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CHARLES FROHMAN: MANAGER AND MAN

by

ISAAC F. MARCOSSON and DANIEL FROHMAN

With an Appreciation by James M. Barrie

Illustrated with Portraits







New York and London
Harper & Brothers
M.C.M.X.V.I

Charles Frohman: Manager and Man
Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothers
Copyright, 1915, 1916, by
International Magazine Company (Cosmopolitan Magazine)
Printed in the United States of America
Published October, 1916



_To

The Theater

That Charles Frohman

Loved and Served_

_Nought I did in hate but all in honor!_

HAMLET




Contents


       CHARLES FROHMAN: AN APPRECIATION

    I. A CHILD AMID THE THEATER

   II. EARLY HARDSHIPS ON THE ROAD

  III. PICTURESQUE DAYS AS MINSTREL MANAGER

   IV. IN THE NEW YORK THEATRICAL WHIRLPOOL

    V. BOOKING-AGENT AND BROADWAY PRODUCER

   VI. "SHENANDOAH" AND THE FIRST STOCK COMPANY

  VII. JOHN DREW AND THE EMPIRE THEATER

 VIII. MAUDE ADAMS AS STAR

   IX. THE BIRTH OF THE SYNDICATE

    X. THE RISE OF ETHEL BARRYMORE

   XI. THE CONQUEST OF THE LONDON STAGE

  XII. BARRIE AND THE ENGLISH FRIENDSHIPS

 XIII. A GALAXY OF STARS

  XIV. STAR-MAKING AND AUDIENCES

   XV. PLAYS AND PLAYERS

  XVI. "C. F." AT REHEARSALS

 XVII. HUMOR AND ANECDOTE

XVIII. THE MAN FROHMAN

  XIX. "WHY FEAR DEATH?"

       APPENDIX A--THE LETTERS OF CHARLES

       APPENDIX B--COMPLETE CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE FROHMAN
       PRODUCTIONS






Illustrations


CHARLES FROHMAN--Frontispiece

VIOLA ALLEN

WILLIAM GILLETTE

JOHN DREW

CLYDE FITCH

HENRY ARTHUR JONES

W. LESTOCQ

CHARLES DILLINGHAM

MAUDE ADAMS

MAUDE ADAMS

FRANCIS WILSON

WILLIAM COLLIER

MARGARET ANGLIN

ANNIE RUSSELL

WILLIAM FAVERSHAM

HENRY MILLER

WILLIAM H. CRANE

AUGUSTUS THOMAS

SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO

ETHEL BARRYMORE

JULIA MARLOWE

E. H. SOTHERN

ELSIE FERGUSON

EDNA MAY

BILLIE BURKE

PAULINE CHASE

JAMES M. BARRIE

PAUL POTTER

HADDON CHAMBERS

OTIS SKINNER

MARIE DORO

JULIA SANDERSON

ANN MURDOCK

CHARLES FROHMAN AND DAVID BELASCO

MARIE TEMPEST

MME. NAZIMOVA

CHARLES FROHMAN'S OFFICE IN THE EMPIRE THEATER

CHARLES FROHMAN ON BOARD SHIP




Charles Frohman: an Appreciation

By James M. Barrie


The man who never broke his word. There was a great deal more to him,
but every one in any land who has had dealings with Charles Frohman will
sign that.

I would rather say a word of the qualities that to his friends were his
great adornment than about his colossal enterprises or the energy with
which he heaved them into being; his energy that was like a force of
nature, so that if he had ever "retired" from the work he loved (a thing
incredible) companies might have been formed, in the land so skilful at
turning energy to practical account, for exploiting the vitality of this
Niagara of a man. They could have lit a city with it.

He loved his schemes. They were a succession of many- romances to
him, and were issued to the world not without the accompaniment of the
drum, but you would never find him saying anything of himself. He pushed
them in front of him, always taking care that they were big enough to
hide him. When they were able to stand alone he stole out in the dark to
have a look at them, and then if unobserved his bosom swelled. I have
never known any one more modest and no one quite so shy. Many actors
have played for him for years and never spoken to him, have perhaps seen
him dart up a side street because they were approaching. They may not
have known that it was sheer shyness, but it was. I have seen him
ordered out of his own theater by subordinates who did not know him, and
he went cheerfully away. "Good men, these; they know their business,"
was all his comment. Afterward he was shy of going back lest they should
apologize.

At one time he had several theaters here and was renting others, the
while he had I know not how many in America; he was not always sure how
many himself. Latterly the great competition at home left him no time to
look after more than one in London. But only one anywhere seemed a
little absurd to him. He once contemplated having a few theaters in
Paris, but on discovering that French law forbids your having more than
one he gave up the scheme in disgust.

A sense of humor sat with him through every vicissitude like a faithful
consort.

"How is it going?" a French author cabled to him on the first night of a
new play.

"It has gone," he genially cabled back.

Of a Scotch play of my own that he was about to produce in New York, I
asked him what the Scotch would be like.

"You wouldn't know it was Scotch," he replied, "but the American public
will know."

He was very dogged. I had only one quarrel with him, but it lasted all
the sixteen years I knew him. He wanted me to be a playwright and I
wanted to be a novelist. All those years I fought him on that. He always
won, but not because of his doggedness; only because he was so lovable
that one had to do as he wanted. He also threatened, if I stopped, to
reproduce the old plays and print my name in large electric letters over
the entrance of the theater.

* * *

A very distinguished actress under his management wanted to produce a
play of mine of which he had no high opinion. He was in despair, as he
had something much better for her. She was obdurate. He came to me for
help, said nothing could move her unless I could. Would not I tell her
what a bad play it was and how poor her part was and how much better the
other parts were and how absolutely it fell to pieces after the first
act? Of course I did as I was bid, and I argued with the woman for
hours, and finally got her round, the while he sat cross-legged, after
his fashion, on a deep chair and implored me with his eyes to do my
worst. It happened long ago, and I was so obsessed with the desire to
please him that the humor of the situation strikes me only now.

For money he did not care at all; it was to him but pieces of paper with
which he could make practical the enterprises that teemed in his brain.
They were all enterprises of the theater. Having once seen a theater, he
never afterward saw anything else except sites for theaters. This
passion began when he was a poor boy staring wistfully at portals out of
which he was kept by the want of a few pence. I think when he first saw
a theater he clapped his hand to his heart, and certainly he was true
to his first love. Up to the end it was still the same treat to him to
go in; he still thrilled when the band struck up, as if that boy had
hold of his hand.

* * *

In a sense he had no illusions about the theater, knew its tawdriness as
he knew the nails on his stages (he is said to have known every one). He
would watch the performance of a play in some language of which he did
not know a word and at the end tell you not only the whole story, but
what the characters had been saying to one another; indeed, he could
usually tell what was to happen in any act as soon as he saw the
arrangement of the furniture. But this did not make him _blase_--a
strange word, indeed, to apply to one who seemed to be born afresh each
morning. It was not so much that all the world was a stage to him as
that his stage was a world, a world of the "artistic temperament"--that
is to say, a very childish world of which he was occasionally the stern
but usually indulgent father.

His innumerable companies were as children to him; he chided them as
children, soothed them, forgave them, and certainly loved them as
children. He exulted in those who became great names in that world and
gave them