Charles Frohman: Manager and Man Part 55

Charles was not good at remembering people's names or their addresses.

This is why he was much dependent upon his stenographers. His secretary in England, Miss Frances Slater, was so extraordinary in antic.i.p.ating his words that he always called her "The Wonder." He used to say:

"Miss Slater, I want to write to the man around the corner," which turned out to be Arthur Bouclier, the manager of the Garrick Theater, which was not really around the corner; but when the subject of the letter came to be dictated, Miss Slater knew whom he meant. He would never express any surprise on these occasions when the letter handed him to sign contained the right name and address. He seemed to take it as a matter of course.

One day Frohman entered his London office and said to Lestocq:

"You would never guess where I have just come from. I have been to your Westminster Abbey."

[Ill.u.s.tration: COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY CHARLES FROHMAN

_CHARLES FROHMAN'S OFFICE IN THE EMPIRE THEATER_]

Lestocq expressed surprise, whereupon Frohman continued:

"Yes, I just walked in and spoke to a man in a gown and said, 'Where is Mr. Irving buried?' He showed me, and I stood there for a few minutes, said a couple of things, and came on here."

Frohman's office at the Empire Theater was characteristic of the man himself. It was a room of considerable proportions, with the atmosphere of a study. It was lined with rather low book-shelves, on which stood the bound copies of the plays he had produced. Interspersed was a complete set of Lincoln's speeches and letters.

On one side was a large stone fireplace; in a corner stood a grand piano; the center was dominated by a simple, flat-topped desk, across which much of the traffic of the American theater pa.s.sed.

Near at hand was a low and luxurious couch. Here Frohman sat cross-legged and listened to plays. This performance was a sort of sacred rite, and was always observed behind locked doors. No Frohman employee would think of intruding upon his chief at such a time.

Here, as in London, Frohman was surrounded by pictures of his stars.

Dominating them was J. W. Alexander's fine painting of Miss Adams in "L'Aiglon." On a shelf stood a bust of John Drew. There were portraits of playwrights, too. A photograph of Clyde Fitch had this inscription:

"To C. F. from c. f."

There was only one real art object in the office, a magnificent marble bust of Napoleon, whom Frohman greatly admired. He was always pleased when he was told that he looked like the Man of Destiny.

His sense of personal modesty was a very genuine thing. Shortly before he sailed on the fatal trip he had a request from a magazine writer who wanted to write the story of his life. He sent back a vigorous refusal to co-operate, saying, among other things:

"It is most obnoxious to me in every way. It is forcing oneself on the public so far as I am concerned, and I don't want that, and, besides, they are not interested. It is only for the great men of our country. It is not for me. It looks like cheek and presumption on my part, because _it is_, and I ask you not to go on with it."

He believed in system. One day he said:

"We must have on file in our office the complete record of every first-cla.s.s theater in the United States, together with the name of every dramatic editor and bill-poster." Out of this grew the famous "Theatrical Guide" compiled by Julius Cahn.

Charles always provided special sleepers for his company when they had to leave early in the morning. He felt that it was an imposition to make the people go to bed late after a play and rise at five or six to get a train. It not only expressed his kindness, but also his good business sense in keeping his people satisfied and efficient.

One of Frohman's eccentricities was that he never carried a watch. On being asked why he never carried a timepiece, he replied, tersely, "Everybody else carries a watch," meaning that if he wanted to find out the time of day he could do it more quickly by inquiring of his personal or business a.s.sociates than by looking for a watch that he may have forgotten to wind up.

"Frohman," said a friend, "made it a rule in life not to do anything that he could hire somebody else to do, thus leaving himself all the time possible for those things that he alone could do. He probably figured it out that if he carried a watch he would be obliged to spend a certain amount of time each day winding it.

"And on the same principle he refused to worry as to whether he left his umbrella behind or not, by simply not carrying one. If he couldn't get a cab--a rare occurrence, doubtless, considering the beaten track of his travel--he preferred to walk in the rain."

Some time before his death Frohman said to a distinguished dramatist who is one of his closest friends:

"Whenever I make a rule I never violate it."

A visitor to his place at White Plains came away after spending a night there, and declared that the "real Charles Frohman had three dissipations--he smokes all day, he reads plays all night, and--" He stopped.

"What is it?" was the breathless query.

"He plays croquet."

Frohman had a rare gift for publicity. More than once he turned what seemed to be a complete failure into success. An experience with "Jane"

will reveal this side of his versatility.

The bright little comedy hung fire for a while. One reason was that newspaper criticism in New York had been rather unfavorable. Conspicuous among the unfriendly notices was one in the _Herald_ which was headed, "Jane Won't Go."

Frohman immediately capitalized this line. He had thousands of dodgers stuck up all over New York. They contained three sentences, which read:

"_Jane won't go._"

_Of course not._ _She's come to stay._

From that time on the piece grew in popularity and receipts and became a success.

In summing up the qualities that made Frohman great, one finds, in the last a.n.a.lysis, that he had two in common with J. P. Morgan and the other dynamic leaders of men. One was an incisive, almost uncanny, ability to probe into the hearts of men, strip away the superficial, and find the real substance.

His experience with Clyde Fitch emphasized this to a remarkable degree.

Personally no two men could have been more opposite. One was the product of democracy, buoyant and self-made, while the other represented an intellectual, almost effeminate, aristocracy. Yet nearly from the start Frohman perceived the bigness of vision and the profound understanding that lurked behind Fitch's almost superficial exterior.

In common, too, with Morgan, Roosevelt, and others of the same type, Frohman had an extraordinary quality of unconscious hypnotism. Men who came to him in anger went away in satisfied peace. They succ.u.mbed to what was an overwhelming and compelling personality.

He proved this in the handling of his women stars. They combined a group of varied and conflicting temperaments. Each wanted a separate and distinct place in his affections, and each got it. It was part of the genius of the man to make each of his close a.s.sociates feel that he or she had a definite niche apart. His was the perfecting understanding, and no one better expressed it than Ethel Barrymore, who said, "To try to explain something to Charles Frohman was to insult him."

XIX

"WHY FEAR DEATH?"

And now the final phase.