Nat Goodwin's Book

About the time that the idea of Haverly's began scintillating along the horizon it became noised about that a theatrical syndicate was to be formed – to make the booking of tours less irksome; to guarantee continued time in the cities; to amalgamate forces which would lessen the burden of the actor-manager – in fact everything would be done to enhance the success of both player and producer.

The Napoleonic Erlanger was the instigator and promoter of the finally adopted scheme and he was aided by the subtle Klaw, whom I had previously known in Louisville as a reporter – a silent, but ever watchful person. Associated with these clever gentlemen were the elusive Al Hayman, then a wealthy and powerful man; Rich and Harris, of Boston and Nixon and Zimmerman, of Philadelphia. This sextette made a very powerful organization.

Being possessed of a little business instinct I saw the danger, or rather the supposed danger, that lurked behind these samaritans of the drama, but not until I was approached by Mr. Rapley of Washington, Charlie Ford of Baltimore and one or two suburban managers did I realize what was in the power of this coterie if they succeeded in carrying out their schemes. Those managers realized their peril and were quietly soliciting the stars not to play at any other theatres save theirs, as they feared the Syndicate would book the then strong attractions at opposition houses, offering as an inducement better terms and time. Being loyal, as I have always tried to be, I assured them that I would stick. Then it occurred to me that if I could organize a syndicate of players we might be able to strangle the contemplated move at its very birth.

I succeeded in interesting Joseph Jefferson, William H. Crane, Stuart Robson, Sol Smith Russell, Richard Mansfield, Fanny Davenport, Francis Wilson, Modjeska, J. K. Emmet and four or five other leading players – and they all promised to stand by me. We were to elect A. M. Palmer president. I was to be the vice-president. We were all to form an incorporated company and play as one body. I even went so far as to have the papers drawn up. I worked incessantly night and day. I even had sites picked out and money guaranteed for theatres in Boston, New York, Chicago, Cleveland and St. Louis, providing I could guarantee the appearance of these players for five years.

Everything was going better than I anticipated when one day I received my first shock. The "dear old Dean," Mr. Jefferson, had reneged! He went back on every promise made to me in New Orleans. Crane, after being my guest for a week in Baltimore, going over every detail and agreeing that it was "a great scheme," quietly and unknown to me signed a three-years' contract with Joseph Brooks, a representative of the Syndicate. One by one they all left me, with the single exception of Francis Wilson, who had to stay, as he had been blacklisted by Nixon and Zimmerman with whom he had quarreled.

I was disgusted and quietly folded my tent and departed for Europe to ponder over the ass I had made of myself and to wonder what the Syndicate would do to me by way of a punishment I so richly deserved.

Imagine my surprise when Abe Erlanger called me into his office one morning after my return from Europe and after greeting me most cordially said, "Well, my boy, you didn't pull that thing off." I answered, "No, but I tried hard, Abe, I can tell you." He said, "I know you did. Some of your companions have lied to me, and they will get their's, but you have told me the truth and the Syndicate will always be your friend; at least I'll be. Your terms will always be the same, no matter what you have to offer, your tours booked and all your business done through this office without charge."

The Syndicate has kept faith with me, with but one exception. Only one man out of the eight has broken faith with me. They are all, barring this particular one, my personal friends.

I would rather have Abe Erlanger's word than a contract from Rockefeller.

After all, what a silly fight I contemplated making and what a blessing it turned out that I did not consummate it. The theatrical syndicate has in fifteen years made more actors and managers rich, improved the drama to a greater extent, built more theatres and increased patronage more consistently than has been accomplished by any other factor during the last century.

The only fault that I have to find with the Syndicate is that through its dignified and thorough business-like methods it has made the theatrical profession so alluring that unreliable imitations have broken through the windows of the drama and allowed the draughts of unsavory methods to permeate the stage.

Other so-called syndicates have sprung up and nauseated the thinking public with vulgar and obscene plays which, I am sorry to admit, some seem to fancy.

But everything will adjust itself in time and the theatrical syndicate, headed by the brainy Erlanger, will destroy all enemies of the drama. Honest plays and playwrights will receive their just dues, wholesome plays will be in vogue, and the names of Klaw and Erlanger will be synonyms for Honesty and Justice.

Chapter XIX

STARS

To be a star to-day an actor needs only to be featured in large type in all advertising matter. At least this is all that is necessary to win popular acceptance as a star. That such undeserved, misapplied, wrongful foistering of mediocre actors on a long suffering public is unwise is self-evident. The antagonism it provoked among authors and managers is quite justified.

All true artists object to the featuring of incompetency fostered by notoriety. The men and women of the stage who entered the profession through the small door and not the open broad window protest with much vehemence against the launching of a so-called "star" who, because of some act of violence, the singing of a rotten song with an attractive melody, a beautiful face, a German accent, becomes born over night. But the managers who are now objecting to this kind of starring system are the very ones who inaugurated the iniquity.

I maintain that when a man or woman has attained a position on the stage through honest endeavor, mental application, strict attention, conscientious study and practical experience, he should be rewarded and recompensed. And these gains should be conspicuous and financially worth while.

Among many of the so-called producers of to-day there seems a prevailing tendency to decry and belittle the starring system. This is all very well from their point of view. If they succeed in making the star subservient to the author and to those who "present," they will add more to their respective coffers by confiscating the financial share of those men and women who have in the past made them rich.

They base their theories (that stars do not make successes) on the fact of the success of such plays as "The Lion and the Mouse," "Bought and Paid For," "The Heir to the Hoorah," "Seven Days," "Paid in Full" and a half dozen more. With the possible exception of "Bought and Paid For" most all of these so-called starless plays were accidental successes.

"The Lion and the Mouse" was turned down by several stars and as many managers and I consider rightly so. When the stars refused to accept it, the managers followed suit. Ethically, and in spite of its remarkably successful financial success, I consider it a most improbable play. I refused to play the leading part in London, predicting its failure. London can distinguish between a good and bad play. "The Lion and the Mouse" was a failure in London.

There are some plays in which the characters are so equal that it is unwise to feature any particular one, as the public expects too much from the one conspicuous in the billing and being disappointed – dislikes the play. Not only the play suffers but, when the unlooked for happens and some unknown person suddenly makes a hit in a play in which a star is featured, the star naturally suffers. The public never differentiates.

When "The Heir to the Hoorah" was submitted to me I told Paul Armstrong, the author, that it would be unwise to star any one in his plays and he took my advice. "Bought and Paid For" was written for a star, but the author unwittingly wrote another part that proved more acceptable to the public than the character he originally intended should be featured. The play was eventually produced without a star and proved a success. Perhaps had a different star been selected at the beginning there would have been a different story told. In spite of the success of "Bought and Paid For" in New York, "Baby Mine" played a week in Los Angeles (with Marguerite Clarke featured) to more than two thousand dollars more than "Bought and Paid For."

The manuscript of "Paid in Full" kept the author warm for many nights as he slumbered on the benches of the parks in New York. And the stars refused to comfort him. "Paid in Full" was an accidental hit, but it created a star – Tully Marshall.

Clyde Fitch read "The Climbers" to me many years before Henry Harris decided to produce it. Almost every manager in New York had turned it down. The excellent acting of that play saved it. From the cast sprang such stars as Robert Edeson, Clara Bloodgood, Amelia Bingham and Minnie Dupree.

The average author and manager of to-day are prone to advertise themselves as conspicuously as the play (as if the public cared a snap who wrote the play or who "presents"!). I doubt if five per cent of the public know who wrote "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," "In Mizzoura" or "Richelieu," but they know their stage favorites.

I wonder how many mantels are adorned with pictures of the successful dramatist and those who "present" and how many there are on which appear Maude Adams, Dave Warfield, Billie Burke, John Drew, Bernhardt, Duse and hundreds of other distinguished players.

No matter how hard you may strive to strangle the successful star player, Messrs. Author and Manager, you won't succeed. You may succeed in fostering a few more plays without a star but the clouds will surely come and, when they disburse, the accidents that caused them will give way before intelligence. The stars will twinkle again more resplendent than ever and light you once more to the road that leads to permanent success. You may trade and barter but you will finally be made to understand that ours is a profession in which sentiment plays a most important part and when you insist on robbing the public of its favorite player, the disappointment will be as bitter as when the little boy is told there is no such thing as Santa Claus.

Now I'll take the commercial side of the question. I'll venture the opinion that Dave Warfield and Maude Adams play each season to double the receipts any play without a star ever earned. The Cincinnati Festival, composed only of stars, in one week played to more than one hundred thousand dollars. Booth and Barrett cleared over six hundred thousand dollars net in one season. Henry Irving took away from America in one season three hundred thousand, Bernhardt averages a quarter of a million net on every farewell tour. The average successful star up to five years ago (before the influx of the so-called producers, the authors who feature themselves and those who "present") counted it a bad year if his profits failed to reach a hundred thousand dollars.

I wonder how much Charles Frohman has made with his stars!

And now let us face a fact that is indisputable – business is very bad.

Ten years ago a ten thousand dollar week was considered only a good one. To-day it is an event. Even poor little I played to over fifteen thousand and no fuss was made about it. Let me hear the name of a single successful play without a star of to-day that averages eight thousand per week.

I wonder if people go to see clever George Cohan or George Cohan's play?

I consider it an insult and audacity for any manager to, assert that the starring system is a menace to the theatre when almost every leading theatre of Europe heads the cast with the name of a conspicuous player. Every first-class theatre in London for the last fifty years, from Kean to Irving, has owed its success to one bright particular star.

If any manager in America would like to try the experiment I would be willing to make a wager that I will take the most successful stock play now running in any city in the world, go to any town or city in America and with a star double, yes treble the receipts of the stock organization presenting the same play.

Again let me ask the author and those who "present" as to the longevity of a stock play as compared with that of the play in which a star appears. Also how about the returns from a revival of both? In the all star revival of "The Rivals" we averaged five thousand dollars a performance.

Did the public go to see the players or the play?

I wonder.

How many knew the author or Joseph Brooks who presented us?

I wonder!

Again let me ask the great author and those who "present," those commercial gentlemen who seek to crucify the star, what inducement they offer the young beginner in the way of a future. Are all the budding geniuses to be strangled at their birth, their dreams to be made delusions? Are they to have no chance to gratify their ambitions, only the remote possibility of being one of an ensemble? You are trying to rob the public of its favorite player, to destroy all individuality, to make us a melting-pot, a cesspool of ensemble, subject to your will and dictation. It is a pretty tall order, my friends, and be careful lest you who would destroy be not destroyed.

If the stars are forbidden to shine it is their own fault. If only twenty would band themselves together (and it can be done) I'd guarantee to finance the scheme with half a million dollars. If they would form a syndicate, I would guarantee to drive these impertinent gentlemen into the clouds of oblivion from which they sprang and the little and big stars would form a constellation that would maintain the dignity of our glorious profession!

Chapter XX

ATMOSPHERIC PLAYS

It was some sage of long ago who wrote:

"The muse of painting should be, on the stage, the handmaid, not the sister nor rival of the drama."

I quite agree with the gentleman who penned those lines. I disagree with any suggestion or device that dwarfs the beauty and art of a play. That is why I strenuously object to the term "atmosphere" as applied to any of our present day productions. It is only a cloak and an excuse to conceal incompetency.

Let the scenery be well painted, attractive and fitted to the frame, but don't take off your roof to pile Pelion upon Ossa! Endeavor to please the eye – with processions and real running water, if you like, but keep all in due subordination to the acting. Realism was strangled after some ungodly years of struggling life. For a time acting became subservient to railroad trains, buzz saws and waterfalls. Ships were sunk in full view of the audience, ice floats cracked and dialogue was smothered in the dust of stage cloth and salt. Public opinion soon demonstrated this was wrong. "Bertha the Sewing Machine Girl" was relegated to the farm to ascertain "Why Women Sin" until laundered Hebraic managers rescued those ladies and atmospheric plays became the vogue.

During the year 1911 I had splendid opportunities for reflection, retrospect and thought, finding consolation in books pertaining to the drama of the past, present and future. I have found great consolation in going over the theatrical situation under existing conditions. True, I note the devastating results of commercialism, the self-interested remarks regarding the welfare of the drama (and all concerned in it), the fact that too many theatres are being built by managers and stars (with disgusting flaunting of the means employed to construct these playhouses).

I have noticed this and I have marvelled. But I found relief in reviewing the conditions of long ago. More than three hundred years have played havoc with the theatres truly. The men of Shakespeare's time are no more – and few worthy successors have been born. That "inspired intellectual spendthrift," as Shakespeare was called by Robert Ingersoll, failed to measure the wonder of the journey to be traversed. I discover that we have gone back, artistically, in the last fifty years.