Nat Goodwin's Book

Chapter LXXVII

I FIND THE VERY BEST PHYLLIS

Fate in the person of George Broadhurst may seem incongruous to those who know that dramatist – but Fate is not to be held accountable for his guises! And it was through Broadhurst that Fate brought onto my horizon a young woman who presently was to save my life – and that is the least of countless benefits she has bestowed upon me!

Broadhurst spent most of his time in Southern California from 1907 to 1909 and not a little of it at my beach home. After my long run of failures I hoped I had landed a winner in his new play "The Captain" which I took to New York for production there. He accompanied me and undertook to select the cast. It was he who engaged as my leading woman Miss Margaret Moreland.

The play was a fizzle as complete as any of the others. Until it proved a disastrous failure I never knew it was not all Broadhurst's. He told me afterwards he had written it in collaboration with some "unknown!"

To round out my season I revived several of my tried and trusted old plays and did fairly good business on the road. If I accomplished nothing else that season could be set down by me as a success inasmuch as I discovered in Miss Moreland's acting of Phyllis in "When We were Twenty-One," the finest performance that rôle ever received – and I knew that in her lay the ability to become a really great emotional actress – a distinct discovery in these days.

When I received an offer at the close of the season to go to Los Angeles and appear in a repertoire of my plays at the Auditorium Theatre where a new stock company was being formed, I accepted. On my arrival there I found the whole city wildly excited over this first attempt at opposition which the Emperor of Stage Land in Southern California, Oliver Morosco, had ever been called upon to throttle. It was a battle royal while it lasted. The Auditorium, which seats 3500, was packed at every performance – at very cheap prices. During the several months of my engagement Morosco spent many thousands of dollars tying up all the plays available for stock performances he could lay his hands on. Also my engagement served to increase the salaries of a number of Morosco's actors who he feared were about to desert him. For me it was a brief holiday and amusing.

I recruited a company in Los Angeles following this engagement, engaging Miss Moreland as my leading woman, and opened in Phoenix, Arizona, playing my way across the country and arriving in New York in the holiday season in 1911. It was during this cross-country tour that I received a telegram from George C. Tyler which resulted in my proving to not a few doubting Thomases that I could "come back."

I have constantly referred to Fate taking my cue from Homer. Now I learn he used this word simply to save time! It seems it is "the fates" who have directed my course through life. With those three little maids from school, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos leading me along with their silken threads through my nose, allowing me to go on and on and then reeling me back again as one toys with a yellowtail, is it any wonder I've made so many failures? Had I only known I should have given up long ago!

Young ladies, you've certainly made it warm for me!

A love scene on the stage, properly played, leads to recriminations – if an explanation is demanded by the one left at home.

An "American beauty" is a flower which seeks to adorn a coronet. Wear one as a boutonnière – but never, never marry one!

Marriage in the profession should be made obligatory.

Chapter LXXVIII

THE LAMBS CLUB

What a remarkable institution is the Lambs Club!

I say institution because in its development during the past twenty years it has grown from a cozy little rendezvous for the tired actors after their night's work to a clearing house for plays, sketches and engagements of artists.

To visit that beautiful home on Forty-fourth Street between the hours of one and two o'clock is to imagine you are in a business man's luncheon club down town.

As I look back upon the many years when, of a cold winter's night, I would wander into the little Twenty-sixth Street home of the Lambs – I sigh deeply! Then I was sure to find a greeting from dear old Clay Greene, from that budding genius Gus Thomas. There were there to welcome me also the erratic Sydney Rosenfeldt, suave Frank Carlisle, dominant Wilton Lackaye, brilliant Maurice Barrymore, dear old Lincoln (now passed away) and countless others, including clever Henry Dixey, then at the zenith of his success, the Holland boys and – but then why continue?

It was then we knew how to spend the time, how to regale ourselves and how to pass many, many happy hours with anecdote and song. All the members knew each other in those days. I, among many others, never entered the club without embracing that dearest of men, George Fawcett. There were no favored few in those days. It was one for all and all for one. Clever John Mason and that equally talented artist, George Nash, were the staunchest upholders of this slogan.

How different now!

As I enter the Lambs Club today I scarcely know a member. Almost all of the old guard have passed away. As I look into the faces of the many unknown to me it seems almost impossible that I have not wandered into the wrong building! But presently I find Gus Thomas and a few remaining members of the old flock – and then all is well once more.

Thomas has developed into the greatest American dramatist – as I knew he would. To be sure now and then one of his plays fails to meet with favor while perhaps one of the anaemic Broadhurst's sensual plays is meeting with success, but Thomas's plays will live and be in the libraries of America when the products of these ephemeral writers have been consigned to the waste baskets of obscurity.

I consider Thomas not only a great dramatist but a great American. I am sure if he had entered politics the world would have recognized him as a great statesman. With a suavity of manner, full of repose and a geniality which few possess, Thomas exerts on an audience a combined feeling of restfulness and awe. I never heard him utter an unkind word to anybody nor discuss an actor's or author's ability with anything approaching antagonism. He goes along quietly and unassumingly, writes a couple of failures and then – bang! – he hits you in the eye with a play that has a knock-out punch.

Such plays as "The Witching Hour" and "As a Man Thinks" will be acted when he and his many admirers shall have long since passed into the great beyond.

Augustus Thomas I count the Pinero of America – and a true American gentleman. We have been friends for twenty years and I am proud of that friendship.

In the same spirit of thanksgiving I may mention my friendship for John Mason. Surely the American public must be proud of this splendid player. John and I were very dear pals in our younger days and we have kept up the friendship to date. In those days John was prone to indulgence in all the existing vagaries of the moment and never took himself seriously until recently. But now he has settled down and showed his real merits as an actor.

The fact that he is a great favorite in London speaks volumes for his capability.

I sincerely hope that John Mason may be spared for many years to show this great American public that there are a few American artists still capable of delivering the goods.

John! I wish you continued success, for you deserve it!

In casting a play nowadays, never seek ability, seek only "personality."

The true philosophy of life is to try to achieve something and when you have – forget it.

Put a uniform on the average middle class "American" and you make of him a vulgar despot.

Chapter LXXIX

I "COME BACK"

Tyler's telegram contained an offer to play Fagin in an all-star production of "Oliver Twist" to be produced in February, 1912, on the occasion of the Dickens' centenary celebration. It had been a long time, the longest time in my entire stage career, that I had been without a successful characterization in New York – and the thought of giving my interpretation of the famous Jew appealed to me. I accepted.

The production was very good. The company was quite capable. Associated with me were Constance Collier, Lyn Harding, Marie Doro and other equally well-known and finished artists. Fuller Mellish's performance of Mr. Grimwig was one of the most delightful bits of character acting I ever saw.

We opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre to a capacity audience and tremendous business was the rule during the entire engagement. It was a fine playhouse in which to stage such a pretentious production as Tyler had given the play. There is little doubt that "Oliver Twist" might have remained at the New Amsterdam almost indefinitely had it not been that other, earlier bookings compelled us to move out. The demand for seats was so great, however, that Charles Frohman welcomed us at the Empire Theatre where, much to my surprise (for it is altogether too small and "intimate" a place for such a production as this), it continued to "turn 'em away."

The critics were all very enthusiastic. It amused me not a little to detect in several of the reviews expressions of surprise that I was able to portray Fagin to the reviewer's satisfaction. Of course I knew all along that the Rialto and Park Row were a unit in declaring that I could never "come back." I think perhaps the simple fact that I made Fagin a humorous old codger instead of the sinister object our very best tragedians have always painted him may account for the laudatory notices my work received.

But there can't be any question about Fagin. He was a comedian – positively! Think of his telling Charlie Bates he would give "dear little Oliver a treat" – by letting him sleep in that awful, awful bed of his! Oh yes, Fagin never stopped having silent laughs. And I liked him for it.

While we were playing to packed houses at every performance at the Empire Tyler sailed for Europe assuring us he would send us out on tour after the Empire Theatre engagement. He said we were to go to the Coast and continue the tour throughout the following season. As a result I turned down a very flattering offer to appear in New York that fall. Had he not failed to keep his promise I should have been spared a year of physical suffering!

But he did break his promise. A week after the Titanic disaster we received notice that the season was at an end so far as "Oliver Twist" was concerned.

And now, having "come back" I foolishly determined to go back – and I started for California once more. I've always thought Greeley's advice should have read, "Go West, old man!"

Chapter LXXX

I "GO BACK"

The summer of 1912 proved very eventful!

Closing the "Oliver Twist" season early in May I headed for California to superintend the development of my ranch at San Jacinto. Immediately on my arrival I began the laying out and planting of a hundred acres of oranges, lemons and grape fruit. It proved most fascinating work.

During the three months I put in at the ranch I lived in a big tent with a party of friends including Miss Moreland and her married sister. I was up with the birds and in bed by 9 o'clock every night. Employing as I was twenty men and ten six-horse teams, ten four-horse and three ten-horse, my job of supervision was necessarily a big one. I would go from one gang to another climbing hills which in a few days would be levelled! Oh it was big work – adjusting the miles of pipe lines and cement flumes which we manufactured ourselves during the process of grading, preparing the holes to receive the trees which were being prepared and nourished at the nursery of a Mr. Wilson of Hemet, two miles away, seeing that the hot ground was properly cooled by the water I had developed from a concealed spring in the mountains and doing the thousand and one other things necessary to insure the successful development of an orange grove.

I had previously given the work a great deal of thought and study. It requires a great deal. The average orange grower neglects the study of the planting and rearing of the trees and the result is more often failure than success. An orange tree will not nourish alone and neglected any more than a baby and it is in its early life, like the infant, that it must be watched. The young tree should first be carefully examined as to its vigor and stamina; next its foundation or roots must be well looked after and handled tenderly in its uprooting in the nursery; extreme care expressed in the removal and transplanting. It should be transported, if the weather be hot, during the early morning hours, packed in manure, well watered and the roots covered by canvas or burlap. The holes should be kept moist all the previous evening to cool the earth and in the planting all the roots should be carefully separated and spread out. Directly a row is planted it should be deluged with water for six to eight hours or longer. Once a week for ten years the ground should be cultivated and disturbed and every year, unless the soil is very rich, the trees should be fertilized. An orchard should be gone over at least every other day for three years when by that time it can take care of itself with a little attention and be made a most profitable investment. But it won't thrive on its own and you can't run an orange grove living three thousand miles away nor intrust it to the management of the average care taker. Go to it personally and it will prove a winner with a chance of clearing one thousand dollars an acre annually.

Faith is the harbor of the unwary into which the ship of ignorance tranquilly sails.

Chapter LXXXI

DAVID BELASCO

What an intellectual giant is David Belasco! The most conspicuous man associated with the American stage to-day. His accomplishments have been colossal. Even Irving, Pouissard, Charles Keane and many other artists of their day, who have devoted their lives to Art, bow in obeisance to the modern David.

Think what this gentleman has accomplished! He has given to the world David Warfield and made him a master; Blanche Bates, Mrs. Carter and many others of equal talent. Produced plays that will go down in history among the classics; modernized stagecraft to the extent that one never realizes they are in a theatre when privileged to witness one of the Belasco productions. Yet, with all his wondrous powers and attainments, he is never in evidence, only his handiwork. He has built the only playhouse worthy the name in America. It suggests the old Irving Lyceum in London, and one approaches the portals of the Belasco Theatre with awe and reverence.

I have known him for over thirty years, and he is as modest as he is clever: every angle of our Art at his finger tips. A gentleman, scholar and Artist! A Man, is David Belasco, Dean of the American Drama.

Chapter LXXXII

"AUTHOR – AUTHOR"

Not so long ago I was present at the first performance of a play, and during its presentation I was shocked beyond my power to describe by an incident at the same time disgusting and inconceivably vulgar. The play itself – a wearisome thing – was crude and altogether impossible.

At the end of the second act, a half dozen paid ushers applauded valiantly. Before they could become wearied by their difficult task, a huge, bulky man appeared before the curtain. He ambled slowly to the center of the stage where he stood still for perhaps fifteen seconds as if to enable the audience to contemplate him in repose.

Then this individual shifted his weight from one leg to the other, still keeping silent. There he stood, a sneer distorting his features, poised on one leg, the left foot pointing toward the right. He wore an ill-fitting evening suit with an abundance of shirt front, very much mussed, protruding from the confines of the waistcoat. His face, unwashed, suggested a cross between a Bill Sykes and a Caliban. Oblique, thin slits concealed a pair of green-white eyes. A strong, wide jaw that opened and shut like the snap of an alligator's was tilted forward and upward at the puzzled spectators.

Finally the person, the author of the drivel we had patiently listened to, leaned over the footlights and casting a look toward the woman for whom he had deserted home, wife and children, literally snarled at the audience.

"I wrote this play for the elect," he declared ferociously.

A perceptible shudder ran through the house. Many men and women rose from their seats and left the theatre, refusing to remain to hear the incoherent and egotistical remarks of this revolting person.

I have known this brute for twenty years, and in all that time I have never heard one human being speak anything except ill of him. Managers avoid him. Artists loathe him. Authors despise him. A moral and physical coward, this man without a friend, wanders from East to West, vulgarly attempting to foist upon a long-suffering and all-too-easily deceived public, the woman whose chief claim to public notice is the fact that she was named as co-respondent in the divorce action obtained by his wife.

He continues to write plays of the underworld with inspirations obtained in the sewers of humanity and founded on ideas purloined from departed authors or stolen from the living too weak to protect themselves.

His blustering, bullying tactics have enabled him to push his way upwards to some success – but no one envies him. All who know him "have his number."

I have often wondered how he has escaped bodily injury. No woman is safe from his insults. I know one young woman who went to him in search of an engagement. His first question was so dastardly as to cause her to burst into tears, and she ran from his presence in hysterics. When this young woman's uncle learned of it he loaded a revolver and started on this playwright's track. But the tears and entreaties of his wife and his niece stopped him.

Will the world ever be rid of this form of human parasite?

I wonder.

The antithesis of this person is another author equally despised. He is a little, pale person who writes problem plays and has met with much success. He never drinks or smokes. In fact he poses as a paragon of all the virtues.

He once wrote me an insulting letter accusing me of uttering profane remarks concerning a certain business transaction between us. I never answered it, but have it in my possession. It may prove useful some day.

This beauty, who also has a wife and children, came West some few years ago accompanied by a woman whom he introduced to many persons as his wife. I knew she was not, but kept my counsel. One day we were discussing a play which he had promised to write for me. I asked him why he did not divorce his wife or insist on her divorcing him. He blandly replied: "Great Scott, I've tried everything to induce her to do so, but she doesn't believe in divorce. Besides, she is a Christian."

Fancy this pious little man saying this.

He goes merrily on his way, living a dual life – the woman of his easy choice provided for far better than his wife and children. And he writes plays dealing with moral problems! He receives very large royalties and basks in the sunshine of his own hypocrisy.

And this individual has had the audacity to criticise my actions and elect himself the censor of my various attitudes.

Well, let him. I would not exchange my conscience for his for all his affluence. And yet, from his point of view, he is right. The world applauds his plays. No one seems to interfere with his private affairs. He is received by all his fellow club members with impersonal respect. The wide white way is always open to him and the woman. There no one ever pushes them aside. The legal wife and children are unknown to cruel, gay Broadway. The narrow paths of the meadows and lanes of the suburban retreat in which this successful author has his family housed are their only byways. Through them they slowly tread – to the little church and beyond it to the graveyard, towards which the wife and mother ever sets her gaze – as if in prayerful hope.

And the author of successful plays is content.

He knows his wife is a Christian.

What is he?

I wonder.

I would rather sell fresh eggs from the end of my private car in one-night stands – than barter impure ones on the stage of a leading New York playhouse.

An agnostic objects to salaries for draped preachers and to temples whose roofs prohibit thought from permeating the realm of inspiration.

Fact is the whiplash that scourges faith.

Chapter LXXXIII

MUSHROOM MANAGERS

The past year has been an appalling one for the mushroom producing manager. I mean those insolent young men nearing the thirties, who by accident or some unknown reason secure control of musical comedies written by some obscure author and after interesting friends to the extent of investing capital enough to enable them to produce the aforesaid comedies, they launch their productions and sometimes get them over.

They look about for the best available talent, establish salaries that make it prohibitive for legitimate producers to sustain, and calmly go on their way. If they fail they can assign the production to the storehouse and leave their artists in any town or city where they come a cropper. If they succeed with their first venture they at once organize two or three road companies and go through the country circusing their first accidental success. They establish themselves in expensive offices; engage a staff and go at once into the producing game seriously, seeking the best authors and composers and outbidding managers of standing, and endeavor to secure prevailing European successes, or produce original plays of their own. Naturally, their lack of training and experience is a handicap and their first success is seldom followed by another. Two or three successive failures soon put them on the shelf and they seek the Bankruptcy Court to avoid their creditors. Artists are left stranded with an inflated idea of their respective values and generally indulge in a well merited vacation.

They have no sense of honor and their idea of speculation is to invest a shoe string with an idea of securing a tannery.

One of these producers was standing in the lobby of a New York theatre, last season, on the eve of one of his $30,000.00 productions, when he was approached by one of the leading actors of the past winter, to whom he owed several thousand dollars back salary. The actor offered to compromise for a thousand. The manager looked at him and replied: "My boy, where could I get the thousand?" These are the methods that are destroying the theatrical game.

Irresponsible managers have only to enter the office of these syndicates, assure the gentleman in charge that they have a production ready costing many thousands of dollars, and the booking agent at once arranges a tour, throwing aside standard attractions who have not invested quite as much money as the new producer, and the older attraction must take what is given him or leave it alone. If he objects, he is told that the Mushroom Manager has invested from $20,000 to $50,000 in his enterprise and his capital must be protected and the terms made accordingly. In other words, the booking agents gamble with them and allow them a percentage of the gross receipts according to the amount of his investment. I consider this all wrong and one of the reasons of the unsuccessful theatres of the present day.