Chapter 9

Before going to Boston he arranged with Al Hayman to take a half-interest in the play. When he reached Boston he went out to the house of Isaac B. Rich, who was then associated with William Harris in the conduct of the Howard Athenaeum and the Hollis Street Theater. Rich was a character in his way. He had been a printer in Bangor, Maine, had sold tickets in a New Orleans theater, and had already amassed a fortune in his Boston enterprises. He was an ardent spiritualist, and financed and gave much time to a spiritualistic publication of Boston called _The Banner of Light_. One of his theatrical associates at that time, John Stetson, owned _The Police Gazette_.

Rich conceived a great admiration for Frohman, whom he had met with Harris in booking plays for his Boston houses. He always maintained that Frohman was the counterpart of Napoleon, and called him Napoleon.

On this memorable day in Boston Frohman dined with Rich at his house and took him to see "Shenandoah." When it was over Frohman asked him what he thought of it.

"I'll take any part of it that you say," replied Rich.

"If I were alone," answered Frohman, "I would take you in, but I have already given Al Hayman half of it."

Frohman was very much impressed with "Shenandoah," although he did not believe the play was yet in shape for success. After the performance he asked Mr. Field if he could get the rights. Field replied:

"Abbey, French, and Palmer have options on it. If they don't want it you can have it."

Frohman returned to New York the next day, and even before he had seen Bronson Howard he looked up his friend Charles Burnham, then manager of the Star Theater, and asked him to save him some time.

Frohman now went to see Howard, who then lived at Stamford. He expressed his great desire for the play and then went on to say:

"You are a very great dramatist, Mr. Howard, and I am only a theatrical manager, but I think I can see where a possible improvement might be made in the play. For one thing, I think two acts should be merged into one, and I don't think you have made enough out of Sheridan's ride."

When he had finished, Howard spoke up warmly and said, "Mr. Frohman, you are right, and I shall be very glad to adopt your suggestions."

The very changes that Howard made in the play were the ones that helped to make it a great success, as he was afterward frank enough to admit.

Frohman now made a contract for the play and went to Burnham to book time. Burnham, meanwhile, had been to Boston to see the play, and he said:

"I saved six weeks for you at the Star for Shenandoah.'"

From the very beginning of his association with "Shenandoah" Charles Frohman had an instinct that the play would be a success. He now dedicated himself to its production with characteristic energy.

Scarcely had he signed the contract for "Shenandoah" than occurred one of the many curious pranks of fate that were associated with this enterprise. Al Hayman, who had a half-interest in the piece, was stricken with typhoid fever in Chicago on his way to the coast. He thought he was going to die, and, not having an extraordinary amount of confidence in "Shenandoah," he sold half of his half-interest to R. M. Hooley, who owned theaters bearing his name in Chicago and Brooklyn.

With his usual determination to do things in splendid fashion, Frohman engaged a magnificent cast. Now came one of the many evidences of the integrity of his word. Years before, when he had first seen Henry Miller act in San Francisco he said to him:

"When I get a theater in New York and have a big Broadway production you will be my leading man."

He had not yet acquired the theater, but he did have the big Broadway production, so the first male character that he filled was that of _Colonel West_, and he did it with Miller.

This cast included not less than half a dozen people who were then making their way toward future stardom. He engaged Wilton Lackaye to play _General Haverill_; Viola Allen played _Gertrude Ellingham_; Nanette Comstock was the original _Madeline West_; Effie Shannon portrayed _Jennie Buckthorn_; while Dorothy Dorr played _Mrs. Haverill_. Other actors in the company who later became widely known were John E. Kellard, Harry Harwood, Morton Selten, and Harry Thorn.

Charles determined that the public should not lose sight of "Shenandoah." All his genius for publicity was concentrated to this end. Among the ingenious agencies that he created for arousing suspense and interest was a rumor that the manuscript of the third act had been lost. He put forth the news that Mr. Howard's copy was mislaid, and a city-wide search was instituted. All the while that the company was rehearsing the other acts the anxiety about the missing act grew. A week before the production Frohman announced, with great effect, that the missing manuscript had been found.

When the doors of the Star Theater were opened on the evening of September 9, 1889, for the first performance of "Shenandoah," the outlook was not very auspicious. Rain poured in torrents. It was almost impossible to get a cab. Al Hayman, one of the owners of the play, who lived at the Hotel Majestic, on West Seventy-second Street, was rainbound and could not even see the _premiere_ of the piece.

However, a good audience swam through the deluge, for the gross receipts of this opening night, despite the inclement conditions outside, were nine hundred and seventy-two dollars. This was considered a very good house at the standard prices of the day, which ranged from twenty-five cents to one dollar and a half.

The play was an immense success, for at no time during the rest of the engagement did the receipts at any performance go below one thousand dollars. The average gross receipts for each week were ten thousand dollars.

Charles Frohman watched the _premiere_ from the rear of the house with a beating heart. The crash of applause after the first act made him feel that he had scored at last. After the sensational ending of the third act, which was Sheridan's famous ride, he rushed back to the stage, shook Henry Miller warmly by the hand, and said: "Henry, we've got it. The horse is yours!"

He meant the horse that the general rode in the play.

This horse, by the way, was named Black Bess. It got so accustomed to its cue that it knew when it had to gallop across the stage. One night during the third act this cue was given as usual. Its rider, however, was not ready, and the horse galloped riderless across the stage.

"Shenandoah" led to a picturesque friendship in Charles Frohman's life. On the opening night a grizzled, military-looking man sat in the audience. He watched the play with intense interest and applauded vigorously. On the way out he met a friend in the lobby. He stopped him and said, "This is the most interesting war play I have ever seen."

The friend knew Charles Frohman, who was standing with smiling face watching the crowd go out. He called the little manager over and said: "Mr. Frohman, I want you to meet a man who really knows something about the Civil War. This is General William T. Sherman."

Sherman and Frohman became great friends, and throughout the engagement of "Shenandoah" the old soldier was a frequent visitor at the theater. He then lived at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and often he brought over his war-time comrades.

Not only did "Shenandoah" mark the epoch of the first real success in Frohman's life, but it raised his whole standard of living, as the following incident will show.

When "Shenandoah" opened, Frohman and Henry Miller, and sometimes other members of the company, went around to O'Neil's on Sixth Avenue, scene of the old foregatherings with Belasco, and had supper. As the piece grew in prosperity and success, the supper party gradually moved up-town to more expensive restaurants, until finally they were supping at Delmonico's. "We are going up in the world," said Frohman, with his usual humor. At their first suppers they smoked ten-cent cigars; now they regaled themselves with twenty-five-cent Perfectos.

Unfortunately the successful run of "Shenandoah" at the Star had to be terminated on October 12th because the Jefferson & Florence Company, which had a previous contract with the theater and could not be disposed of elsewhere, came to play their annual engagement in "The Rivals." Frohman transferred the play to Proctor's Twenty-third Street Theater, which was from this time on to figure extensively in his fortunes, and the successful run of the play continued there. Wilton Lackaye retired from the cast and was succeeded by Frank Burbeck, whose wife, Nanette Comstock, succeeded Miss Shannon in the role of _Jenny Buckthorn_.

Frohman was now able to capitalize his brilliant road-company experience. The success of the play now assured, he immediately organized a road company, in which appeared such prominent actors as Joseph Holland, Frank Carlyle, and Percy Haswell. He established an innovation on October 26th by having this company come over from Philadelphia, where it was playing, to act in the New York house.

The two-hundred-and-fiftieth performance occurred on April 19, 1890, when the run ended. It was a memorable night. Katherine Grey and Odette Tyler meanwhile had joined the company. The theater was draped in flags, and General Sherman made a speech in which he praised the accuracy of the production.

With his usual enterprise and resource, Charles Frohman introduced a distinct novelty on this occasion. He had double and triple relays of characters for the farewell performance. Both Lilla Vane and Odette Tyler, for example, acted the part of _Gertrude Ellingham_; Wilton Lackaye, Frank Burbeck, and George Osborne played _General Haverill_; Alice Haines and Nanette Comstock did _Jenny Buckthorn_; while Morton Selten and R. A. Roberts doubled as _Captain Heartsease_.

Frohman now put the original "Shenandoah" company on the road. Its first engagement was at McVicker's Theater in Chicago. Frohman went along and took Bronson Howard with him.

Most of the Chicago critics liked "Shenandoah." But there was one exception, a brilliant Irishman on _The Tribune_. Paul Potter, whose play, "The City Directory," was about to be produced in Chicago, was a close friend of Howard. He wanted to do something for the Howard play, so he got permission from Robert W. Patterson, editor in chief of _The Tribune_, to write a Sunday page article about "Shenandoah." Frohman was immensely pleased, and through this he met Potter, who became one of his intimates.

Then came the opening of Potter's play at the Chicago Opera House. Although Potter knew most of the critics, there was a feeling that they would forget all friendship and do their worst. Five minutes after the curtain went up the piece seemed doomed.

But an extraordinary thing happened. From a stage box suddenly came sounds of uncontrollable mirth. The audience, and especially the critics, looked to see who was enjoying the play so strenuously, and they beheld Charles Frohman and Bronson Howard. The critics were puzzled. Here was a great playwright in the flush of an enormous success and a rising young manager evidently enjoying the performance. The mentors of public taste were so impressed that they praised the farce and started "The City Directory" on a career of remarkable success. Frohman and Howard were repaying the good turn that Potter had done for "Shenandoah."

* * *

Charles Frohman now had a money-making success. "Shenandoah" was the dramatic talk of the whole country; it did big business everywhere, and its courageous young producer came in for praise and congratulation on all sides.

The manager might well have netted what was in those days a huge fortune out of this enterprise, but his unswerving sense of honor led him to immediately discharge all his obligations. He wiped out the Wallack's tour debts, and he eventually took up notes aggregating forty-two thousand dollars that he had given to a well-known Chicago printer who had befriended him in years gone by. What was most important, he was now free to unfurl his name to the breezes and to do business "on his own."

* * *

Charles immediately launched himself on another sea of productions. The most important was Gillette's "All the Comforts of Home," which he put on at Proctor's Twenty-third Street Theater. Frohman had just acquired the lease of this theater. Already a big idea was simmering in his mind, and the leasehold was essential to its consummation. On May 8, 1890, he produced the new Gillette play, which scored a success.

This production marked another one of the many significant epochs in Frohman's life because it witnessed the first appearance of little Maude Adams under the Charles Frohman management.

Frohman had seen Miss Adams in "The Paymaster" down at Niblo's and had been much taken with her work. He had been unable, however, to find a part for her, so it was reserved for his brother Daniel to give her the first Frohman engagement at thirty-five dollars a week in "Lord Chumley." Subsequently Daniel released her so that she could appear in the same cast with her mother in Hoyt's "The Midnight Bell."

While trying "All the Comforts of Home" on the road there occurred an amusing episode. Frohman, who had been watching the rehearsals very carefully, said to Henry Miller, who was leading man:

"Henry, you are something of a matinee idol. I think it would help the play if you had a love scene with Miss Adams."

Accompanied by Rockwood, Frohman visited Gillette at his home at Hartford, got him to write the love scene, and then went on to Springfield, Massachusetts, for the "try-out."

That night the three assembled in the bleak drawing-room of the hotel. Frohman ordered a little supper of ham sandwiches and sarsaparilla, after which he rehearsed the love scene, which simply consisted of a tender little parting in a doorway. It served to bring out the wistful and appealing tenderness that is one of Maude Adams's great qualities.

"All the Comforts of Home" ran in Proctor's Theater until October 18th. When the theater reopened it disclosed a venture that linked the name of Charles Frohman with high and artistic effort--his first stock company. With this organization he hoped to maintain the traditions established by Augustin Daly, A. M. Palmer, Lester Wallack, and the Madison Square Company.

He projected the Charles Frohman Stock Company in his usual lavish way. He engaged De Mille and Belasco to write the opening play. This was a very natural procedure: first, because of his intimate friendship with Belasco, and, second, because De Mille and Belasco had proved their skill as collaborators at Daniel Frohman's Lyceum Theater with such successes as "The Wife," "The Charity Ball," and "Lord Chumley." The result of their new endeavors was "Men and Women."

In this play the authors wrote in the part _Dora_ especially for Maude Adams. They also created a role for Mrs. Annie Adams.

The cast of "Men and Women," like that of "Shenandoah," was a striking one, and it contained many names already established, or destined to figure prominently in theatrical history. Henry Miller had been engaged for leading man, but he retired during the rehearsals, and his place was taken by William Morris, who had appeared in the Charles Frohman production of "She" and in the road company of "Held by the Enemy." In the company that Frohman selected were Frederick de Belleville, who played _Israel Cohen_, one of the finest, if not the finest, Jewish characters ever put on the stage; Orrin Johnson; Frank Mordaunt; Emmet Corrigan; J. C. Buckstone; and C. Leslie Allen, brother of Viola Allen.

In addition to Maude Adams were Sydney Armstrong, who was the leading woman; Odette Tyler; and Etta Hawkins, who became the wife of William Morris during this engagement.

At the dress rehearsal of "Men and Women" occurred a characteristic Charles Frohman incident. When the curtain had gone down Frohman hurried back to William Morris's dressing-room and said, "Will, that dress-suit of yours doesn't look right."

"It's a brand-new suit, 'C. F.,'" he replied.

Frohman thought a moment and said: "Can you be at my office to-morrow morning at eight o'clock? I've got a good tailor."

Promptly at eight the next day they went over to Frohman's tailor, whom Frohman addressed as follows:

"I want you to make a dress-suit for William Morris by eight o'clock to-morrow night."

"Impossible!" said the man.

"Nothing is impossible," said Frohman. "If that dress-suit is not in Mr. Morris's dressing-room at eight o'clock you won't get paid for it."

The dress-suit showed up on time, and in it was a card, saying, "With Charles Frohman's compliments."

Charles inaugurated his first stock season at Proctor's on October 21, 1890. Although the notices were uniformly good, the start into public favor was a trifle slow. One reason was that a big bank failure had just shaken Wall Street, and there was considerable apprehension all over the city. By a curious coincidence there was a bank failure in the play. By clever publicity this fact was capitalized; the piece found its stride and ran for two hundred consecutive performances, when it was sent on the road with great success.

For this tour Charles also introduced another one of the many novelties that he put into theatrical conduct. He ordered a private car for the company, and they used it throughout the tour. It was considered an extravagance, but it was merely part of the Charles Frohman policy to make his people comfortable. With this private car he established a precedent that was observed in most of his traveling organizations.

* * *

With the stock company on tour in "Men and Women," the manager now organized the Charles Frohman Comedy Company to fill in the time at Proctor's. Once more he collected a brilliant aggregation of players, for they included Henrietta Crosman, Joseph Holland, Frederick Bond, and Thomas Wise. Each one became a star in the course of the next ten years.

The opening bill for the comedy company was Gillette's "Mr. Wilkinson's Widows," and was presented on March 30th, immediately following the run of "Men and Women." Henrietta Crosman subsequently withdrew from the cast, and Esther Lyons took her place.

Charles Frohman reopened the theater on August 27th with a revival of this play, in which Georgia Drew Barrymore, the mother of Ethel, appeared as _Mrs. Perrin_. Emily Bancker, afterward a star in "Our Flat," and Mattie Ferguson were in the cast.

On October 5th the company did Sardou's big drama of "Thermidor" for the first time on any stage, with another one of the casts for which Charles Frohman was beginning to become famous. It included a thin, gaunt Englishman whose name in the bill was simply J. F. Robertson, and who had just come from an engagement with John Hare in London. Subsequently the J. F. in his name came to be known as Johnston Forbes, because the man was Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson.

In this company was Elsie De Wolfe, who later became a star and who years after left the theater to become an interior decorator. Among the male members of the company, besides Forbes-Robertson, was Jamison Lee Finney, who had graduated from the amateur ranks and who became one of the best-known comedians in the country.

In the mean time Charles had commissioned Henry C. De Mille to furnish a play for his stock company which was now on its way back from the coast. This play was "The Lost Paradise," which the American had adapted from Ludwig Fulda's drama. De Mille joined the company in Denver and rehearsals were begun there. By the time the company reached New York they were almost letter-perfect, and the opening at Proctor's on November 16th was a brilliant success. The play ran consecutively until March 1st.

The cast was practically the same as "Men and Women," with the addition of Cyril Scott, Odette Tyler, and Bijou Fernandez.

In "The Lost Paradise" Maude Adams scored the biggest success that she had made up to that time in New York. She played the part of _Nell_, the consumptive factory girl. This character, with its delicate and haunting interpretation, made an irresistible appeal to the audience.

"There's big talent in that girl," said Frohman in speaking of Miss Adams. He began to see the vision of what the years would hold for her.

* * *

By this time Charles Frohman had begun to make his annual visit to London. Out of one of the earliest journeys came still another success of the many that now seemed to crowd upon him.

He had taken desk space with Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau in Henrietta Street in London. On the trip in question Belasco accompanied him. One night Frohman said:

"There is a little comedy around the corner called 'Jane.' Let's go and see it."

Frohman was convulsed with laughter, and the very next day sought out the author, William Lestocq, from whom he purchased the American rights. Out of this connection came another one of the life-long friendships of Frohman. Lestocq, a few years later, became his principal English representative and remained so until the end.

Frohman was now in a whirlpool of projects. Although he was occupying himself with both the comedy and stock companies at Proctor's, he put on "Jane" as a midsummer attraction at the Madison Square Theater with a cast that included Katherine Grey, Johnstone Bennett, Jennie Weathersby, and Paul Arthur.

"Jane" became such an enormous success that Charles put out two road companies at once. In connection with "Jane" it may be said that his first real fortune--that is, the first money that he actually kept for a time--was made with this comedy.

Production after production now marked the Frohman career. Charles had always admired Henry E. Dixey, so he launched him as star in "The Solicitor" at Hermann's Theater, on September 8, 1891. It was the first time that the famous "Charles Frohman Presents" was used. In this company were Burr McIntosh, Sidney Drew, and Joseph Humphreys. It was the failure of "The Solicitor" that led Frohman to put Dixey out again as star in a piece called "The Man with a Hundred Heads" at the Star Theater. This also failed, so he ventured with "The Junior Partner" at the same theater with a cast that included E. J. Ratcliffe, Mrs. McKee Rankin, Henrietta Crosman, and Louise Thorndyke-Boucicault.

Early the following year he tried his luck at Hermann's with "Gloriana," in which May Robson and E. J. Henley appeared. Hermann's Theater, however, seemed to be a sort of hoodoo, so Frohman returned to the Star, which had been his mascot, and made his first joint production with David Belasco in a musical piece called "Miss Helyett." Frohman had seen the play in Paris, and proceeded at once to buy the American rights from Charles Wyndham. This production not only marked the first joint presentation of Belasco and Charles, but it was the debut of Mrs. Leslie Carter, who had become a protegee of Mr. Belasco. When the piece was moved to the Standard early in January, 1892, Mrs. Carter was starred for the first time.

* * *

By this time Charles Frohman was a personage to be reckoned with. "Shenandoah," the two stock companies, "Jane," and all the other enterprises both successful and otherwise, had made his name a big one in the theater. He now began to reach out for authors.

The first author to be approached was Augustus Thomas. He gave Charles a play called "Surrender." It was put on in Boston. The original idea in Thomas's mind was to write a satire on the war plays that had been so successful, like "Shenandoah" and "Held by the Enemy." "Surrender" began as a farce, but Charles Frohman and Eugene Presbrey, who produced it, wanted to make it serious.

The cast was a very notable one, including Clement Bainbridge, E. M. Holland, Burr McIntosh, Harry Woodruff, H. D. Blackmore, Louis Aldrich, Maude Bancks, Miriam O'Leary, Jessie Busley, and Rose Eytinge.