Charles Frohman: Manager and Man Part 38

Frohman always took his close American friends to Marlow. One of the prices they paid was members.h.i.+p in the amateur dramatic society.

Like every really great man, Charles Frohman was tremendously simple, as his friends.h.i.+p with W. R. Clark, the Marlow butcher, shows. Clark is a big, ruddy, John Bull sort of man, whose shop is one of the main sights of High Street in the village. Frohman regarded his day at Marlow incomplete without a visit to Clark. One day he met Clark dressed up in his best clothes. He asked Clark where he was going.

"I am going to visit my pigs," replied the butcher. Frohman thought this a great joke, and never tired of telling it.

Once when Frohman gave out an interview about his friends in Marlow, he sent the clipping to his friend Clark, who wrote him a letter, which contained, among other things:

_I can a.s.sure you I quite appreciate your kindness in sending the cutting to me. When the towns.h.i.+p of Marlow has obtained from His Majesty King George the necessary charter to become a county borough, and you offer yourself for the position of Mayor, I will give you my whole-hearted support and influence to secure your election._

Then, too, there was Jones, the Marlow barber, who shaved Frohman for a penny because he was a regular customer.

"Jones is a great man," Frohman used to say. "He never charges me more than a penny for a shave because I am one of his regular customers.

Otherwise it would be twopence. I always give his boy a sixpence, however, but Jones doesn't know that."

Indeed, the people of Marlow looked upon Frohman as their very own. He always said that he wanted to be buried in the churchyard by the river.

This churchyard had a curious interest for him. He used to wander around in it and struck up quite an acquaintance with the wife of the s.e.xton.

She was always depressed because times were so bad and no one was dying.

Then an artist died and was buried there, and the old woman cheered up considerably. Frohman used to tell her that the only funeral that he expected to attend was his own.

"And mark you," he said, for he could never resist a jest, "you must take precious good care of my grave."

His wish to lie in Marlow was not attained, but in tribute to the love he had for it the memorial that his friends in England have raised to him--a fountain--stands to-day at the head of High Street in the little town where he loved to roam, the place in which he felt, perhaps, more at home than any other spot on earth. Had he made the choice himself he would have preferred this simple, sincere tribute, in the midst of simple, unaffected people who knew him and loved him, to stained gla.s.s in the stateliest of cathedrals.

Charles cared absolutely nothing for honors. He was content to hide behind the mask of his activities. He would never even appear before an audience. Almost unwillingly he was the recipient of the greatest compliment ever paid an American theatrical man in England. It happened in this way:

One season when Frohman had lost an unusual amount of money, Sir John Hare gathered together some of his colleagues.

"Frohman has done big things," Hare said to them. "He loses his money like a gentleman. Let us make him feel that he is not just an American, but one of us."

A dinner was planned in his honor at the Garrick Club. He is the only American theatrical manager to be elected to members.h.i.+p in this exclusive club. When Frohman was apprised of the dinner project he shrank from it.

"I don't like that sort of thing," he said. "Besides, I can't make a speech."

"But you won't have to make a speech," said Sir Arthur Pinero, who headed the committee.

Frohman tried in every possible way to evade this dinner. Finally he accepted on the condition that when the time came for him to respond he was merely to get up, bow his acknowledgment, and say, "Thank you." This he managed to do.

At this dinner, over which Sir John Hare presided, Frohman was presented with a ma.s.sive silver cigarette-box, on which was engraved the facsimile signatures of every one present. These signatures comprise the "Who's Who" of the British theater. These princes of the drama were proud and glad to call themselves "A few of his friends," as the inscription on the box read.

The signers were, among others, Sir Arthur Pinero, Sir Charles Wyndham, Sir John Hare, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Sir James M. Barrie, Alfred Sutro, Cyril Maude, H. B. Irving, Lawrence Irving, Louis N. Parker, Anthony Hope, A. E. W. Mason, Seymour Hicks, Robert Marshall, W. Comyns Carr, Weedon Grossmith, Gerald Du Maurier, Eric Lewis, Dion Boucicault, A. E. Matthews, Arthur Bouchier, Cosmo Hamilton, Allan Aynesworth, R. C.

Carton, Sam Sothern, and C. Aubrey Smith.

Nothing gave Charles more satisfaction in England perhaps than his encouragement of the British playwright. He inherited Pinero from his brother Daniel, and remained his steadfast friend and producer until his death. Pinero would not think of submitting a play to any other American manager without giving Frohman the first call. In all the years of their relations, during which Charles paid Pinero a large fortune, there was not a sign of contract between them.

Frohman practically made Somerset Maugham in America. His first a.s.sociation with this gifted young Englishman was typical of the man's method of doing business. Maugham had written a play called "Mrs. Dot,"

in which Marie Tempest was to appear. Frederick Harrison, of the Haymarket Theater, had an option on it, which had just expired. Another manager wanted the play. Frohman heard of it, and asked to be allowed to read it. Maugham then said:

"It must be decided to-night."

It was then dinner-time.

"Give me three hours," said Frohman.

At one o'clock in the morning he called up Maugham at his house and accepted the play, which was probably the quickest reading and acceptance on record in England.

Another experience with Maugham shows how Frohman really inspired plays.

He was riding on the train with the playwright when he suddenly said to him:

"I want a new play from you."

"All right," said Maugham.

Frohman thought a moment, and suddenly flashed out:

"Why not rewrite 'The Taming of the Shrew' with a new background?"

"All right," said Maugham.

The result was Maugham's play "The Land of Promise," which was really built around Frohman's idea.

Frohman produced all of Maugham's plays in America, and most of them were great successes. He also did the great majority of them in England.

Maugham waxed so prosperous that he was able to buy a charming old residence in Chesterfield Street which he remodeled in elaborate fas.h.i.+on. On its completion his first dinner guest was Charles Frohman.

When Maugham sent him the invitation it read:

_Will you come and see the house that Frohman built?_

In the same way he developed men like Michael Morton. He would see a French farce in the Paris theaters, and, although he could not understand a word of French, he got the spirit and the meaning through its action. He would buy the play, go to London with the ma.n.u.script, and get Morton or Paul Potter to adapt it for American consumption.

Life in London to Charles Frohman was one series of adventures. Like Harun-al-Ras.h.i.+d in the _Arabian Nights_, he delighted to wander about, often with Barrie, sometimes with Lestocq, seeking out strange and picturesque places in which to eat.

These adventures began in his earliest days in England. Here is a characteristic experience:

One day Madeline Lucette Ryley, the playwright, came to see him in his office in Henrietta Street. A battered old man was hanging around the door.

"Did you see that man outside?" asked Frohman.

"Yes," said Mrs. Ryley. "Is he the bailiff?"

"Oh no," said Frohman, "he is a Maidenhead cabby." This is the story of how he came there.

The day before Frohman had been down to Maidenhead alone for luncheon.

At the station he hailed a cabby who was driving a battered old fly.