One night after the thea- 
 tre we went to an open air garden. While we were 
 having our sandwiches and beer, a very eruptive, rest- 
 less child of about ten was tearing about between the 
 tables. 
 
 As I did not think that we should be overheard I 
 said to Lewis: "I didn't suppose they would have 
 such fresh kids over here." 
 
 The boy stopped and said to me : "I can speak Eng- 
 lish as good as you. I know you. You're James Lewis 
 and John Drew." He told us that he came from New 
 York and that his father, who was sitting at one of 
 the tables back of us, had told him that we were actors 
 in the Daly Company that was playing at the Thalia 
 Theater. 
 
 In Berlin we played at The Wallner Theater, which 
 was an important theatre, and mounted men were sta- 
 tioned in front of it as at the Opera in Paris. The
 
 132 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 whole theatre was extremely well ordered. Maids were 
 provided for the women, and dressers for the men. The 
 dressers, who were really tailor's helpers or bushelmen, 
 were very efficient. 
 
 The dresser who looked after me was so zealous in 
 the performance of his job that he followed me onto 
 the stage one night. In Love on Crutches there was a 
 scene in the last act in which Lewis and I stood at the 
 back of the stage, partly concealed from the audience. 
 Mrs. Gilbert and William Gilbert (he was no relation 
 whatever) were playing a scene that was full of laughs 
 before an American audience. 
 
 On this night before a German audience it was going 
 very badly. Lewis whispered to me: *T11 bet you 
 that Grandma gets the first laugh." 
 
 Before I could answer him I got the first laugh, for 
 just then my dresser, who had followed me down from 
 the dressing room, pulled up my coat at the neck. He 
 had not been quite satisfied with the way the coat set 
 and righted it in full view of the audience. 
 
 After the performance we went to a garden where 
 we could get something to eat and listen to some music. 
 Jim Lewis and Mrs. Lewis, May Irwin, Otis Skinner 
 and I sat there under the trees for some time. When 
 it came time to pay our checks, Lewis insisted that he 
 would pay. He suddenly discovered that he had no
 
 From Theatre Collection, Earva/rd Umversitji. 
 EDITH KINGDON (gOULd) AS SHE APPEARED WITH THE DALY COMPANY
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 133 
 
 money. He had taken the precaution to change his 
 money to his stage clothes early in the evening, but 
 had not remembered to put it back. He decided to get 
 it now. We were to wait for him. 
 
 We sat there for an interminable time, and then, as 
 Mrs. Lewis was worried about him, we went out to 
 look for him. We found him only about two houses 
 away leaning against the wall. He was exhausted; he 
 had been wandering about everywhere. 
 
 I asked him: "Did you find your wad?" 
 
 "Find it I I couldn't find the theatre," he said in 
 an injured manner. "I met several policemen and they 
 affected not to understand me." 
 
 "What did you ask them?" 
 
 "Why for the 'Wolmar' Theater of course." 
 
 "If you pronounced it that way, it is no wonder they 
 couldn't direct you to the theatre," both Skinner and 
 I protested. 
 
 Lewis was never convinced that there was any 
 reason for his not getting his money till the next day 
 except a willful failure to understand him on the part 
 of the police. 
 
 Our happy relations were somewhat strained in Ber- 
 lin by the abrupt departure from the company of Edith 
 Kingdon. Just before we left London she had been 
 called upon with almost no notice to play Ada Rehan's
 
 134 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 part in A Night 0#, as the latter was ill. She played 
 the part very well. In Love on Crutches she had scored 
 a great comiedy success both in New York and London. 
 When she left the company on account of a misunder- 
 standing with Daly, Virginia Dreher was forced to 
 play Margery Gwyn without sufficient rehearsal.
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 IN Germany there was no entertaining for the com- 
 pany, but in London we were asked about a great 
 deal and we met a great many of the people interested 
 in the arts — the writers, both English and American, 
 editors, painters and a great many persons of our own 
 profession. 
 
 Now and then we were lured to some outside gather- 
 ing, where the intent to make a circus out of the Daly 
 Company was all too clear. We were invited to a re- 
 ception at the house of a woman who must be called by 
 the name that Dickens found for all women like her, 
 Mrs. Leo Hunter. 
 
 With Mrs. Hunter it was a matter of pride that no 
 one came to her house who was not famous for some- 
 thing. At this reception Mrs. Hunter was very much 
 afraid that I was not meeting everybody, and she 
 introduced me to a very pleasant young man who was 
 standing near us. She told him all about the Daly 
 Company and the parts that I played in the various 
 plays. Then thinking that I might get the impression 
 
 that he was not known for anything in particular and 
 
 135
 
 136 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 so that I might definitely place him, she said to me: 
 "You may remember his favorite uncle was so fright- 
 fully mangled in the underground last year." 
 
 Of James McNeill Whistler we saw a great deal. 
 One time at the house of an English authoress he 
 showed me his book, "The Gentle Art of Making Ene- 
 mies," which I had not seen before. He was on the 
 arm of the sofa on which I was sitting, and as I turned 
 over the pages he would point our especially the things 
 that seemed good to him. He had a boyish delight in 
 showing me the roasts and the slaps. 
 
 The Whistlers were always late for dinner. One 
 night we were all at the house of Edwin A. Abbey, the 
 painter. Mrs. Whistler arrived first and apologized 
 for being late. She said that she had been detained 
 because their house was on fire. Everyone sympathized 
 with her. 
 
 When Whistler came in shortly afterwards he was 
 entirely unperturbed. Mrs. Whistler, having forgot- 
 ten to tell him that she meant to use so sensational an 
 excuse, tried to tip him off: "Well, Jim," she said, 
 "how is the fire?' 
 
 "The fire'? What fire?" 
 
 "The fire at the house," she said. 
 
 "Oh, it's all right," Whistler said: "it's burning 
 still."
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 137 
 
 Whistler of course thought that Mrs. Whistler 
 meant the fire in the grate. 
 
 One Sunday I went to lunch at the house of George 
 Boughton, the American painter. Boughton was 
 standing before the fire-place with a man who was part- 
 ly bald and had whitish hair, white mustache and a 
 small white beard — chin whiskers they are called in 
 make-up. 
 
 Boughton turned to his companion: "You know 
 John Drew, don't you?" 
 
 The small man answered: "No, I do not; but I 
 have had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Drew and Miss 
 Rehan act in The Taming of the Shrew, and I am 
 pleased to tell Mr. Drew how much I enjoyed the play 
 and how pleased I was with such talent and success." 
 
 I thought to myself: "He's going a bit strong." 
 
 I asked Boughton when I got a chance: "Who is 
 this old chap*?" 
 
 "Robert Browning," he told me somewhat impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 I was puzzled at my own stupidity. It seemed so 
 silly that I should not recognize the famous poet whose 
 picture I had seen so many times. 
 
 Irving we saw frequently during our London visits. 
 On my last trip to London with the Daly company in 
 the early nineties we did As You Like It. Irving had
 
 138 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 a box for the opening night, and after the performance 
 he came behind the scenes and congratulated Ada 
 Rehan upon her Rosalind. 
 
 He turned to me, patted me on both shoulders and 
 said: "Drew, you got away with that wrestling scene 
 wonderfully, but of course you don't want to play 
 Orlando; no, no, no, n-o-o." 
 
 He emphasized this in a fashion that made it seem 
 indicative of but the faintest praise, and left me in no 
 doubt as to what he thought of my performance. 
 
 When we did The Taming of the Shrew in London, 
 no one seemed more genuinely enthusiastic about the 
 Katherine of Ada Rehan and my Petruchio than Henry 
 Irving. He gave a most delightful supper for us at 
 the Beefsteak Club. Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt, 
 who was then playing in London, Damala, the Greek 
 actor. Lord Ronald Gower, who has a bust of Shakes- 
 peare at Stratford, and John Tenniel, the cartoonist of 
 Punch, and the illustrator of "Alice in Wonderland," 
 were all at this supper. 
 
 One night at the Beefsteak Club Frank Burnand, the 
 editor of Punch, and a number of others were sitting 
 around talking. There was a good deal of bantering, 
 and George Grossmith said of a remark made by one 
 of the party: "That's like some of the good things 
 that are sent to Punch, Frank."
 
 Photo, by Sarony. 
 
 JOHN DREW AS ROBIN HOOD IN TENNYSON's PLAY, "tHE FORESTERS
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 139 
 
 Bumand replied : "Yes, and they don't get in." 
 Grossmith answered: "I don't know who it is who 
 sends the good things to Punch, but they don't get 
 
 in." 
 
 This created a great laugh at Burnand's expense. 
 
 Tennyson I met at his place in the country, and he 
 talked to me of the play that he was then writing, The 
 Foresters. We did this play later at Daly's Theatre; 
 in fact, the part of Robin Hood in this was the last new 
 part I played under the management of Augustin Daly. 
 I was no longer a member of the Daly company when 
 the play was done by them in London. Arthur Bou- 
 chier took my part. The Foresters was never a great 
 success. By reason of Arthur Sullivan's music and 
 Daly's production, the play managed to run for a time 
 in New York. 
 
 Swinburne and Hardy were at many of the dinners 
 and suppers that we attended in London, and Hardy 
 wrote a very charming rhymed address that Ada Rehan 
 read at a benefit for the Actors' Dramatic Fund. 
 
 Meredith I met once in the country. He was stay- 
 ing with a friend near where we were at Weybridge in 
 Surrey, and we went over to see him. 
 
 Some of the other guests danced in bare feet on the 
 lawn. 
 
 I asked Meredith if he were not going to dance.
 
 140 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 "I am for other than dancing measures," he said, 
 quoting from As You Like It. 
 
 I sat on the porch with him in the bright moonlight. 
 He talked of the dancers and he thought them rather 
 silly, but his comments were not caustic and not nearly 
 so sharp as his descriptions of his characters in his 
 books. 
 
 One night at dinner I was rather taken aback by 
 W. S. Gilbert. I told him that I had known, learned 
 and loved his "Bab Ballads." 
 
 "Oh, they're juvenile indiscretions," he said in a 
 rather incisive way which seemed to pooh-pooh my 
 estimate of the work. 
 
 He surprised me still more when he told me that 
 his best work was his serious plays. The Wicked World 
 and Charity. I had played in Charity in the seventies 
 with the Fifth Avenue Company, and of the players 
 only Fanny Davenport liked the play at all.
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 IN 1886 when we played in Paris, both the English 
 and American Ambassadors had boxes for the first 
 performance of the Daly Company at the Theatre des 
 Vaudevilles. Coquelin attended every performance, 
 and the English and American residents were enthusi- 
 astic followers of our short season. 
 
 The plays for the three-day engagement of "La 
 Troupe Americaine d'Augustin Daly du Daly's Thea- 
 tre, New York {Etats Urns)" were A Woman's Won't 
 (one act play), Love on Crutches, A Night Of, A 
 Country Girl and Nancy and Company. 
 
 It must be remembered that this Paris engagement 
 was less than twenty years after the Prussian war, and 
 there was a good deal of bitterness about our plays 
 from the German. It was argued, with some justifica- 
 tion, that it was not consistent to license our plays 
 and to forbid the giving of the operas of Wagner. 
 
 One critic wrote: "Mr. Daly's artists probably 
 
 have much talent, but they deceive themselves and 
 
 have confounded Paris with a village." Another said 
 
 that Daly hired unknowns to translate "the low Ger- 
 
 141
 
 142 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 man repertoire" and then had the "effrontery" to put 
 his own name on the work. M. Besson, of L'Evene- 
 ment, thought that the repertoire was "fit only for 
 boarding schools," and M. Sarcey, the leading critic of 
 the day, wrote that the plays might be seen by "any 
 young girl." These opinions are interesting because 
 some of the critics thought the plays too realistic, 
 coarse and offensive. 
 
 Not all of the criticism was adverse and hostile. 
 Some of the critics were sympathetic. M. de Blowitz, 
 the correspondent of the London Times in Paris, wrote 
 in correspondence to his paper that the failure of the 
 Daly Company to win the praise of the critics in Paris 
 was due to the fact that the French writers did not 
 know English, and that those Frenchmen who under- 
 stood the language appreciated the fine acting of the 
 company in light comedy. 
 
 It was very hot in Paris that summer, and the time 
 we were not rehearsing or playing, Otis Skinner and I 
 spent at a swimming bath on the other side of the 
 Seine. The place was inclosed, but open to the sky. 
 There were dressing rooms all round the sides. We 
 occasioned much talk by going up on top of these and 
 diving into the water. It was not really high, but 
 the other bathers seemed to think it foolhardy and dan- 
 gerous.
 
 ^ 
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 
 JOHN DREW AND VIRGINIA DREHER IN "tHE COUNTRY GIRL*
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 143 
 
 Our last night at the theatre was crowded with ex- 
 citement. The gas was turned off in the dressing rooms 
 before some of us had time to wash off our make-up. I 
 lost my trunk. The coneierge, feeling that he had not 
 received a sufficient tip from Daly, waged a most fear- 
 ful quarrel with him. The manager was accused 
 among other things of having taken three towels that 
 belonged to the theatre. 
 
 While I was having my own battle with the man I 
 had seen take my trunk — and he professed to know 
 nothing about it — I could hear part of this larger 
 engagement. 
 
 "What's he saying now*?" Daly, who spoke no 
 French, would demand of his interpreter. 
 
 "Oh, I can't tell you. I can't tell you," the inter- 
 preter would answer every few seconds. 
 
 The next day, before we left town, I went back to 
 the theatre again and there was my trunk in a con- 
 spicuous place where I could not have failed to see it, 
 had it been there the night before. I put it on my 
 cab without the help of any of the theatre people and 
 drove off amid their imprecations and anathemas. 
 
 Two years later, when the Daly Company again 
 played the same theatre, the same stage-door keeper 
 greeted me as an old acquaintance. This second visit 
 to Paris was a far happier experience for the Daly
 
 144 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Company. This time we gave three plays during an 
 engagement that lasted six days: Nancy and Com- 
 pany^ The Railroad of Love and The Taming of the 
 Shrew. 
 
 The critics devoted their attention to Shakespeare. 
 A writer in Le Petit Journal exclaimed: "Pauvre 
 Shakespeare! What crimes are committed in thy 
 name, and how fortunate that thou hast been dead 
 some time!" M. Sarcey found the comedy illogical. 
 He could see no fun in one character hitting another 
 with a leg of mutton. When I read this criticism to 
 Daly, he was amused and, though he knew no French, 
 he at once called attention to Moliere's Le Marriage 
 Force, in which stuffed rocks and clubs are plied with 
 great advantage on the classic French stage. 
 
 Many of the critics thought there was too much 
 horse play; they were shocked when Katherine boxed 
 Petruchio^s ears. They found too much violence in the 
 playing. Then, too, the play was coarse and flat and 
 dull. 
 
 Figaro, which discovered that I resembled Irving, 
 said: "The attitudes, movements, walk, speech and 
 action of these Americans are so different from what 
 we are accustomed to see and hear that there would 
 be neither justice nor profit in criticising them. It is 
 another race, another conception, another art. 
 
 >>
 
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 "^ TERY different had been the reception given to 
 \ The Taming of the Shrew when we gave it 
 earlier that same summer in London. This was the 
 first performance of a Shakespearian play given by an 
 American Company in Europe. The Times said that 
 till this Daly production, it seemed that this comedy 
 was "fated to rank as the most despised of the poet's 
 productions," and that hitherto the play had "received 
 scant justice from the professional interpreters — so at 
 least it would appear — in view of this splendid re- 
 vival of the comedy, which, sumptuously mounted and 
 acted with admirable spirit and point, keeps the house 
 throughout its five acts in a state of continuous merri- 
 ment." 
 
 The summer that we were playing The Taming of 
 the Shrew in London, I was going down to Sandown to 
 see the Eclipse Stakes — that was the year that Bendigo 
 won — and at Waterloo Station my companion bought 
 a copy of Punch, 
 
 He opened it, laughed and handed the paper to mc. 
 
 "Look at that," he said. 
 
 145
 
 146 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 It was a cartoon showing Mr. and Mrs. Kendal 
 looking out of a box in the theatre and in the box on 
 the opposite side were the Bancrofts. On the stage 
 were Ada Rehan as Katherine and myself as Petruchio. 
 We were depicted in the clothes worn in the scene in 
 which Petruchio dresses fantastically. I was supposed 
 to be saying to these representatives of the English 
 stage who were seated in the boxes: "I guess we'll 
 show you how to play your gosh-dinged Shakespeare." 
 
 The year that Ormonde won the Derby, Daly hired 
 a four-in-hand and we drove down to Epsom. Daly 
 had wanted to have a matinee that day, but William 
 Terriss, who was associated with Daly in our first two 
 trips abroad, refused to have a performance on the 
 ground that nobody would be in town. 
 
 Daly somewhat reluctantly consented to go to the 
 races, in which he was not much interested, and Ter- 
 riss accompanied us. Following his usual custom Daly 
 arranged the seating on the drag and reserved the box 
 seat with the driver for himself. 
 
 "You can't do that," I protested. 
 
 "Why not?" he asked. 
 
 "It just isn't done," I told him; "a woman is always 
 on the box seat next to the driver." 
 
 With very bad grace he yielded the seat he had 
 chosen for himself to Ada Rehan.
 
 
 ^m^ 
 
 
 t' <. r 
 
 
 
 Yaukt;' Sliakspeares came to town 
 Oil /■ '; • /Vjo'jrpony; 
 
 Such a feather in thf ir cap ! 
 Hope they '11 make their money. 
 
 CARTOON FROM PUNCH
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 147 
 
 We saw one of the greatest Derbys that had been 
 run for many years. Ormonde, owned by the Duke 
 of Westminster, was a great horse. He was ridden 
 by Fred Archer, the leading English jockey. Ormonde 
 was later sold and sent to the Argentine, and he was 
 eventually bought by my old friend, William McDon- 
 ough, of California. Years after his Epsom victory I 
 saw Ormonde in the stud at McDonough's ranch. 
 
 In London I met some of the American artists and 
 writers that I had not met in this country — Sargent, 
 Henry James and Bret Harte. The first time that I 
 met Bret Harte was the Fourth of July, 1888. He 
 had been United States consul in Glasgow and was at 
 the time I met him living in London. 
 
 That summer there was a cyclorama in London that 
 was very popular, called Niagara in London. It was 
 the usual entertainment in the conventional round 
 building that somewhat resembled the outside of 
 Shakespeare's Theatre, the Globe. The management, 
 being partly American and Canadian, gave a supper 
 in the cyclorama building on the night of the Fourth. 
 Bret Harte, Edward Phelps, who was then our minis- 
 ter to England, and many prominent Americans were' 
 there. 
 
 While we walked around and looked at this con- 
 structed picture of Niagara, which was not so wonder-
 
 148 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 ful to us as to the Englishmen present, Lewis and I 
 talked to Bret Harte. He was a very handsome man, 
 and he impressed us very much, though his manner was 
 quite casual. 
 
 After the two national anthems were sung, the sup- 
 per room opened and the people flocked in and found 
 seats for themselves. Lewis and I were sitting next to 
 an Englishman, who was evidently very hungry and 
 very thirsty. Mr. Phelps, the ^\merican minister, 
 walked into the room and looked about, over the tables. 
 He wore side whiskers and to a chance observer looked 
 not unlike a maitre d'hotel. The Englishman, not 
 knowing who it was, mistook him for one of the waiters 
 and asked him to bring him a bottle of Apollinaris. 
 He pointed to a bottle near by that had been opened. 
 
 Phelps very goodnaturedly took the bottle and put 
 it down in front of the Englishman and started to walk 
 away. 
 
 The Englishman was very irate because Phelps had 
 not filled the glass. He reprimanded him and, as he 
 did so, he stood up and called to the retreating figure : 
 "What do you mean by this*? And who are you^" 
 
 Phelps turned and answered: "My name is Phelps. I 
 am the American minister at the court of St. James's." 
 
 The Englishman fell back in his chair so violently 
 that he knocked the chair over backwards.
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 149 
 
 "Did you get his back-fall'?" Lewis asked of me. 
 
 In theatrical parlance a "back-fall" is a comic flop 
 or fall on the stage. It is an old-fashioned, low-com- 
 edy method of denoting terror or fright.
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 THE most brilliant entertainment given Tor us 
 during our many stays in London was the supper 
 which John Hare gave at the Garrick Club on June 9, 
 1888. It was a wonderful list of guests and contained 
 almost everyone prominent in the arts — actors, authors, 
 painters, managers — Millais, Henry James, Du Maur- 
 ier, Ambassador Phelps and the Earls of Lathorn, Lon- 
 desborough and Cork and Orrery were all present. 
 
 For some reason, known only to himself, Daly ab- 
 sented himself from this supper. It was believed that 
 he was armoyed that Hare had not submitted to him 
 the list of those members of the Daly Company who 
 were to be asked. Irving was furious at Daly, and so 
 was William Winter, who was one of Daly's closest 
 friends. 
 
 When John Hare made a speech, I had to respond 
 
 in place of Daly. I was not very happy, and I was a 
 
 little upset because Hare had used a few of the things 
 
 that I was going to say. I was so disturbed that at one 
 
 portion of my speech I halted like an actor who forgets 
 
 his lines. I do not know what happened to me or what 
 
 150
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 151 
 
 caused the sudden lapse, but I could not preserve the 
 continuity of the thing. I knew it was very bad. 
 
 When I had finished Sir Arthur Sullivan, who was 
 sitting a few seats away from me, came over and shook 
 me by the hand and said: "It was fine. Capital I" 
 
 Lord Cork, who was sitting just beyond Sullivan, 
 also said : "Capital I Capital I" 
 
 I thought it was very good of them, but it did not 
 deceive me. It took me a long time to recover from 
 my embarrassment. 
 
 Charles Wyndham gave a garden party one Sunday. 
 That year he had Pope's famous villa at Twickenham 
 on the Thames. Lewis, Ada Rehan, Mrs. Gilbert, Daly 
 and I went down. It rained all day, and we were 
 rather cooped up in the tents where the refreshments 
 were served. 
 
 While the band was playing Wyndham took hold of 
 his sister, who was the wife of Bronson Howard, the 
 American author of Wyndham's successful play 
 Brighton {Saratoga in this country), and rushed her 
 out on the fearfully wet lawn and danced around a few 
 times. He was determined that there should be danc- 
 ing at his party. He put up an umbrella, and it looked 
 so ridiculous to see him waltzing around on the wet 
 lawn one arm holding up the umbrella and the other 
 arm around his sister.
 
 152 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 During the run of The Taming of the Shrew we 
 were asked to play for a dramatic fund benefit at the 
 Drury Lane Theatre. We played the fourth act of 
 The Tajning of the Shrew — the scene in which 
 Petruchio trying to frighten and impress Katherine 
 with his masterfulness, whacks his servants about the 
 stage with his whip and a "property" leg of mutton. 
 His servants were played by Lewis as Grutnio^ Wil- 
 liam Collier, Hamilton Revelle and Stephen Murphy, 
 who afterwards took the name of Stephen Grattan 
 when he went to the Lyceum Theatre in New York. 
 Murphy had a pedantic fashion of speaking, and he 
 took himself and his work very seriously. 
 
 In this fourth-act scene the servants are intensely 
 surprised at Petruchio' s behavior toward them, as they 
 had known him always as a kindly master. When 
 Petruchio and Katherine exit, the servant played by 
 Stephen Murphy has to say: "Peter, didst ever see 
 the like?" referring to Petruchio's extraordinary be- 
 havior. 
 
 Murphy was much impressed with the fact that he 
 was about to utter something of the immortal bard in 
 the famous Drury Lane Theatre where Garrick, Mac- 
 ready and Kemble had played. At the rehearsal he 
 said to Collier in an awed voice: "Collier, do you
 
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 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 153 
 
 realize that I am to have the precious privilege of 
 speaking a line of Shakespeare in this sacred fane*?" 
 
 Collier interrupted with, "What's a fane*?" 
 
 Murphy, impatient at the interruption, replied: 
 "Fane"? A fane is a convertible term for temple. It 
 is a temple." 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Collier, apparently entirely satisfied 
 with the definition. 
 
 When, in the actual playing of the scene, the cue 
 came for Murphy's great moment Collier came in 
 quickly on the cue and spoke the line: "Peter, didst 
 ever see the like*?" before the outraged Murphy had 
 a chance to do so. 
 
 Collier sensed from Murphy's expression of disap- 
 pointment and anger that there would be trouble. In- 
 deed, as soon as the scene was over Murphy made a 
 dash for Collier. Collier, being more agile, avoided 
 the rush and was chased all over the stage behind the 
 scenes by Murphy. 
 
 I demanded to know from these two fellows what 
 caused the horrible commotion while Ada Rehan and 
 I were playing the last scene. Murphy told me that 
 Collier had deliberately tried to belittle him; that he 
 had robbed him of his great opportunity to read a line 
 of Shakespeare in Drury Lane and go down into theat- 
 rical history with the Keans, Kembles and Garrick.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 THE years that we did not go to London the Daly 
 Company made a tour to the Pacific Coast. In 
 the lobby of the Baldwin Hotel in San Francisco Jim 
 Lewis and I one summer day met Sir Arthur Sullivan, 
 the composer. We had met him often in London. 
 When we saw him this day he had arrived from Aus- 
 tralia; in fact he was just off the boat. He greeted us 
 most effusively, for he had been living for some months 
 in a country where he knew no one. He introduced us 
 to the man who was with him, the captain of the 
 steamer that had brought him to California. 
 
 Then, after a few minutes' conversation, he again 
 shook hands warmly and said : "We are going to have 
 a drink. Good-by." 
 
 I was amused, but Lewis was intensely annoyed at 
 the casualness of Sullivan's remark. He said: "I 
 wouldn't have accepted it, but he might have asked us." 
 
 As a matter of fact, Lewis never did drink in the 
 
 daytime. While I was laughing at Lewis' annoyance, 
 
 we were joined by that great favorite of the road, Sol 
 
 Smith Russell. His Hosea Howe in Peaceful Valley 
 
 154
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 155 
 
 and his Noah Vale in The Poor Relation were only a 
 little less well known than Jefferson's Rip. 
 
 Russell was one of those long-looking persons, and 
 he had an extraordinary manner of dressing. He al- 
 ways wore a black frock coat and a little white string 
 tie. He looked much like a minister, and he told me 
 that when he was purchasing things in shops he was 
 often offered the clerical discount. 
 
 When he joined us that morning in San Francisco he 
 was on his way to the dentist's. He urged me to go 
 with him. As I had nothing to do I thought I would 
 walk with him a while. We soon reached the place 
 of his appointment, and he persuaded me to go in and 
 wait for him. 
 
 In the dentist's waiting room was an old lady who 
 was apparently in great pain. She was bewailing her 
 condition. She looked at Russell and, thinking to get 
 some spiritual advice, said to him: "Are you a minis- 
 ter?" 
 
 Russell answered, paraphrasing from Macbeth: "I 
 minister to minds diseased.'* 
 
 "No," she said, "are you a real minister?" 
 
 Russell answered: "No, madam, I am only a poor 
 player." 
 
 She then asked: "A piano player?" 
 
 It was so absurd and I laughed so loudly that the
 
 156 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 old woman was much incensed. She seemed to think 
 that a dentist's waiting room was no place to laugh. 
 Russell had persuaded me to accompany him to sustain 
 him morally, and spiritual advice was demanded from 
 him I 
 
 As the Daly Company toured the various cities of 
 the country we were much entertained. Sometimes en- 
 tertainment was thrust upon us when we thought we 
 were in a town where no one knew us. 
 
 Otis Skinner and I, on our way from the theatre to 
 our hotel in one of the smaller cities of the Middle 
 West, stepped into a small vaudeville theatre which 
 kept open till midnight. We wanted to stand up at 
 the rear of the theatre, but we were not allowed to do 
 so. We were spotted at once and ushered by the man- 
 agement to seats in the very front of the theatre. 
 
 As we took our seats someone was clattering away 
 on the stage with a noisy song and clog dance. We 
 noticed that the door under the stage was opened and 
 a man stuck his head out and handed something written 
 on a paper to one of the musicians, who in turn handed 
 it to the leader. 
 
 The next act was a singer, known in the nineties as 
 a motto singer. I remember nothing about him except 
 that he pointed to Skinner and myself and sang a song 
 about the poor actor in distress. I do not know this
 
 — .^-»«.- 
 
 From, Theatre Collection, Harvard Unircmitif. 
 
 GEORGIE DREW BARRYMORE WITH ETHEL, LIONEL, AND JACK 
 
 BARRYMORE
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 157 
 
 song, and I do not know whether it ever went the 
 rounds of the popular theatres. When he reached the 
 end he came and stood diijectly in front of Skinner 
 and myself and sang words which ran something like 
 this: 
 
 Do all you can for the actor in distress; 
 
 Engage him before it's too late; 
 For many a poor actor can give a good show, 
 
 So give the poor actor a date. 
 
 At the height of the fame of the Daly Company — 
 and this was after we had produced many notable suc- 
 cesses — we were booked as the opening attraction of 
 a new theatre in Rockford, Illinois. The theatre was 
 a very fine one, and the occasion an important one lo- 
 cally. After the first performance, which was some- 
 what delayed by speech making and special ceremonies, 
 Jim Lewis and I were sitting in the lobby of the hotel. 
 
 A man kept walking up and down in front of us, 
 and it seemed quite obvious that he wanted to talk. 
 After ruiming his fingers through his beard in the man- 
 ner of a stage rustic, he cleared his throat and stopped 
 short in front of us; "I seen you act tonight," he said. 
 
 "I trust you were edified," said Lewis. 
 
 The native laughed, as if appreciating a huge joke. 
 *'I dunno about that; I thought it was pretty good. 
 You folks ought to stay here some time. I hear most
 
 158 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 of the reserved seats is bought up for tomorrow night." 
 He dropped into the arm chair next to Lewis and con- 
 tinued: "I talked to the manager of the theatre to- 
 night, and we come to the conclusion that yours is the 
 best trained troupe that has ever been here since 
 Humpty-Dinky" 
 
 It is needless to say that he referred to the ever popu- 
 lar pantomime performance Humpty-Dumpty^ which 
 toured the country for years. 
 
 Lewis groaned, and I thought things. This was 
 praise indeed! The Daly Company was supposed to 
 be the best in the country. We had been allowed to 
 believe by the press and the public that we were the 
 best exponents of light-comedy acting. Our acting 
 was supposed to be most finished. We had been re- 
 ceived in London as perhaps no foreign company ever 
 has been. We had played in France and Germany. 
 We had been made much of by many important people. 
 Enthusiasts had compared our company with the 
 Comedie Frangaise. 
 
 I do not believe that either Lewis or I heard any of 
 the rest of the conversation of our newly acquired 
 friend.
 
 CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 DURING a lunch at Delmonico's early in the 
 winter of 1888 the talk shifted occasionally 
 from the subject we had met to discuss and Mark 
 Twain told a story in his inimitable way. I do not 
 remember what the story itself was but while we were 
 all laughing, General Sherman said : *That story lost 
 nothing in the telling, Clemens." 
 
 "I didn't mean that it should," replied the teller of 
 the story. 
 
 Edwin Booth, Lawrence Hutton, A. M. Palmer, 
 Harry Edwards, Stephen Olin, Thomas Bailey Aid- 
 rich, Lawrence Barrett, Augustin Daly, William Bis- 
 pham, Joseph F. Daly, Samuel Clemens, General 
 Sherman, James Lewis and I were sitting round the 
 table. 
 
 The reason for gathering together these men repre- 
 senting the professions was to discuss the founding of 
 The Players. The idea to have a club where the per- 
 sons of the several arts could meet had been discussed 
 by Booth, Barrett, Hutton and others on Commodore 
 
 Benedict's yacht, The Oneida. 
 
 159
 
 i6o MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 After lunch a number of us went down to 16 Gram- 
 ercy Park to look over the site which had been chosen 
 for The Club. 
 
 On New Year's Eve, 1888, The Players was for- 
 mally opened. It was founded entirely through the 
 generosity of Edwin Booth. He was the first Presi- 
 dent and upon his death in 1893 Joseph Jefferson be- 
 came the second. Upon the death of the latter the 
 honor was conferred upon me, and ever since I have 
 held the office so splendidly filled by those two great 
 men of the profession. 
 
 As to the ideal and the purpose of this splendid gift 
 to the members of the acting profession, nothing can 
 be better said than it is in those words that Edwin 
 Booth used in his speech of dedication : 
 
 Gentlemen: Although our vocations are vari- 
 ous, I greet you all as brother Players. At this 
 supreme moment of my life, it is my happy privi- 
 lege to assume the character of host, to welcome 
 you to the house wherein I hope that we for many 
 years, and our legitimate successors for at least 
 a thousand generations, may assemble for friendly 
 intercourse and intellectual recreation. Espe- 
 cially for the worthy ones of my profession am I 
 desirous that this association shall be the means 
 of bringing them, regardless of their theatrical 
 rank, in communion with those who, ignorant of 
 their personal qualities hidden by the mask and 
 motley of our calling, know them as actors only.
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 161 
 
 Frequent intercourse with gentlemen of other arts 
 and professions, who love the stage and appreci- 
 ate the value of the drama as an aid to intellec- 
 tual culture, must inspire the humblest player 
 with a reverence for his vocation as one among 
 the first of "fine arts" — which too many regard 
 as merely a means to the gratification of vanity 
 and selfishness. Such is the object of this club. 
 
 For many years I have cherished the hope that 
 I might be able to do something for my profession 
 of a more lasting good than mere almsgiving, but 
 could not determine what course to pursue. Our 
 several benevolent institutions for the relief of 
 poor and disabled actors (foremost among them 
 the noble Forrest Home), great as their good work 
 is, do not afford the social advantages so neces- 
 sary for what is termed "the elevation of the 
 stage." 
 
 Not until after many conversations with nu- 
 merous friends of the theatre on this subject, and 
 while discussing it with Messrs. Barrett, Daly, 
 and Palmer (a club of this character being sug- 
 gested as the best means to the good end), did I 
 resolve to act, to do my utmost in the furtherance 
 of the scheme proposed. This is the first step 
 toward the accomplishment of our purpose. To 
 our treasurer, Mr. William Bispham, we owe the 
 wise selection of our house, to Mr. Stanford White 
 its admirable reconstruction and embellishment, 
 while to the poet Aldrich we are indebted for the 
 choice of our appropriate and comprehensive title, 
 the world being but a stage where every man must 
 "play his part." Mine just now, as the New Year 
 dawns, is a very happy one, since it permits me to
 
 i62 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 present to you by the hands of our vice-president, 
 Mr. Daly, your title deeds to this property. 
 
 Having done so, I am no longer your host — I 
 resign the role with profound thanks for your 
 prompt and generous cooperation in a cause so 
 dear to me, so worthy of all well-wishers of the 
 theatre and of the Player who "struts and frets 
 his hour upon the stage." 
 
 Let us drink from this loving-cup, bequeathed 
 by William Warren of loved and honored mem- 
 ory to our no less valued Jefferson, and by him 
 presented to us — from this cup and this souvenir 
 of long ago, my father's flagon, let us now, be- 
 neath his portrait, and on the anniversaries of this 
 occupation, drink: "To the Players' Perpetual 
 Prosperity I"
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 I WAS still playing at Daly's theatre when I first 
 met Charles Frohman. He then had the Twenty- 
 third Street Theatre, now Proctor's, and had produced 
 Bronson Howard's famous drama of the Civil War, 
 Shenandoah, which had so much to do with the found- 
 ing of his theatrical fortune. 
 
 In the men's cafe at Delmonico's, then at Broadway 
 and Twenty-sixth Street, I often saw a little round man 
 who I thought was Alfred Klein, the brother of Charles 
 Klein, the author of The Music Master and The Lion 
 and the Mouse. Alfred Klein, was one of three bro- 
 thers coimected with the theatre. He played with 
 Gillette in The Professor, and some years afterwards 
 he was the elephant trainer with DeWolf Hopper in 
 Wang. 
 
 Anson Pond, the writer of a play called Her Atone' 
 ment, protested to me one day: "Why, that's not 
 Klein. That is Charles Frohman, the coming theatrical 
 manager." 
 
 At that time I was not much interested in other the- 
 atrical managers. Ada Rehan, Lewis and the rest of 
 
 163
 
 1 
 
 i64 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 us at Daly's felt that these newer managers were in- 
 truders. Daly never thought what happened outside of 
 his theatre was of any importance, and this spirit of 
 his prejudiced us. 
 
 One fine Sunday Fritz Williams and I rode out to 
 Claremont. Seated at a table near us was Frank San- 
 ger and the man I had mistaken for Alfred Klein. I 
 had known Frank Sanger in Philadelphia. He had 
 been one of the players, though not a conspicuous one, 
 in the stock company at the Chestnut Street Theatre. 
 He became night clerk in the Hotel La Pierre one sum- 
 mer. Later he got into theatrical management and 
 made a great deal of money out of Charles Hoyt's 
 play, A Bunch of Keys. With Hayman he built the 
 Empire Theatre for Charles Frohman. 
 
 At this meeting at Claremont Sanger and Frohman 
 joined us. Sanger turned the conversation, in a rather 
 diplomatic fashion, to the possibilities of my changing 
 managements. I do not mean to imply that this con- 
 versation was exactly prearranged. 
 
 Sanger said: "John is wedded to Daly as a 
 manager." 
 
 "I don't know about that," I answered. 
 
 "You're not thinking of changing, are you?" San- 
 ger asked. 
 
 "No," I told him ; "but Fm not bound as a serf."
 
 ■J^S^-BVTT 
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 
 maude adams and john drew in henry guy carleton s play, 
 
 "butterflies"
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 165 
 
 One Sunday evening Henry Miller took me to Froh- 
 man's apartment in the Hoffman House to play cards. 
 Miller and I met Frohman and Anson Pond, who was 
 a great friend of his, in the lobby of the hotel. We 
 played poker for a while, and I felt, as subsequent 
 events developed, that I had been allowed to win and 
 had not won through my own cleverness or prowess 
 with the cards. I do not know whether I was right 
 about this, but I do know that Frohman was a very 
 good card player, as was Pond. We had a very elab- 
 orate "terrapinish" supper and went back to card 
 playing. 
 
 Conversations with Sanger, which were usually pred- 
 icated upon the supposition of what I would do if I 
 left Daly, and occasional meetings with Frohman went 
 on for some time. Finally an offer came through 
 Frank Bennett, who was manager of the old Arlington 
 Hotel in Washington. 
 
 Frank Bermett, who was the son-in-law of my god- 
 mother, Mrs. D. P. Bowers, had been an actor for a 
 time in the Daly company, but he became discouraged 
 and gave up the stage. Fortunately for him he had 
 the keenness of perception, given to very few people 
 who want to act, to realize that there was no future for 
 him. On one of our trips with the Daly company to 
 Washington he met Roselle, proprietor of the Arling-
 
 i66 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 ton Hotel, who offered him a job. From this he rose 
 to be manager. 
 
 **Why don't you get out of your engagement with 
 Daly, John?" Bennett asked me on one occasion. I 
 suppose my manner seemed receptive to him, for he 
 went on: "Frohman is the coming man." 
 
 Frohman apparently had calculated that I had a 
 drawing power, and in this he seems to have had faith, 
 for a most generous offer was made to me by Bennett. 
 I authorized him to make a suggestion or two to Froh- 
 man and the thing was accomplished. 
 
 At the time there was still more than a year of my 
 contract with Daly to run. I told Daly at once that 
 I was leaving him at the end of our arrangement. I 
 felt that I was at liberty to go and that there was no 
 moral obligation upon my part to stay with a manager 
 with whom I had been for so many seasons. I felt 
 this because Daly had before this rescinded the agree- 
 ment that he had with Mrs. Gilbert, Miss Rehan, 
 Lewis and myself. He had given us a share in the 
 profits of the season apart from our salaries. It was 
 a semi-proprietary arrangement similar to that enjoyed 
 by the actors at the Comedie Frangaise, that is, the 
 Societaires who have all had certain years of service. 
 
 Daly wrote us that "in view of certain contingencies" 
 he had decided that it was inexpedient to continue this
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 167 
 
 arrangement. He proposed that we take increased 
 salaries in place of the percentage. A small increase 
 in salary went into effect, but a season or two after- 
 wards, when I asked Daly for more money, he declined 
 to give it to me. 
 
 Frohman offered me a salary much larger than Daly 
 ever contemplated giving anyone connected with his 
 theatre. Accordingly, I signed my first contract with 
 Frohman. It was for three years ; I never had another. 
 We merely went on from year to year. During our 
 whole professional business associations there was never 
 a difference of any sort. I received a salary and at 
 the end of the season a percentage of the year's receipts. 
 
 Once, when I thought I should have a larger salary, 
 I went to Charles Frohman and told him so. "Charles, 
 I spoke to you several years ago about giving me more 
 money, and you said at that time you couldn't afford 
 to do so." 
 
 "Oh, did I*?" he said. And then he went on to tell 
 me, making it appear just as if he had nothing to do 
 with it and as if I were dealing with another firm, 
 that I should go tell the treasurer who was in charge 
 of the business office at that time that I was henceforth 
 to get so much instead of what I had been getting. He 
 made it appear that it was something that I had ne- 
 glected.
 
 i68 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 This business association I entered into with a good 
 deal of uncertainty and some little dread. I did not 
 know Frohman, and I had been long with Daly. I 
 was accustomed to his management and his way of 
 producing plays. 
 
 I never had cause to regret my change in manage- 
 ment. Charles Frohman was one of the fairest and 
 squarest men I ever met. 
 
 On July 30, 1892, 1 appeared for the last time under 
 the management of Augustin Daly at Stockwell's Thea- 
 tre in San Francisco. The play was a revival of A 
 Night Off, and I played my customary role of Jack 
 Mulberry. 
 
 On October 3 of the same year I appeared as a star 
 under the management of Charles Frohman at Palmer's 
 Theatre, Broadway and Thirtieth Street. This had 
 been Lester Wallack's Theatre, and after Palmer's 
 management was renamed Wallack's.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 
 
 MY early impression of Maude Adams, before it 
 was finally decided that she was to be my 
 leading woman in my first play as a star under the 
 management of Charles Frohman, was that she looked 
 too frail. I had been accustomed to play with Ada 
 Rehan, who was so much bigger and stronger. 
 Stronger she was, as was evidenced by the blow on the 
 jaw that as Katherine she gave me in The Taming of 
 the Shrew. In the scene, in the acting version, where 
 Petruchio says : 
 
 Were it the forefoot of an angry bear, 
 
 I'd shake it off; but, as it's Kate's, I kiss it, 
 
 Katherine gives him a sound, ringing blow. There 
 was a time when it was not considered good art actu- 
 ally to hit a person on the stage instead of making as 
 if to hit; but there was no make-believe about this 
 stage blow. It was indeed real ; in fact, it seems to me 
 now as I look back that the blow that Katherine used 
 to give Fetruchio might have given the redoubtable 
 
 Dempsey a jolt. 
 
 169
 
 170 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Small wonder then that Maude Adams in her girlish 
 slightness seemed to me too fragile for a leading 
 woman. As a matter of fact she was never ill and 
 never away from rehearsals in the years she played 
 with me. 
 
 It was Mrs. Drew, my wife, who first suggested that 
 Maude Adams become my leading woman. Maude 
 Adams had been on the stage almost from childhood. 
 Her mother was leading woman in the stock company 
 at the Salt Lake Theatre. The family name was Kis- 
 kadden. Maude, herself, had appeared when quite 
 yoimg in Hoyt's play, A Midnight Bell. After that 
 she left the stage to go to school. 
 
 As Nell, the consumptive factory girl, in an Ameri- 
 can adaptation of Ludwig Fulda's play. The Lost Para- 
 dise, she had made a hit. I saw her first, however, as 
 Evangeline Bender in a farce which William Gillette 
 had adapted from the French, called All the Comforts 
 of Home. In this Forbes Robertson's brother, Ian, 
 played an old, deaf fellow. The two things that I 
 remember about the play are: the delicate charm of 
 Maude Adams and the fact that all the other characters 
 yelled at Ian Robertson. 
 
 When I was in San Francisco Maude Adams, who 
 was playing at another theatre, came to the Baldwin
 
 Photo, by Byron. 
 
 ELSIE DE WOLFE AS THE WAITING MAID, JOHN DREW AS THE COUNT, IN 
 
 ii 
 
 A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE 
 
 » 
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 ARTHUR BYRON AND JOHN DREW IN "tHE TYRANNY OF TEARS
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 171 
 
 Hotel to meet me. This appointment was the first 
 time that I had seen her off the stage. I saw at once 
 her alertness and her intelligence, and that she had a 
 most expressive face. 
 
 The play selected for my first appearance under the 
 new management was The Masked Ball by Alexandre 
 Bisson and Albert Carre. This play took its name from 
 the celebrated carnival, Veglione, which is held at Nice 
 during the winter. The adaptation was made by young 
 Clyde Fitch, whose play, Beau Brummel^ had made so 
 great an impression when played by Richard Mansfield. 
 The cast was: 
 
 Paul Blondet John Drew 
 
 Joseph Poulard Harry Harwood 
 
 Louis Martinot Harold Russell 
 
 M. Bergomat C. Leslie Allen 
 
 Casimir Frank E. Lamb 
 
 Suzanne Blondet Maude Adams 
 
 Mme. Poulard Virginia Buchanan 
 
 Mme. Bergomat Annie Adams 
 
 Rose Lillian Florence 
 
 When I left Daly I assured him that, if ever the 
 opportunity arose, I should be happy to make public 
 acknowledgement of all that I felt that I owed him. 
 It seemed to me that it was the only decent thing to 
 do — to pay some tribute to the man who had taken so
 
 172 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 much trouble for so many years. Accordingly, on the 
 first night of The Masked Ball, when I was called be- 
 fore the curtain, I said : 
 
 It is trite and hackneyed, perhaps, to allude to 
 a particular time as the proudest and happiest 
 moment in one's life, but if ever phrase were apt 
 for an occasion, I feel that particular one is be- 
 fitting this moment. This splendid welcome ac- 
 corded to me by you — kind friends rather than 
 spectators or auditors, who have with your plau- 
 dits and consideration encouraged me for so many 
 years in the past — makes this, indeed, a proud and 
 happy moment for me. 
 
 But I feel that all these plaudits and this great 
 greeting might not have been for me, had it not 
 been for one who taught me how to merit and de- 
 serve them, who from the beginning of my career 
 has watched and guided my steps, smoothing the 
 way to success for me, and encouraging me in 
 moments of trial and discouragement, and, in 
 fine, striving to make me worthy of this honor 
 tonight. 
 
 I feel, too, that this poor and halting tribute 
 of the heart is little to offer after the years of 
 care and trouble he has bestowed on me, but it is 
 from the heart that I wish to offer it. I am glad, 
 too, to offer it before you — his friends as well as 
 mine. I see that I need not name him, my friend 
 and preceptor, Mr. Augustin Daly. 
 
 Eugene Presbrey, who was the first husband of An- 
 nie Russell, directed the production of The Masked
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 173 
 
 Ball. Frohman came to rehearsals himself, and he did 
 a good deal of the directing. Often he made sugges- 
 tions, and good ones, but he never assumed the job of 
 general stage director or producer. ^ 
 
 The Masked Ball was a great success, and we played 
 it two seasons. It was a conventional farce, but it gave 
 me, in the role of Paul Blondet, a fairly good oppor- 
 tunity. Maude Adams made a decided impression. 
 In one scene in which she simulated tipsiness she was 
 particularly adroit. 
 
 Suzanne had been engaged to Louis Martinot^ a 
 friend of Baul Blondefs. Paul tells Louis not to 
 marry Suzanne because she drinks. He tells him this 
 because he wants to marry the girl himself. He does 
 so. Later the friend comes back from Japan and finds 
 the girl he loved married to the man who warned him. 
 Blond et is desperate and wants to get rid of Martinot. 
 He does not want Suzanne to see him. He tries every 
 inducement to get him out of the house, but Martinot 
 only sinks deeper in his chair and insists upon waiting 
 to see Mrs. Blondet. 
 
 *'You must see our Rubens. We have a splendid 
 collection of Rubens," Blondet tells him, trying to get 
 him out of the room. 
 
 But Martinot is obdurate. "No, no ! Rubens bores 
 
 me.
 
 174 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 The actor who played this part insisted upon saying, 
 "No, no ! Rubens bore me." 
 
 I said, thinking it was a slip of the tongue : "Why 
 do you say that?" 
 
 He said: "Why not?' 
 
 Then I gathered he thought I meant by Rubens — 
 country jays. 
 
 Finally, Martinot does see Suzanne. 
 
 "Did he say that I got tipsy?" she asks. 
 
 "Yes, he told me so; that's the reason I broke off 
 the engagement." 
 
 Accordingly, at the end of the second act, she feigns 
 tipsiness in order to shock the husband with whom she 
 is really in love. It was admirably done, deliciously 
 done. There was nothing vulgar about the scene ; for, 
 in the first place, she was not supposed to be intoxi- 
 cated. Maude Adams did the whole episode daintily 
 and with much charm. She carried a red rose which 
 she would alternately smell and wave about. This was 
 her own idea, and it was carried out very prettily. 
 
 The part of Suzanne established Maude Adams. She 
 scored a greater success in my company as Dorothy in 
 Rosemary^ but after her performance in The Masked 
 Ball there was no doubt of her ability and charm. 
 
 Before the Empire Theatre was built, the Frohman 
 offices were at 1 127 Broadway. I went there one day
 
 From Thaitie Collection, Harvard Vnivcrsitti. 
 
 MAUDE ADAMS AND JOHN DREW IN "rOSEMARy'
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 175 
 
 to see Frohman and was told by the office boy: "Mr. 
 Frohman is out, and I don't know when he will be 
 back." 
 
 "But I have an engagement with him," I protested. 
 
 "You will have to wait," said the boy. 
 
 I waited in the outer office, while Frohman waited 
 for me inside. 
 
 Later, this same boy, whose name was Peter Daly, 
 came to me at the suggestion of Charles Frohman as a 
 dresser. He spent the day typewriting in the outer 
 room of the Frohman offices and at night came to the 
 theatre to dress me until I got a regular valet. 
 
 I was much surprised, some time after he left me, to 
 learn that he was in a play and that his name was 
 Arnold Daly. Of course he could not keep his own 
 name, because Peter Dailey, later one of the popular 
 players at Weber and Fields' Theatre, was then a well- 
 known comedian playing in The Country Sport with 
 May Irwin. 
 
 During the run of The Masked Ball I lived at the 
 Marlborough Hotel, and in the side street Saint-Gau- 
 dens had a studio. I often went over and watched 
 him work on the Sherman statue, which is now in the 
 plaza at Fifty-ninth Street, New York. The model 
 for the horse was the race horse Ontario. 
 
 When we played The Masked Ball in Washington,
 
 176 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 the house was sold out in advance for the first night at 
 the National Theatre, At the last minute the Presi- 
 dent and Mrs. Cleveland decided to attend the per- 
 formance and Mrs. Rapley, the wife of the manager 
 of the theatre, gave up the manager's box. Grover 
 Cleveland was one of the early members of The Play- 
 ers and I often saw him there in the nineties. 
 
 During this same Washington engagement I re- 
 ceived a letter from Frederick Febvre, doyen of the 
 Comedie Francaise: 
 
 Thanks to you and your excellent artists. We 
 passed a charming evening yesterday at The Na- 
 tional Theatre. The piece is extremely light, but 
 the details are very amusing. There is team play 
 and accord in your company, and everyone plays 
 for the whole and not for himself. 
 
 My sincere compliments to the stage director. 
 The scene of the flowers in the second act, the 
 scene of the four young people, is graceful and 
 ingenious. It is exquisite. 
 
 As for you, dear Mr. Drew, I cannot tell you 
 how much pleasure was given me by your skillful 
 playing — correct, amusing without ever becom- 
 ing exaggerated, in fact, quite Parisian. Re- 
 ceive all our thanks for your courtesy, my most 
 sincere felicitations and a cordial handshake. 
 
 Febvre, who was on a sort of vacation or leave from 
 the Comedie Frangaise, was giving very charming little 
 sketches or colloquies, with his wife at private enter- 
 tainments. I saw them two afternoons in Washington.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 
 
 THE second play in which I appeared as a star 
 was Butterflies by Henry Guy Carleton, who 
 was the first editor of Life. In this I played Frederick 
 Ossian, a heedless young man who is much in love and 
 much in debt. Finally Frederick tries the expedient 
 of going to work, and his love is rewarded. In this 
 play, which was also produced at Palmer's Theatre, 
 Maude Adams as Miriam made another hit and Olive 
 May as Suzanne-Elise scored greatly. Suzanne was a 
 broad-comedy part, one of the first of the modern 
 slangy young girls and a contrast to the heroine, the 
 delicate Miriam. Carleton's play was as great a suc- 
 cess as The Masked Ball., and we played it for many 
 months. 
 
 The cast was: 
 
 Frederick Ossian John Drew 
 
 Andrew Strong Lewis Baker 
 
 Hiram Green Harry Harwood 
 
 Barrington Arthur Byron 
 
 Nathaniel Bilser Leslie Allen 
 
 Coddle Frank E. Lamb 
 
 177
 
 178 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Mrs. Ossian Annie Adams 
 
 Suzanne-Elise Olive May 
 Mrs. Beverly 
 
 Stuart-Dodge Kate Meek 
 
 Miriam Maude Adams 
 
 The year after the World's Fair we were going to 
 California with Butterflies. When we got near Chi- 
 cago there was a great glare in the sky and we were 
 told that the World's Fair buildings were burning. 
 
 At Hammond, which is some miles out of Chicago, 
 we were compelled to get out of our Pullman, as there 
 was a strike at the Pullman works. There was a sym- 
 pathetic strike of the people working on the various 
 roads, and Pullman cars were not allowed to go into 
 Chicago. 
 
 We rode into Chicago by trolley. We were going 
 straight to the Coast and not playing Chicago this trip. 
 After we got off the trolley we had to take an elevated 
 to get us to a place where we could get carriages to get 
 across to the Northwestern station. 
 
 In getting on the elevated Maude Adams and the 
 women of the company were nearly crushed to death. 
 Great throngs of people were going to the fire and tak- 
 ing the trains right back again. The congestion was 
 shocking. We were so much delayed that we missed
 
 Fraiii 'I'luatre Collection, Harvard Univcrsitii. 
 
 MAUDE ADAMS, ARTHUR BYRON, AND JOHN DREW IN "rOSEMARy'
 
 i
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 179 
 
 our train and had to stay over a whole day until the 
 same time next night. 
 
 The strikers were beginning to riot, and troops were 
 brought down from Fort Sheridan and camped out on 
 the Lake Front. I knew some of the officers and spent 
 most of the day at this temporary camp. On our way 
 West we were held up at different places by the strik- 
 ing people and those who sympathized with them, but 
 they did not take our Pullman car off. We had to 
 stop at night wherever we were, usually at some sta- 
 tion we were passing through. It was very hot and we 
 arrived at San Francisco two days late. 
 
 A familiar figure round the New York theatres in 
 those days of the middle nineties was Charles Hoyt, 
 the writer of many successful farces. The titles of 
 these invariably began with the article "A" — A Tern' 
 perance Town, A Midnight Bell, A Contented Woman, 
 A Stranger in New York. Hoyt was a most amusing 
 person. He came from New Hampshire, and he had 
 an uncompromising Yankee accent. When he died 
 he gave his place in New Hampshire to the Lambs 
 Club in perpetuity, so that actors who had no place 
 else to go might go there to stay. 
 
 One of the often-told stories about him was that on 
 the first night that Goodwin was going to play Clyde
 
 i8o MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Fitch's Nathan Hale, Hoyt had tickets for it, and there 
 landed in on him some friend from New Hampshire. 
 He had to entertain the man in some fashion, and he 
 said he had two tickets for the theatre. 
 
 The other man said : "What is it*?" 
 
 Hoyt told him: "It is the opening of a new play, 
 Nathan Hale, with Nat Goodwin." 
 
 The New Hampshire friend said : "I don't want to 
 see Goodwin. I don't like him." 
 
 "You don't'?" Hoyt asked. 
 
 "No, I don't. I don't like him. I don't like him as 
 a man; I don't like him as an actor. I don't like him." 
 
 "But," Hoyt said, "you will like him in this play." 
 
 The other fellow said: "I won't like him." 
 
 Hoyt said : "Yes, you will ; they hang him in the 
 last act." 
 
 Nat Goodwin whose personality was perhaps not 
 genial to everyone was one of the finest of American 
 comedians. He was a great mimic and his imitations 
 of Jefferson and J. H. Stoddart were most extraordin- 
 ary. He even looked like Jefferson and Stoddart. 
 
 Goodwin got his start as the hind legs of the heifer 
 in the famous production of Evangeline in Boston, 
 where his father had been a gambler. Some years 
 afterwards Nat came back to Boston — he had made 
 considerable of an impression as an actor and an imi-
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 181 
 
 tator in the meantime — and a dinner was given him by 
 some club. 
 
 In reply to a toast he said he was so glad to receive 
 this kindness from the citizens of the town "where he 
 had dwelt and his father had dealt so long." 
 
 It was Nat's idea of humor without any restriction; 
 he could not help saying that, and he would not conceal 
 the fact that his father had been a gambler.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 
 
 THE Empire Theatre which was so closely asso- 
 ciated with the career of Charles Frohman and 
 so important in my own career, as for so many years 
 my season began there either on Labor Day or very 
 close to that time, had been opened in January of 
 1893. 
 
 The opening play was The Girl I Left Behind Me 
 by Franklin Fyles and David Belasco. This was just 
 another version of Boucicault's play, Jessie Brown, or 
 The Relief of Lucknow, with something of the good 
 old classic, Virginius. The performance was given by 
 the Empire Theatre stock company, and in the first 
 cast were W. H. Thompson, William Morris, Orrin 
 Johnson, Cyril Scott, Theodore Roberts, Sydney Arm- 
 strong, Odette Tyler and Katharine Florence. 
 
 After my own performance in The Masked Ball at 
 the Standard Theatre at Thirty-third Street and Broad- 
 way, where we had moved when our time was up at 
 Palmer's, I went up to the Empire to see the last few 
 minutes of Charles Frohman's new production, The 
 
 Girl I Left Behind Me^ in the new theatre. 
 
 182
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 183 
 
 About two years after the opening I played at the 
 Empire for the first time in Henry Arthur Jones' play, 
 The Bauble Shop. The argument in this, and it seems 
 quite unanswerable, was that the private immoralities 
 of a statesman's life may be used by his enemies to 
 defeat and humiliate him in public life. The play was 
 more successful in New York than London. 
 
 I was Viscount Clzvebrooke^ the leader of the party 
 in power, a cynical, brilliant statesman of forty-odd 
 years, who indiscreetly falls in love with the daughter 
 of a tippling toy-maker. J. E. Dodson played the toy- 
 maker. 
 
 In all these early productions Frank E. Lamb was 
 my stage manager. He had appeared with W. J. 
 Florence in The Mighty Dollar. He was a son of 
 Ed Lamb, who played for a long time in a stock com- 
 pany in Brooklyn, run by Mrs. F. B. Conway, who was 
 the sister of Mrs. D. P. Bowers, my god-mother. In 
 some of the early Daly plays Ed Lamb had played the 
 low-comedy roles on tour — the parts which James 
 Lewis played in the original company. 
 
 Between The Bauble Shop and Rosemary^ Maude 
 Adams and I appeared in a number of plays.. There 
 was That Imprudent Young Couple^ which had been 
 tried out at the end of the season before. In this Henry 
 Guy Carleton tried to repeat the gossamer success of
 
 i84 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Butterflies, but failed. Then came Christopher Jr., a 
 
 bright but not altogether logical play by Madeline 
 
 Lucette Ryley in which the players were : 
 
 Christopher Colt, Jr. John Drew 
 Christopher Colt, Sr. Harry Harwood 
 
 Bert Bellaby Lewis Baker 
 
 Hedway C. Leslie Allen 
 
 Simpson Arthur Byron 
 
 Glibb Herbert Ayling 
 
 Job Joseph Humphreys 
 
 Whimper Frank Lamb 
 
 Mrs. Glibb ' Elsie De Wolfe 
 
 Mrs. Colt Anna Belmont 
 
 Dora Maude Adams 
 
 We did an English version of UAmi des Femmes by 
 Dumas Fils. The adaptation was called The Squire 
 of Dames and was made by R. C. Carton, the author of 
 Lord and Lady Algy, Lady HuntivortK s Experiment 
 and many other successful plays.
 
 Photo, hy Byron, 
 
 MAUDE ADAMS AND JOHN DREW IN MADELINE LUCETTE RYLEy's COMEDY 
 
 "CHRISTOPHER, JR."
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 
 
 THE summer I was rehearsing Rosernary we were 
 all living at Westhampton, Long Island — the 
 James Lewises, my wife, mother and daughter, the 
 three Barrymore children, and Henry Miller and his 
 family. 
 
 One day, after a rehearsal of Rosemary^ I was In a 
 court of the Racquet Club when I was told that I was 
 wanted on the telephone. I asked that the message be 
 taken, but the servant came back to tell me that the 
 person calling would not give the message. I put on 
 a bathrobe and went to the telephone. 
 
 It was Henry Miller who was calling from West- 
 hampton. He told me that James Lewis had had 
 some trouble with his heart. 
 
 I asked: "Why don't you get a doctor?" 
 
 He answered, trying to break it to me gently: 
 "There is no need for a doctor." 
 
 I didn't quite understand him. "What do you 
 mean?" 
 
 He said: "There's nothing the matter with his 
 
 heart now." 
 
 I8S
 
 i86 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 James Lewis had been my friend for twenty-odd 
 years, ever since those old days at the Fifth Avenue 
 Theatre when I first came to New York to play under 
 Daly's management. 
 
 Much saddened I went on with the rehearsals of 
 Rosemary. This play by Louis N. Palker and Murray 
 Carson was one of the greatest successes I had. Only 
 a few years ago I revived the play, and it was successful 
 then. 
 
 In the first production Maude Adams made a tre- 
 mendous hit as Dorothy. This role, which was the last 
 she played with me, was the culminating thing in her 
 early career, and it led to her being starred. The next 
 season Frohman produced The Little Minister^ with 
 Maude Adams as Lady Babbie. 
 
 f Charles Frohman probably thought that it was a 
 great waste to leave in my company as leading woman 
 an actress who had made so great a hit on her own 
 account. Such delicate, almost spiritual, charm could 
 be turned to great advantage in the proper plays. 
 
 The play Rosemary is not an extraordinary piece, 
 but it does contain a great deal of proper sentiment, 
 feeling and sympathy. It is gay and pretty, but not 
 without depth. 
 
 Sir Jasper Thorndyke lives in his country place with 
 only an old friend for a companion. A chaise contain-
 
 EMPIRE THEATRE 
 
 CHAKLBS FROHMAN, RICH « HARRIS, 
 CHARLtS FROHMAN. Ma«ac(K. 
 
 WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY. SEPTEMBER I 4. Vsger 
 
 Evrul»:> ■! 8.2U. .iladnre iwtvrdar •■If. 
 
 \lrdnc«(tay iff atlncc* fur (he Season will l>« rekiiiiird lioplembar SI. 
 
 FIFTH SEASON OF THIS THEATRE. 
 AND FIFTH SEASON OF 
 
 MR. JOHN DREW, 
 
 Vadrr the mAniwtment or CHABI.ES PHOMMAIt, 
 
 PraMoilag, for the fini time la this countrjr, a play, in (our *cu, f^lilc^ 
 
 ROSEMARY. 
 
 **T^t** for renembraace.** 
 
 By LOUIS N. PARKER and MURRAY CARSON. 
 
 SIR JASPER THORNDYKE JOHN DREW 
 
 PROFESSOR JOGRAM DANIEL HARKINS 
 
 CAPTAIN CRUICKSHANK. R.N HARRY HARWOOD 
 
 WILLIAM WESTWOOD ARTHUR BYROM 
 
 GEORGE MINIFIE JOSEPH HUMPHREYS 
 
 ABRAHAM FRANK LAMB 
 
 MRS. CRUICKSHANK. Mrs. ANNIE ADAMS 
 
 MRS. MINIFIE Mr». KING 
 
 PRISCILLA ETHEL BARRYMORE 
 
 DOROTHV CRUICKSHANK.... ...MAUDE ADAMS 
 
 ACT I.-HIGH-ROAD. EXTERIOR OF SIR JASPER THORNDYKES PARK. 
 
 Sir Jasper makes a mistalce. 
 
 ACT II.— DINING-ROOM AT INGLE HALL 
 
 Sir Jasper makes ameDds. 
 
 ACT III.-UPPER ROOM IN MRS. MINIFIES COFFEEHOUSE. IN LONDON. 
 
 Sir Jasper forgets. 
 
 ACT IV.— SAME ROOM AS ACT III , BUT FIFTY YEARS HAVE ELAPSBD. 
 
 Sir Jasper remembers. 
 
 Costumes by Dauan. Gowns by Helen Windsok. 
 
 Scenery by E. G. UdlTT. 
 
 Iflddeoul Mosic by W. W. FtJisr. 
 
 St>Kc direction o( Joskph Hdhphuevs. 
 
 BilPIKK TMEATBS ORCHESTRA. 
 
 ^ WM PURST, Musiou. Dl«KTD«. ,^ ^ 
 
 Ownure— "FtofaltCaTc" •It«d«i»t»« 
 
 Paraplme-- HoK Fair Art Tboo': „ _ ~ Rt»»»d»» 
 
 -AllKim Lai" W««n« 
 
 Mcaael--L-Arlesleiine" „ "'•" 
 
 Waht-- La Pitlnwr.- ■. VtUamlm 
 
 Ccv«t>-<' L'lafoiie ' ArfW 
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 
 DOROTHY WAS THE LAST PART MAUDE ADAMS PLAYED AS LEADING 
 WOMAN WITH JOHN DREW 
 
 187
 
 i88 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 ing a runaway couple breaks down directly outside of 
 the place of Sir Jasper, and he takes the youthful 
 lovers into his house. He falls in love with the girl, 
 Dorothy. Professor Jogram, his friend, tries to show 
 him the folly of his falling in love with someone so 
 much younger than himself. Jasper sees her happily 
 married to the young lover, Ensign Westford, and he 
 returns to his bachelor ways. He outlives them both 
 and at the Diamond Jubilee he finds in the very house 
 where he had taken Dorothy to see the Coronation, a 
 souvenir of his romance. In this last act, which is 
 really a monologue, Sir Jasper^ who is on the verge of 
 senility, reminisces at length. 
 
 My niece, Ethel Barrymore, was cast for the rustic 
 maid, Priscilla, in Rosemary. She had a dress and 
 shoes which might have made another young girl seem 
 grotesque. However, in spite of this most unbecoming 
 attire, her beauty made a great impression. Priscilla, 
 the maid, was really her first appearance in New York, 
 though she had substituted in my company in The 
 Bauble Shop. One night when Elsie De Wolfe was ill, 
 Ethel Barrymore appeared as Kate Fennell, though she 
 was not announced on the program. 
 
 When Rosemary had run a hundred nights, a silver 
 cup was given as a souvenir; this custom has long since 
 been done away with. The cup bore the name of the
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 
 
 MRS. JOHN DREW^ SENIOR, AS MRS, MALAPROP IN "tHE RIVALs'
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 189 
 
 play, the occasion and the quotation: "That's for re- 
 membrance." I never thought of these cups again until 
 a few years ago, when I was playing the revival of 
 Rosemary in San Francisco. The property man of the 
 Columbia Theatre told me that there was a woman 
 who had one of these cups which she found under some 
 debris near the site of the Baldwin Hotel just after 
 the fire. I told the property man that I would like to 
 have the cup, if the owner would part with it. He 
 secured it for me. It looks more like pewter than silver 
 today, and there is a hole punched through the bottom 
 of it. 
 
 In the late nineties I saw my mother act for the last 
 time, in Chicago. This was in an all-star cast of The 
 Rivals. She played her familiar character of Mrs. 
 Malaprop. William H. Crane was Sir Anthony; 
 Robert Taber, Captain Absolute; Joseph Jefferson, 
 Bob Acres; Nat Goodwin, Sir Lucius; Joseph Holland, 
 Faukland; Edward Holland, Fag; Francis Wilson, 
 David; Julia Marlowe, Lydia Languish; and Fanny 
 Rice, Lucy. This cast made a celebrated and quick 
 tour through the important Eastern cities, playing in 
 about twenty-seven different towns in less than a 
 month. 
 
 I was playing Rosemary in another theatre in Chi- 
 cago and on Sunday night between the Chicago and
 
 igo MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Milwaukee engagements of The Rivals I gave a dinner 
 for the cast at The Annex. Ethel Barrymore, who was 
 in my company at the time, was present at the dinner. 
 Jefferson and my mother, who had seen so much of the 
 early days of the American theatre, told a great many 
 stories of the old days. 
 
 The following year I was playing in Salt Lake City 
 in the road tour of Rosemary, when I received word 
 that my mother had died at Larchmont. 
 
 At the time, Ethel Barrymore was playing with 
 Henry Irving in London. They were rehearsing a new 
 play. She returned to the afternoon rehearsal late, and 
 she told Irving that she had been to send a cable; her 
 grandmother was dead. 
 
 Irving excused her from rehearsal. "Mrs. John 
 Drew," he said, "was the finest actress in her line that 
 I have ever seen." 
 
 After the road tour of Rosemary, Isabel Irving 
 played Dorothy part of the time. I appeared at the 
 Empire Theatre in A Marriage of Convenience, 
 adapted by Sydney Grundy from Un Mariage sous 
 Louis XV. I played the part of the count who falls in 
 love with his young wife less than three days after the 
 wedding. Isabel Irving made her first appearance as 
 my leading lady in New York as the young countess. 
 Of course, I had played with her often before at Daly*s,
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 191 
 
 and she had played the leading part opposite me in 
 The Cabinet Minister^ when Ada Rehan refused to 
 play it. Elsie DeWolfe played the waiting maid in 
 A Marriage of Convenience. 
 
 When the Spanish-American War broke out, I very 
 much wanted to go, and I applied in person to Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt, who was then organizing a regiment 
 of cavalry. I had known him when he was police com- 
 missioner in New York. I met him at lunch one day 
 at Delmonico's with Richard Harding Davis; when I 
 joined them they were having a heated but friendly 
 argument about something or other. I don't remember 
 what it was about, but they were both much excited. 
 
 The day I saw Roosevelt at the war department in 
 Washington he told me that both Henry Cabot Lodge 
 and I were too old to think of going to war, that we 
 knew nothing of warfare and that I had a wife and 
 child to support. I had not the moral courage to point 
 out to him that he had four or five children. 
 
 Then came One Summer's Day by Henry V. 
 Esmond, which was not a great success and was fol- 
 lowed by one of my biggest successes, Henry Arthur 
 Jones' play, The Liars. In this sparkling comedy I 
 played Sir Christopher Deering^ the friend of every- 
 body and the preserver of family honor. 
 
 In the last act Sir Christopher^ who has been devot-
 
 192 MY YEAFIS ON THE STAGE 
 
 ing his time and ingenuity for four days and four acts 
 to the seemingly futile attempt to prevent the elope- 
 ment of his closest friend with the silly young wife of 
 a common acquaintance, confronts them in his apart- 
 ment. The hour is late, and Sir Christopher is getting 
 ready to start for Africa to rejoin his regiment, the next 
 day. Moreover, he has just asked a charming young 
 woman to be his wife. He has little time to spare, but 
 in a long speech which is very effective he sets facts 
 before these two, the heedless man and the vain woman, 
 and convinces them of their folly. 
 
 On the first night of The Liars the curtain failed to 
 come down after the first act. The stage manager said 
 that he had given both the warning bell, which means 
 to get ready, and the second bell, which is the signal 
 to ring down. The flyman in charge of the curtain 
 said he heard only the one signal, so did not ring down. 
 This spoiled the first act. 
 
 In the second act a hand organ is supposed to be 
 played outside, so that the heroine can get rid of the 
 young man by sending him out to give some money to 
 the monkey. When the cue came there was no music 
 from the hand organ. The property man, wishing to 
 prevent the possibility of any tampering with the hand 
 organ, had removed the handle, and then in his first-
 
 Photo, hy Bijron. 
 
 john drew and frank lamb in henry arthur jones' comedy, 
 
 "the liars"
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 193 
 
 night excitement he forgot to come back to turn the 
 handle. 
 
 Isabel Irving, who was playing Lady Jessica^ was 
 at a loss for a few seconds but quickly sent Arthur 
 Byron, the young man, for a glass of water. Notwith- 
 standing these two accidents, the play was a great suc- 
 cess that first night and for months to come. 
 
 The cast was : 
 
 Christopher Deering John Drew 
 
 Edward Falkner Arthur Byron 
 
 Gilbert Nepean D. H. Harkins 
 
 George Nepean Orrin Johnson 
 
 Freddie Tatton Lewis Baker 
 
 Archibald Coke Harry Harwood 
 
 Mrs. Crespin Marie Derickson 
 
 Beatrice Ebernoe Blanche Burton 
 
 Dolly Cooke Elizabeth Tyree 
 
 Ferris Clara Hunter 
 
 Lady Rosamond Tatton Annie Irish 
 
 Lady Jessica Nepean Isabel Irving
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 
 
 AFTER I left the Daly company I saw my old 
 manager now and again. In the middle nineties 
 his former program of light comedies and revivals of 
 the old comedies had become less popular, and he was 
 forced to make concessions to the popular taste. One 
 of his last successes was an English melodrama, The 
 Great Ruby. 
 
 The last time that I saw Augustin Daly was at the 
 Continental Hotel in Paris. Ada Rehan was stopping 
 with the Dalys. My card was sent up and, in the very 
 casual manner of French hotels, was left at the Daly 
 apartment. Daly came down; he was very cordial and 
 nice. I had just come from Lake Como, and I told 
 Daly that I had been to Cadenabbia, which is supposed 
 to be the place which Claude Melnotte in TUe Lady 
 of Lyons describes to Pauline in the speech that begins : 
 
 "Nay, dearest, nay, if thou wouldst have me paint the 
 home." 
 
 "I suppose you felt like playing the character?" 
 
 asked Daly. 
 
 "I'm afraid, Governor, that that's about the only 
 
 194
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 195 
 
 place where I'd ever be allowed to play Claude Mel- 
 notte." 
 
 A year or so later I was in Dresden, waiting for my 
 daughter's school to close before the summer vacation, 
 and we got the news that Augustin Daly had died in 
 Paris. 
 
 When the Daly company disbanded Mrs. Gilbert 
 came under the management of Charles Frohman and 
 appeared with Annie Russell in Jerome K. Jerome's 
 Miss Hobbs and Captain Marshall's play, The Royal 
 Family. Then Charles Frohman decided to star her, 
 and Clyde Fitch was commissioned to write a play for 
 her called Granny. 
 
 This was produced with Marie Doro in the support- 
 ing cast at the Lyceum Theatre. At the end of the 
 play Mrs. Gilbert recited an epilogue which referred 
 to the old Daly days and to Ada Rehan, James Lewis 
 and myself. This might have been pleasant and proper 
 on the first night, but it seemed rather strange to con- 
 tinue it through the run of the piece. 
 
 As the midweek matinee at the Lyceum did not con- 
 flict with my own, I was able to see Granny^ and after 
 the performance I saw Mrs. Gilbert in her dressing 
 room. Nearly thirty years before we had played to- 
 gether for the first time at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. 
 
 At a supper party Augustin Daly gave one year for
 
 196 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Henry Irving and Ellen Terry at Delmonico's I kissed 
 Mrs. Gilbert's hand as I entered. She was not in the 
 bill we were then playing at the theatre, and I had 
 not seen her for some time. 
 
 Irving, probably thinking that it was rather a formal 
 greeting for people who saw each other every day, said : 
 "You don't always do that, do you*?" 
 
 "No, I usually do this." And I kissed her on the 
 cheek. 
 
 This delightful old lady had been "grandma" to us 
 all and had been on the stage many years. During the 
 run of Granny she died. 
 
 After Augustin Daly died, Ada Rehan played in 
 Paul Kester's play. Sweet Nell of Old Drury, and with 
 Otis Skinner in revivals of some of the old Daly suc- 
 cesses. I did not see her in any of these productions. 
 
 The last time I saw her was at her house in Ninety- 
 third Street. She was ill then and had aged a great 
 deal in appearance; but I do not believe either of us 
 thought that it was our last meeting. Our conversation 
 was more reminiscent than it had been before. We 
 talked of those youthful days at the Arch Street 
 Theatre and the very early Daly days. 
 
 Ada Rehan had a fine mind; she was a great actress 
 and she had a sweet soul.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 
 
 THE season of 1899 ^^id 1900 I played that de- 
 lightful comedy, The Tyranny of Tears, by C. 
 Haddon Chambers. This was one of the finest light 
 comedies that I played. I revived it a few years ago, 
 and it was equally successful then. When it was re- 
 vived Chambers came over and made certain changes 
 in the play to shorten it somewhat. There were certain 
 scenes that were really unnecessary. In the last act 
 some of the dialogue between the girl secretary and 
 Farburfs friend were cut out. This did not disturb 
 the play or the continuity of the action. It was done 
 so that I might play the same evening Barrie's play. 
 The Will. This bill was one of the most attractive 
 that I ever played. 
 
 The role of Parbury^ the novelist, in The Tyranny 
 of Tears was a most grateful one. Isabel Irving was 
 very good as the wife, and Ida Conquest made a great 
 hit as Hyacinth Woodward, the novelist's amanuensis. 
 In the revival Laura Hope Crewes was the wife and 
 
 Mary Boland the secretary. 
 
 197
 
 igS MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 The original cast was : 
 
 Parbury John Drew 
 
 George Gunning Arthur Byron 
 
 Armitage Harry Harwood 
 
 Evans Frank Lamb 
 
 Hyacinth Ida Conquest 
 
 Mrs. Parbury Isabel Irving 
 
 The next year I left light comedy for dramatized 
 fiction. As Frohman did not have a play for me, I 
 played Richard Carvel^ a dramatization of Winston 
 Churchill's book by E. E. Rose. 
 
 "C. F." asked me to come up to his farm, Hidden 
 Brook Farm at Mount Kisco. He read me the drama- 
 tization. "What do you think of that?" he asked. 
 
 I didn't know; nor did I know at that time that the 
 play had been written with James K. Hackett in mind. 
 /Charles Frohman had bribed or cajoled his brother 
 Dan into giving this thing up to him for me. Hackett 
 would have been ideal for the character. I was never 
 happy in it. It was out of my sphere, and I was too 
 old for the young hero. 
 
 The surprising thing of my tour in this piece is that 
 it made a good deal of money. I suppose this was due 
 to the popularity of the book, for the play was not a 
 very good one. 
 
 The cast for this dramatization was:
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 199 
 
 Richard Carvel John Drew 
 
 Lionel Carvel Herbert Carr 
 
 Lord Comyn Arthur Byron 
 
 Duke of Chartersea Frank Losee 
 Marmaduke Manners Harry Harwood 
 
 Grafton Carvel Lewis Baker 
 
 Captain Lewis Dodson Mitchell 
 
 Horace Walpole Francis Powers 
 
 Charles Fox Brandon Tynan 
 
 Dorothy Manners Ida Conquest 
 
 Patty Swain Olive May 
 
 Mrs. Manners Mrs. W. G. Jones 
 
 At supper one night in Chicago Sarah Bernhardt 
 asked me whether I would like to come to Paris and 
 act in a play that she was thinking of doing. Sarah 
 Bernhardt's companion, a little woman, who not only 
 was her companion, but played parts in the company, 
 and a man from the French paper, Figaro, were also 
 present, and the conversation was carried on in French. 
 
 I was very diffident about my French — that is, the 
 thought of going to Paris to play in French made me 
 feel diffident. "But my French is not good enough," 
 I said in answer to her query. 
 
 She said : "You speak French very well." 
 
 "Yes, that's all right — the fluency of it perhaps, 
 but not the accent." 
 
 "Oh, that won't matter. This is an Englishman 
 you are going to play."
 
 200 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Apparently Madame Bernhardt had not a very high 
 regard for the English fashion of speaking French. 
 
 My niece, Ethel Barrymore, played a few parts in 
 my company, played with Irving in his familiar reper- 
 toire in London and played Jessie Milward's part in a 
 road company of Captain Marshall's play Hu Excel- 
 lency, the Governor. Then Charles Frohman decided 
 to star her in Clyde Fitch's play. Captain Jinks. This 
 play of New York life just after the Civil War, with 
 costumes inspired by Godey's Ladies Book and scenes 
 in the Brevoort House, made a great impression when 
 it was produced in New York. 
 
 Before it came to the Garrick Theatre, it was tried 
 out at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, the 
 oldest theatre in the country. Twenty years ago at 
 the Walnut there was an old-fashioned, regular gal- 
 lery audience, keen to approve of what it liked and 
 quick to voice its disapproval. My niece, playing for 
 the first time a long and important role, was somewhat 
 nervous and not quite audible. 
 
 A friendly voice called to her from the gallery: 
 "Speak up, Ethel. You're all right. The Drews is 
 all good actors.'*
 
 From Theatre Collection, Harvard Univcrsitii. 
 
 ETHEL BARRYMORE AS THE RUSTIC MAID IN "rOSEMARY
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 
 
 WHEN we were playing The Duke of Killi- 
 crankze at the National Theatre in Washing- 
 ton, President Roosevelt sent for me to come into his 
 box during one of the intermissions. He and his party 
 were in the box usually reserved for the President, and 
 it has a small withdrawing room back of it. I had 
 supposed that he would see me in this room. Instead, 
 when he greeted me he drew me through the secret 
 service men who were sitting at the back. With him 
 were Mrs. Roosevelt, two of the Roosevelt children 
 and Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge. 
 
 I felt much perturbed to be before an audience on 
 the wrong side of the curtain. It did not occur to 
 President Roosevelt at all that I should have any diffi- 
 dence about coming before people with my make-up 
 on. His greeting was most hearty, and he liked the 
 play. 
 
 The last time I heard from him was a few weeks 
 before he died, when he wrote me : . "Just to wish you 
 many happy New Years, John Drew; from an old 
 friend and admirer." 
 
 201
 
 202 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt's successor, President Taft, also 
 brought me to the front of a box in my make-up. We 
 were playing The Perplexed Husband by Alfred Sutro 
 at the Empire Theatre in New York, when President 
 Taft asked me to come into the box. His party had 
 arrived late and was not seen by the audience when 
 they were ushered into the theatre. The lights were 
 turned on, and I appeared in the box just as the audi- 
 ence recognized the President. 
 
 Captain Marshall wrote two very delightful com- 
 edies in which I played. The Second in Command and 
 The Duke of Killicrankie. 
 
 The Second in Command served me for two seasons. 
 This play was the first time that khaki was used on the 
 stage; that is, it was the first exposition of khaki on 
 the stage in a military sense. Guy Standing, who was 
 knighted for his services in the British Navy during 
 the recent war, was extremely good as Colonel Ans- 
 truther. 
 
 My nephew, Lionel Barrymore, who played the part 
 of a young officer in this play made a pleasing impres- 
 sion, but the following season, as the Neapolitan organ 
 grinder in The Mummy and the Humming Bird his 
 work was a revelation. 
 
 The original cast of The Second in Command was :
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 203 
 
 Lieut. Col. Miles 
 
 Anstruther, D. S. O. Guy Standing 
 Major Christopher 
 
 Bingham John Drew 
 
 Lieutenant Sir Walter 
 
 Mannering 
 Lieutenant Barker 
 Medenhem 
 Hartopp 
 Sergeant 
 Corporal 
 Orderly 
 Mr. Fenwick 
 The Hon. Hildebrand 
 
 Carstairs 
 The Duke of Hull 
 Muriel Mannering 
 Lady Harburgh 
 Norah Vining 
 
 Oswald Yorke 
 Lionel Barrymore 
 Reginald Carrington 
 Robert Schable 
 George Harcourt 
 Percy Smith 
 George Ford 
 Lewis Baker 
 
 Hassard Short 
 Robert Mackay 
 Ida Conquest 
 Ida Vernon 
 Caroline Keeler 
 
 The Duke of Killicrankie was a very fine, light com- 
 edy in which four sharply contrasted characters are 
 thrown together. These were played by that famous 
 English actress, Fannie Brough, Margaret Dale, Ferdi- 
 nand Gottschalk and myself. 
 
 The complete cast was: 
 
 The Duke 
 Henry Pitt Welby 
 Ambrose Hicks 
 Butler 
 
 John Drew 
 Ferdinand Gottschalk 
 Lewis Baker 
 Robert Schable 
 
 Alexander Macbayne Reginald Carrington
 
 204 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Footman B. W. Parmenter 
 Countess of 
 
 Pangbourne Kate Lester 
 Lady Henrietta 
 
 Addison Margaret Dale 
 
 Mrs. Mulholland Fannie Brough 
 
 Mrs. Macbayne Constance Bell 
 
 The summer before I appeared in Captain Dieppe 
 by Anthony Hope and Edward Rose, I met the two 
 authors in London. We had lunch together, and ^^- 
 thony Hope said to Rose: "You tell the story of 
 Captain Dieppe^ 
 
 Rose replied: "No, I told it the last time." 
 
 Finally after some little arguing between them, they 
 told me the story of this play, and it sounded fairly 
 reasonable. When it was presented, it did not have 
 the quality of an Anthony Hope story, and it was not 
 a success. 
 
 Elizabeth Marbury, who was Anthony Hope's 
 agent, sent him a cable after the first performance in 
 Providence where the play was tried out. "Play ap- 
 parently pleased Providence public." I asked Miss 
 Marbury afterwards whether she thought the allitera- 
 tion would have any convincing power with Anthony 
 Hope. 
 
 In that same early season in a play of Clyde Fitch's 
 called Glad of It, in which my nephew, John Barry-
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 20^ 
 
 more, had a small part, there was a conversation be- 
 tween two shop girls. 
 
 "Where are you going tonight, dearie?" 
 
 "Why, to see John Drew in Captain Dippy." 
 
 Unfortunately for this play, they did not have to 
 change the line for Glad of It was an even greater 
 failure than Captain Dieppe. 
 
 The season of Augustus Thomas's play, De Lancey^ 
 in which Doris Keane, Walter Hale, Margaret Dale 
 and Guy Nichols played with me, we were booked to 
 open New Year's day at the Hollis Street Theatre in 
 Boston. There was no morning train at that time which 
 we could count on getting us to Boston in time for the 
 matinee. 
 
 Every year on the anniversary of the opening of The 
 Players — New Year's Eve — there is celebrated 
 Founders' Night. I very much wished to attend this 
 year, especially as it was the first year that I was 
 president of the club. 
 
 Through the influence of a friend in the railroad 
 business I was given permission to have a private car 
 containing my company — several of the men were 
 members of The Players and also wanted to be there 
 that night — attached to the newspaper and mail train 
 that arrives in Boston early in the morning. 
 
 We had the most uncomfortable train ride and ar-
 
 2o6 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 rived early, far out in the yards. We went to our 
 hotels, where we learned that we were not booked to 
 play a holiday matinee. New Year's Day was not at 
 that time a holiday in the state of Massachusetts. The 
 company manager had not taken the trouble to consult 
 the Frohman office. He took it for granted that we 
 were to play a matinee.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 
 
 MY season at the Empire Theatre under the 
 management of Charles Frohman usually 
 opened on Labor Day or very close to that day. I 
 played a varying number of weeks in New York and 
 then went on tour. Our itinerary on the road was much 
 the same, except that we did not go to the Coast every 
 year. One year we would go to New Orleans, playing 
 Richmond, Charleston, Savannah and the intervening 
 towns on our way, and the next year we would go to 
 the Coast. 
 
 The year that we did My Wife^ a comedy by 
 Michael Morton from the French of Devault et Char- 
 nay^ we went both South and West. We reached the 
 Coast just at the time the fleet came into San Fran- 
 cisco; that was the year that Roosevelt sent the fleet 
 around the world. There was a great deal of enthusi- 
 asm and a good deal of entertaining for the officers and 
 men. I knew a great many of the commanders, and 
 we visited several of the ships for lunch. 
 
 We were playing in the Van Ness Theatre, a theatre 
 
 which was built hurriedly after the fire. It seated an 
 
 207
 
 2o8 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 enormous number of people. It had a corrugated-iron 
 roof and when the summer trade winds came up during 
 the matinee they rattled the roof so much that the audi- 
 ence could barely hear what was said on the stage. 
 
 My Wife did an enormous business in San Fran- 
 cisco that year, as it had done everywhere on the road. 
 In all the towns that we visited, Billie Burke, who was 
 my leading woman, was acclaimed as a charming ac- 
 tress and a beautiful woman. She played Beatrice 
 Dupre. The cast for My Wife was: 
 
 Gerald Eversligh John Drew 
 The Hon. Gibson 
 
 Gore . Ferdinand Gottschalk 
 Captain Putnam 
 
 Frezby Walter Soderling 
 
 M. Dupre Morton Selten 
 
 Baron Goranclos Albert Roccardi 
 
 M. Valborne Mario Majeroni 
 
 M. PoTiN Axel Bruun 
 
 Da VIES Herbert Budd 
 
 Crocker Rex McDougal 
 
 Headwaiter E. Soldene Powell 
 
 Rene Flanders Frank Goldsmith 
 
 Porter L. C. Howard 
 
 Beatrice Dupre Billie Burke 
 Miriam Hawthorne Dorothy Tenant 
 
 Mrs. Denham Fane Ida Greeley Smith 
 
 Barones Granclos Hope Latham 
 
 Madam Dupre Mrs. Kate Pattison Selten 
 
 Marie May Gayler
 
 
 
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 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 209 
 
 In this play I was the guardian of Beatrice, who 
 runs away from a school and suddenly appears at my 
 place. We go to Switzerland, and I gradually fall in 
 love with her. On our return we are married. 
 
 Someone sent out some press stuff that I was not 
 only her guardian in the play, but that I had some 
 years before made a pact with her father, whose name 
 also was Billie Burke, that, in case of his death, I 
 would look out for his daughter. Of course there was 
 no truth in this statement, and Billie Burke became 
 my leading woman because she had done well in some 
 Frohman plays in London. Charles Frohman was 
 much pleased with her reception in this country, and 
 the following year he starred her in Love Watches. 
 
 One night just after the play in San Francisco, word 
 was brought into my dressing room that Mr. Daly 
 wanted to see me. I did not know anyone named Daly 
 in the city at that time, nor could I place him when 
 a large, powerful-looking Chinaman wearing Ameri- 
 can clothes was ushered into my room. 
 
 "You don't remember Lu Lung, Mr. Drew," he 
 said without any accent. 
 
 Then I remembered that on one of our trips to the 
 Coast years before, Augustin Daly had bought a little 
 Chinaman from his parents for a period of three years. 
 For a while Lu Lung Daly, dressed in beautiful Chi-
 
 210 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 nese clothes, had given out the programs in the lobby 
 of Daly's Theatre, and Augustin Daly was greatly 
 pleased with his contract ; but he became very tired of 
 the little Chinaman and got too much of him in his 
 household and in his employ. 
 
 Daly never found a way to get out of the arrange- 
 ment which he had made with the boy's parents, and 
 it used to amuse the rest of us a great deal; for he 
 never found any difficulty in getting rid of anyone else 
 connected with the theatre. He was forced to support 
 the boy for the entire period. 
 
 Now he stood before me, recalling the old days and 
 telling me of Chinatown where, from his own talk, he 
 seemed to be something of a power. 
 
 "But why do you call yourself Daly*?" I asked. 
 
 "I was Daly — Lu Lung Daly — when I knew you, 
 and I thought you would remember me that way." 
 
 Earlier that same season I had been playing in Louis- 
 ville the first three days of the week, and E. H. 
 Sothern was to follow me for the last three. Before 
 I left town Sothern arrived, and we met in the corridor 
 of the hotel. We were joined by a very dignified old 
 gentleman, who was evidently a citizen of the town. 
 
 He came up, bowed and said to Sothern: "Mr. 
 Mansfield, I am very glad to see you here, and I'm 
 going to be delighted to attend every performance of
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 211 
 
 ycmrs during your all too brief sojourn. I have 
 watched your career, Mr. Mansfield." 
 
 The citizen of Louisville shook hands with Sothem 
 again and walked away. 
 
 "Why, in heaven's name, didn't you say some- 
 thing^" I asked. 
 
 "What was there to say*?" said Sothern. 
 
 "He doesn't know that Dick Mansfield is dead,'* I 
 went on. 
 
 "Well," said Sothern, "that doesn't hurt me so 
 much. He doesn't know that I'm alive."
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 
 
 1 PLAYED two plays by W. Sommerset Maugham : 
 Smith and Jack Straw. Smithy in which Mary 
 Boland played the title part, was a success from the 
 beginning. 
 
 The cast of Smith was: 
 
 Thomas Freeman 
 
 Herbert Dallas-Baker K. 
 
 Algernon Peppercorn 
 
 Fletcher 
 
 Mrs. Dallas Baker 
 
 Emily Chapman 
 
 Mrs. Otto Rosenberg 
 
 Smith 
 
 John Drew 
 C. Morton Selten 
 Hassard Short 
 Louis Casson 
 Isabel Irving 
 Sibil Thorndike 
 Jane Laurel 
 Mary Boland 
 
 Jack Straw, which like Smith had a great success, 
 had this cast: 
 
 Jack Straw 
 Ambrose Holland 
 Lord Serlo 
 Count Adrian 
 Von Bremer 
 Mr. Parke Jennings 
 Vincent, his son 
 Rev. Lewis Abbott 
 
 212 
 
 John Drew 
 
 Edgar L. Davenport 
 
 Frank Goldsmith 
 
 Mario Majeroni 
 Fred Tyler 
 Edwin Nicander 
 E. Soldene Powell
 
 
 
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 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 213 
 
 Mrs. Parke Jennings Rose Coghlan 
 Ethel, her daughter Mary Boland 
 Lady Wanley Adelaide Prince 
 
 Rosie Abbott Kate Kimball 
 
 Mrs. Withers Grace Henderson 
 
 In the company there were also a number of ama- 
 teurs who walked on and took places at tables in the 
 restaurant scene. One of the young men had nothing 
 to do except to walk to a table with a young woman, 
 to be told by the head waiter to go to another table^ 
 and then, after they had moved, only to be told that 
 they must move again. They are supposed to be very 
 irate at this. It was all dumb show. 
 
 When we were on tour we reached the native town 
 of this young man, and the papers in advance had 
 some small notices about him and that he was a mem- 
 ber of my company. 
 
 "It's too bad," I told him, "that you are making 
 your first appearance in your home town as a mere 
 figure." 
 
 I wrote him some lines, so that this friendly audi- 
 ence could see him do something more than merely 
 walk on and so that he could say that he had acted in 
 a play. 
 
 The night of the performance came. The house was 
 full of his friends, and they gave him a great recep-
 
 214 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 tion, so great that he forgot all the lines that I had 
 written for him. He just went through the dumb 
 show as usual. 
 
 Sudden loss of memory in the theatre is not uncom- 
 mon, and it is often tragic in its consequences. But 
 there is an amusing story of an old actor who had been 
 out of a job for a long time. Finally, he obtained a 
 small part which, for anyone of experience, should 
 have been easily learned. 
 
 In the play he had a speech in which he advises his 
 son to be very diligent and persistent. This fatherly 
 advice ended with the good old adage that "time is 
 money." 
 
 When he got to this line on the opening night he 
 
 said: "Don't forget that time is " He paused, 
 
 coughed and appealed to the prompter, who answered 
 in an audible whisper : "Money." 
 
 The old actor : "Oh, yes — time is money." 
 
 The deduction was that it had been so long since 
 he had had any money that he had forgotten that it 
 existed. 
 
 My daughter, Louise Drew, and I were riding in 
 Central Park one afternoon in December of the year 
 that I was playing Inconstant George at the Empire. 
 My mare stumbled and, while I was trying to get her
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 215 
 
 on her feet again, she fell. Before I could disengage 
 my feet from the stirrups she rolled over me. My 
 collar bone was broken, my shoulder fractured and 
 the ligaments in my right leg twisted. 
 
 My daughter was wearing a safety riding skirt, but 
 for some unknown reason it refused to work when she 
 tried to dismount, and she was caught on the pommel. 
 She finally disengaged herself, and a mounted police- 
 man, to whom she had called, came up. I was taken 
 to the Presbyterian Hospital, where Dr. Joseph Blake 
 set my shoulder. 
 
 While I was in the hospital I received a letter from 
 Frederick Remington, the painter : 
 
 See by paper you are on the mend. You know 
 I have a life sentence to walk on one leg because 
 of a horse, so I can sympathize. You don't have 
 to walk on your hands, but you will have to be 
 easy when you "muscle out" chairs as you once 
 did so grandly. 
 
 I have observed that a man don't have so much 
 glue in the seat of his pants at 40 as at 20. All 
 those in favor of this motion say, "How !" 
 
 When I came out of the hospital Frederick Reming- 
 ton was dead. 
 
 I attended the horse show in Madison Square Gar- 
 den with Frederick Remington one time. We were
 
 2i6 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 standing at the ring watching a man we both knew 
 riding a horse over some hurdles. When this rider 
 passed us I could hear Remington muttering impreca- 
 tions under his breath. 
 
 "What's the matter with you?" I asked. "You 
 know Frank very well. Don't you like him?" 
 
 "Of course I like him. He's a fine fellow. But I 
 used to be able to do that once," Remington said plain- 
 tively. By that time he had become quite stout. 
 
 After some weeks I returned to playing, and I 
 opened my season in Boston with Inconstant George, 
 the play I had been doing before. This adaptation 
 from the French of L'Ane de Buridan was never so suc- 
 cessful in this country as it was afterwards in England, 
 where Charles Hawtrey played the leading part, that 
 of a man of many love affairs who falls victim to a 
 young woman at last. 
 
 The American cast for Inconstant George was : 
 
 George Bullin John Drew 
 
 LuciAN DeVersannes Martin Sabine 
 MoRLAND Fred Tilden 
 
 Adolpheus Rex McDougal 
 
 GiRAND W. Soderling 
 
 Butler Bernard Fairfax 
 
 Page Boy Robert Schable 
 
 MicHELiNE Mary Roland 
 
 Odette de Versannes Adelaide Prince
 
 
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 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 217 
 
 Fanchon Chancelle 
 VivETTE Lambert 
 Baroness Stecke 
 Madam De Lamond 
 Louise 
 
 Jane Laurel 
 Desmond Kelly 
 Marie Berkeley 
 Carlotta Doty 
 Alice Soderling 
 
 After I left the Daly company I played but one 
 Shakespearian character, Benedick, in Much Ado About 
 Nothing. I had always wanted to play this character, 
 and when Maude Adams and I were playing together 
 I wanted her to play Beatrice. We talked about it a 
 great deal, but it was years afterwards before I finally 
 played Benedick, and Laura Hope Crewes was the 
 Beatrice. 
 
 In this Shakespearian revival the cast was: 
 
 Don Pedro 
 
 Don John 
 
 Claudio 
 
 Benedick 
 
 Leonato 
 
 Antonio 
 
 Bathazar 
 
 CONRADE 
 
 borachio 
 
 Friar Francis 
 
 Dogberry 
 
 Verges 
 
 A Sexton 
 
 Oatcake 
 
 Seacole 
 
 Hero 
 
 Frank Kemble Cooper 
 Frank Elliott 
 Fred Eric 
 John Drew 
 Henry Stephenson 
 Sidney Herbert 
 Nigel Barry 
 Herbert Delmore 
 Edward Longman 
 Bertram Marburgh 
 Hubert Druce 
 Malcolm Bradley 
 Walter Soderling 
 Rexford Kendrick 
 Murray Ross 
 Mary Boland
 
 2i8 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 r 
 
 Beatrice Laura Hope Crewes 
 
 Margaret Florence Harrison 
 
 Ursula Alice John 
 
 Frohman did not care much about the Shakespearian 
 comedy, but he was not unwilling that I should play 
 Benedick. I suppose that I had been away from this 
 style of comedy too long — more than twenty years; 
 in any event, the production was not a success, and the 
 acting was not up to the standard set in the Daly pro- 
 ductions of Shakespeare. This revival was withdrawn 
 and my old success, The Tyranny of Tears, with 
 Barrie's fine play in three scenes. The Will, used as 
 an afterpiece. 
 
 Joseph H. Choatc, while ambassador to England, 
 had always been extremely kind and gracious to my 
 niece, Ethel Barrymore, and myself when we were in 
 London. I always had a lively recollection of this 
 kindness, and one day when I was walking down Fifth 
 Avenue I saw before me a somewhat bowed figure, 
 which I recognized to be that of Choate. 
 
 I overtook him and said: "Do you remember me, 
 Mr. Choate?" 
 
 He looked at me for a moment and said: "Good 
 God, it's Drew." 
 
 "I said: "It is." 
 
 "Mercy, why don't you grow old?" he asked.
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 219 
 
 It was then some years since our meetings in London. 
 
 I replied: "I don't know, Mr. Choate, unless I can 
 explain in the words of old Mr. Adam m As You Like 
 It^ who says : 'Never in my youth did I apply hot and 
 rebellious liquors in my blood.' " 
 
 He looked at me quizzically under his bushy eye- 
 brows and asked: "Drew, is that entirely true?" 
 
 I laughed with him and said: "No, sir, it isn't. 
 That's what quotations are for." 
 
 He patted me on the shoulder, and we parted. 
 
 In these years as a Frohman star I also played 
 Pinero's fine play, His House in Order^ in which Mar- 
 garet Illington gave a splendid performance and for 
 this the cast was: 
 
 Hilary Jesson John Drew 
 
 FiLMER Jesson, M. p. C. M. Hallard 
 
 Derek Jesson Leona Powers 
 
 Sir Daniel Ridgeley Arthur Elliot 
 
 Pryce Ridgeley Martin Sabine 
 
 Major Maurewarde Henry Vibart 
 
 Dr. Dilnott Herbert Budd 
 
 Harding Gilbert Douglas 
 
 FoRSHAW Rex McDougal 
 
 Servants Maurice Franklyn 
 
 Henry Fearing 
 
 Nina Margaret Illington 
 
 Lady Ridgeley Lena Halliday 
 
 Geraldine Ridgeley Madge Girdlestone 
 
 Mlle. Thome Hope Latham
 
 220 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Then there were The Perplexed Husband by Alfred 
 Sutro; The Prodigal Husband ^ which was adapted 
 from the French; The Chief by Horace Annesley Va- 
 chell ; and A Single Man by Hubert Davies, in which 
 Ivan Simpson, Mary Boland, Thais Lawton and my 
 daughter, Louise Drew appeared.
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY 
 
 ONCE, on an Italian holiday, we set out from 
 Sorrento to drive along the Mediterranean to 
 Amalfi, where we were to lunch. On the way we 
 stopped at a place called Positano, a dreadful town. 
 A lot of windows were broken, and the town seerned 
 badly in need of repair. I think most of the people 
 had migrated to this country. However, when we drew 
 up at the principal inn the proprietor came out. I 
 had a guide with me, and he spoke to him in Italian. 
 
 The proprietor wanted to know if we would like to 
 stop for lunch, but we declined. Mrs. Drew and my 
 daughter ordered a lemonade. I ordered some beer. 
 All this time this guide of mine was talking English 
 to me and Italian to the proprietor. 
 
 A young woman who was traveling with us wanted a 
 glass of milk. The proprietor was an extremely good 
 appearing young man. He wore fairly good clothes 
 and did not look like a proprietor of an inn over there. 
 
 Our drinks were brought in, and he finally came in 
 himself with this glass of milk, and he had a humorous 
 
 221
 
 222 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 look on his face. He put it down by the young woman 
 with us who tasted it and exclaimed : "They've heated 
 it." 
 
 It turned out afterwards that it had been milked out 
 of a goat in the back yard. My courier was at that time 
 downstairs having his drinks, so I asked the young 
 proprietor in Italian for some ice to put in the milk, 
 and he laughed. I thought he was laughing at my 
 Italian, but he said: "Say, bo, you might as well ask 
 me for a gold mine over here." 
 
 Of course consternation and astonishment were reg- 
 istered by all of us. 
 
 I said: "Where did you get that Second Avenue 
 East Side English*?" 
 
 "I lived there," he said. 
 
 "Aren't you Italian^" 
 
 "Yes, I was; but I went over there with me parents." 
 He had lived all his life on the East Side. 
 
 I said: "What are you doing here^" 
 
 "Well," he said, "me uncle bought this place." 
 
 His uncle, it seems, had gone to the United States 
 years before and had made some money in a restaurant. 
 He had bought this inn when he had made enough 
 money to do so. It was rather an historic place in a 
 way. 
 
 "Are you going to stay here?"
 
 JOHN DREW AT EASTHAMPTON, LONG ISLAND 
 
 KYALAMI, JOHN DREW's HOUSE AT EASTHAMPTON
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 223 
 
 "Naw. Me mother's coming over soon, and when 
 she does, me for the big city." 
 
 The whole thing struck me as very extraordinary. 
 "When you get back to the big city you must come and 
 see me," I said. 
 
 He asked: "What's your name*?" 
 
 I told him. 
 
 "Sure," he said, "I know you. You got a cigar 
 factory there." 
 
 He referred of course to a five-cent cigar that was 
 named after me without my consent. 
 
 It was more flattering even than the occasion when 
 Lewis and I were recognized by the impudent child in 
 the garden at Hamburg. 
 
 When we got to Amalfi, just after we had had lunch. 
 Burton Holmes turned up. He greeted us and said: 
 "I've just met a friend of yours a few miles back. He 
 says he knows you very well." 
 
 I said : "Was it the proprietor of the inn at Posi- 
 tano?" 
 
 Holmes said that he had been looking over the reg- 
 ister, which was very old and interesting. In it he saw 
 the names of our party. 
 
 "There's somebody I know," Holmes said to the 
 proprietor of the inn. 
 
 "He was here today."
 
 224 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 "I know him very well," said Holmes. 
 
 "So do I," said the young man; "many a time I 
 seen him act at the Fourteenth Street Theatre." 
 
 Never in my whole career have I played there. 
 
 We went to Prague in Bohemia, and on our arrival 
 at the Blauen Stern Hotel we also found many win- 
 dows broken but this time not from want of repair. 
 Upon inquiry we found that it had been done by the 
 infuriated citizens the day before, Sunday. All the 
 signs there were in Czech as well as in German. The 
 people had not seen this. They had only seen the Ger- 
 man name on the hotel, and they proceeded to break 
 all the windows. 
 
 We were going to the opera that night, and when we 
 came out of the hotel I saw that the porter was busy 
 putting some other people into a trap ; so I hailed a cab- 
 man and told him, in German, to take me to the opera 
 and then to come back for me. 
 
 He looked at me as much as to say: "You're a poor 
 boob." 
 
 By that time the hotel porter had finished with the 
 other people and came over to us. I said to him: 
 "What is the matter with this fellow that he doesn't 
 want to take me*?" 
 
 He answered me in English: "He speaks no Ger- 
 man. He speaks only Czech."
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 225 
 
 And he spoke to him in this impossible tongue and 
 the man took me on my way. I bought a local paper. 
 It was the most awful-looking thing. It was worse than 
 Magyar. It looked as if a drunken compositor had 
 just taken type and hurled it at the sheet. Arthur 
 Byron, who was in my company in so many plays, was 
 playing in Chicago at that time. I decided since I 
 could not read the paper to send it to him. I marked 
 a certain portion of it and sent it on with a notation 
 on the side that it was a good notice of me. 
 
 Byron told me afterwards that he received the paper 
 just as he was coming out of the theatre after long 
 hours of rehearsing. He had been much annoyed by an 
 actor in the company who had been extremely nervous 
 during the rehearsal, as a result of unwisely celebrating 
 the night before. 
 
 "What's that*?" the nervous actor asked. 
 
 "You know Drew^" said Byron. 
 
 The actor agreed that he did, and Byron handed him 
 the paper saying: "There's a notice of Drew. He's in 
 Germany now. It's splendid." 
 
 The nervous actor took the paper, looked at the mess 
 of meaningless type and with a cry, fled madly.
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE 
 
 IN the revival of Rosemary^ I was booked to appear 
 for one night in the Metropolitan Theatre at 
 Rochester, Minnesota, the home of the Mayo brothers. 
 When I reached the theatre I found it was a horrible 
 hole. The condition of things behind the scenes was 
 shocking, to say the least. I was infuriated with my 
 stage manager, because he hadn't told me about the 
 theatre. He had gone there during the day in time to 
 have had something done. At least there might have 
 been some cleaning done. 
 
 I wrote to the health officer, who happened to be one 
 of the Mayo brothers, and told him of the desperate 
 condition of the theatre. He went with the mayor of 
 the town to see the place and ordered the theatre closed 
 until it should be renovated and cleaned. 
 
 I had a feeling that I had not done myself any good, 
 for I had to give my performance, but that I had bet- 
 tered the place for the next touring company. I wrote 
 to Charles Frohman about the matter, and the last 
 
 letter I ever received from him informed me that this 
 
 226
 
 PAVLOWA AND JOHN DREW, AT THE TIME OF THE REVIVAL OF ROSEMARY
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 227 
 
 theatre was scratched by his office, Klaw and Erlanger 
 and others. 
 
 I did not see Charles Frohman before he sailed on 
 the "Lusitania," but when I was in Anaconda I re- 
 ceived a letter from him telling me that he was sailing 
 very shortly. Alf Hayman, who owned the Empire 
 Theatre and ran the business affairs of the Frohman 
 offices, and I, had tried to dissuade him. He laughed 
 at us for our fear for him. This last letter of his read : 
 
 The Metropolitan, Rochester, Minnesota, is 
 scratched by this office, K. & E., and others. You 
 did it and I am glad. As I telegraphed you I 
 gave that play that I had intended for you a calm 
 reading in my own home and I rather fear it is a 
 bit old-fashioned and too talky. I have given it 
 up. You see when one reads these things away 
 from New York it is different and most anything 
 is acceptable. It is different when you are at home. 
 I know you like to be away from New York (I 
 had written Frohman asking that the tour be 
 ended). Alf Hayman has just told me how eager 
 you are to continue after Los Angeles. If you 
 play a week to cover the railroad fares it will be 
 all right. Why a young man like you likes to 
 continue on these tours I don't know. I hope to 
 get away on May first and back shortly after you 
 reach here. I am searching for something for you. 
 Our last talk before you left for the West gave 
 me much happiness.
 
 228 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 When I received this letter I was days from New- 
 York, and there wasn't even time to write Frohman. I 
 telegraphed and, after whatever private matters I had 
 to tell him, I said : 
 
 If you get yourself blown up by a submarine 
 I'll never forgive you. 
 
 This was my last communication with the man who 
 for twenty-three years had been my manager and with 
 whom I had never had the slightest disagreement. 
 
 C. F. had a feeling, almost a superstitious feeling, 
 that as I was his first star I must always be regarded 
 and cherished and cosseted. William Gillette was his 
 second star, but he had been a star before he came 
 under Frohman's management. 
 
 I was in Vancouver when I heard that the "Lusi- 
 tania" had been sunk, but we had no news of the people 
 on the boat. We were on our way to our next stop, 
 Everett, Washington; and there my acting manager 
 and I sat up in the telegraph room of a small news- 
 paper office for hours. Here we learned that Charles 
 Frohman was among those lost.
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 
 
 SPEAK your piece good and you will get a big red 
 apple," was an ancient wheeze of the rural 
 schools. 
 
 When my niece, Ethel Barrymore, appeared for the 
 first time at the Garrick Theatre in New York in Clyde 
 Fitch's play, Captain Jinks^ I gave her a large red 
 apple. This was the start of a custom that I have 
 since observed on the first night of the plays in which 
 not only my niece, but my two nephews, Lionel and 
 John Barrymore, appear. And in recent years my niece 
 and nephews have sent me a large red apple on the first 
 nights of the plays in which I have appeared. 
 
 The two Barrymore boys did not go on the stage so 
 early as their sister. They both thought of careers out- 
 side of the theatre, John as a newspaper artist and 
 Lionel as a painter. John was for a time on the art 
 staff of the Evening Journal in New York. He drew 
 clever but involved pictures. I remember one entitled 
 "The Web of Life," in which a lot of weird people 
 were trying to get across some place. It carried an 
 editorial note which began : "This is not an unpleas- 
 ant picture when looked at properly." 
 
 229
 
 230 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 Shortly after 1900 they were all three on the stage, 
 where practically every member of their family before 
 them had been. John is the only one of the three Barry- 
 mores who has not played in my company. In May, 
 1914, my niece and I appeared at the Empire in Sar- 
 dou's comedy, A Scrap of Paper, with this cast: 
 
 Prosper Couramont John Drew 
 Baron De 
 
 LaGlaciere Charles Dalton 
 
 Brisemouche Fuller Mellish 
 
 Anatole Ernest Glendinning 
 
 Francois Frank McCoy 
 
 Suzanne Ethel Barrymore 
 Louise De 
 
 LaGlaciere Mary Boland 
 
 Mathilde Charlotte Ives 
 
 Mlle. Zenobie Jeffrys Lewis 
 
 Madame DupoNT Mrs. Thomas Whiffen 
 
 Pauline Helen Collier 
 
 The season that I revived Rosemary I received from 
 S. Yeghi, one of the Japanese commissioners to the 
 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, a collection 
 of eighteen character dolls, each one about half an inch 
 high. They are all vividly colored and quaint, some 
 grotesque and some serious. The letter that came with 
 them was: 
 
 When I arrived at San Francisco I found that 
 one very artistic friend sent me from Japan the
 
 Photo, by Charlotte Fairchild.
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 231 
 
 dolls of eighteen plays of Kabuki. In Japan there 
 has been for almost two hundred years the family 
 of Ichikawa, the family of the best actors of 
 Japan. In this family, if the son was not a good 
 actor to represent the family, the best actor of the 
 time was adopted to the family to bear the name 
 of Ichikawa. 
 
 There are eighteen plays which were selected 
 by this family, and they are called the Eighteen 
 Plays of Kabuki. And to perform any of the 
 eighteen plays, one should obtain permission of 
 the family, even if he is an Ichikawa. 
 
 The dolls signify these eighteen plays of Ka- 
 buki. Kabuki could be translated as Drama, and 
 in Kabuki there is also Dance included. 
 
 These dolls of Kabuki were first made about 
 one hundred and fifty years ago, and they were 
 not in fashion for the last fifty or sixty years. 
 They are the remains of the art of the Tokugawa 
 period and they are plain, simple dolls symboliz- 
 ing the plays. 
 
 A friend of mine made these dolls for the first 
 time in the last sixty years, and even in Japan 
 they are very novel and interesting. 
 
 And it is my sincere wish to present these dolls 
 to you, and I wish you would accept them with my 
 sincere respect for your art. The dolls are entirely 
 made with hand, they are modeled with hand and 
 colored by hand. 
 
 Your Rosemary is the only "Remembrance" 
 that would make me think of America when I 
 return back to Japan. Particularly I could not 
 forget that last scene of Rosemary, so impres- 
 sively lonesome.
 
 232 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 
 
 I could not forgive myself for not being able 
 to see you in New York. 
 
 I am going back to Japan in about one month, 
 after settling our affairs at the Exposition. 
 
 And I am greatly anxious to have two photo- 
 graphs of yourself, one in stage costume, and one 
 in which you appear as yourself. 
 
 And before your photographs, I would tell the 
 young people of Japan of your artful acting, for 
 which I am certain they would pay you the best 
 and highest respect. 
 
 Though this country has had no theatrical family 
 which can boast, like the Ichikawa, of two hundred 
 years in the theatre, there have been several families 
 closely identified with the stage. In an editorial article 
 called "Acting Blood," the New York Herald a few 
 years ago printed: 
 
 The theatrical profession has produced families 
 in which the acting blood ran strong through more 
 than one generation. The Booths, Jeffersons and 
 Davenports were notable examples of inherited 
 talent, and still more distinguished, in the eyes of 
 the present generation of playgoers, are the 
 Drews, now conspicuously in the public eye. The 
 founder of the family was John Drew, one of the 
 best Irish comedians our stage has known, who 
 flourished during the fifties and whose wife, Mrs. 
 John Drew, was a famous Mrs. Malaprop, 
 
 My daughter, Louise Drew, the granddaughter of 
 two famous actresses of the American stage, my mother,
 
 MY YEARS ON THE STAGE 233 
 
 Louisa Drew, and Alexina Fisher Baker, and the great 
 granddaughter of the English actress, Eliza Kinloch, 
 together with the three children of my sister, Georgie 
 Drew Barrymore, herself an actress of fine talent, are 
 carrying on the family tradition and demonstrating the 
 possession of "acting blood" in the fourth generation. 
 
 
 \^-^ ^ 
 
 %o..^^ '(^^o-^t^i'* 
 
 \ L
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbey, Edwin A, io6, 136. 
 Adams, Annie, 50, 171, 178. 
 •^Adams, Maude, 50, 169, 170, 171, 
 
 173, 177. 178, 183, 184, i86, 217. 
 After Business Hours, 109. 
 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 159, 161. 
 All the Comforts of Home, 170. 
 Allen, C. Leslie, 171, 177, 184. 
 Amberly, Lady, n. 
 Amberly, Lord, 11. 
 American, The, 61. 
 Arabian Night, An, 78. 
 Archer, Fred, 147. 
 Arkansas Traveler, The, 37, 38. 
 Armstrong, Sydney, 182. 
 As You Like It, 95, 96, 98, 137, 
 
 140. 
 Ayling, Herbert, 184. 
 
 B 
 
 Baker, Alexins Fisher, 38, 233. 
 Baker, Josephine. See Mrs. John 
 
 Drew. 
 Baker, Lewis, 38, 60, 61, 177, 184, 
 
 193, 199. 203- 
 Bancrofts, The, 146. 
 Barnes, Maggie, 76. 
 Barrett, Lawrence, 94, 96, 159, 
 
 161. 
 Barrett, Wilson, 93. 
 Barrie, J. M., 197, 218. 
 Barry, Nigel, 217. 
 Barrymore, Ethel, 56, 188, 190, 
 
 200, 218, 229, 230, 233. 
 Barrymore, John, 204, 229, 230, 
 
 233. 
 Barrymore, Lionel, 202, 203, 229, 
 
 230, 233. 
 Barrymore, Maurice, 54, 57, 58, 
 
 59, 62, 63,. 64, 66, 67, 68, 69. 
 
 Barrymore, Mrs. Maurice. See 
 
 Georgie iJrew. 
 Bauble Shop, The, 183. 
 Beau Brummel, 171. 
 Beekman, W. H., 114, 
 Belasco, David, 182. 
 Bell, Constance, 204. 
 Bell, E. Hamilton, 93, no, 112. 
 Belleville, Frederick de, no. 
 Bells, The, 60. 
 Belmont, Anna, 184. 
 Benedict, E. C, 159. 
 Bennett, Frank V., 76, 77, 165, 
 
 166. 
 Berkeley, Marie, 217. 
 Bernhardt, Sarah, 61, 138, 199, 
 
 200. 
 Big Bonanza, The, 41, 43, 45, 46, 
 
 47, 48. 
 Bispham, William, 159, 161. 
 
 Blowitz, M. de, 142. 
 
 Boland, Mary, 197, 212, 213, 216, 
 
 217, 220, 230. 
 Bond, Frederick, 93, 101, 112, 114, 
 
 116. 
 Booth, Agnes, 98. 
 Booth, Edwin, 8, 24, 31, 54, 56, 
 
 57. 58, 91. 159, 160, 232. 
 Boots at the Sixan, 88. 
 Bosworth, Hobart, 96, 98, 100, 
 
 116. 
 Bouchier, Arthur, 139. 
 Boucicault, Dion, 47, 86, 182. 
 Boughton, George, 137. 
 Bowers, Mrs. D. P., 8, 165, 183. 
 Bowkett, Sidney, 116. 
 Bradley, Malcolm, 217. 
 Brand, John, 84. 
 Brighton, 151. 
 Brough, Fannie, 203, 204. 
 Brown, Allston, 114. 
 Browning, Robert, 137. 
 
 335
 
 236 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bruun, Axel, 208. 
 Buckland, Wilfred, 100. 
 Budd, Herbert, 208, 219. 
 Buchanan, Virginia, 171. 
 Bunch of Keys, A, 164. 
 Bunner, H. C., io6. 
 Burke, Billie, 208, 209. 
 Burnand, F. C, 138, 139. 
 Burton, Blanche, 193. 
 Butterflies, 177, 178, 184. 
 Byron, Arthur, 177, 184, 193, 198, 
 
 199, 225. 
 Byron, Henry J., 47. 
 Byron, Mrs. Oliver Doud, 33. 
 
 Cabinet Minister, The, 109, no. 
 
 Camille, 8, 30. 
 
 Captain Dieppe, 204, 205. 
 
 Captain Jinks, 2C«, 229. 
 
 Cardiff Giant, 71. 
 
 Carleton, Henry Guy, 177, 183. 
 
 Carr, Comyns, 109. 
 
 Carr, Herbert, 199. 
 
 Carrington, Reginald, 203. 
 
 Carson, Murray, 186. 
 
 Carton, R. C, 184 
 
 Casson, Louis, 212. 
 
 Casting a Boomerang, 123. 
 
 Chambers, C. Haddon, 197. 
 
 Chanfrau, Frank, 37, 38. 
 
 Charity, 47, 140. 
 
 Cheatham, Kitty, 100. 
 
 Chief, The, 220. 
 
 Choate, Joseph H., 218, 219. 
 
 Christopher, Jr., 184. 
 
 Churchill, Winston, 198. 
 
 Clarke, George, 95, 96, 98, 100, 
 
 n6. 
 Clarke, J. S., 61. 
 Clayton, John, in. 
 Clemens, Samuel L. See Mark 
 
 Twain. 
 Cleveland, Grover, 176. 
 Coghlan, Charles, 116. 
 Coghlan, Rose, 98, 213. 
 Collier, Helen, 230. 
 Collier, William, 91, 94, 100, loi, 
 
 152. 153. 
 Conquest, Ida, 197, 198, 199, 203. 
 Contented Woman, A, 179. 
 
 Conway, Mrs. F. B., 183. 
 Conway, Hart, 76, 77, 99. 
 Cool as a Cucumber, i, 2, 3. 
 Cooper, Frank Kemble, 217. 
 Coquelin, 61, 113, 141. 
 Country Girl, The, 1 1 5, 127, 128,141. 
 Country Sport, The, 175. 
 Country Wife, The, 115. 
 Craig, Robert, 25, 27. 
 Crane, Edith, 100, 116. 
 Crane, W. H., 48, 98, 189. 
 Crehan, Ada, 33. 
 Crewes, Laura Hope, 197, 217, 
 
 218. 
 Crosman, Henrietta, 95, 96. 
 Curamings, Ellen, 62, 63. 
 Custer, General, 16, 17. 
 Curry, Jim, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68. 
 Curtis, George William, 106. 
 Cymbeline, 59. 
 
 D 
 
 Dailey, Peter, 175. 
 
 Dale, Margaret, 203, 204, Z05. 
 
 Dalton, Charles, 230. 
 
 Daly, Arnold, 175. 
 
 Daly, Augustin, 33, 36, 39, 40, 41, 
 
 42, 43. 45. 46. 47. 49. 5°, 57. 
 60, 61, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 
 84, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 95, 99, 
 loi, 103, 104, 105, no. III, 113, 
 IIS, "9, 121, 124, 125, 127, 134, 
 141, 143. 146, 150, 151, 159. i6i, 
 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 171, 
 172, 194, 195, 196, 209, 210. 
 
 Daly, Joseph F., 57, 159. 
 
 Daly, Lu Lung, 209, 210. 
 
 Daly, Peter. See Arnold Daly. 
 
 Daly's Theatre, 71 (Opening). 
 
 Dam, Henry, 121. 
 
 Damala, 138. 
 
 Dandy Dick, 109, no. 
 
 Davenport, E. L., 24, 232. 
 
 Davenport, Edgar L., 212, 333. 
 
 Davenport, Fanny, 40, 45, 47, 49, 
 50, 96, 99, 140. 
 
 Davy Crockett, 30. 
 
 Davidge, William, 54, 76, 77, 99. 
 
 Davies, Hubert, 220. 
 
 Davies, H. Rees, 62. 
 
 Davis, Richard Harding, 191. 
 
 t^wU^>bv<v^l'* 
 
 i •>-' 
 
 •1-3
 
 INDEX 
 
 237 
 
 De Lancey, 205. 
 
 Delmore, Herbert, 217. 
 
 Derickson, Marie, 193. 
 
 De Wolfe, Elsie, 184, 188, 191. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 24-26, 38, 135. 
 
 Diplomacy, 62, 66, 68. 
 
 Dithmar, Edward A., 84, 107. 
 
 Divorce, 62, 76. 
 
 Dodson, J. E., 183. 
 
 Dollars and Sense, 109, 123. 
 
 Doro, Marie, 195. 
 
 Doty, Carlotta, 217. 
 
 Douglas, Gilbert, 219. 
 
 Dreher, Virginia, 93, 94, 112, 114, 
 
 123, 134- 
 
 Drew, Edward, 14, 15. 
 
 Drew, Frank, 28, 29, 70. 
 
 Drew, George, 15. 
 
 Drew, Georgie, i, 2, 3, 35, 38, 69, 
 233. 
 
 Drew, John, 1-6 (debut), 6-29 
 (early recollections), 32-40 
 (Arch Street Theatre), 42-46 
 (New York debut), 47-52 (to 
 coast with Daly Company), 54- 
 59 (with Booth), 59 (with 
 Adelaide Neilson), 60 (with 
 Jefferson), 62-68 (with Warde 
 and Barrymore), 71-117 (the 
 Daly Company), 118-153 (the 
 Daly Company abroad), 168 
 (last performance with Daly 
 Company), 169-230 (under 
 management of Charles Froh- 
 man). 
 
 Drew, Mrs. John, 38, 170, 221. 
 
 Drew, John, Sr., i, 2, 8, 9, 21, 22, 
 
 23. 34, 35- 
 Drew, Mrs. John, Sr., i, 2, 3, 4, 
 
 6, 7. 8, 13, 19, 34, 35, 40, 114, 
 
 189, 190, 232, 233. 
 Drew, Louisa. See Mrs. John 
 
 Drew, Sr. 
 Drew, Louise, 214, 220, 23a. 
 Drink, 7a 
 Druce, Hubert, 217. 
 Duff, John, 70. 
 Duke of KilUcrankie, The, aoi, 
 
 202, 203. 
 du Maurier, G., 150. 
 Dyaa, Ada, 99. 
 
 E 
 
 East Lynne, 8. 
 
 Eckendorf, Major, 14. 
 
 Edmunds, Walter, 76, 77. 
 
 Edwards, Harry, 100, 116, 159. 
 
 Elliott, Arthur, 219. 
 
 Elliott, Frank, 217. 
 
 Empire Theatre (opening of), 
 
 182. 
 Eric, Fred, 217. 
 Esmond, H. V., 191. 
 Evangeline, i8o. 
 
 Fair, James, 48, 49. 
 
 Fairfax, Bernard, 216. 
 
 Far from the Madding Croiud, 
 
 109. 
 Fawcett, Edgar, 78, 104, 105. 
 Fearing, Henry, 219. 
 Febvre, Frederick, 176. 
 Fechter, Charles, 27, 30. 
 Fernandez, Bijou, 94. 
 Fielding, May, 75, 114. 
 Fisher, Amelia, 79, 80. 
 Fisher, Charles, 27, 52, ;4, 75, 77, 
 
 .93, 99, "2, 114. 
 Fitch, Clyde, 171, 180, 200, 204, 
 
 229. 
 Flagg, Georgine, 76. 
 Florence, Katherine, 182. 
 Florence, Lillian, 171. 
 Florence, W. J., 183. 
 Flower, Charles, 122. 
 Fool's Revenge, The, 24. 
 Ford, George, 203. 
 Foresters, The, 36, 139. 
 Forrest, Edwin, 7, 24, 61, 161. 
 Franklyn, Maurice, 219. 
 Fredericks, William S., 8. 
 Frohman, Charles, 69, 163, 164, 
 
 165, 166, 167, i68, 173, 17s, 186, 
 
 195, 198, 200, 207, 209, 218, 226, 
 
 227, 228. 
 Frohman, Daniel, 198. 
 Fulda, Ludwig, 170. 
 Furness, Horace Howard, 88, 90. 
 Files, Franklin, 182.
 
 238 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gayler, May, 208. 
 
 Gilbert, Mrs, G. H., 40, 46, 49, 
 
 50, 77, 81, 83, 84, 88, 89, 90, 93, 
 
 103, 105, 116, 123, 128, 132, 151, 
 
 166, 19s, 196. 
 Gilbert, William, 93, 96, 114, 132. 
 Gilbert, W. S., 47, 59, 140. 
 Gillette, William, 163, 170, 228. 
 Girdlestone, Madge, 219. 
 Girl I Left Behind Me, The, 182. 
 Glad of It, 204, 205. 
 Glendenning, Ernest, 230. 
 Golden Widoiu, 113, 
 Goldsmith, Frank, 208, 212. 
 Goodwin, Nat C, 179, 180, 181, 
 
 189. 
 Gottschalk, Ferdinand, 203, 208. 
 Gower, Lord Ronald, 138. 
 Granger, Maude, 70. 
 Granny, 195, 196. 
 Grant, General, 87. 
 Grattan, Stephen, loi, 152, 153, 
 Great Eastern, The, 26. 
 Great Ruby, The, 194. 
 Great Unknoivn, The, 109. 
 Gormley, Owen, 74, 75. 
 Grey, Alice, 54. 
 Griffen, C, 6. 
 
 Grossmith, George, 138, 139. 
 Grundy, Sydney, 190. 
 
 H 
 
 Hackett, James K., 198. 
 
 Hale, Walter, 205. 
 
 Hallard, C. M., 219. 
 
 Halliday, Lena, 219. 
 
 Hamlet, 54, 57, 126. 
 
 Handy Andy, 22. 
 
 Harcourt, George, 203. 
 
 Hardenburg, F., 54. 
 
 Hardy, Thomas, 109, 139. 
 
 Hare, John, 150. 
 
 Harkins, D. H., 54, 57, 99, ^93. 
 
 Harte, Bret, 147, 148. 
 
 Harrold, Maggie, 77. 
 
 Harrison, Florence, 218. 
 
 Harwood, Harry, 171, 177, 184, 
 
 193. 198, 199- 
 Hawtrey, Charles, 216. 
 Hayman, Al, 164, 165. 
 
 Hayman, Alf, 227. 
 Henderson, Grace, 213. 
 Henriques, Madelaine, 27. 
 Her Atonement, 163. 
 Herbert, Sidney, 100, 116, 217. 
 His Excellency, The Governor^ 
 
 2CK). 
 
 His House in Order, 219. 
 Hodgson, Sir Arthur, 121. 
 Holland, Edward, 189. 
 Holland, Joseph, 94, 101, 189. 
 Holmes, Burton, 223, 224. 
 Hope, Anthony, 204. 
 Hopper, De Wolf, 163. 
 Hopper, Edvard, 11. 
 Hopper, Isaac T., 10. 
 Howard, Bronson, 47, 50, 77, 93, 
 
 151, 163. 
 Howard, L. C, 208. 
 Hoyt, Charles, 164, 170, 179, 180. 
 Humphreys, Joseph, 184. 
 Hunter, Clara, 193. 
 Hunting, P., 76, 77. 
 Hutton, Lawrence, 159. 
 
 Ichikawa, 231, 232. 
 Hlington, Margaret, 219. 
 Inconstant George, 214, 216. 
 International Match, An, 109. 
 Iredale, Frank, 76. 
 Irish, Annie, 193. 
 Irish Emigrant, The, 22. 
 Irving, Henry, 60, 95, 126, 137, 
 
 138, 144, 150, 190, 196. 
 Irving, Isabel, 95, 100, no, 190, 
 
 193. 197, 198, 212. 
 Irwin, May, 104, 112, 114, 132, 
 
 175- 
 Ives, Charlotte, 23a 
 
 Jack Strata, 212. 
 James, Henry, 147, 150. 
 James, Louis, 30, 90, 91, 99. 
 Jefferson, Joseph, 4, 60, 86, 87, 
 155, 160, 162, 180, 189, 190, 232. 
 Jerome, Jerome K., 195. 
 Jerrold, W. Blanchard, i. 
 Jewett, Sarah, 40.
 
 INDEX 
 
 239 
 
 John, Alice, 218. 
 Johnson, Andrew, 16. 
 Johnson, Orrin, 182, 193. 
 Jones, Henry Arthur, 183, 191. 
 Jones, Mrs. W. G., 199. 
 
 K 
 
 Katherine and Petruchio. See 
 The Taming of the Shrew. 
 
 Keeler, Caroline, 203. 
 
 Kelly, Desmond, 217. 
 
 Kendal, Mr. and Mrs., 146. 
 
 Kendrick, Rexford, 217. 
 
 Kester, Paul, 196. 
 
 Kimball, Kate, 213. 
 
 Kingdon, (Gould) Edith, 94, 107, 
 112, 133. 
 
 Kinloch, Eliza, 12, 19, 233. 
 
 Kiskadden. See Adams. 
 
 Kitty O'Shiel, 36. 
 
 Klein, Alfred, 163, 164. 
 
 Klein, Charles, 163. 
 
 Kniffht of Arva, 22. 
 
 L 
 
 Labouchere, Henry, 124. 
 
 Lacy, Harry, 77. 
 
 Lady Huntvjorth's Experiment, 
 184. 
 
 Lady of Lyons, The, 194. 
 
 Laffan, Robert, 122. 
 
 Lamb, Edward, 183. 
 
 Lamb, Frank E., 171, 177, 183, 
 184, 198. 
 
 Lane, Louisa. See Mrs. John 
 Drew, Sr. 
 
 Lanner, Margaret, 77. 
 
 L'Assomoir, 70, 75. 
 
 Latham, Hope, 208. 
 
 Laurel, Jane, 212, 217. 
 
 Lawton, Thais, 220. 
 
 Lady Atidley, 8. 
 
 LeBrun, Mrs., 90. 
 
 Leclercq, Charles, 76, 77, 93, 95, 
 100, 103, 116. 
 
 Lester, Kate, 204. 
 
 Lewis, Catherine, 76, 77. 
 
 Lewis, James, 39, 40, 41, 43, 46, 
 49. 50, 51. 52. 77, 81, 83, 84, 88, 
 90, 93. 94. 95. 100, 101, 103, 112, 
 114, 116, 122, 123, 126, 128, 131, 
 132, 148, 149, 151, 152, 154, 157, 
 
 158, 159, 163, 166, 183, 185, 186, 
 
 195. 
 Lewis, JefFrys, 49, 54, 57, 230. 
 Liars, The, 191, 192. 
 Lion and the Mouse, The, 163. 
 Little Treasure, The, 66. 
 Little Minister, The, 186. 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 191. 
 Logan, Olive, 32, 70, 76. 
 London Assurance, 47, 48. 
 Longman, Edward, 217. 
 Lord and Lady Algy, 184. 
 Lords and Commons, 109. 
 Losee, Frank, 199. 
 Lost in London, 27. 
 Lost Paradise, The, 170. 
 Lottery of Love, The, 113. 
 Love for Love, 115. 
 Love in Harness, 109. 
 Love on Crutches, IC7, 109, 125, 
 
 127, 128, 132, 134, 141. 
 Love JVatches, 209. 
 Love's Labour's Lost, 99. 
 Love's Young Dream, 75. 
 Lover, Samuel, 21. 
 
 Mc 
 McCoy, Frank, 230. 
 McDonough, William, 147. 
 McDougal, Rex, 208, 216, 219. 
 McCullough, John, 48. 
 McKelway, Sinclair, 85. 
 
 M 
 Mackay, Clarence, 48. 
 Mackay, John, 48 
 Mackay, Robert, 203. 
 Magistrate, The, 109, no, in, 
 
 112. 
 Majeroni, Mario, 208, 212. 
 Mansfield, Richard, 171, 210, 211. 
 Marburgh, Bertram, 217. 
 Marbury, Elizabeth, 204. 
 Marlowe, Julia, 189. 
 Marriage of Convenience, A, 190, 
 
 191. 
 Marshall, Captain, 195, 202. 
 Masked Ball, The, 171, 172, 173, 
 
 174. 175. 177. 182- 
 Mathews, Charles, 5. 
 Maugham, W. Somerset, 212.
 
 240 
 
 INDEX 
 
 May, Olive, 177, 178, 199. 
 
 Mayo, Frank, 30, 98. 
 
 Meek, Kate, 178. 
 
 Mellish, Fuller, 230. 
 
 Meredith, George, 139. 
 
 Merry Wives of JVindsor, 88, 93. 
 
 Midsummer Nights Dream, A, 94, 
 
 95- . 
 Midnight Bell, A, 170, 179. 
 
 Mighty Dollar, The, 183. 
 
 Millais, John E., 150. 
 
 Miller, Henry, 81, 165, 185. 
 
 Millet, F. S., 106. 
 
 Milward, Jessie, 200. 
 
 Minna, Madame, 9. 
 
 Miss Hobbs, 195. 
 
 Mitchell, Dodson, 199. 
 
 Moliere, 77, 144. 
 
 Moore, John, 41, 93, 100, 116. 
 
 Moore, Mary, 122. 
 
 Morris, Clara, 90, 91. 
 
 Morris, William, 182. 
 
 Morton, Charles, 39. 
 
 Morton, George, 77. 
 
 Morton, Michael, 207. 
 
 Mott, Lucretia, 11. 
 
 Mounet-Sully, 61. 
 
 Much Ado About Nothing, 217. 
 
 Mummy and the Humming Bird, 
 
 The, 202. 
 Murdoch, Frank, 30. 
 Murphy, Steve. See Grattan. 
 Murray, Ross, 217. 
 Music Master, The, 163. 
 My Wife, 207, 208. 
 
 N 
 Nancy and Company, 46, 106, 109, 
 
 124, 127, 128, 141, 144. 
 Nathan Hale, 180. 
 Needles and Pins, 83, 84, 85, 109. 
 Neilson, Adelaide, 22, 59. 
 Nelson, Sydney, 77. 
 Ne<wport, 76. 
 Neiu Way to Pay Old Debts, A, 
 
 24. 
 Nicander, Edwin, 2i2. 
 Nichols, Guy, 205. 
 Nick of the Woods, 24. 
 Night Off, A, 46, 101, 103, 104, 
 
 109, 123, 127, 128, 134, 141, 168. 
 
 Odette, 113. 
 
 Olin, Stephen, 159. 
 
 Oliver Tvnst, 47. 
 
 Olivia, 60. 
 
 O'Neill, Hattie, 33, 37. 
 
 O'Neill, James, 48. 
 
 One Summer's Day, 191. 
 
 Othello, 57. 
 
 Our First Families, 78, 81, 104. 
 
 Ours, 25. 
 
 Palmer, A. M., 113, 159, 161. 
 Parkes, George, 40, 41, 76, 77, 94, 
 
 114. 
 Parker, Louis N., 186. 
 Parmenter, B. W., 204. 
 Pastor, Tony, 104. 
 Passing Regiment, The, 109. 
 Patten, Thomas, 101. 
 Peaceful Valley, 154. 
 Perplexed Husband, The, aoz, 
 
 220. 
 Peter Wilkins, 20. 
 Phelps, Edward, 147, 148, 150, 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, ii, 25. 
 
 Pickivick Papers, 24. 
 
 Pinero, Arthur Wing, 109, no, 
 
 III, 219. 
 Players, The, Founding of, 159- 
 
 162. 
 Poole, Mrs. Charles, 76. 
 Pond, Anson, 163, 165. 
 Poor Relation, The, 155. 
 Porter, Ben, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67. 
 Porter, General Horace, 93, 
 
 106. 
 Powell, E. Soldene, 208, 212. 
 Power, Tyrone, 21. 
 Powers, Francis, 199. 
 Powers, Leona, 219. 
 Presbrey, Eugene, 171. 
 Price, Lizzie, 27. 
 Prince, Adelaide, 100, 116, 213, 
 
 216. 
 Proctor, Joseph, 24. 
 Prodigal Husband, The, »20. 
 Professor, The, 163.
 
 INDEX 
 
 241 
 
 Railroad of Love, The, 46, 107, 
 
 108, 109, 144. 
 Reade, Charles, 70. 
 Recruiting Officer, The, 113, 114, 
 
 Rehan, Ada, 25, 33, 35, 37, 38, 39, 
 40, 63, 70, 72, 75, 77, 78, 81, 83, 
 84, 85, 90, 93, 94, 95, 97. 99, 100, 
 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, no, in, 
 112, 113, 114, 115, n6, 121, 123, 
 I2S, 128, 133, 137, 138, 139, 146, 
 151, 153, 163, 166, 169, 191, 194, 
 195, 196. 
 
 Remington, Frederick, 215, 216. 
 
 Revelle, Hamilton, 152. 
 
 Rice, Fanny, 189. 
 
 Richard Carvel, 198. 
 
 Richard, Daly's servant, 42. 
 
 Richard II, 56, 57. 
 
 Richelieu, 24, 57. 
 
 Rigl, Emily, 70. 
 
 Ringold, B. T., 70. 
 
 Rip Van Winkle, 60, 86, 87. 
 
 Rivals, The, 189, 190. 
 
 Roberts, Theodore, 182. 
 
 Robertson, Ian, 170. 
 
 Robertson, Tom, 25. 
 
 Robson, Stuart, 98. 
 
 Roccardi, Albert, 208. 
 
 Rockwell, Charles, 27. 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 191, 201. 
 
 Rory O'More, 22. 
 
 Rose, Edward, 204. 
 
 Rose, E. E., 198. 
 
 Rosemary, 81, 83, 174, 183, 185, 
 186, 188, 189, 190, 226, 230, 231. 
 
 Rough Diamond, The, 47, 52. 
 
 Royal Family, The, 195. 
 
 Russell, Annie, 172, 195. 
 
 Russell, Harold, 171. 
 
 Russell, Sol Smith, 154, 155, 156. 
 
 Ryley, Madeline Lucette, 184. 
 
 S 
 
 Sabine, Martin, 216, 219. 
 Saint-Gaudens, A., 175. 
 Sampson, William, 100. 
 Sanger, Frank, 70, 164, 165. 
 Sardou, V,, 113, 230. 
 
 Saratoga, 47, 50, 151, 152. 
 
 Sarcey, F., 142, 144. 
 
 Sargent, John S., 147. 
 
 Second in Command, The, 202. 
 
 Sefton, John, 26. 
 
 Selten, Mrs. Kate Pattison, 208. 
 
 Selton, Morton, 208, 212. 
 
 7-20-8, 123. 
 
 Schable, Robert, 203, 216. 
 
 School for Scandal, The, 61, 115, 
 
 116. 
 Scott, Cyril, 182. 
 Scotto, the Scout, 19. 
 Scrap of Paper, The, 54, 230. 
 Simpson, Ivan, 220. 
 Single Man, A , 220. 
 Skinner, Otis, 93, 94, loi, 103, 112, 
 114, 121, 123, 128, 130, 132, 133, 
 142, 156, 157, 196. 
 
 Shannon, Effie, 94. 
 Shenandoah, 163. 
 She Would and She Would Not, 
 114, 122, 127, 128. 
 
 Sheridan, General, 16, 52. 
 
 Sheridan, William. See William 
 S. Fredericks. 
 
 Sheridan, William E., 24. 
 
 Sherman, General, 16, 75, 93, 
 io6, 159. 
 
 Short, Hassard, 203, 212. 
 
 Smith, 212. 
 
 Smith, Ida Greeley, 208. 
 
 Smith, Percy, 203. 
 
 Soderling, Alice, 217. 
 
 Soderling, Walter, 208, 216, 217. 
 
 Sothern, E. H., 210, 211. 
 
 Squire, The, 109. 
 
 Squire of Dames, The, 184. 
 
 Standing, Guy, 202, 203. 
 
 Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 106. 
 
 Stephens, Yorke, 123. 
 
 Stephenson, Henry, 217. 
 
 Stevenson, C. A., 79. 
 
 Stirling, Earle, 76, 77. 
 
 Stockton, Frank R., 106, 
 
 Stoddart, J. H., \Iq, 
 
 Stokes, Rose, ^2. 
 
 Stranger in Ne^ Yori, A, 179. 
 
 Stranger, The, 58, 59- 
 
 Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 139, i5»i 
 154.
 
 242 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Surf, 32, 70, 76. 
 Sutro, Alfred, 202, 220. 
 Siueet Nell of Old Drury, 196. 
 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 
 139. 
 
 T 
 
 Taber, Robert, 189. 
 
 Taft, William Howard, 203. 
 
 Taming of the Shrew, The, 25, 
 35. 75f 88-93 (first perform- 
 ance), ic», no, 118, 119, 122, 
 
 125, 137. 138, 144, 145, 153, »69. 
 Taylor, Tom, 24. 
 Tennant, Dorothy, 208. 
 Tenniel, John, 138. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 36, 139. 
 Temperance Toivn, A, 179. 
 Terriss, William, 146. 
 Terry, Ellen, 138, 196. 
 That Impudent Young Couple, 
 
 183. 
 Thomas, Augustus, 205. 
 Thompson, W. IL, 182. 
 Thorndike, Sybil, 212. 
 Thorpe, Laura, 76. 
 Tilden, Fred, 216. 
 Tiote, 81. 
 
 Towse, John Rankin, 116. 
 Twain, Mark, 75, 84, 85, 93, 106, 
 
 159. 
 Tijjelve Precisely, 6. 
 T'welfth Night, 22, 59. 
 Tyler, Fred, 212. 
 Tyler, Odette, 182. 
 Tynan, Brandon, 199. 
 Tyranny of Tears, The, 197, 2i8. 
 Tyree, Elizabeth, 193. 
 
 U 
 
 Under the Gaslight, 42. 
 
 Vachell, Horace Annesley, 220. 
 
 Vernon, Ida, 203. 
 
 Vezin, Herman, 60. 
 
 Vibart, Henry, 219. 
 
 Vicar of Wakefield, The, 60. 
 
 W 
 
 Wagner, Richard, 141. 
 Wakeman, Annie, 76. 
 Walberg, The Avenger, 58. 
 Wales, The Prince of, 24, 52, 125. 
 Wallack, Lester, 26, 93. 
 IVang, 163. 
 
 Warde, Frederick, 62, 68. 
 Warner, Charles, 70. 
 Warner, Charles Dudley, 106. 
 Warren, William, 79, 162. 
 Way We Live, The, 78. 
 Weak Women, 47. 
 Wheatleigh, Charles, icx>, n6. 
 Wheatley, William, 8. 
 Wheeler, Colonel John H., 10. 
 Whiffen, Mrs. Thomas, 230. 
 Whistler, James McNeill, 136, 
 
 137- 
 White Horse of the Peppers, The, 
 
 21. 
 White, Stamford, 106, 161. 
 Wicked World, The, 140. 
 Widmer, Henry, 130, 131. 
 Wilkes, E. P., 76, 94, 114. 
 Will, The, 197, 218. 
 Williamson, Passmore, 10. 
 Williams, Fritz, 164. 
 Wills, W. G., 60. 
 William Tell, 7. 
 Wilson, Francis, 189. 
 Winter, William, 27, 54, 93, 119, 
 
 X2I, 150. 
 Wiz'es, 77. 
 Wives As They Wen and Maids 
 
 As They Are, 68. 
 Woman's Won't, A, 127, 141. 
 Women of the Day, 39, 40. 
 Wood, John, 94, loi. 
 Wood, Mrs. John, lor. 
 Wyndham, Charles, 47, 83, laa, 
 
 123, 151. 
 
 Yeghi, S., 230. 
 Yorke, Augustus, ii3. 
 Yorke, Oswald, 203. 
 Young, Brigham, 50, 
 

 
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