Charles Frohman: Manager and Man Part 54

In starting a new venture his method was first to ascertain not how much it would enrich him, but how much it would cost. Thus fortified, he entered into it with enthusiasm, and if he lost he never murmured.

Having settled a thing, for good or ill, he would never refer to the negotiations or anything that might have led up to the culmination of that business, either for or against. If his attention was afterward called to it, he would quietly say, "That's yesterday," and in this way indicate that he did not wish the matter referred to again.

Frohman's great desire was to make money for other people. One of his young authors had had a bad failure in London and was very much depressed. Frohman finally worked out a plan to revive his spirits and recoup his finances. He took Alfred Sutro in his confidence and invited the young man to dine. He was like a child, eager to do something good and pleasing. All through the dinner he chaffed the young man, who visibly grew more despondent. Finally he said:

"I have decided to revive a very good play, and I have booked an American tour for it." Then he told the young man that this play was his first success.

Charles Frohman's ignorance of money matters was proverbial. One day just as he was about to take the train for Was.h.i.+ngton a friend stopped him and said:

"I've got a great investment for you."

"No," said Frohman, "I never invest in anything except theaters."

"But this is the real thing. The only possible fact that can spoil it is war, and we are widely remote from war."

In order to get rid of the man Frohman consented to a modest investment.

When he got to Was.h.i.+ngton the first thing that greeted him was the announcement that we were on the verge of war with Mexico.

William Harris once gently remonstrated with Frohman for such lavish expenditure of money.

"It's simply awful, Charley, the way you spend money," he said.

Frohman smiled and said:

"It would be awful if I lost a finger or a foot, but spending money on the things that you want to do and enjoy doing is never money wasted."

At one time he owed a great deal of money to actors and printers, but he always scorned all suggestions that he go through bankruptcy and wipe these claims out. He said he would pay in full some day, and he did, with interest. An actor to whom he owed some four hundred dollars came to him and offered to settle the claim for one hundred dollars. Frohman said he did not believe in taking advantage of a man like that. He advanced the actor one hundred dollars, and eventually paid the other three hundred dollars.

Like every great man, Frohman's tastes were simple. He always wore clothes of one pattern, and the style seldom varied. He wore no jewelry except a Napoleonic ring on his little finger.

Frohman never married. A friend once asked him why he had chosen to be a bachelor.

"My dear fellow," he answered, "had I possessed a wife and family I could never have taken the risks which, as a theatrical manager, I am constantly called upon to do."

He lived, in truth, for and by the theater; it was his world. His heart was in his profession, and no enterprise was too daring, no venture too perilous, to prevent him from boldly facing it if he believed the step was expected of him.

To his intimates Frohman was always known as "C. F." These were the magic initials that opened or shut the doors to theatrical fame and fortune.

Frohman loved sweet things to eat. Pies were his particular fondness, and he never traveled without a box of candy. As he read plays he munched chocolates. He ate with a sort of Johnsonian avidity. When he went to Europe some of his friends, who knew his tastes well, sent him crates of pies instead of flowers or books.

He shared this fondness for sweets with Clyde Fitch. They did not dare to eat as much pastry as they liked before others, so they often retired to Frohman's rooms at Sherry's or to Fitch's house on Fortieth Street, in New York, and had a dessert orgy.

Frohman almost invariably ate as he worked in his office. When people saw sandwiches piled upon his table, he would say:

"A rehearsal accompanied by a sandwich is progress, but a rehearsal interrupted by a meal is delay."

Frohman's letters to his intimates were characteristic. He always wrote them with a blue pencil, and on whatever sc.r.a.p of paper happened to be at hand. Often it was a sheet of yellow scratch-paper, sometimes the back of an envelope. He wrote as he talked, in quick, epigrammatic sentences. Like Barrie, he wrote one of the most indecipherable of hands. Frequently, instead of a note, he drew a picture to express a sentiment or convey an invitation. One reason for this was that the man saw all life in terms of the theater. It was a series of scenes.

With regard to home life, Frohman had none. He always dwelt in apartments in New York. The only two places where he really relaxed were at Marlow, in England, and at his country place near White Plains in Westchester County, New York. He shared the owners.h.i.+p of this establishment with Dillingham. It entered largely into his plans. Here his few intimates, like Paul Potter, Haddon Chambers, William Gillette, and Augustus Thomas, came and talked over plays and productions. Here, too, he kept vigil on the snowy night when London was to pa.s.s judgment on the first production of "Peter Pan" on any stage.

The way he came to acquire an interest in the White Plains house is typical of the man and his methods. Dillingham had bought the place. One day Frohman and Gillette lunched with him there. Frohman was immensely taken with the establishment. He liked the lawn, the garden, the trees, and the aloofness. The three men sat at a round table. Frohman beamed and said:

"This is the place for me. I want to sit at the head of this table." It was his way of saying that he wanted to acquire an owners.h.i.+p in it, and from that time on he was a co-proprietor.

With characteristic generosity he insisted upon paying two-thirds of the expenses. Then, in his usual lavish fas.h.i.+on, he had it remodeled. He wanted a porch built. Instead of engaging the village carpenter, who could have done it very well, he employed the most famous architects in the country and spent thirty thousand dollars. It was the Frohman way.

Out of the Frohman owners.h.i.+p of the White Plains house came one of the many Frohman jests. Its conduct was so expensive that Frohman one day said to Dillingham, "Let's rent a theater and make it pay for the maintenance of the house."

Frohman then leased the Garrick, but instead of making money on it he lost heavily.

The factotum at White Plains was the German Max, whom Dillingham had brought over from the Savoy in London, where he was a waiter. Max became the center of many amusing incidents. One has already been related.

One night Max secured some fine watermelons. As he came through the door with one of them he slipped and dropped it. He repeated this performance with the second melon. Frohman regarded it as a great joke, and roared with laughter. Just then Gillette was announced.

"Now," said Frohman, quietly, to Dillingham, "we will have Max bring in a watermelon, but I want him to drop it." In order to insure the success of the trick they stretched a string at the door so that Max would be sure to fall. Then they ordered the melon, and Max appeared, bearing it aloft. He fell, however, before he got to the string, and the joke was saved.

All this jest and joke was part of the game of life as Frohman played it. Whatever the cost, there is no doubt that the charming white-and-green cottage up in the Westchester valley gave him hours of relaxation and ease that were among the pleasantest of his life.

This house at White Plains was indirectly the means through which Dillingham branched out as an independent manager. At this time he was in Frohman's employ. One day he said to himself:

"This establishment is costing so much that I will have to send out some companies of my own."

He thereupon got "The Red Mill," acquired Montgomery and Stone, and thus began a new and brilliant managerial career. No one rejoiced over Dillingham's success more than Frohman. When Dillingham opened his Globe Theater in New York Frohman addressed a cable to "Charles Dillingham, Globe Theater, U. S. A."

It is a curious fact about Charles Frohman that though he had millions of dollars at stake, he was never a defendant in litigation. Yet through him foreign authors were enabled to protect their plays from the customary piracy by the memorization of parts. It used to be accepted that if a man went to a play and memorized its speeches he could produce it without paying royalty. N. S. Wood did this with a play called "The World," that Frohman produced. He took the matter to court as a test case and won.