Charles Frohman: Manager and Man Part 6

With the utmost effort, and by p.a.w.ning jewelry and clothes, the company gladly saw the last trace of Texas disappear over the horizon.

It was a hard journey back. At Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Charles had to wait for the company because he did not have enough cash to go on ahead. Here the whole company was stranded until several of the members succeeded in getting enough money from home by wire to send them on.

Memphis proved to be a life-saver. Here the company took a steamboat down the Arkansas. It is notable because thus early Charles showed that eagerness to take a chance which eventually caused his death, for, on this trip, as on the _Lusitania_, he had been warned not to sail.

The river was low and the pilot was reckless. Whenever the boat groaned over a bar Charles would say, "That's great," although the other members of the company s.h.i.+vered with apprehension.

By using every device and resource known to the traveling company of those days, the Stoddart Comedy Company finally reached Richmond, Kentucky. It had left a trail of baggage behind; there was not a watch in the whole aggregation. Charles went on ahead to Cincinnati to book and bill the adjacent towns.

At Richmond Gustave had an inspiration. Then, as always, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was the great life-saver of the hara.s.sed and needy theatrical organization. The play was always accessible and it almost invariably drew an audience.

"Why not have a real negro play Uncle Tom?" said Gustave.

So he wired Charles as follows:

_Get me an Eva and send her down with Sam Lucas. Be sure to tell Sam to bring his diamonds._

Sam Lucas was a famous negro minstrel who had been with the Callender company. He sported a collection of diamonds that made him the envy and admiration of his colleagues. Gustave knew that these jewels, like Louise Dillon's sealskin sack, meant a meal ticket for the company and transportation in an emergency.

Charles engaged Sallie Cohen (now Mrs. John C. Rice), and sent her down with Lucas, who, by the way, provided the money for the trip. Charles then proceeded to cover his "Lemons" posters with "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

printing which he hastily acquired, and awaited results.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was played to a packed house at Richmond, and the company was able to get out of Kentucky. Gustave now had visions of big business in Ohio, and especially at Wilmington, which was Sam Lucas's home town. But the result was the usual experience with home patronage of home talent, and only a handful of people came to see the play.

Sallie Cohen, despairing of getting her salary, had quit the company, and on this night Polly Stoddart, who was a tall, well-developed woman, had to play Little Eva. When she sat on the lap of Wesley Sisson, who played her father, she not only hid him from sight, but almost crushed him to earth.

Wilmington proved to be the last despairing gasp of the Stoddart Comedy Company, for the trouble-studded tour now ended. Some of Lucas's diamonds were p.a.w.ned to get the company back to Cincinnati.

The sad news was telegraphed to Charles, who was billing Newport, Kentucky, which is just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. He received the message while standing on a step-ladder with a paste-brush in his hand. Now came an early evidence of his humor and equanimity. He calmly went on posting the bill for the show that he knew would never appear. Afterward in reciting the incident he made this explanation:

"I didn't want to tell the bill-poster that the company was closed, because he had just made a fresh bucket of paste and I didn't want him to waste it. Besides, he had become enthusiastic at the prospect of seeing a real negro Uncle Tom, and I had just given him some pa.s.ses for the show. I didn't want all his disappointments to come at one time."

After all the hards.h.i.+ps of the previous months, and with salaries unpaid, the company now found itself stranded in the spring of 1878 at the Walnut Street Hotel in Cincinnati. Gustave's problem was to get his people home. Fortunately, most of them lived in the Middle West. By p.a.w.ning some of his clothes and making other sacrifices he was able to get them off. Only Frank Hartwell and Charles were left behind.

Gustave got a pa.s.s to Baltimore, where he borrowed enough money from Callender, then in his decline, to take care of Hartwell. Charles was left behind as security for the whole Frohman bill at the Walnut Street Hotel. Although Charles was amiable and smiling, the hotel thought that his cheerful demeanor was an unsatisfactory return for board and lodging, so he was asked to vacate his room after a few days. He now spent his time walking about the streets and eating one meal a day. At night he sat in the summer-gardens "across the Rhine," listening to the music, and then seeking out a place where he could get a bed for a quarter.

By giving an I O U to the same Pennsylvania ticket-agent who had staked Gustave, and with five dollars telegraphed by the indefatigable brother back in New York, he got as far as Philadelphia. He landed there without a cent in his pocket.

"I must get home," he said.

He got on a day-coach of a New York train without the vestige of a ticket and still penniless. In those days the cars were heated by stoves, and near each stove was a large coal-box.

When Charles heard the conductor's cry, "Tickets, please!" he hid himself in the coal-box and remained there until the awful personage pa.s.sed by. Being small, he could pull the lid of the box down and be completely hidden from sight. After the conductor pa.s.sed, he scrambled out and resumed his seat. He had to repeat this performance several times on the trip. Afterward in speaking of it he said:

"I wasn't a bit frightened for myself. I knew I would suffer no harm. My chief concern was for a kind-hearted old man who sat in the seat next to the coal-box. He was much more agitated than I was."

On a bright May afternoon Charles turned up, sooty but smiling, at 250 East Seventy-eighth Street, where the Frohman family then lived. He had walked all the way up-town from the ferry. His first greeting to Gustave was:

"Well, when do we start again?"

III

PICTURESQUE DAYS AS MINSTREL MANAGER

Instead of discouraging him, Charles Frohman's baptism of hards.h.i.+p with the John Dillon companies only filled him with a renewed ardor for the theatrical business. The hunger for the road was strong in him. Again it was Gustave who proved to be the good angel, and who now led him to a picturesque experience.

During the summer of 1878 J. H. (Jack) Haverly acquired the Callender Original Georgia Minstrels, and Gustave, who had an important hand in the negotiation, was retained as manager. He started for the Pacific coast with his dusky aggregation, and in Chicago fell in with his new employer.

Haverly was then at the high tide of his extraordinary career. He was in many respects the amus.e.m.e.nt dictator of his time. Beginning as owner of a small variety theater in Toledo, Ohio, he had risen to be the manager of half a dozen important theaters in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Not less than ten traveling companies bore his name.

By instinct a plunger, his daring deals became the theatrical talk of the country. He was a das.h.i.+ng and conspicuous figure; his s.p.a.cious s.h.i.+rt-front shone with diamonds, and he wore a large flat-crowned stiff hat in which he carried all his correspondence and private papers.

Haverly specialized in minstrels, for he was a genius at capitalizing the enthusiasm of the theater-going public. Just at this time he was launching the greatest of all his traveling enterprises. To meet the compet.i.tion of the newly formed Barlow, Wilson, Primrose and West minstrels he decided to merge all his white minstrel companies into the Haverly Mastodons. It was to include forty star performers, more than had ever before been a.s.sembled in a minstrel organization. So proud was Haverly of this total that the advertising slogan of the company, which was echoed from coast to coast, and which became a popular theatrical phrase everywhere, was "Forty--Count 'Em--Forty."

Gustave found Haverly in the throes of Mastodon-making. Always solicitous of the family interest, he asked him if he had engaged a treasurer. When Haverly replied that he had not, Gustave immediately spoke up:

"Why don't you hire my brother Charley? He has had experience on the road."

"All right, Gus," he replied. "I've got two Frohmans with me now. If Charley is as good as they are, he is all right."

Thus it came about that for the first time the three Frohman brothers were a.s.sociated under the same employer.

Gustave wired the good news and transportation to the eager and impatient Charles, who had irked under the inactivity of a hot summer in New York. Gustave added ten dollars and instructed his brother to buy a new suit, for the Frohman family funds were in a more or less sad way.

Henry Frohman's generosity and his absolute inability to press the payment of debts due him had brought the father to a state of financial embarra.s.sment, and the burden of the family support fell upon the sons.

In a few days Charles showed up smiling in Chicago, but he had suffered disaster on the way. The ten-dollar "hand-me-down" suit had faded overnight, and when Charles appeared it was a sad sight.

"You can't meet Jack Haverly in that suit," said Gustave.

"All right," said Charley, "I will go to a tailor and have it fixed in some way."

The tailor, apparently, worked a miracle with the clothes, for Charles became presentable and was introduced to the great man, who, like most other people, readily succ.u.mbed to the boy's winning manner.

"You and I will work the public, all right," he said to Charles. What was more important, Haverly informed him that he was to act as treasurer of the Mastodons at a salary of ten dollars a week, with an allowance of one dollar and a half a day for board and lodging.

A serious complication now faced the boy. It was in the middle of July; the company was not to start until August, and he could draw no salary until the engagement began. With the a.s.sistance of Gustave he rented a two-dollar-a-week room and existed on a meal-ticket good for twenty-two fifteen-cent meals that he had bought for three dollars.

Charles sat at rehearsals with Haverly. He had a genius for stage effects and made many practical suggestions. The big bra.s.s-band, an all-important adjunct of the minstrel show, fascinated him. When the season opened with a flourish the receipts amazed him.

For the first time he came in contact with real money. The gross income of the Dillon company had never exceeded a thousand dollars a week; now he was handling more than that sum every night.

After a brief engagement at the Adelphi Theater in Chicago, which Haverly owned, the "Forty--Count 'Em--Forty" started on their long tour which rounded out the amus.e.m.e.nt apprentices.h.i.+p of Charles Frohman.

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