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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924073075214 
 
MRS. FISKE 
 
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^^^;^ rJityi/^ Jd£AJyfs^^__ 
 
 Frontisf-'icce. 
 
MRS. FISKE 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK CARLOS GRIFFITH 
 
 Formerly Acting Manager for Mrs. Langtry in the 
 
 United States and in Great Britain, Formerly 
 
 Acting Manager for Margaret Mather, 
 
 and Acting Manager for Mrs. 
 
 Fislce from 1897 to 1910. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 1912 
 
Copyright, 1912, by 
 The Neale Publishing Company 
 
TO 
 
 THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 CHAPTEB PAQE 
 
 I 
 
 Childhood Days ,...,- 
 
 II 
 
 II 
 
 Her Own Productions . . 
 
 
 
 • 19 
 
 III 
 
 "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" 
 
 
 
 • 31 
 
 IV 
 
 "Hedda Gabler" .... 
 
 
 
 ■ 45 
 
 V 
 
 The Theatrical Syndicate 
 
 
 
 ■ 59 
 
 VI 
 
 On Tour 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 VII 
 
 Interest in Dumb Animals 
 
 
 
 83 
 
 VIII 
 
 Banishment of Noise . . 
 
 
 
 94 
 
 IX 
 
 Personal Characteristics . 
 
 
 
 106 
 
 X 
 
 Interviews 
 
 
 
 116 
 
 XI 
 
 ^ ^ ^ ^ M,J^^ T ■ 1 J 1 w tn/ m • • • • 
 
 Child and Factory Law . 
 
 
 
 129 
 
 XII 
 
 Summing Up ........ 
 
 
 
 140 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Recent portrait of Mrs. Fiske . Frontispiece 
 
 Opposite Page 
 
 Portraits of Mrs. Fiske when a child . ii 
 
 "Caprice" 24 
 
 "Mary of Magdala" 31 
 
 Scene from "Salvation Nell" .... 45 
 
 "Salvation Nell" 54 
 
 Mrs. Fiske in Various Characters . . 80 
 
 "Rebecca West" 105 
 
 Mrs. Fiske in a Scene from "Salvation 
 
 Nell" 116 
 
 Mrs. Fiske in Various Characters . , 129 
 
PORTRAITS OF MRS. FISKE WHEN A CHILD. 
 In "Damon and Pythias." About Six Years. 
 
 'Eva" in "Uncle Tom's Cabin.'' About Eleven Years. 
 
 Facing Page 11. 
 
CHILDHOOD DAYS 
 
 AWARE of my long association with the 
 b subject of these lines, I have been ac- 
 tually pestered by my friends, and perhaps 
 others, with suggestions that I jot down some 
 of the characteristics, incidents, impressions, 
 and conclusions gathered during many years of 
 close business relations with the foremost ac- 
 tress of our times; and that I am writing this 
 is evidence that I have at last yielded, al- 
 though I assure my readers at the outset that 
 in this case familiarity has not bred contempt, 
 but on the contrary the highest admiration for 
 the accomplishments and genius of the subject 
 of this work. 
 
 Yet I do not purpose to write a biography 
 of that eminently brilliant woman, and 
 chronological facts and figures will not be at- 
 tempted. Neither am I a historian, but just 
 
 a jotter down of "unconsidered trifles" — trifles 
 
 II 
 
12 MRS. FISKE 
 
 at the time possibly, but in the aggregate trifles 
 that attain, a mountain in size. 
 
 And, dear lady, I hope the result of my 
 jottings will not impel you to exclaim, as I 
 have heard you do on occasion, "Heaven save 
 me from my friends!" 
 
 The beginnings of things are interesting, if 
 for no other reason than to watch how they 
 grow, and develop, and bud, and burst forth 
 into fruition. The beginning of Minnie Mad- 
 dem Fiske's existence, — for she it is of whom 
 I shall write, — was in New Orleans, just back 
 of the St. Charles Hotel, at or next to the cor- 
 ner of Baronne and Gravier streets, and here 
 the little theatrical world of that city was 
 made aware of the advent of a daughter to 
 Tom Davey and his wife, Lizzie Maddern, 
 on December 19, 1865, and offered its congrat- 
 ulations accordingly. 
 
 By this it will be seen that Mrs. Fiske's 
 name was not Maddern at all, — and by the 
 same token it was never Minnie either, for 
 when named, she was called Marie Augusta 
 Davey. Imagine Mrs. Fiske being encum- 
 
CHILDHOOD DAYS 13 
 
 bered with such a name for electric light signs 
 now ! There is a jingle and a musical charm 
 to the name Minnie Maddem that Marie Au- 
 gusta does not possess, but probably the donor 
 of the name at the time it was bestowed, — 
 presumably her mother, — had no premonition 
 of the future necessity of a name that could be 
 spoken with ease and facility, and it was an 
 afterthought that gave rise to the name of 
 Minnie Maddern. 
 
 It will be remembered, perhaps, that the year 
 preceding the "horning" of little Minnie was 
 one of strenuous activity, the early part of the 
 year having witnessed the evacuation of Rich- 
 mond, the surrender of Lee, and the assassina- 
 tion of Lincoln, these events having severally 
 given great delight to those of one political 
 persuasion and causing corresponding depres- 
 sion to those per contra. 
 
 Judging from my present knowledge of the 
 natural gayety and lightness of Mrs. Fiske's 
 disposition and of her greatest achievements, 
 some of the events that crowded that year and 
 influenced every mind must have been cheering 
 
14 MRS. FISKE 
 
 to the parents of the greatest comedienne of 
 our times, otherwise we might have found 
 Minnie Maddern later on playing the Lady 
 Audleys, Lady Macbeths, Lucretia Borgias, 
 and the like, to which roles her natural im- 
 pulses might have led her. 
 
 Heaven be praised that things are as they 
 are, and not as they might have been! "Of 
 all sad words of tongue or pen," — yes, yes, I 
 know of course you have heard it before, but 
 it "fitted in," as Kleschna would have said, 
 even though it was the worst rhyme Whittier 
 was ever guilty of. I wonder what would 
 have become of me if I had submitted such an 
 atrocity, true as the sentiment is. However, 
 that is neither here nor there. 
 
 Tom Davey was a manager in New Orleans, 
 and he was the pioneer of the Theatrical Sjm- 
 dicate of these later days, for he was the first 
 to manage a circuit of theaters, all of them 
 down in that portion of the South, and the con- 
 ditions surrounding theatrical travel then, and 
 in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, must have 
 been something fierce to contemplate. They 
 
CHILDHOOD DAYS 15 
 
 do not arouse enthusiastic encomiums at the 
 present time, but then, in the days just follow- 
 ing the Civil War, the barn-storming must have 
 been a literal accomplishment. And yet ex- 
 cellent actors went into and came out of that 
 crucible. The actor in the abstract probably 
 does put up with more nerve racking, stomach 
 annihilating, and unsanitary conditions than 
 any other class of being on earth. 
 
 Davey, from my information, was probably 
 a jolly good fellow, very much liked, a man's 
 man and loved the jolly companionship and 
 cameraderie of his associates. He doubtless 
 was good to his wife, though not having much 
 time to devote to domesticity, one can imagine, 
 moving from place to place, now in New Or- 
 leans, then St. Louis or Detroit, so little Minnie 
 was probably largely in the company of her 
 mother, Lizzie Maddern, who was generally in 
 the theater, with the baby "leashed" to a table 
 leg while she studied a new part. During per- 
 formances the infant was cradled in her ward- 
 robe basket, until the system of the baby 
 Minnie was saturated with the odor of the 
 
i6 MRS. FISKE 
 
 stage, and became as much a part of her as the 
 hair of her head or the fingers of her tiny hands. 
 The odor of the theater is as disinctly its 
 own as is that of a drug store or an attar of 
 roses manufactory, and when once "saturated" 
 it is as difficult to rid one's self of it as to swim 
 the English Channel or to loop the loop with 
 an aeroplane. It "gets" you, it pickles you, 
 as it were, in a brine of fascination, and like 
 the scent of some powerful odor, it permeates 
 every crevice of your system. Once the sat- 
 urated solution is in the pores not all the skill 
 of alchemy can separate you from it, or it from 
 you. A particularly and ideally happy mar- 
 riage en the part of the actress sometimes does 
 the trick, but money very, very rarely. Indeed, 
 money seems but to intensify the passion for the 
 stage, and the desire is then frantically to 
 plunge deeper and deeper into the mimic life — 
 desire and gratification waxing mutually great 
 on the other, till that day when a fortune has 
 been dissipated and continuation of the life 
 across the footlights becomes a necessity — ^per- 
 haps a pleasure. 
 
CHILDHOOD DAYS 17 
 
 Minnie Maddem was "saturated" with this 
 stage odor from her inception, and neither 
 money nor marriage could keep her out of it 
 long. 
 
 The little Minnie was in the dressing-room, 
 or taken on the stage when the property plot 
 called for "a live baby," until she could walk 
 and talk, and then she did talk. The founda- 
 tion of her career was laid early and laid well. 
 She had the Maddern blood, pretty much all of 
 the stage, the training of her mother, and the as- 
 sistance of "Aunt Mary" Maddern. Mary 
 Maddern, who died in April of the present 
 year, was the sole survivor of the three Mad- 
 dern sisters. The third sister, Emma Mad- 
 dern, married Bob Stevens, and became the 
 mother of Emily Stevens, who possesses to a 
 marked degree the artistic temperament of her 
 maternal ancestry. 
 
 Emma Maddern was the only one of the 
 three Maddern sisters to ever reach the dignity 
 of stardom, and was successful in the romping 
 hoydens of the drama — of the '6o's — the day 
 of farces, the protean drama, and the stage 
 
i8 MRS. FISKE 
 
 slavey. She was associated for some time 
 with a play called "Nip the Crow," contem- 
 poraneously with Maggie Mitchell, Lotta, the 
 Worrell Sisters, and others, and although not 
 attaining the eminence of success that her pro- 
 fessional sisters mentioned achieved, she was 
 doubtless just as worthy of it and just as ex- 
 cellent an artiste as any of them. 
 
 The theater was little Minnie's element, and 
 as she faced audiences before she knew any- 
 thing, and has continued to face them from 
 that time until this, such a thing as "breaking 
 in" has never been known to her. She was 
 bom "broken in," and probably never expe- 
 rienced stage fright until she had "arrived" and 
 stood on the dizzy height of eminence and real- 
 ized what is expected of genius. 
 
 By the best writers Mrs. Fiske is generally 
 acknowledged to be the greatest intellectual 
 actress of our day, but what would she have 
 been if the idiotic interpretation of some very 
 good laws in several States, notably Mas- 
 sachusetts, Illinois and Louisiana, had been in 
 vogue then? Of that more anon. 
 
II 
 
 HER OWN PRODUCTIONS AS MINNIE MADDERN 
 MARRIAGE TO MR. FISKE RETIREMENT 
 
 PHOTOGRAPHS of little Minnie are all 
 of the child childish, — sometimes funny, 
 as we look back upon such things, but generally 
 they convey an idea of poise, self-reliance, and 
 snap that children's portraits usually lack. 
 Her tangle of auburn hair had a rather way- 
 ward appearance, as if each particular hair had 
 a different opinion as to the proper angle of ad- 
 justment, compromising by letting each have its 
 own sweet will. In short, it was unconven- 
 tional, untrammeled by the rules of fashion, 
 and was the index to her later achievements, for 
 if anyone is untrammeled by tradition or rules 
 or system, goodness knows Mrs. Fiske is. 
 
 Before she had attained her tenth year 
 little Minnie Maddern had appeared with 
 Barry Sullivan, Laura Keene, J. K. Emmet, 
 
 19 
 
20 MRS. FISKE 
 
 Lucille Western, Carlotta LeClercq, Mrs. Wal- 
 ler, Yanke Locke, Oliver Doud Byron, E. L. 
 Davenport, Joseph Jefferson, John McCul- 
 lough, Junius Brutus Booth, and Mrs. Scott 
 Siddons, and that certainly is a record that 
 should add to the importance of any thespian, 
 young or old. 
 
 To hark back a little, — for I told you that 
 chronological order would not always be ob- 
 served in these notes, — ^her first real "appear- 
 ance" is stated as having been after her mother 
 had carefully assembled for her a Scottish kilt, 
 in which she appeared and sang a song about 
 Jamie coming over the meadow, or something 
 to that effect. The first part that she played, 
 however, is said to have been the Duke of 
 York, in "Richard the Third," at Little Rock, 
 Arkansas; but with what "eminent tragedian" 
 she does not herself recall. 
 
 A little out of order again, but as it occurs 
 to me I will say here that a person less given 
 to reminiscence than Mrs. Fiske I cannot imag- 
 ine. 
 
 Upon revisiting in her professional tours the 
 
HER OWN PRODUCTIONS 21 
 
 scenes of her childhood days one would natur- 
 ally expect a great actress to remark, "Here is 
 where I made my first appearance," or "Here 
 I played the Widow Melnotte when I was only 
 twelve," or some similar comment, but I do 
 not recall that I ever heard Mrs. Fiske, in all 
 our association, make the slightest allusion to 
 persons or places, with one or two exceptions. 
 One of these I here repeat. 
 
 She was appearing at Robinson's Opera 
 House, Cincinnati, one of the school oases of 
 her early life. As she entered the dressing 
 room on the opening night she glanced about, 
 and then at me, as if to determine in her mind 
 whether or not it was safe to entrust me with 
 the information. She then remarked that 
 when a child she was brought into that room 
 to see Mary Anderson in reference to playing 
 some child character in one of her plays, — In- 
 gomar, as she thought. 
 
 One step in advance in her profession led 
 to another in rapid succession with Miss Mad- 
 dem in those childhood days, and the marvel 
 of it is, with the pace she advanced profession- 
 
22 MRS. FISKE 
 
 ally, how she ever found time lor schooling. 
 But she did, and the variety of school systems 
 under which she studied should have kept her 
 out of ruts, and very likely they did; for strik- 
 ing the theatrical antipodes of New Orleans 
 and Montreal, Louisville, St. Louis, and Cin- 
 cinnati, as the route of her mother's engage- 
 ments lay, it is not to be supposed that they 
 followed any approachment to any set plan. 
 
 This may have something to do with her 
 wonderful versatility, and the breadth and 
 scope of her talents. Who can tell? 
 
 When but twelve she played Louise in "The 
 Two Orphans," and up to the time she was 
 sixteen one part trod upon another's heels, so 
 fast they followed. 
 
 The limit of age that now permits a child 
 to appear upon the stage in several States is 
 sixteen, and just reflect for a moment upon 
 what she had accomplished up to that time. 
 
 The extraordinary thing about Mrs. Fiske's 
 early career is that she should have been even 
 permitted to play the range of characters that 
 she did, and that she was acceptable in them is 
 
HER OWN PRODUCTIONS 23 
 
 a remarkable compliment to her intellectual 
 capabilities, for not only was she young, but 
 was petite as well. 
 
 Frequently a young woman who is physically 
 well developed easily passes for a much older 
 person, and the eye is satisfied even if the 
 ear be not] but little Minnie was little, and 
 held her audiences then by her genius, as she 
 subsequently has continued to do. 
 
 Mirmie Maddem, while she was yet sixteen, 
 became a star in a play that she would con- 
 sider to-day what the alphabet blocks of the 
 kindergarten are to the architectural material 
 of a museum of art. The work was "Fogg's 
 Ferry," by Charles Callahan. The character 
 she played was Chip, and from general report 
 the piece was rubbish, but it served her pur- 
 pose and she utilized it as another rung in the 
 ladder that led upward toward fame. 
 
 This play was produced, not in Tuscaloosa 
 or Skaneateles, but in New York City, and in 
 the Park Theater, if you please, May, 1882 — 
 or thirty years ago. This was before electric 
 lights, electric cars, automobiles, phonographs, 
 
24 MRS. FISKE 
 
 moving pictures, subways, or Hudson River 
 tunnels. For a young woman still, Mrs. Fiske 
 is an old frequenter of New York and its stage 
 doors. 
 
 Onward and upward she climbed, her next 
 character being in a play by Howard P. Tay- 
 lor, called "Caprice." This came about in Au- 
 gust, 1884, and it was in this play that she 
 sang the song, still existent and always popular, 
 "In the Gloaming." 
 
 Although very little known nowadays, Mrs. 
 Fiske has a very sweet singing voice, and as she 
 sat by the property gas log, with the lights 
 turned low, and sang this sweet melody in a 
 voice full of pathos and expression, it made an 
 everlasting impression upon her hearers. I 
 think I have heard more mention of this play 
 and this song than of all of her other produc- 
 tions put together, and if I were to live a hun- 
 dred years I think there would still crop up 
 now and then some old man who would ex- 
 patiate upon its wonderful charm as rendered 
 by Minnie Maddern. 
 
 Once I remember having mentioned this sub- 
 
"CAPRICE 
 
 Facing Page 24. 
 
HER OWN PRODUCTIONS 25 
 
 ject to Mrs. Fiske, with the intimation that a 
 revival of "Caprice" might be a good idea. 
 She replied, "My dear Mr. Griffith, it is per- 
 fectly trivial, I do assure you, perfectly trivial." 
 That is what Ibsen does for one. 
 
 In the cast of "Caprice," as played also at 
 the Park Theater, were Arthur H. Forrest, who 
 was later on with Mrs. Fiske in "Rosmers- 
 holm"; Charles Stanley, who played Philan- 
 der; Melbourne McDowel, T. J. Herndon, H. 
 Percy Brooke, Hudson Liston, Lillian Wallack, 
 and her own Aunt Mary Maddem. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske owes much to her Aunt Mary, 
 for in the famous actress' youth, when care and 
 attention were needed. Aunt Mary bestowed 
 much upon her, and Mrs. Fiske has never for- 
 gotten that fact or failed to show her apprecia- 
 tion, even at times when the task was the sever- 
 est possible strain upon her. 
 
 "In Spite of All" followed "Caprice" 
 about a year later, and it was in this produc- 
 tion that Mrs. Fiske had in her support Mr. 
 Richard Mansfield. 
 
 As Miss Maddern progressed she "lifted" 
 
26 MRS. FISKE 
 
 the support that accompanied her, and during 
 all of the really important years of her profes- 
 sional career she has had the best support ob- 
 tainable. To obtain the highest class support 
 became very early a firmly fixed principle with 
 her, that has never weakened; on the contrary, 
 it strengthened and developed with the years 
 and with the experience that made for knowl- 
 edge. I may add that Eben Plympton and 
 Selina Delaro were also in the original cast of 
 this play. Mildred Aldrich, who witnessed a 
 performance of the play, said of it later, "The 
 third act was a great performance. I know 
 no actress — and sweeping as this statement is, 
 I do not wish to qualify it — who could have 
 given to this scene the charm that Miss Mad- 
 dern gave it." And this was before Minnie 
 Maddern was twenty. 
 
 Her managers in those early days lost a deal 
 of money on her, but like every star in the the- 
 atrical firmament of every land she had her 
 strong territory as well as her weak. That is 
 an odd thing about even the greatest stars of 
 any age, — they will play in cities that are as 
 
HER OWN PRODUCTIONS 27 
 
 indifferent to their appearance there as to the 
 weekly visit of Farmer Jones with a load of 
 hay on Punkville Common. These towns they 
 may never fully conquer. They may at times, 
 with a play of unusual attractiveness to them, 
 play to capacity business, and give their patrons 
 the greatest satisfaction, while the next visita- 
 tion, with another play, may be absolutely 
 ignored. The vinpleasant logic of this, to the 
 star, is that it is the play solely, and not the 
 performer, that has won their hearts and 
 homage. 
 
 The play that followed "In Spite of All" 
 was "Featherbrain," May 6, 1889, and that 
 was also "Minnie Maddern's" last production, 
 for she made her final appearance, February, 
 1890, at Toronto, in a revival of "In Spite of 
 All," and on March 19, 1890, at Larchmont, 
 N. Y., she was married to Harrison Grey Fiske, 
 the owner, editor, and publisher of The New 
 York Dramatic Mirror. 
 
 Probably not one of Minnie Maddern's early 
 plays would stand the test of present day pro- 
 duction. The plays that delight and enthrall 
 
28 MRS. FISKE 
 
 us when young seldom improve with age, or 
 even hold their own, while the artists may 
 steadily improve, and with each step advance 
 to higher and higher altitudes, to look back 
 with wonder upon the frail structures over 
 which they have advanced. Strange to say, 
 the plays that are long-lived, — and will prob- 
 ably never die, — are among the most rubbishy 
 of plays, such, for instance, as "Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin" and "East Lynne." 
 
 The "Minnie Maddern" died and, like with 
 the Indian chiefs, everything was buried with 
 her at that last performance in Toronto, and 
 with the one allusion I have chronicled as re- 
 ferring to "Caprice" and the one reference to 
 Mary Anderson, she never in all my time made 
 mention of any play or part that she had ever 
 played during what she has been pleased to 
 term her "prehistoric days." 
 
 During the first sixteen years of her life, — 
 the valuable, inestimably valuable years which 
 foolish laws now prohibit children from putting 
 to anything of use to them in later stage life, — 
 Mrs. Fiske laid the solid foundation upon which 
 
HER OWN PRODUCTIONS 29 
 
 her later great success was builded, and during 
 the next nine years she experimented with the 
 material upon which the temple of her genius 
 was to rise. 
 
 Colleges and education rank high in my esti- 
 mation, — I would not lessen their value to the 
 world one atom, — ^but the spark of genius 
 greater than all the universities in Christendom, 
 and the ability to act, is no more influenced by 
 a college training than the darkness is dispelled 
 by a single firefly. 
 
 Of all the great geniuses of the English 
 stage, probably not one per cent, came to suc- 
 cess through a college education. If it is in 
 you to do anything, it will come out. Wit- 
 ness Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 I had the honor to manage a season of Mar- 
 garet Mather at one time, and how much edu- 
 cation do you suppose she had, poor girl? Al- 
 most none, and yet her Juliet and Leah are 
 stage traditions. 
 
 Mirmie Maddem had in her twenty-five 
 years attracted the attention of nearly every 
 actor and critic of note, and men of the critical 
 
30 MRS. FISKE 
 
 judgment and experience of Dion Boucicault 
 the elder and Lawrence Barrett discerned and 
 predicted then the heights to which she would 
 climb; while during the period of retirement 
 that marked the time between her "prehistoric" 
 and her modern days Daniel Frohman re- 
 marked to me that her absence was "a distinct 
 loss to the stage." 
 
'■MARY OF MAGDALA.' 
 
 Facing Paae 31. 
 
Ill 
 
 "tess 
 
 OF THE d'uRBERVILLES" "bECKY 
 
 sharp" "MARY OF MAGDALA" 
 
 CHARM of manner and the personal mag- 
 netism that one experiences when in the 
 society of prominent stars does not always in- 
 dicate that that charm and that manner will 
 get over the footlights and into the very mar- 
 row of the audience. If that were so, Mrs, 
 Langtry, whose business affairs I had the pleas- 
 ure and the honor of managing in this country, 
 in London and the United Kingdom, would 
 have been a great actress. This she was not, 
 although I do maintain that she was excellent 
 in many parts. I mention this to illustrate 
 the fact that when I first came into the "in- 
 fluence" of Mrs. Fiske's personality she was 
 in retirement, and had been for over three 
 years ; but charming as was her manner toward 
 me, it possessed no more charm than that of 
 
 31 
 
32 MRS. FISKE 
 
 the accomplished Jersey Lily. Subsequently 
 I found that Mrs. Fiske was a human electric 
 dynamo, while the other lady was a cold stor- 
 age plant — both exceedingly useful, but one of 
 them thrilled herself and her audiences with 
 throbbing, pulsating life while the other "pre- 
 served" all the semblance of life in the other- 
 wise unresponsive body. 
 
 It was in November of 1893 that Mrs. 
 Fiske emerged from her retirement, and, as she 
 has been pleased to term it, her "second time 
 on earth" began. Mr. Fiske was probably 
 alive to the fact that a jewel of rare value was 
 being kept from the light of fame, and doubt- 
 less Mrs. Fiske was just as well aware that a 
 fire stifled is not put out, and when one has 
 passed all of the first twenty-five years of one's 
 life on the stage the itch is incurable. Before 
 she was twenty-eight the reincarnated Minnie 
 Maddern appeared as Mrs. Fiske, in a play of 
 her husband's manufacture. 
 
 This occurred at the Tremont Theater, Bos- 
 ton, and the "services" of A. M. Palmer were 
 enlisted to arrange the contract, terms, etc. 
 
"TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES" 33 
 
 He "arranged" them all right, and a better 
 contract for Mr. Schofield and a worse one 
 for his clients never came under my notice, 
 for by its terms the theater took all the money 
 and the Fiskes paid pretty nearly all the ex- 
 penses. 
 
 I suppose there is an argument concealed 
 there somewhere, to the effect that in the end 
 things averaged up. 
 
 Mr. Fiske wrote the play, "Hester Crewe" — 
 and in it Mrs. Fiske made a powerful personal 
 impression; but the vehicle was not a success, 
 and one week, with such a contract, was con- 
 sidered quite sufficient, and so poor "Hester" 
 was packed in camphor and laid away. 
 
 More retirement then for Mrs. Fiske, who, 
 to use an ugly simile, had emerged like the 
 groundhog of ancient tradition and, failing to 
 see her shadow in the sunlight of success, had 
 retreated to her comfortable fireside and shut 
 the door after her. 
 
 The fires still burned within her, however, 
 the ambitious spark that never dies, and de- 
 sultory appearances were made at intervals for 
 
34 MRS. FISKE 
 
 charities and such like, until the break was 
 again made and the bid made for her old pub- 
 lic's approval. 
 
 Have you ever stopped to think how soon ac- 
 tors are forgotten and how quickly the vacuum 
 their withdrawal or death creates is closed up? 
 Who misses Booth now, or Jefferson, or Den- 
 man Thompson, or William Warren, or Mod- 
 jeska, or Janauschek, or Willard? Who was 
 James Heme'? What did Mansfield play? 
 Do people go to the theater now since Irving 
 died? Names written in sand, that one high 
 tide of musical comedy erases; one "Merry 
 Widow" and a surfeit of "Girl" plays utterly 
 obliterate; and so when Mrs. Fiske made her 
 next professional entrance upon the stage, to 
 remain there, she had an entirely new world 
 to conquer, and she set about it with a will, 
 an indomitable will. She had not been given 
 red hair for nothing. 
 
 After various attempts to pick up the golden 
 thread where she had dropped it only a few 
 years before, and with a variety of excellent 
 or otherwise vehicles of exploitation, such as 
 
"TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES" 35 
 
 "Doll's House," "Frou-Frou," "Caeserine," 
 "Queen of Liars," "Divorgons," etc.; on 
 March 2, 1897, "Tess of the d'Urber- 
 villes" brought a new public to her with 
 whoops of admiration. She had persis- 
 tently, patiently, and everlastingly kept at 
 it, and Tess, her own Tess, not the Tess of the 
 author Thomas Hardy, but a Tess that was the 
 creation of her own brain, a Tess greater than 
 Hardy ever dreamed of, set her on her feet 
 so firmly that no event or combination of 
 events or of antagonistic people could ever dis- 
 place her. 
 
 There is no published biography of Mrs. 
 Fiske extant, neither is there any collected data, 
 but if I may be excused I will quote Mildred 
 Aldrich once more, and Miss Aldrich knew Mrs. 
 Fiske quite early in her career. Just previous 
 to the triumph in "Tess," — Miss Aldrich had 
 written: "Yet one is, with all this, unable to 
 feel that Minnie Maddem-Fiske has yet ar- 
 rived." And although Mildred Aldrich was a 
 keenly discerning woman, and is so still, I 
 imagine she little knew how near Mrs. Fiske's 
 
36 MRS. FISKE 
 
 feet were to the home plate, as my baseball 
 friends would say. 
 
 No, she had not "arrived," that is, not in 
 the sense Miss Aldrich meant, — but that she 
 had given some characterizations to the stage 
 that have not been excelled, and possibly not 
 equaled, is a pretty well established fact, — 
 notably Cyprienne in "Divorgons," for a more 
 delicate, exquisite, dainty, ingenuous bit of 
 Dresden china impersonation never existed. 
 She fairly reveled in Cyprienne, and every line 
 she uttered, every attitude, every glance or 
 movement, oozed the rich humor of true refined 
 comedy. It was simply irresistible. 
 
 "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" was presented at 
 the Fifth Avenue Theater, New York, March 
 2, 1897, and the cast on that occasion may be 
 of interest. 
 
"TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES" 37 
 
 Angel Clare Edward M. Bell. 
 
 Alec. Stoke-d'Urberville Chas. Coghlan. 
 
 John Durbeyfield John Jack. 
 
 Abraham Durbeyfield Alice Pierce. 
 
 Farmer Crick W.L. Branscombe. 
 
 Jonathan Wilfrid North. 
 
 Tim Alfred Hickman. 
 
 James IV. E. Butterfield. 
 
 Bailifif W.L. Branscombe. 
 
 Joan Durbeyfield Mary E. Barker. 
 
 Tess Mrs. Fiske. 
 
 Liza Lu Edith Wright. 
 
 Marian Annie Irish. 
 
 Retty Nellie Lingard. 
 
 Izz Bijou Fernandez. 
 
 The magnetic quality possessed by Mrs. 
 Fiske was never more powerful than in her per- 
 formance of Tess. Where McGregor sits is 
 the head of the table, and where she was on 
 the stage there followed the gaze of her 
 audience. Throughout the whole pitiful tragic 
 sequence of events Mrs. Fiske was calm, in- 
 tense, all absorbing. She never shouted, posed, 
 or became hysterical, and yet with the master- 
 ful repose that is her own chief characteristic 
 she won point after point, scene after scene, 
 
38 MRS. FISKE 
 
 until the final fall of the curtain, when this 
 "pure woman, faithfully depicted," is led away 
 to her execution as a murderess. 
 
 Never was a murderess more loved and hon- 
 ored and respected by the spectators of a play 
 than Tess, "poor Tess." It was the genius of 
 the actress that won every heart; and all this, 
 all the attention, all the lavish praise, in spite 
 of a truly magnificent cast, for the performances 
 given by Charles Coghlan, John Jack, and 
 Mary Barker were gems of rare value. 
 
 During the rehearsals of "Tess" Mr. Coghlan 
 cautioned Mrs. Fiske that an audience could 
 not and would not remain quiet for so long a 
 time as she remained off the stage in the mur- 
 der scene, leaving the stage entirely deserted. 
 Mr. Coghlan had occasion to admit his error, 
 for her audiences were as one hypnotized, and 
 sat breathless, listening for the audible evidence 
 of the crime then being committed until Tess 
 hastily reappeared with the murderous weapon 
 in her hand. This scene of Mrs. Fiske's may 
 well rank with that of any actress of any land 
 and of any time. 
 
"TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES" 39 
 
 In 1898 she produced two pieces, — "A Bit 
 of Old Chelsea" and "Love Finds the Way," 
 the first a charming little one act play, and the 
 second an interesting study in mentality, a sort 
 of exploitation of the Faith or Mind Cure busi- 
 ness, whichever one chooses to call it. The 
 central figure in the latter is a lame woman, 
 with crutches, who, under great stress of mind 
 and the necessity for instant action to save a 
 life, flings away her supports and runs like a 
 girl. 
 
 The following year brought out "Little 
 Italy," another one act playlet, and the mem- 
 orable production of "Becky Sharp," at the 
 Fifth Avenue Theater, New York, September 
 12, 1899. 
 
 My conclusion as to Mrs. Fiske's abilities 
 is that she is not a one act or "bit" actress, who 
 depicts one little incident and goes off, but 
 rather that all her work requires space; like a 
 great artist who paints great pictures on large 
 canvases, or a writer like Dickens, or Scott, or 
 Charles Dudley Warner, who must needs take 
 time to develop a great character and not 
 
40 MRS. FISKE 
 
 spring it all at once, with a tag on it as to 
 its classification. 
 
 Thackeray gave a great character to the 
 world in Becky Sharp, and Langdon Mitchell 
 was the impressionistic disciple of Monet who 
 slapped on the colors and gave to Mrs. Fiske his 
 impressions of the salient features of the story. 
 That he succeeded is a matter of theatrical his- 
 tory, and Mrs. Fiske walked out of the stage 
 door of the Fifth Avenue Theater at the end 
 of that New York engagement with the proud 
 distinction of being firmly established as the 
 greatest representative of high comedy of her 
 time, and probably the equal of any that ever 
 lived. 
 
 In a newspaper interview Mrs. Fiske once 
 said, in referring to "Becky Sharp" : 
 
 "There seems to be a common fatality with 
 regard to our first performance of the play in 
 New York. On the first night of its produc- 
 tion in that city I played very badly; and five 
 years later, on the first night of the revival 
 of the play, I repeated this bad performance. 
 These are the unhappy occurrences over which 
 
"TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES" 41 
 
 actors grieve. The grief, I fear, is due to 
 wounded vanity." 
 
 "Becky Sharp" was, and in my opinion still 
 is, the masterpiece of her career. It is a gem 
 without a flaw. The cast, too, was one of those 
 consummate mosaics that she possesses a genius 
 for assembling, — in fact, in every play that 
 has been her own production this remark- 
 able faculty for selection has been predomin- 
 ant. 
 
 I remember the revival of "Becky Sharp" at 
 the Academy of Music later on, and Mrs. 
 Fiske was at her wits' end for an actor who 
 measured up to her idea of Dobbin. She had 
 tried several without success, when one day, 
 as she alighted at the stage door to attend a 
 rehearsal, an actor who had been standing 
 there to intercept her when she arrived barred 
 her way and, as he lifted his hat, remarked : "I 
 understand you want a man for Dobbin." 
 
 Mrs. Fiske gave one hasty glance that took 
 him in from top to toe, and grasped him by the 
 arm, as she replied, "Yes, I do," and literally 
 dragged him into the theater. 
 
42 MRS. FISKE 
 
 Probably no actor was ever more astonished 
 at the result of an application for an engage- 
 ment than he was; and he played the part to, 
 I believe, her entire satisfaction. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske's Becky Sharp ranks with Jeffer- 
 son's Rip Van Winkle, Booth's Hamlet, Sal- 
 vini's Othello, Fechter's Monte Cristo, Irving's 
 Mathias, Cushman's Meg Merriles, and such 
 great and perfect impersonations as we get at 
 rare intervals on the stage. 
 
 Successes rarely follow one another, and her 
 next ventures, in "The Unwelcome Mrs. 
 Hatch" and "Miranda of the Balcony," may 
 be dismissed as of little interest here. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske says that she is "hopelessly 
 modern," yet for all that she went back nine- 
 teen hundred years for her next character, that 
 of Mary of Magdala. 
 
 In the selection of her plays Mrs. Fiske cares 
 very little whether the character to be repre- 
 sented by herself is the strongest in it, or if one 
 or two of the male characters possess that 
 quality; and so in "Mary of Magdala" Judas 
 was really the strongest character in it, and as 
 
"TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES" 43 
 
 played by Tyrone Power was a remarkable 
 performance. I could imagine Edwin Forrest, 
 with his robustness and his cathedral organ 
 quality of voice in his earlier days, when listen- 
 ing to Power as Judas. 
 
 Some lines of Judas', in describing the im- 
 pression the appearance of Christ made upon 
 him when he first encountered his gaze, are 
 burnt into my memory in tone, in quality, and 
 in the graphic completeness of the meaning 
 they conveyed. 
 
 In describing this meeting to Mary, he says : 
 "His eyes compelled me, and his power sub- 
 dued. His glory shriveled all my spirit up 
 and changed me in an instant. What I was 
 became as nothing underneath the spell that 
 made me what I am." 
 
 Could anything be finer? and delivered in 
 the rich, deep, melodious tones he possessed 
 it became classic. 
 
 "Mary of Magdala" was first given in Mil- 
 waukee, October 23, 1902, at the Pabst Thea- 
 ter, and continued two seasons, during the sec- 
 ond of which she produced "Hedda Gabler," 
 
44 MRS. FISKE 
 
 and alternated the two in places, touring the 
 Pacific Coast the second year. It was a 
 "spotty" play, doing excellently well in places 
 and very little in others, the latter result fol- 
 lowing a fear that it was sacrilegious, while it 
 was really reverential. True, the Saviour was 
 dangerously near being presented on the stage, 
 for he was in the next room, or the next garden 
 at intervals, but the line was rigidly drawn and 
 never crossed. He was constantly talked 
 about, creating a condition similar to the one 
 often mentioned as "Hamlet" with Hamlet left 
 out. 
 
 A clever feature about "Mary of Magdala" 
 was the fact that Protestants of every shade of 
 denomination, Catholic, or Jew, did not know 
 whether to be pleased or offended, and as they 
 could not fix upon any obnoxious line or allu- 
 sion, they generally ended by letting it go by 
 default, and Mrs. Fiske added many staunch 
 friends from among the Episcopalian bishops, 
 the Catholic priesthood, and the Jewish rabbis. 
 

IV 
 
 HEDDA GABLER LEAH KLESCHNA THE 
 
 NEW YORK idea" "rOSMERSHOLM" 
 
 "salvation NELL." 
 
 THE epoch-marking events in the career of 
 Mrs. Fiske are numerous. If the dra- 
 matic temple of her own building were orna- 
 mented with the sculptures of her successful 
 creations the salons and passages would com- 
 prise a Hall of Fame worthy of the greatest. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske never acts herself, startling as that 
 statement may appear. The things she does 
 on the stage are seldom characteristic of herself 
 in private, although I have seen some of the 
 most exquisite bits of acting done solely from 
 the exuberance of her nature or the spon- 
 taneity of some momentary spur. In a one- 
 night stand out West a stock company had 
 given way to us for a day, and a young lady 
 member of that company had just been stricken 
 
 4S 
 
46 MRS. FISKE 
 
 with some fatal malady and had died in the 
 local hospital. The young actor-husband, who 
 was playing with another company elsewhere, 
 had been called back, and as the two were 
 practically penniless everybody in the theater 
 "chipped in" for the expenses. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske requested the "bereaved" husband 
 to come to her dressing room. He was young, 
 and thought he was an actor, and the sad in- 
 cident of his young wife's death did not over- 
 come his gratification at being for the moment 
 in the spotlight, therefore the "theatrical" man- 
 ner he assumed gave Mrs. Fiske, with her keen 
 perception, an opportunity that she could not 
 resist. Her relation of the interview and its 
 incidents, with imitations, was rich and an ex- 
 ample of the spontaneity above mentioned. 
 
 Hedda Gabler was her second Ibsen charac- 
 ter, Nora having been her earliest venture, and 
 Hedda is one of her cleanest-cut impersonations. 
 It is a Raphael-like figure, cut perfectly from 
 the marble, — and with about as much blood in 
 it. As a work of the highest art it is to be 
 greatly admired, but, like the Laocoon, the 
 
"HEDDA GABLER" 47 
 
 agony of it prevents it from becoming popular 
 with the supersensitive. As a play it is a mar- 
 velous example of literary workmanship. Not 
 a line could be spared from it, each having some 
 bearing upon the others, and so cleverly is the 
 dovetail construction accomplished that the rise 
 to the tragic finish is so gradual that no step 
 is visible. It is an incline, and not a ladder. 
 
 I cannot say authoritatively, but I think Mrs. 
 Fiske will never produce "Ghosts", — the story 
 is so repellent; but there is little doubt in my 
 mind, however, that the character of the mother 
 has attractions for her. I had the honor of wit- 
 nessing, in her company, a performance of that 
 play given by the German Players in Cincin- 
 nati, when her familiarity with the play enabled 
 her to act as "Chorus" to me in explaining much 
 I did not understand. 
 
 The season of 1904-5 was the high- water 
 mark of the Theatrical Syndicate, — ^more of 
 which hereafter, — and it was during that sea- 
 son that she remained in New York and, to- 
 gether with Mr. Fiske, organized the Manhat- 
 tan Company, on December 12, 1904, present- 
 
48 MRS. FISKE 
 
 ing "Leah Kleschna," with a cast of remark- 
 able excellence. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske looks upon Leah as not much bet- 
 ter than a "walking lady," but in spite of that 
 she pitted herself against four men who in- 
 dividually and collectively made remarkable 
 hits. 
 
 John Mason played Paul Sylvaine; George 
 Arliss, Raoul; Charles Cartright, Kleschna; 
 and William B. Mack, Schram; each of whom 
 was with her for his first season, with the 
 single exception of Mr. Mack. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske never denies her support any 
 legitimate opportunity to develop and to make 
 everything possible out of their parts — any- 
 thing that does not throw the symmetry of the 
 whole out of poise. 
 
 These four men gave performances that, 
 taken in addition to that of Mrs. Fiske, made 
 "Leah Kleschna" a great success; and as the 
 manuscript had been refused by numerous 
 managers before it reached the Fiskes its suc- 
 cess came as a surprise to many. It is the 
 'possibilities of a play that strikes Mrs. Fiske, 
 
"HEDDA GABLER" 49 
 
 and those are to the play as a whole what the 
 internal organs of the human body are to the 
 skillful surgeon with an x-ray. What can be 
 made of characters when interpreted by men 
 and women of superior ability aided and 
 directed by the mind of a genius for develop- 
 ment! 
 
 "Leah Kleschna" finished out the New York 
 season, and Mrs. Fiske then made a short tour 
 of the Pacific Coast in the late spring and sum- 
 mer, continuing with the same play all of the 
 following season of 1905-6. 
 
 Its scene of most intense interest was prob- 
 ably that of the safe robbery, during a portion 
 of which the stage was so dark that the only 
 part of Mrs. Fiske that was visible to the 
 audience was her left hand in the focused light 
 of a dark lantern as she forced the safe door. 
 
 The last act was weak, absolutely puerile, but 
 presented a very attractive and original setting 
 — that of a lettuce field done in long lines of 
 perspective, giving a beautifully picturesque 
 effect that never failed of recognition. 
 
 It was this scene that caused many of her 
 
so MRS. FISKE 
 
 less discriminating and newer patrons to refer 
 ever after to having seen her in "The Cabbage 
 Patch," confusing the play with one referring 
 additionally to a party by the name of Mrs. 
 Wiggs. 
 
 This I have had positively to deny many 
 times, and only the other day a person boasted 
 proudly to me of having seen Mrs. Fisk in 
 " 'Way Down East." 
 
 Langdon Mitchell provided two of Mrs. 
 Fiske's biggest successes, "Becky Sharp" and 
 "The New York Idea," the latter following 
 "Leah Kleschna," and first produced in Mil- 
 waukee at the Shubert Theater on Tuesday, 
 October 9, igo6, going thence to Chicago for 
 two weeks, to enormous business, where it could 
 have remained indefinitely, so great was the 
 demand. 
 
 In this cast were John Mason, George 
 Arliss, Charles Harbury, Dudley Clinton, and 
 Dorothy Dorr, the latter being soon superseded 
 by Marian Lea, the wife of the author, and a 
 former actress of rare ability. 
 
 The gentlemen all made hits, as also did 
 
"HEDDA GABLER" 51 
 
 Miss Lea when she came to the part. As in 
 "Divorgons" and "Becky Sharp," Mrs. Fiske's 
 pre-eminent qualities as an exponent of refined 
 comedy had full scope, and the scenes between 
 herself and Mr. Mason have probably never 
 been surpassed, living in the memory of all 
 those who were fortunate enough to witness 
 them as the highest attainment in light comedy 
 acting — exquisite in their delicate touch, never 
 overdrawn, but natural, graceful, irresistible. 
 Mason's "divorced" husband, Arliss' English 
 visitor, Harbury's Judge Phillimore, and Clin- 
 ton's Clergyman, were all remarkably perfect 
 creations. 
 
 "Dolce," a one act play by John Luther 
 Long, was also produced in 1906. 
 
 In the fall and early winter of 1907 Mrs. 
 Fiske made her first tour of the South since she 
 had made any "reincarnation" successes. The 
 South had never seen "Tess" or "Leah 
 Kleschna," and with an excellent support the 
 tour was made. It began at Norfolk, Va., and 
 after swinging around the circle terminated, 
 December 5, in Marietta, Ohio. Its success 
 
52 MRS. FISKE 
 
 was not what was anticipated. In New Or- 
 leans, the birthplace of Mrs. Fiske — a city she 
 had not visited in many years, — the business 
 was disappointing, to say the least. A strange 
 circumstance of this tour was the fact that after 
 the booking had been made in a Shubert house 
 the control had come into that of the Syndicate, 
 with no antagonistic result, however; in fact, 
 we enjoyed the most pleasant associations with 
 Mr. Campbell, the Syndicate representative 
 there, and his whole force of employees. 
 
 After the rich comedy of "The New York 
 Idea" came gloom; the leap from exquisite 
 humor, gayety, and laughter to the depths that 
 always accompanies melancholy — in this case 
 ending with double suicide. Ibsen's "Rosmers- 
 holm" was first presented by Mrs. Fiske at the 
 Hyperion Theater, New Haven, at a matinee, 
 and on Christmas Day, 1907. 
 
 It would have been about as consistent to 
 have produced the Passion Play at the Jardin 
 Mabille or the Moulin Rouge on Bastille Day 
 in Paris. My I oh, my I 
 
 Well, it gave a good dress rehearsal — and 
 
"HEDDA GABLER" 53 
 
 the students were all away. New York had it 
 for four weeks at the Lyric Theater, beginning 
 December 30, and all the principal cities from 
 Boston to San Francisco, until 199 consecutive 
 performances had been given — a record-break- 
 ing feat for an Ibsen play. 
 
 To digress. When my career began, at the 
 old Boston Museum, the classic drama was 
 Boston's boast, and Boston's reputation for 
 patronage was marked by the cultured and 
 literary quality of the plays presented. For 
 more than a generation, now, the thing has been 
 reversed, and my study of the more modern re- 
 quirements of the play-going public of Boston 
 impels me, a Bostonian myself, to put up the 
 warning sign, to be read by those intending to 
 present the higher educational or intellectual 
 drama in Boston as a business venture. Have 
 cash or credit enough with you to get to Chicago, 
 where to this day the worthiest receives its 
 highest recompense, as it was with "Rosmers- 
 holm." You may not like the play, but its 
 merits are incontestable. 
 
 Again a remarkably fine cast interpreted her 
 
54 MRS. FISKE 
 
 production, — Bruce McRae, George Arliss, 
 Fuller Mellish, and Albert Bruning. A quar- 
 tette of male impersonations that has fre- 
 quently been found in her history. 
 
 If you are familiar with "Rosmersholm," 
 imagine its being presented in Kokomo, Ind., 
 Yankton, S. D., North Platte, Neb., Raton, N. 
 M., Bisbee, Ariz., and Calgary, Alberta, not to 
 forget El Paso, Texas, where one of the larg- 
 est gatherings of the season assembled. 
 
 Another remarkable change in the character 
 of Mrs. Fiske's productions occurred when she 
 laid aside "Rosmersholm," which probably no 
 other living actress could have continued con- 
 secutively so long, and presented Edward 
 Sheldon's "Salvation Nell." If "Rosmers- 
 holm" required courage, so indeed did "Salva- 
 tion Nell," and if there is a line to be drawn 
 between courage and daring, then daring would 
 be the better word for the latter play. Faith 
 might be coupled with courage and will with 
 daring. "Rosmersholm" could not be tabooed, 
 but "Salvation Nell," — well, nothing but the 
 trial of it could demonstrate its reception. 
 
"SAL\"ATIOX NELL. 
 
 Facing Page 54. 
 
"HEDDA GABLER" S5 
 
 Other managers had ridiculed the idea of 
 even its possibility outside of a third-class melo- 
 dramatic establishment, and tumed it down 
 hard. Mrs. Fiske read the young Harvard 
 student's enthusiastic effort, and sprang at it 
 like a trout to a fly. The possibilities again. 
 Nell was not a great part, — far from it, — ^but 
 the newness of its subject, its treatment, and 
 the ensemble of its heterogeneous characters 
 struck her as unique, and late in 1908 she 
 startled New York with an idealized production 
 of a very realistic, startlingly realistic, drama 
 of the slums — and nothing else. There was 
 not a lady or a gentleman in it, or what is gen- 
 erally understood by those terms. Barrooms, 
 bums, tramps, females of no virtue, drunken 
 rows, murder, street fights, and hurdy-gurdies 
 predominated, and yet Mrs. Fiske so lifted this 
 melange and riot of vice and crime that it be- 
 came almost classic. The underlying lesson of 
 it all was so strong it was Niagara-like in its 
 power. To every thinking, broad, receptive 
 mind it went straight as an arrow. 
 
 "Salvation Nell" was a highly profitable 
 
56 MRS. FISKE 
 
 venture, but whether or not advisable is an 
 open question in the minds of some. It toured 
 the entire country the remainder of that season 
 and the next, up to February 19, 1910, when 
 it was withdrawn at Brooklyn. 
 
 It was while en route from Butte, Montana, 
 to Winnipeg, July 25, 1909, that all our 
 scenery was destroyed by fire. The car con- 
 taining the scenery had taken fire from sparks 
 from the engine while traversing the Bad Lands, 
 and was a total loss. The other cars, contain- 
 ing the wardrobe, properties, and personal 
 effects, escaped, although they were badly 
 burned outside. This necessitated either can- 
 celing Winnipeg, Duluth, and Minneapolis, or 
 playing those dates with a faked set of scenery. 
 The managers in these cities urged our coming, 
 in answer to wiring, which we did, to very ex- 
 cellent results. In Winnipeg two days later 
 we used an assemblage of "front streets," 
 "medieval palaces," "rocky passes," and 
 "Italian gardens," v/ith a few signs like, 
 "Feinheimer's Delicatessen," "O'Grady's Thirst 
 Parlors," "Isaac Bernstein's Pawn Shop," 
 
"HEDDA GABLER" 57 
 
 "Antonio Ricardi's Fruit Cellar," and similar 
 information, attached to the Doges' Palace or 
 the Cathedral at Rheims. And yet the play- 
 went just as well apparently. The audience 
 was generously forbearing, and exceedingly 
 kind. 
 
 Duluth did a little better, having had a few 
 days more time ; but with a week's interim, and 
 by dispatching our stage manager and master 
 carpenter ahead to Minneapolis, we had an 
 entire new production painted for the latter 
 place. Fact, I assure you. It was a stock 
 company house, and they were accustomed to 
 haste. The business was excellent in each of 
 these places. 
 
 The usual quartette was absent from this 
 play, and Holbrook Blinn had the male inter- 
 est entirely to himself, and held it by a won- 
 derfully perfect performance, entirely in har- 
 mony with Mrs. Fiske's ideals and methods. 
 Hope Latham also made a great success with a 
 dangerously "near" character. Charlotte 
 Thompson the playwright, who appeared under 
 the name of Mary Madison, was also very sue- 
 
58 MRS. FISKE 
 
 cessful as Hallelujah Maggie. The other char- 
 acters were all bits, in one of which Gilda 
 Varesi gave a bit of realism of the lower world 
 worthy of a Duse. 
 
 These comprise Mrs. Fiske's productions up 
 to the time of my retirement, but she has made 
 several other productions since, notably Ibsen's 
 "Pillars of Society," "Hannele," "Mrs. Bum- 
 stead-Leigh," the short-lived "The New Mar- 
 riage," and "Lady Patricia." 
 
 Chronologically, historically and biograph- 
 ically, such as it is, I am now done; but with 
 your kind permission, as the magicians say 
 when they want your hat or watch, I will con- 
 tinue on specialized features, such as refer to 
 Syndicate opposition, incidents and anecdotes 
 of travel, Mrs. Fiske's methods, manner, tem- 
 perament, interest in humane societies, child 
 labor legislation, and a general blanket policy 
 covering all the years I was closely associated 
 with her business interests. 
 
THE THEATRICAL SYNDICATE 
 
 THERE are few people who have not heard 
 of the Theatrical Syndicate, and prob- 
 ably a far less number among theater-goers who 
 care two straws about it. It was organized 
 about the time Mrs. Fiske returned to the stage, 
 and was composed of six men, who owned or 
 controlled a sufficient number of theaters, stars, 
 productions, and booking privileges to warrant 
 them in believing that if they could acquire a 
 few more interests of these varied classifications 
 they might be able to create a practical mon- 
 opoly of all theatrical enterprises. 
 
 If they held by ownership, lease, or contract 
 to book exclusively the principal theaters of 
 the United States, the stars and producing 
 managers would be obliged to come to them 
 for their time, which meant a booking fee 
 from the touring managers and the same from 
 
 S9 
 
6o MRS. FISKE 
 
 the theaters booked, as well as their profits 
 from those they leased or owned. 
 
 Should the touring manager decline this 
 proposition, he would be obliged to play his at- 
 tractions in second-class houses, with a loss in 
 prestige and perhaps pocket. 
 
 To reverse this plan, if the Syndicate could 
 corral the principal stars and productions, the 
 theaters not under their control would be with- 
 out attractions much of the time, or must fill in 
 the gaps with inferior ones. Mr. Jefferson, 
 who termed the scheme as one inimical to the 
 best interests of the theater, was one of the 
 first to surrender. Nat. Goodwin, Francis Wil- 
 son, and Richard Mansfield, who each had de- 
 nounced the Syndicate in good set terms, fell 
 into the outstretched net one by one; but Mrs. 
 Fiske steadfastly held aloof. 
 
 The scheme was certainly a bold one, and in 
 line with the methods of the big trusts in oil, 
 steel, coal, tobacco, sugar, etc. 
 
 Attempts were made to break down the or- 
 ganization by applying the anti-trust laws and 
 decisions to its operation, but in every minor 
 
THE THEATRICAL SYNDICATE 6i 
 
 as well as important case, against the theater 
 the decison was persistently adhered to, — that 
 a theater is a "private" enterprise; it could not 
 be classed as a necessity or that the establish- 
 ment of rules or prices was in restraint of trade. 
 No one was obliged to go to the theater, and no 
 suffering was entailed upon him by the raising 
 of prices and his consequent absence from it. 
 
 No, the theater was private property, and, as 
 such, the manager could do what he pleased 
 with it, so long as his offerings did not corrupt 
 the morals of the community or become a 
 nuisance in any way. Hence opposition was 
 useless on these lines. 
 
 In Boston and in Chicago there was always 
 a first-class theater for Mrs. Fiske, — the Tre- 
 mont Theater, or the Grand Opera House, in 
 the latter of which all of Mrs. Fiske's engage- 
 ments in Chicago have been played. 
 
 At first there was little diiBculty for her to 
 obtain bookings in first-class houses, but grad- 
 ually, as season after season came and went, 
 the screws were turned a little tighter, and she 
 had at length to resort to the second-class or 
 
62 MRS. FISKE 
 
 melodramatic houses, always, however, raising 
 the prices to her level, be it remembered. 
 
 It was during nearly all of the time of her 
 struggle for independence that my connection 
 with her interests was continued. 
 
 Mr. Fiske put up a hard and bitter fight 
 through the columns of the Dramatic Mirror, 
 which he owned, and through other journals 
 that from time to time allied themselves with 
 him. 
 
 Eventually David Belasco became an inde- 
 pendent, and Henrietta Crosman, through her 
 husband Maurice Campbell, and also James K. 
 Hackett, were for a time under the Syndicate 
 ban. 
 
 Along in December, 1892, when the sole In- 
 dependents were Mrs. Fiske, Miss Crosman, and 
 Mr. Hackett, we were presenting "Mary of 
 Magdala" at the Manhattan Theater, and the 
 bookings outside of New York were few and 
 far between for the independents. Mrs. Fiske, 
 with her great name and prestige, succeeded in 
 filling her time, but the others found it pretty 
 "hard sledding" and far more difRcult to do 
 
THE THEATRICAL SYNDICATE 63 
 
 so. Hence on December 18 I was requested 
 to go to Pittsburg to see if it were possible 
 to get a theater opened to the Independents. 
 No clue was given me to work upon, excepting 
 by the process of elimination, which left two 
 possibilities. 
 
 My first visit was to Mr. Williams at the 
 Duquesne, to whom I gradually unfolded my 
 desires. Mr. Williams was very polite and 
 equally emphatic, that he knew what he could 
 do with vaudeville, but he could not answer 
 for results with first-class stars. 
 
 After presenting my entire stock of argu- 
 ments, he finally informed me that he could 
 not do this even if he would, as there was an 
 agreement existing with the Bijou management 
 — he not to present drama, while on the other 
 hand they were not to give vaudeville during 
 the continuance of that agreement. 
 
 My next call was upon Mr. Gulick at the 
 Bijou, and after some considerable effort I suc- 
 ceeded in convincing himself and his partner, 
 Mr. McNulty, that their interests lay in high- 
 priced dramatic stars at the Duquesne, rather 
 
64 MRS. FISKE 
 
 than low-priced vaudeville, and I gained their 
 consent to an annulment of the agreement with 
 Mr. Williams, so far as our bookings were 
 concerned, provided Mr. Williams wished to 
 do so. 
 
 Back to Mr. Williams with my story, but he 
 was far from acquiescent. Again I opened my 
 box of tricks, and as eloquently as possible I 
 plead my clients' case. To make a long story 
 brief, I was to write out the form of option I 
 desired and bring it to him that evening, and he 
 would mull on it over Sunday and let me know 
 his decision Monday morning. 
 
 This was on Saturday afternoon, December 
 20, 1902. That evening I returned with my 
 option carefuly written out and passed it over 
 to Mr. Williams. He deliberately adjusted 
 his glasses, and I sat back while he carefully 
 and slowly read the paper to the end. I then 
 expected some comment from him; but not a 
 word did he utter, and when he had finished he 
 laid the paper down upon his desk and fumbled 
 among his papers for something which proved 
 eventually to be his pen, which, when found. 
 
THE THEATRICAL SYNDICATE 65 
 
 he unconcernedly utilized to sign the paper. 
 He then tossed it over to me, with the simple 
 remark. "There, I suppose that is what you 
 want." And it was. 
 
 I had been informed that the opening of 
 theaters in Cleveland and Detroit to the Inde- 
 pendents depended upon the acquisition of one 
 in Pittsburg, and it may easily be inferred 
 what my feelings were while en route back to 
 New York with the document in my pocket 
 that really did open all three cities. 
 
 One other incident that was of importance 
 to us occurred a little later. We opened on 
 Christmas Day in a large city of the Atlantic 
 Slope, and because of its being Christmas, and 
 of course a holiday, I did not call upon the 
 editor-in-chief of the principal evening paper, 
 who was a personal friend, as I should have 
 done on any other day of the week. 
 
 This particular daily owned one of the prin- 
 cipal theaters that was under Syndicate con- 
 trol, and quite naturally an inferior attraction, 
 appearing there against us, received a flattering 
 notice while Mrs. Fiske, her play, and company 
 
66 MRS. FISKE 
 
 came in for the crumbs that fell from the 
 Syndicate table. 
 
 During Tuesday I called to pay my respects 
 to the aged editor-in-chief, and in the course 
 of the conversation he inquired if the paper had 
 used us all right. I replied that I was very 
 sorry to say that it had not. 
 
 Astonished and grieved at this announce- 
 ment, for he gave little personal attention to 
 this department himself, he wished to know 
 why. I explained that the opinions expressed 
 by his critic were as much out of harmony with 
 the universal verdict as they would have been 
 had he characterized the Savior on the cross 
 as a thief and the two thieves as the martyred 
 Sons of God. 
 
 Little more was said on the subject, other 
 than that he was extremely sorr)^ and that he 
 wished I had called the day before. However, 
 the climax came later. 
 
 That evening a special writer was dis- 
 patched to the theater where we were, and on 
 the following day a very delightful interview 
 appeared with a portrait — the paper not using 
 
THE THEATRICAL SYNDICATE 67 
 
 them as a rule. On the following Sunday a 
 column article appeared, very gratifying and 
 just in every respect, over the signature of the 
 writer of Tuesday's unfavorable review. 
 
 These are but two illustrations of the con- 
 stant vigilance and activity that prevailed dur- 
 ing the long struggle for independence. 
 
 The greatest blow the Independents re- 
 ceived was in the agreement between the Syn- 
 dicate and Stair & Havlin that practically 
 closed the second-class houses to first-class stars. 
 Mrs. Fiske came nearer being bottled up, 
 corked in, and wired down then than at any 
 other period, but Houdini-like, it was impos- 
 sible to keep her entirely chained. She was 
 now forced to seek an outlet, like pent-up 
 steam, and vaudeville houses, burlesque houses, 
 and stock company houses gave way for a week 
 or a night to her; halls and rinks were utilized; 
 upstairs and downstairs stages; clubhouses with 
 stages and auditoriums were offered to her; 
 while such vast amusement places as the Audi- 
 toriums in St. Paul and Los Angeles, not con- 
 trolled by the Syndicate, were appropriated. 
 
68 MRS. FISKE 
 
 We have played great rinks in the British 
 Northwest so vast that huge sailcloths were 
 hung across the center of the building to shut 
 off the immensity of space, and act as a sound- 
 ing board. 
 
 We played "Rosmersholm," with two di- 
 minutive interiors and a cast of seven people, 
 on that enormous stage of the St. Paul Audi- 
 torium, a stage so immense as to enable all the 
 transfer wagons, and then some, to be driven 
 upon the stage back of the set scenes, that 
 looked like little bird houses, so great was the 
 vacant space about them. 
 
 The Pacific Coast gave us much trouble for 
 a long time, but we invariably found some 
 opening somewhere. In Los Angeles it was 
 first the Grand Opera House, then the Bur- 
 bank, next the Belasco, — both the latter stock 
 houses, — and lastly the Auditorium. The last 
 named was on a rental, but the week proved 
 one of the biggest ever played to by Mrs. Fiske. 
 It Vv^as during this struggle that I was dis- 
 patched to Joseph Jefferson's private car, to 
 sound him on the subject of Independence; but 
 
THE THEATRICAL SYNDICATE 69 
 
 I must say that the interview resulted in no 
 satisfaction to the Independents. 
 
 The rise of the Shuberts was of great value 
 to Mrs. Fiske, and on the other hand she of 
 inestimable value to them, and it is a question 
 if they would have been able to get on their 
 feet if it had not been for her bookings and 
 her magic name associated with them. 
 
 It was a mutual advantage, however, and 
 had circumstances been indefinitely favorable 
 to the coalition it might still be to the advan- 
 tage of both, for about the time the fight was 
 called off against Mrs. Fiske and Mr. Belasco 
 the Shuberts were becoming exceedingly strong 
 and have become much stronger since. 
 
 Even as early as 1909, in January, evidence 
 for a desire for amity began to get about and 
 reach us from sources intimately connected 
 with the Syndicate, but nothing materialized 
 that could be considered official; still there 
 were whisperings which finally developed into 
 open declarations that if Mrs. Fiske or Mr. 
 Belasco wished to play in any Syndicate house, 
 one or all of them, they would be welcomed, 
 
70 MRS. FISKE 
 
 and no questions asked. It was while we were 
 in Cincinnati, on April 29, that the informa- 
 tion came to Mrs. Fiske by wire and news- 
 paper announcement, and we were at once be- 
 sieged by interviewers for any statement Mrs. 
 Fiske might choose to make. 
 
 It might have been expected of Washington, 
 that he would have something to say after 
 seven years' struggling for independence. It 
 might also have been expected of Lincoln, after 
 the four years' war that ended in his triumph; 
 but no one, especially gentle-minded people, 
 wish to exhibit a spirit of triumph over those 
 whom they have vanquished. 
 
 The Fiske's contention had been for the 
 right to book, without dictation, with the man- 
 agers of theaters direct or their representatives, 
 without any compulsion to play certain other 
 cities; and to play one theater or another ac- 
 cording as the terms and other conditions 
 suited the contracting parties themselves. 
 
 When this restraint was removed, Mrs. 
 Fiske had no further visible contention, for the 
 independence she had fought for had been at- 
 
THE THEATRICAL SYNDICATE 71 
 
 tained, and the published statement, agreed to 
 by Messrs. Klaw and Erlanger, Mr. Fiske and 
 Mr. Belasco, stated that they would, "hereafter, 
 whenever mutually agreeable, play attractions 
 in each other's theaters"; and furthermore, the 
 announcement stated, "nothing was discussed 
 that would or could interfere with the fulfill- 
 ment of any existing arrangements or contracts 
 by any of the parties concerned. No writing 
 of any kind was prepared, except the foregoing 
 statement." 
 
 The only comment that Mrs. Fiske would 
 make was a very brief statement of fact, that 
 was given out to each paper alike, to the effect 
 that the New York announcernent was true; 
 but that she had not relinquished her independ- 
 ent attitude in any respect. 
 
 This information was at first given over her 
 signature, but immediately after delivering 
 them Mrs. Fiske dispatched a hastily penciled 
 note to me, to the effect that perhaps there had 
 been an understanding between the parties con- 
 cerned that no one should give out a statement, 
 and that therefore she would be grateful if 
 
72 MRS. FISKE 
 
 the papers would use the matter, not as a per- 
 sonal statement from her, but as a simple state- 
 ment of fact. 
 
 The war was ended, but the winner of a 
 long struggle showed no more evidence of it 
 than if it had been an every-day occurrence. 
 A woman of more perfect control over her 
 emotions I cannot imagine. The subject was 
 scarcely even discussed between us. 
 
 The causes that led up to the truce, armistice, 
 protocol, or capitulation to the Fiske contention 
 I will not discuss. I will merely state a fact, 
 and that is, that the Shubert or Independent in- 
 terest had gotten to be a powerful one, and a 
 little later it received a perfect landslide of ac- 
 quisitions in the West, and especially on the 
 Pacific Coast, where hitherto they had been 
 exceedingly weak. This much is history and 
 not personal opinion. 
 
VI 
 
 ON TOUR 
 
 MRS. FISKE'S receipts on the road were 
 generally large, and the companies she 
 had in her support were invariably expensive, 
 with elaborate equipment, two of the largest 
 baggage cars being usually required, unless a 
 small production of the "Rosmersholm" type 
 was being presented. 
 
 When a series of one-night stands was being 
 played — and she has a perfectly frantic fond- 
 ness for them, — it was our custom to charter 
 a Pullman, usually a buffet, or a broiler, as 
 she lived in the car instead of in hotels. The 
 subject of a private car for touring was at 
 various times taken up, but it never appeared 
 to find much favor with Mrs. Fiske, as it did 
 with Mansfield, Jefferson, and Mrs. Langtry, 
 each of whom had his car shunted to as quiet 
 and retired a location as possible, and kept on 
 the rails. 
 
 7Z 
 
74 MRS. FISKE 
 
 Mrs. Langtry had her drawing-room, her 
 reception room, bath, kitchen, several state- 
 rooms, and her own attendants. Mr. Jeffer- 
 son had his studio as well, and Mr. Mansfield 
 all the luxuries of his home ; but as I have said, 
 this never, for some mysterious reason, ap- 
 pealed to Mrs. Fiske. 
 
 Her special or "chartered" car, however, she 
 most urgently requested, through her repre- 
 sentatives, to have placed ''not at the end of 
 the train." The "rear-end collision" had mor- 
 tal terrors for her. Neither did she want it 
 near the engine. The difficulties of both these 
 problems are plainly evident to any railroad 
 man. If the car is forward of other cars it 
 becomes a thoroughfare for all who pass back 
 and forth on the train, which means conduc- 
 tor, brakemen, train boy, and the restless and 
 curious passenger. Furthermore, when for- 
 ward, cutting out at its destination requires 
 much more time and shunting, than when on 
 the rear. 
 
 The same nervous fear applied to non-fire- 
 proof hotels, in any of which Mrs. Fiske will 
 
ON TOUR 75 
 
 not go above the second story. An instance 
 of this occurs annually in one far Western city 
 — I will not say which, or the name of the 
 hotel, for Mrs. Fiske (and Minnie Maddern) 
 has found the utmost evidences of hospitality 
 there for many years, and her personal regard 
 and appreciation of the landlord's interest is 
 all that has held her patronage. This hotel 
 has been superseded by other and more modern 
 fireproof structures, and has been relegated to 
 the second-class, yet she has been loath to de- 
 sert her old friend. 
 
 On our last visit there she requested me to 
 examine its fire escapes and its general facilities 
 as affording exit to the street in case of fire. 
 Upon her arrival Mr. Blank had had the table 
 in her room set with the best silver and china 
 the house afforded, — ^all of which was really 
 excellent — and as I had found the fire escape 
 practicable and the means of egress satisfac- 
 tory, these facts, together with her spirit of 
 loyalty, caused Mrs. Fiske to remain again at 
 this hostelry. 
 
 The name of the hotel, however, is one that 
 
76 MRS. FISKE 
 
 is susceptible to the genus pun, and on this 
 name Mrs. Fiske perpetrated the only pun I 
 think she ever made, — in fact, she said it was, 
 for she dislikes punning above all things. I 
 am afraid even Tom Hood would have found 
 little favor with her, had they been contem- 
 poraries. No such punning as "His death 
 which happened in his berth," or "They went 
 and told the sexton, and the sexton tolled the 
 bell," would pass muster with her. 
 
 One day she remarked to me, in reference to 
 a non-fireproof hotel : "If I were to be burned 
 in a hotel, Mr. Fiske would never forgive me." 
 
 In touring the Middle West she was on 
 familiar ground, but the exigencies of booking 
 required her often to play in cities of the far 
 West that v/ere unusual stopping-places for 
 stars of her magnitude. Take Raton, N. M., 
 for instance, where the passages to the right 
 and left of the auditorium were on the bare 
 gravel walk. In Globe, Arizona, a mining 
 town, the entire population, it seemed, came to 
 the station to witness her arrival. The theater 
 in the heart of the canyon was small, and of 
 
ON TOUR 77 
 
 eccentric shape. We were pleased, however, 
 to find an excellent hotel. 
 
 Bisbee, Arizona, was another such town. 
 An untraveled Easterner would be astonished 
 to find such fashionable, refined, and educated 
 people in the audiences of these remote places. 
 Let me pay due tribute right here to these 
 Western cities, for they possess just as fine 
 people and of equally excellent a class as any 
 of our older Eastern ones. I have seen fully 
 as fashionable audiences, I mean fully up to 
 date, in Salt Lake City as I ever have in New 
 York City. 
 
 Up in the Canadian Northwest Mrs. Fiske 
 was the first star of any magnitude to play 
 those places — Calgary, Edmondton, Regina, 
 and Brandon. We were late in arriving at 
 Edmondton, the farthest north of any city 
 with through railroad connection in America; 
 this was in 1907, and the curtain did not rise 
 until nearly eleven o'clock, and yet it was 
 scarcely dark, it being early in July. 
 
 The "theater" was the "Thistle Rink" and 
 had refreshment counters along the side. Our 
 
78 MRS. FISKE 
 
 properties were spread upon the lawn at the 
 side, and some of the company dressed in a 
 private house adjacent. When we returned to 
 our car across the river, about 2 a. m., it was 
 sufficiently light to read a newspaper. 
 
 In Regina, Saskatchewan, we were late again 
 in arriving, and were astonished to find the in- 
 habitants celebrating the Fourth of July, with 
 fireworks. Here we played without our 
 scenery, one little local "interior" being made 
 to serve. This was with "The New York 
 Idea." 
 
 Mrs. Fiske appears never to weary of travel, 
 and while she objects to starts ranging from five 
 to ten o'clock a. m., an earlier or later leaving 
 hour does not disturb her; in fact, she saj's 
 she rarely falls asleep until near morning, and 
 her sleep thus comes practically all in the fore- 
 noon. 
 
 We had a prohibition against ringing the 
 berth bells before lo a. m., by the company, 
 and also against any kind of alarm clock. A 
 custom of Mrs. Fiske was to provide the work- 
 ing staff with their sleepers, and on one oc- 
 
ON TOUR 79 
 
 casion I received a penciled note from her to 
 the effect that someone, presumably one of the 
 staff, had an alarm clock set for an early hour, 
 as they frequently had to arise earlier than the 
 company, — and she supposed it had awakened 
 everybody as it had her. She considered it an 
 inexcusable thing, as it probably was, and 
 would feel grateful if I would discover who 
 it was, and kindly forbid a repetition. 
 
 Notes upon every imaginable subject and 
 upon every imaginable phase of every imagin- 
 able subject, which would have stretched from 
 Eastport to San Diego had I kept them all, 
 reached me at some time or another, always 
 couched in polite and gentle terms. Every 
 little detail of the business was covered by 
 these notes, whose admonitions I always cheer- 
 fully and gladly observed, for a more cour- 
 teous and appreciative woman does not exist. 
 
 Very rarely Mrs. Fiske went to the dining 
 car on the train, her dislike for making herself 
 conspicuous being very marked, and she scarcely 
 ever visited the body of the car from the draw- 
 ing room. This modesty was exemplified in 
 
8o MRS. FISKE 
 
 her fondness for veils, as she always wore at 
 least one, and more generally two; perhaps on 
 occasions three, so opaque appeared the cover- 
 ing as noted from the outside. Her unceasing 
 employment of time when on tour is in study 
 pursued on the train and in her hotel. It is 
 a never-ending labor, and one that evidently 
 delights her. The preparation for things to 
 come — perhaps a year or even far more than 
 that ahead — is always on her mind. 
 
 Everywhere is met he who has written the 
 greatest play of the time, and if Mrs. Fiske 
 would only read it, she could not fail to agree 
 with the author. To all these requests she has 
 but one answer, — send the play to Mr. Fiske 
 and it will be read. What else could she do? 
 It is impossible to read the plays that are sub- 
 mitted, and jret every star wants plays, there- 
 fore every play submitted gets a reading, or at 
 least enough to establish its quality, by a pro- 
 fessional play reader employed by every man- 
 ager for that purpose. 
 
 One thing that causes Mrs. Fiske much an- 
 noyance is sending scripts to her by regis- 
 
a 
 
 H 
 
 •J 
 
ON TOUR 81 
 
 tered mail while on tour, for in some instances 
 mail clerks and even postmasters insist upon her 
 personal appearance at the post ofHce to claim 
 them, and I have been refused a delivery at 
 an office, armed with her signed order, on the 
 excuse that neither myself nor her signature 
 was known to them. My instruction in such 
 cases was to tear up the notice and leave the 
 parcel to be returned to the sender. 
 
 Generally, however, the reverse of this was 
 the case, I am pleased to say. 
 
 In her earlier tours the seasons were of the 
 average length, but for some years now they 
 have been extended far into June, then July, 
 and finally into August, culminating in a con- 
 tinuous > season, recently of sixty weeks. Un- 
 less one has a constitution of iron and takes 
 wonderfully good care of one's self, no one 
 could stand this sort of thing; it sooner or later 
 means a breakdown. 
 
 During all my time with Mrs. Fiske she 
 never lost a single night from illness, or from 
 late arrival; no matter what the time or con- 
 dition we always gave the performance. This 
 
82 MRS. FISKE 
 
 is quite a remarkable fact, for fires, floods, and 
 accidents have detained and delayed us many 
 times, but never to force us to abandon a per- 
 formance. She has often appeared in "Gar- 
 dens," in the middle West, notably Elitch's in 
 Denver, Fairview Park, Dayton, and Olentangy 
 Park, Columbus, Ohio, and Olympia Park, 
 Chattanooga, Tenn., but never in a tent. 
 
VII 
 
 MRS. FISKE's interest IN DUMB ANIMALS 
 
 VERY commonly those who have the time 
 and the means to indulge their fancies 
 have some special side interest, hobby, fad, or 
 line of charity work, as one collects postage 
 stamps, coins, china, books, pictures, or auto- 
 graphs, while another builds libraries, endows 
 universities or hospitals, establishes scholar- 
 ships, or homes for the aged, all of which are 
 interesting and generally of value. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske is one of those who have an ob- 
 ject in life, probably as dear to her, and per- 
 haps nearer, than her profession; and that is 
 the humane work of alleviating the pain and 
 suffering of dumb animals. I understand that 
 Henry Bergh rather disliked dogs, personally, 
 and had no special fondness for horses, and I 
 think Mrs. Fiske resembles him in that respect, 
 in a modified degree, however. I could not 
 
 83 
 
84 MRS. FISKE 
 
 say that she dislikes dogs, but she was not fond 
 of them to the extent of fondling or making 
 constant companions of them, to accompany 
 her everywhere on her travels. She did, how- 
 ever, at one time carry a French poodle on her 
 tours, one that possessed a large degree of intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 While playing at the Academy of Music, 
 New York, she directed her maid to take Fifi 
 to the dog barber to have a hair cut and to be 
 generally trimmed up, joining her later at re- 
 hearsal. During one of Mrs. Fiske's scenes 
 the poodle entered the theater and calmly and 
 unconcernedly crossed the stage, keeping at a 
 respectful distance from her, however, only con- 
 descending to notice her mistress with a side 
 glance. 
 
 This was so contrary to her customary dash- 
 ing and bounding approach, that Mrs. Fiske 
 stopped the rehearsal and called to Fifi to come 
 to her, but not for Fifi; she merely glanced 
 and continued her dignified and stately prom- 
 enade across the stage. She had been trimmed 
 and looked fine, with her big door knobs on each 
 
INTEREST IN DUMB ANIMALS 85 
 
 hip and the doughnuts around each leg at the 
 first and second story. Persistently and with 
 authority Mrs. Fiske ordered the queenly Fifi 
 to approach. Not for Hecuba — no approach, 
 only a pause. Mohammed must go to the 
 mountain, and Mrs. Fiske did the approach- 
 ing. Did Fifi grin, or what did the slight 
 gleam of white teeth portend? It was merely 
 the flash of lightning, for the thunder came soon 
 after in a low growl of defiance. Never had 
 such a thing happened before. 
 
 This impromptu play was good, with Mrs. 
 Fiske at her best, and the audience of actors 
 stood by immensely interested. With tragic 
 emphasis Mrs. Fiske stamped her foot and, 
 pointing in the direction of her dressing room, 
 ordered the black woolly beast to begone 
 and quit her sight, let the dressing room hide 
 her, and a few things like that, and added 
 something about Fifi's bones being marrowless, 
 her blood cold, and the absence of speculation 
 in her eyes which she did glare with. 
 
 What kind of a canine tragedy would have 
 resulted, I cannot say, but just then Mr. Gil- 
 
86 MRS. FISKE 
 
 more, who had appeared and heard enough to 
 enlighten him on the situation, loosened up 
 his very grim smile and remarked: "That ain't 
 any Fifi, that's my dog Genie," and just at 
 this moment, enter L. 2. E., Maid and Fifi, 
 who does the expected bounding and barking 
 act. Laughter — quick curtain. 
 
 There never was a case of lame or scurvy dog 
 that fell under Mrs. Fiske's notice that did not 
 get instant relief. A mangy and ownerless 
 mongrel cur on the street never failed to find 
 a friend in her. If she were in a carriage, no 
 conveyance was too good for Towser or Tige. 
 Towser or Tige might never have had a bath 
 during all of his unhappy dog days, and his 
 visible condition nauseating and repellent, but 
 into the carriage went the friend of man, and 
 the coachman was directed to steer for the 
 nearest veterinarian, who was forthwith sub- 
 sidized to make a perfectly good dog out of a 
 very much frazzled one, and send the bill to 
 Mrs. Fiske. 
 
 All over this glorious country dogs were be- 
 ing repaired, boarded, and rebuilt as good as 
 
INTEREST IN DUMB ANIMALS 87 
 
 new, until they were even beyond the convales- 
 cent stage, when masters were adopted for 
 them, and "the dog that Mrs. Fiske saved" 
 lived his allotted span and expired loved, 
 honored, and respected, so mote it be. 
 
 With horses, too, it was just the same. I 
 believe if she were on the way to a matinee, 
 with the house all sold out, and the S. R. O. 
 sign cumbering the sidewalk, and an abused 
 and otherwise pitiful case of horse attracted 
 her attention, — and it would, — ^she would sac- 
 rifice that matinee before she would the horse. 
 No horse or dog ever offered up a prayer in 
 vain when Mrs. Fiske was within hearing. 
 
 I used to think dogs with broken legs or with 
 tin cans or firecrackers tied to their tails, and 
 spavined, spring-halted, or docked horses, 
 called her up on the telephone to tell her of 
 their woes, so incessantly was she laboring in 
 their cause. 
 
 I think it was in Findlay, Ohio, she one day 
 espied one of her canine charges suffering in 
 silence with a broken leg, or what appeared to 
 be such on examination, and naturally there 
 
88 MRS. FISKE 
 
 was only one thing to be done. She alighted, 
 took the patient little sufferer in her arms and 
 into her carriage, at the same time directing 
 the driver to hie him forthwith and with all 
 speed within the law to a veterinarian whom 
 he knew, — and from whom he could probably 
 get a percentage. They went, and the dog was 
 splinted, bandaged, and happy with a good 
 feed and a warm rug. Exit Lady Bountiful. 
 
 Early that evening strange inquiries, by 
 strange persons of the cub reporter type, be- 
 gan to force themselves upon me at the front 
 of the house. Did Mrs. Fiske own a dog? 
 Was there a dog at her car'? What kind of a 
 dog had she'^ Where was the dog then'? 
 What sort of a looking person was Mrs. Fiske 
 when unacting? Was she out driving this 
 afternoon? What kind of a carriage did she 
 have? Did she go out Main Street? Did 
 she take a dog with her when she left the car? 
 Did she have a dog with her when she re- 
 turned? Had she a dog now in her dressing 
 room? — and a lot of these cross-examination, 
 rebuttal and sur-rebuttal interrogatories. 
 
INTEREST IN DUMB ANIMALS 89 
 
 No, she didn't, she wasn't, she hadn't, she 
 did, she would, she was, yes, no, I don't know, 
 and various monosyllabic replies I returned, 
 utterly unconscious of the drift of it all, only 
 in a general way knowing that some phase of 
 her dog-guardianship had manifested itself in 
 Findlay, Ohio. 
 
 Finally the manager spoke, and told me that 
 Mrs. Fiske, unknown as such to a certain bar- 
 keeper of the town, had "pinched" his bow- 
 wow and had it concealed among her effects, 
 with felonious intent to kidnap and convey out 
 of the State his fourteen-cent mongrel pup, him 
 of the broken leg; and, furthermore, a local 
 Dogberry (no pun intended) had been ap- 
 pealed to, and a warrant had been issued to 
 search, and if said kaiser were found concealed 
 about her person to "reprehend" the same 
 "Mrs. Friske" and all who aided and abetted 
 her in the crime. 
 
 The coachman had been traced by a local 
 Sherlock Holmes, and when the nature of the 
 legal proceedings was broached to Mrs. SFiske, 
 and the imminence of her incarceration in a 
 
90 MRS. FISKE 
 
 Findlay, Ohio, dungeon cell for kidnapery 
 was explained, the whole story was given out, 
 when the barkeep went on his knees for par- 
 don, and thanksgiving for helping the "purp"; 
 — s'elp me ! 
 
 The local paper the next morning had one of 
 the best humorous articles on the subject I have 
 read in many a long day. It was George Ade 
 at his best. 
 
 I think Mrs. Fiske's arm has reached to all 
 parts of the world in answer to the mute appeal 
 of horses, mules, burros, swine, sheep, dogs, 
 cats, and all the fur bearing animals that are 
 trapped or killed. Mexico and Spain have re- 
 ceived much of her attention and her coin, in 
 the hope to either exterminate bullfighting al- 
 together or to lessen its horrors so far as the 
 torture of the horse in connection with it is 
 concerned. 
 
 Why cannot the appeal of all the civilized 
 world, so far as the horse is connected with this 
 barbarous sport, be heard? If bullfighting 
 must even continue, the skill of the matador is 
 none the less, or his labor less dangerous, by 
 
INTEREST IN DUMB ANIMALS 91' 
 
 omitting the mounted picador. Much effort has 
 been expended in this direction, and perhaps 
 some effect produced by it; the seed is being 
 sown, and should it lay in the ground a decade, 
 or two, or three, it must eventually produce its 
 harvest. 
 
 The trapping of fur-bearing animals, caus- 
 ing pain and suffering to the poor creatures, 
 has also been fought by her. The providing 
 of shelter, water, and food for cattle on the 
 Western ranches during periods of storm and 
 cold, and their care and attention while in 
 transit, — feeding, and watering, — and restric- 
 tions against over-crowding, have been the sub- 
 ject of Mrs. Fiske's attention. In fact, every 
 phase of protection for the brute creation has 
 never failed to receive her aid. 
 
 On one occasion she was playing in El Paso, 
 and had prepared in advance circulars de- 
 nunciatory of bullfighting, which she took across 
 the river to Juarez and herself distributed 
 broadcast in the open streets, the market-place, 
 and other public places. 
 
 If it were not for the Americans in El Paso 
 
92 MRS. FISKE 
 
 bullfighting would probably cease in Ciudad 
 Juarez; but so long as the Americans cross the 
 river and visit the Plaza des Toros it will con- 
 tinue to thrive. 
 
 There are humane societies in Mexico labor- 
 ing for reform, and to these and possibly hun- 
 dreds of others all over the world Mrs. Fiske 
 has contributed, and is enrolled as an honorary 
 member. 
 
 At one time a large box containing copies of 
 the book "Black Beauty" was carried along 
 with us, and no transfer man, cabman, express- 
 man, or other driver of horses came within 
 her reach that did not receive a copy as a 
 gift. 
 
 I have never observed that Mrs. Fiske is a 
 vegetarian, and I suppose she does not carry 
 her humane ideas to the extent of prohibiting 
 the slaughter, by as painless and humane meth- 
 ods as possible, of certain creatures for food pur- 
 poses. The ardent vegetarian cannot under- 
 stand that attitude, but it is as sane an atti- 
 tude as that of the temperance advocate who is 
 not an extremest, and who believes in the 
 
INTEREST IN DUMB ANIMALS 93 
 
 manufacture and use of liquor under proper 
 circumstances. 
 
 The extremist, who is always an enthusiast, 
 and invariably narrow, would, if he liked not 
 tea, prohibit its use by others if he had the 
 power. 
 
VIII 
 
 BANISHMENT OF NOISE BABIES PEANUTS 
 
 THE ADVERTISING CURTAIN HORROR POSTERS 
 
 THE perfection of Mrs. Fiske's productions 
 and performances is largely due to her at- 
 tention to detail, to trifles, and the absolute 
 quiet that must prevail both behind and in 
 front of the curtain. 
 
 In front is the acting manager, with full au- 
 thority over every person connected with the 
 organization, either with it or ahead, and he 
 is alone responsible to his star or the owner or 
 director in New York, as the case may be. 
 
 Behind the curtain the stage manager has 
 full power, so far as his department is con- 
 cerned. He must protect his star from every 
 sound that would distract or divert her atten- 
 tion, and hence on arrival at the theater he 
 must investigate the sources of possible noise. 
 The prevention of cracking or hammering in 
 the steam pipes, as well as the avoidance of 
 
 94 
 
BANISHMENT OF NOISE 95 
 
 hissing or escaping steam at the valves must 
 have his attention. Strict admonition as to 
 the unnecessary moving about of attaches, the 
 abolition of heavy heels or squeaking soles; the 
 banishment from the stage during an act of 
 those not concerned in its operation; peremp- 
 tory prohibition of conversation, even in whis- 
 pers; means to prevent spot or other lights 
 from sputtering; orders to lay carpets about 
 the vacant stage to ensure quiet, and a lot of 
 minor things that all together go towards mak- 
 ing a perfect performance — these are also mat- 
 ters for his care. 
 
 In the front of the house there are fully as 
 many more details of the same general tenor. 
 Trying lobby doors to see if they squeak or 
 bang; the same directions regarding steam 
 radiators and pipes as at back stage, the ban- 
 ishment of peanuts in the shell, or other re- 
 freshments sold in crackly sacks, and, the most 
 important one of all, the absolute refusal to 
 admit at all little children, say under seven 
 years of age, are a few of the injunctions laid 
 at his door. 
 
96 MRS. FISKE 
 
 The amount of abuse I have recived from 
 parents for this latter prohibition would leave 
 Ben Butler, Andrew Johnson, Jefferson Davis, 
 and Dr. Cook in the infant class. Because of 
 my exclusion of a little tot of three or four the 
 irate mama, after exhausting every argument 
 and line of abuse, returned a minute later, 
 shook her finger at me and shouted, "And you 
 are a d — d fool I" 
 
 I don't knov/, but everyone who wishes to 
 take a small and uncomprehending child to a 
 performance which it could not possibly under- 
 stand appears to lose sight of the fact that it is 
 necessary to protect a thousand patrons rather 
 than to gratify one or two parents. 
 
 An otherwise good-natured German and his 
 wife — I think it was in Battle Creek, — brought 
 a little child to the theater, whereupon the door- 
 keeper refused them admittance. Local door- 
 keepers are generally very loath to enforce 
 regulations of visiting managers against their 
 townspeople, and if the company manager is 
 not on the spot they will allow children to be 
 smuggled in, generally with disastrous results 
 
BANISHMENT OF NOISE 97 
 
 and the exposure of their disobedience. In 
 this case, however, I was close at hand, and 
 attempted to explain the situation as politely 
 as possible; but the German was furious, and 
 turning towards me said, "You keep you nose 
 out." Finally the three were side-tracked and 
 allowed the line of waiting people to enter, 
 eventually settling the difficulty by the mother 
 and child returning home and the father wit- 
 nessing the performance alone. 
 
 Just a side note while I think of it. I dislike 
 the word "performance" exceedingly, as ap- 
 plied to Mrs. Fiske, the term suggesting trained 
 animals or something of that nature, but I 
 make use of it for want of a better word. 
 "Show" is so utterly detestable and obnoxious 
 to a refined person that it ought never to be 
 applied to anything unless it is a "show" pure 
 and simple, and nothing else. 
 
 In another place, — and these are but a few 
 cases out of hundreds and hundreds, — a couple 
 of parents left the theater after being refused 
 the admittance of their child, but without any 
 undue remonstrance or abuse. A little later 
 
98 MRS. FISKE 
 
 on, in fact, while the first act was in progress, 
 a very determined but dapper little man came 
 into the lobby and asked to see Mrs. Fiske's 
 manager, and I assumed for argument's sake 
 that I was he. 
 
 He looked me over, and for the life of me 
 I could not help thinking of a line in "Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin," to wit, — "My name's Marks, 
 I'm a lawyer. Ain't you afraid?" 
 
 To resume. On what grounds did I refuse 
 to admit a child to see Mrs. Fiske? On the 
 ground that a little child could no more be en- 
 tertained by her or understand "Rosmersholm" 
 than I could the hieroglyphics of ancient 
 Mexico, and would in consequence become 
 weary and liable to cry or talk aloud, and so 
 disturb both player and audience. 
 
 But if the manager of the theater was will- 
 ing, what right had I to prevent it? 
 
 Because for the time being we were part- 
 ners; and, as I represented about seven-tenths 
 of the interest, our rules, that made for the suc- 
 cess of our production, were paramount to any 
 local usage. 
 
BANISHMENT OF NOISE 99 
 
 Why did not we announce these rules in ad- 
 vance? 
 
 Because people were supposed to have suffi- 
 cient intelligence to realize that the theater was 
 no place for little children. 
 
 The gentleman argued further, until I in- 
 quired what his business might be? 
 
 He was the editor of the Morning Some- 
 thing-or-Other. 
 
 "Very well," said I. "Do you allow ad- 
 vance agents to come into your office and tell 
 you how you shall conduct your paper, when 
 you have established rules that have been found 
 from experience to be necessary to your suc- 
 cess?" 
 
 He allowed that he did not. 
 
 "Now, then, I will tell you what you will 
 do," I added. "You will return to your 
 office and write a denunciatory article about 
 our rule that excludes small children, and the 
 more you write the better it will be for us, 
 for it will prove to its readers that we take 
 every precaution to protect them in the enjoy- 
 ment of what they have paid their money for. 
 
100 MRS. FISKE 
 
 and are entitled to expect. The thousand or 
 more people here to-night will rejoice, while 
 the two disappointed ones, who were dead- 
 heads, by the way, and perhaps on one of your 
 press passes, I don't know, — are the sole losers. 
 Now be a good boy, take off your hat and coat, 
 and go inside and witness a good performance 
 undisturbed." 
 
 His fires were drawn and the steam went 
 down. He would like to, but he had a lot 
 of work to do, as his was a morning paper, and 
 he really couldn't, — thank you, he really 
 couldn't. And so he passed on and out of my 
 line of vision. 
 
 Naturally I was interested to see the morn- 
 ing edition of the Thingamy Whatever, but 
 not a line appeared on the subject of the in- 
 fantile edict, and the dramatic review was all 
 that we could have desired. 
 
 In Yankton, S. D., a baby, a little tiny baby, 
 was brought by its parents a hundred and 
 forty miles to see Mrs. Fiske. I couldn't re- 
 fuse those parents, and so on a pile of over- 
 coats, on a couch in the manager's office, the 
 
BANISHMENT OF NOISE loi 
 
 child was laid, and I kept watch over its slum- 
 bers the entire evening, while the mother at 
 the end of each act came out and gave it at- 
 tention. 
 
 Mr. Guy Smith, my predecessor as well as 
 successor with Mrs. Fiske, once discovered a 
 smuggled baby in the front row, the mother 
 absolutely refusing to take it out; but as it 
 was squally she passed it over to the very 
 diffident Mr. Smith, saying, — "I won't take it 
 out, but you may," and he did, and had that 
 baby on his hands the remainder of the evening. 
 Scores and scores of similar instances might 
 be related. 
 
 Another prolific source of annoyance, for- 
 merly, was the peanut, — I mean the live pea- 
 nut, in the shell ; but since the era of salted pea- 
 nuts the annoyance has almost disappeared. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske could hear the snapping of a 
 peanut shell a mile away, and as for babies — 
 I sometimes thought she felt their presence, 
 for I have gotten notes from the stage, — ^good- 
 ness knows when she got a chance to write 
 them, — to the effect that there was certainly a 
 
102 MRS. FISKE 
 
 baby in the house somewhere, and she thought 
 in the left-hand section of the balcony, and two 
 or three rows from the front. She was never 
 mistaken, for search soon located the infant 
 that had been permitted to enter by a good- 
 natured but disobedient doorkeeper. 
 
 I have received enough notes on peanuts to 
 make a symposium on that favorite and for- 
 tunately healthful article of food, that would 
 reach from Boston to San Francisco. I could 
 generally locate the offender. Once, however, 
 repeated messages from the stage failed utterly 
 to locate the peanut disorder in the audience. 
 Ushers patrolled the aisles, the gallery police- 
 man strolled down each side of the upper sec- 
 tion and looked fierce, for a gallery policeman, 
 but to no purpose, and the evening passed with- 
 out a clew. Mrs. Fiske was certain that she 
 was not mistaken, but I assured her that every 
 effort to locate the culprit had been made, but 
 had failed. The next afternoon as I was pass- 
 ing from the front of the house to the stage, 
 back of the boxes the cleaners were sweeping 
 up a lot of peanut shells in the stage box. 
 
BANISHMENT OF NOISE 103 
 
 It would sometimes occur that the manager 
 of the theater would have a season contract 
 with some vendor of peanuts, candy, and gum, 
 or such diverting and more or less delectable 
 articles of food or mastication, and could not 
 stop the sale even for a night, as it once hap- 
 pened in Washington, D. C, — mind you. 
 
 My only resource, therefore, was to buy off 
 the Italian merchant, and we invited him to 
 call in to the manager's office, where I inquired 
 of him what he estimated his profit to be on 
 peanuts alone for the week, but to be care- 
 ful and not set it too high, or the manager 
 would raise the price for his concession next 
 season. 
 
 He allowed that he made about five dollars 
 a week on peanuts, and I gave him that amount, 
 with the agreement on his part not to sell pea- 
 nuts either in or within a hundred yards of the 
 theater that week, with a very peaceful week 
 as the result. 
 
 Another serious annoyance to Mrs. Fiske 
 was the advertising curtain, and wherever pos- 
 sible it was eliminated altogether, and when 
 
104 MRS. FISKE 
 
 not possible to achieve this the curtain was left 
 down as short a time as was consistent with ex- 
 isting contracts. These curtains in many of 
 the theaters she was forced into were perfect 
 horrors, dreams of the Rarebit Fiend and con- 
 coctions of a weirdly disordered brain. In ad- 
 dition to this we were confronted at times by 
 three-sheet posters on each side of the pro- 
 scenium arch, announcing the following at- 
 traction, and sometimes it would be "The 
 Venus Burlesquers," "Mostly Girls," in their 
 great production of "Bare Facts, or a Night 
 in a Turkish Bath." Again it might chance 
 to be Jim Johnson in a sparring bout with the 
 celebrated "Chicken" who defeated "Slugging 
 Bilson" in San Francisco. 
 
 These announcements were generally re- 
 moved on request, as no contract interfered, 
 but it was occasionall)' done grudgingly and 
 with the argument thrown in that it was the 
 regular thing, and that "our folks" were used 
 to it. Also we were regaled with the informa- 
 tion that last week "Billy Binks' Rittenhouse 
 Square, Philadelphia, Perfect Society Girls" 
 
"REBECCA \Vi:ST." 
 
 Facing Page 105. 
 
BANISHMENT OF NOISE 105 
 
 Burlesquers were here in the "Modest Maid- 
 ens" and Mrs. Fiske's three-sheets were up 
 there all through the performance, and they 
 didn't object, in fact, the manager of the show 
 praised Mrs. Fiske, and said she was "all 
 right," that she played a little over the heads 
 of them guys, but she was all right. 
 
 We had to be cruel and unreciprocal and 
 persist in our request for the removal of the 
 objectionable posters. 
 
 These are among the things Mrs. Fiske had 
 to encounter for a dozen or more years when 
 searching out houses "not in the trust." 
 
 Perhaps these little incidents, which, on my 
 word, are but a very, very few of the actual 
 occurrences and annoyances that we encoun- 
 tered, will give her admirers some idea of the 
 difficulties of giving perfect performances 
 without unnecessary noise and consequent dis- 
 traction of the attention of the audience. That 
 she struggled through this so long and so suc- 
 cessfully is a miracle, especially as no catering 
 to a lower standard or relaxation of eternal 
 vigilance ever resulted. 
 
IX 
 
 SOME PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 IT seems quite natural to infer, from the sem- 
 blance to mental agony that is assumed by 
 the actor in the portrayal of his character, that 
 the anguish must of necessity be felt by the 
 player; that when off the stage for some con- 
 siderable time the effect of the simulation of 
 suffering must be continued, or the next scene 
 would not possess the requisite vitality and 
 high pressure of effect. 
 
 Should an actor do this constantly, and 
 really "feel" the part when off, the strongest 
 of iron constitutions would break down and 
 give way under the strain. No, it must be 
 thrown off as a cloak is, and the mind and 
 the system relaxed. We hear of people who 
 feel the part at all times, on or off the stage 
 during a performance, but it is doubtful if this 
 
 is really the case, although it sounds interesting 
 io6 
 
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 107 
 
 to say so. An actor is an actor and not the 
 real thing; he or she acts, and the better the 
 simulation the better the actor. To go on 
 and merely play one's self is not acting; there 
 was no "acting" in Denman Thompson's 
 Joshua Whitcomb; it merely fitted his person- 
 ality, and he incidentally portrayed a gentle 
 and sweet-mannered lover of the country and 
 the farm. 
 
 Natural acting is not necessarily acting one's 
 self, but acting naturally the character assumed, 
 as Jefferson did Rip, and that was acting, and 
 it was not Jefferson. All this applies to Mrs. 
 Fiske, who is the high priestess of naturalism, 
 and yet not Mrs. Fiske. 
 
 In the course of nearly every play there is 
 a "rest" period, and when intimate friends are 
 to be conducted to "back stage" during a per- 
 formance, that is the time allotted for visitation, 
 and the only time, with this exception — 
 should the "rest" period immediately precede 
 the strong scene of the play, the one that taxes 
 mind, body, and nerves to the greatest extent, 
 no interruption for any purpose is ever per- 
 
io8 MRS. FISKE 
 
 mitted. After the scene rather than before is 
 the preferable time, for in that case other ideas 
 and conversation tend to rehix the strain on the 
 emotions. 
 
 Truly, I do not think there is another star 
 of any magnitude that troubles her manager 
 less about the business details than Mrs. Fiske. 
 She never has a box-ofBce statement or a state- 
 ment of the week, and almost never inquires 
 what the house is, or the week. If on an ex- 
 ceptionally good week the receipts are told to 
 her, she shows less interest in that than she 
 would in a newspaper clipping about some 
 horse or dog that had been rescued from in- 
 jury. 
 
 It is the same with respect to the handling 
 of the business details by her representative in 
 front; in my experience she rarely even sug- 
 gested rules and methods, and whenever she 
 had any request to make it was usually prefaced 
 with, — "I am sorry to trouble you," or, 
 "When convenient," will you do so and so'? 
 The utmost courtesy always pervaded her re- 
 quests, which were never sent as orders, and 
 
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 109 
 
 for that reason any wish of hers was a pleas- 
 ure to receive and execute. 
 
 Frequently treasurers of theaters are required 
 to give five to seven statements nightly, but 
 in our case it has been many times their good 
 fortune to be required to furnish but one. 
 This would occur, of course, when there were 
 no royalties to pay. 
 
 It was part of my trusted duty to open her 
 mail and give to Mrs. Fiske such as I knew she 
 would wish to receive, such as all personal let- 
 ters, communications on humane interests, or 
 such business matters as concerned her affairs. 
 With other mail it was my duty to exercise 
 discretion, and pass to her or withhold, as I 
 thought best; and as evidence of the high plane 
 of respect and regard upon which all the Amer- 
 ican people placed her, I must record that there 
 was never an improper or disrespectful com- 
 munication sent to her during all the time I 
 was with her. I take this as a very high com- 
 pliment to an actress, when so many foolish 
 people think all women on the stage are easy 
 game. They never made a greater mistake in 
 
no MRS. FISKE 
 
 their lives, for after over forty years of such 
 association I will match the women of the 
 stage against any other profession in the world 
 for honor, honesty and chastity. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske is at all times unceasingly at 
 work, allowing herself little time for relaxa- 
 tion, but at one time was exceedingly fond of 
 visiting the moving picture shows, with one or 
 two veils over her face, and sitting well back 
 toward the entrance. The best of the foreign 
 representations of standard plays by good or- 
 ganizations were interesting to her, and doubt- 
 less provided her with an idea now and then, 
 for often it is only the germ idea that expands 
 in another's brain with elaborate results. 
 
 When attending another theater, as she some- 
 times does on a Wednesday matinee, — she 
 rarely giving a mid-week performance herself 
 — she would like, if she could, to occupy an 
 obscure balcony seat, or at the back downstairs ; 
 but if that is not feasible or advisable, and a 
 box must be taken, she generally ensconces her- 
 self behind the drapery, in as inconspicuous a 
 position as possible. There is absolutely noth- 
 
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS in 
 
 ing of the spectacular or "theatrical" about 
 Mrs. Fiske. 
 
 Keen? No eagle that circles the air, no 
 x-ray that pierces the opaque, no judge that 
 wears the ermine, has keener insight into the 
 working of the human brain than she has. It 
 would be as useless to attempt to deceive her 
 with a lie as to get eighty per cent, for a forty 
 per cent, road show. When listening to the 
 recital of any disputed affair, it is her habit 
 to partially close her eyes and look the narra- 
 tor squarely in the face. Woe be to him if 
 he tells not the truth, for it will be as evident 
 to her as the presence of the sun at noonday 
 with a cloudless sky. 
 
 Her sense of humor is unusually keen, and 
 no good joke is ever lost to her. No maps or 
 guides to such are required, for if the situa- 
 tion possesses a grain of humor it will receive 
 its full appreciation at her hands. Not only 
 this, but often when others are dense and fail 
 to see where the humor lays, she, quick as a 
 flash, is there, like a salmon at the fly. It is 
 this faculty that enables her to see values in 
 
112 MRS. FISKE 
 
 comedy lines and situations, and to bring for- 
 ward in the enactment of them, where other 
 readers of the original manuscript failed to dis- 
 cover them, the subtle humor of the situations. 
 
 The rare quality of never speaking ill of 
 anyone is one of her valuable possessions, for 
 I never heard any remark emanate from her 
 that was derogatory of another. Neither is 
 she given to criticising her fellow-players, or 
 in fact discussing them in any manner. 
 
 Her acquaintanceship among the prominent 
 stars of the day, either female or male, is, I 
 think, very limited, other than possibly a very 
 few, whom she may very rarely happen to run 
 across; but with the outside world it is very 
 extensive, and extends to the highest in all pro- 
 fessions and spheres of activity. 
 
 The late Robert G. Ingersoll was a great 
 admirer of hers, and the whole family were 
 much attached to her. The same might be 
 said of Mark Twain, whose dapper little figure, 
 bushy head, and fierce brows were frequently 
 seen at the theater when in New York. 
 
 George W. Cable might be added to the rest. 
 
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 113 
 
 and scores of other literary people who de- 
 lighted to do her honor. 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt was one of those who 
 admired her genius, as he has personally told 
 me, but possibly, — ^mind, I say possibly, — his 
 regard has been dimmed by her attitude to- 
 wards his African trip for the purpose of 
 slaughtering wild animals. Perhaps Mr. 
 Roosevelt is broad enough to dissociate the per- 
 sonal side of the matter from the humane, and 
 not to regard Mrs. Fiske the less for the 
 public utterances in opposition to his course. 
 
 To her, the example of so exalted and 
 prominent a man going out in so spectacular 
 a way to "kill something" must of necessity 
 have a powerful influence on the small boy 
 whose ideas are now forming and who would 
 desire later in life to go and kill something for 
 himself. I dare say Mrs. Fiske was not so 
 disturbed by the fact of the small percentage 
 of reduction in the numbers of lions, hippopo- 
 tami, tigers, rhinoceri, and others of the 
 African jungle put to death by short and quick 
 means as she was by the example it set, and 
 
114 MRS. FISKE 
 
 possibly Mr. Roosevelt has no greater admirer 
 on other lines. I don't know. I am merely 
 expressing my own ideas on that score, and not 
 from any certain knowledge. 
 
 I am not "rooting" for Mr. Roosevelt, but 
 whatever one may think of him, there is no 
 denying the wonderful scope of his ideas and 
 the breadth and extent of his mental reach. 
 Whether it is Plutarch, Csesar, Daniel Boone, 
 Napoleon, Angelo, Lincoln, political history, 
 natural history, art, science, literature, cow 
 punching, architecture, engineering, or what- 
 ever, he is equally conversant. He had the 
 advantage of a college education, while Mrs. 
 Fiske did not; however, she would be just as 
 much at ease in conversation with Mr. Edison 
 or Alexander Graham Bell, a Jewish rabbi, a 
 Catholic bishop, or a Protestant divine, as she 
 would be with Mr. Frohman or Mr. Belasco. 
 
 Here are two minds of great scope and at- 
 tainments, and the fact of a divergence of 
 ideas on one vital subject should not lead 
 either to a repudiation of the other in toto. 
 
 One of her oldest and most intimate friends, 
 
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 115 
 
 whose knowledge of Mrs. Fiske covers her "pre- 
 historic" as well as her career during her "sec- 
 ond time on earth," is Montgomery Pfister, the 
 "Everybody's Friend" on the Cincinnati Com- 
 mercial-Tribune. 
 
 Mr. Pfister has been an ardent admirer of 
 Mrs. Fiske's genius during nearly all of her 
 career, and, — yet, remember, friends, Mr. 
 Pfister is not an old man, — ^he is the repository 
 of more reminiscence of Mrs. Fiske, Edwin 
 Booth, Henry Irving and others than any other 
 living man probably. He is in the happy posi- 
 tion of having more friends than he knows 
 what to do with, in illustration of which he 
 once complained to Murat Halstead, the then 
 owner and editor of the Commercial, that some- 
 thing would have to be done to enable him to 
 do his work, he was so overwhelmed with calls 
 from his friends in the profession. 
 
 Halstead admitted that it was too bad, "but," 
 he added, "I know of but one worse situation." 
 
 On being asked what that was, he replied: 
 "Not having anyone call." 
 
 Pfister's door is always open, and a more 
 hearty, companionable man doesn't live. 
 
INTERVIEWS MAIDS HACKS 
 
 ONE of Mrs. Fiske's greatest aversions is 
 for the interview. Now there are inter- 
 views and interviews, as well as interviewers 
 and interviewers, and if what one actually 
 says, and not what the interviewer wants to 
 think one said, when he makes up his copy, 
 were printed, then the fear of the thing would 
 be lessened. It is not altogether the fear of 
 being misquoted that causes Mrs. Fiske's dis- 
 like of this form of publicity, but the fact that 
 the interview is such an omnivorous beast that 
 it questions not whether its victim is of the 
 throne, the stage, the government, clergy, prize 
 ring, murderer's cell, the divorce court, the 
 altar, or any other place. It is therefore, in 
 my opinion, so common and so commonplace a 
 means of exploitation that it becomes value- 
 less. 
 
 ii6 
 
J 
 2; 
 
 z 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 < 
 > 
 
 
INTERVIEWS 117 
 
 And yet it exists, and will continue to exist 
 to the end of time, and probably the interview 
 with Miss Susie Tightspangle is enjoyed by one 
 set of admirers while the interviews with 
 J. Pierpont Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, or 
 Mrs. Fiske are as eagerly perused by quite 
 different readers. 
 
 There are newspaper men with whom it is a 
 delight to talk; one feels that they are trust- 
 worthy, tactful, and comprehending. They 
 avoid misrepresentation and unwise publicity; 
 they either omit that about which their memo- 
 ries or their notes are vague, or verify, before 
 publication, all news stories, if important, by 
 further inquiry. 
 
 In a far Northwestern city a female inter- 
 viewer who succeeded in getting a few words 
 with Mrs. Fiske, not long after the hatchet was 
 buried and the pipe of peace was still smoking, 
 published an elaborated version of the strife, 
 with headlines that represented Mrs. Fiske as 
 still with the war paint on and, Aj ax-like, de- 
 fying the lightning of the Syndicate. Noth- 
 ing could have been further from the truth, and 
 
ii8 MRS. FISKE 
 
 as such things carry like a flash it caused her 
 much chagrin and indignation. 
 
 Occasions like that are numerous, and when 
 multiplied it is no wonder that a sensitive 
 woman rebels against being interviewed. 
 Then there is another perfectly abhorrent fea- 
 ture of the inconsiderate interviewer, and that 
 is the gushing desire to be "nice," and over- 
 elaborate description of the color of her eyes; 
 the artistic curve of the lip; the poise of the 
 head; the perfectly sweet gown she had on; 
 how regular and pearly her teeth were; the 
 dainty slipper peeping from its covering of silk, 
 or near-silk, or crepon, or whatever she wore 
 at the time; and a whole grist of those cloy- 
 ing things that can give mal-de-mer points as 
 stomach stirrers. 
 
 In the middle West a few years ago I was 
 called on the telephone to obtain an interview 
 for a representative of one of the numerous 
 dailies, — of a decided tendency to yellow 
 journalism. 
 
 I hedged, of course. What was the subject 
 upon which they wished to interview Mrs. 
 
INTERVIEWS 119 
 
 Fiske, and was what she might say of any in- 
 terest to the public? The subject was, they 
 said, that one of the greatest of the European 
 actresses had stated in an interview given to 
 a representative of their paper, that Mrs. Fiske 
 was a very great actress, and a few more things 
 in the same strain, and they would like an 
 interview with her on that interview. 
 
 What did they expect Mrs. Fiske to say"? 
 Did they expect her to agree with the lady 
 and openly admit that she was, and that she 
 had long thought so, the only wonder of it 
 being that she had not discovered the fact 
 sooner'? Or did they expect her to deny the 
 allegation and argue it out with her, giving 
 reasons and afHdavits why she was not? Prob- 
 ably Mrs. Fiske had a scrapbook full of clip- 
 pings from Laporte, Peru, Jonesboro, Atwater 
 Junction, and other metropolitan patent in- 
 sides asserting that they had seen her, and that 
 there was nothing doing, or words to that effect. 
 Georgie Spotlight had her beat a mile, in "The 
 Cabbage Patch." 
 
 There is no more use arguing with a news- 
 
120 MRS. FISKE 
 
 paper man of that caliber when on the trail 
 of the interview than it is to blow at the moon 
 to extinguish its light. 
 
 The matter was compromised by Mrs. Fiske 
 writing a brief article on the subject of a Na- 
 tional Conservatoire, as suggested in the orig- 
 inal interview, and declined to "touch spar- 
 ingly" even "as 'twere far off," as Richard 
 said, the mention of herself. 
 
 Honest interviewers will agree, and carry 
 out that agreement, to submit a proof of their 
 article, in which case the safety of the victim 
 is guaranteed; but there have been those who 
 have promised and have not fulfilled, endeav- 
 oring to shirk the responsibility by laying it 
 to the lack of time after the proof was received, 
 or shouldering it upon the city editor; any- 
 thing, anybody, to let themselves out. 
 
 Had Mrs. Fiske been a man she would have 
 made a great diplomat, for tact is one of the 
 most prominent branches of her tree of attain- 
 ments. Tact is inborn; it is a natural product 
 of the mine of wisdom, and if it is not there 
 it carmot be placed there, excepting as one 
 
INTERVIEWS 121 
 
 "salts" a mine, and the lode is therefore arti- 
 ficial and soon exhausted. 
 
 Every word and mental attitude toward her 
 interlocutor is weighed and without an error, 
 a quality that is of inestimable value in a 
 public character. A bore can be dismissed by 
 her with the greatest ease, especially when he 
 enlarges upon the fact that he "played her in 
 the old Opalsport Opera House in 1802," and 
 he goes away with the impression that she was 
 doing him a very great favor and herself a 
 sacrifice by shortening the interview. 
 
 Apparently Mrs. Fiske has no favorite type 
 of maid, for those attending upon her during 
 my time were of various nationalities. Per- 
 haps she was only trying one after another to 
 determine ultimately which was the more satis- 
 factory. 
 
 At one time it was a Swede, or perhaps a 
 Norwegian, I don't know which, — at all events 
 she was a Scandinavian. Now that I think of 
 it she must have been a Swede, for she called 
 our electrician, whose name was John, — 
 "Yonny," and one day she approached the clerk 
 
122 MRS. FISKE 
 
 of the hotel to ask if he would let "Meeses 
 Feesk have the yuce of a lemon'?" 
 
 "What'?" inquired the puzzled official. 
 "Wants what?' 
 
 "The yuce of a lemon," she replied. 
 
 "Certainly, of course, if she will return it 
 when she is done with it. Front! Get the 
 lady a lemon and, say, get it back when she is 
 through using it." The clerk was evidently 
 a joker. 
 
 "She only want the yuce, she want it pinched, 
 see, so," said the maid, as she graphically indi- 
 cated with her hands the usual process of 
 squeezing a lemon. 
 
 "Oh, I see," the clerk now exclaimed, as a 
 great big ray of intelligence penetrated his 
 brain. Then to the boy. "Go to the bar 
 and get the juice of a lemon in a glass, and 
 take it up to 312. All right, miss, I under- 
 stand." 
 
 Sometimes the maid's English got her into 
 greater trouble, for, to her, it was like an un- 
 broken broncho, and humped itself up and 
 threw her completely, as it did at another time 
 
INTERVIEWS 123 
 
 when she made one of her many visits to the 
 hotel clerk. 
 
 This occurred when Mrs. Fiske had been in 
 the hotel but a few hours, and the maid did 
 the first approaching act to this particular clerk 
 with the startling message: "Messes Feesk 
 dunk." 
 
 "What!" The same explosive exclama- 
 tion as the other clerk had indulged in. 
 
 "Meeses Feesk dunk?" 
 
 "Is she? I'm sorry. Won't she be able to 
 play to-night? What can I do for her? Have 
 you ever tried strong coffee? There was a 
 
 man " The clerk would have gone on and 
 
 written a prescription free, then and there, but 
 the Scandinavian maiden knew that her Eng- 
 lish had thrown her by this time, so she 
 gathered the fragments of her broken collec- 
 tion together and hastened to remount her 
 lingual steed. 
 
 "You not onnerstan. Her dunk; she want 
 her dunk!" exclaimed Christina, or Helma, or 
 Selma, or whatever her name was. 
 
 "Oh !" same as before, same light, same kind 
 
124 MRS. FISKE 
 
 of brain. "Front! Ask the porter if Mrs. 
 Fiske's trunk has arrived, and if so tell him to 
 send it up to 67 right away. All right, miss. 
 Excuse me, I didn't understand you at first." 
 
 "Tank you. I am welcome." And that in- 
 ternational imbroglio was transformed into an 
 entente cordiale without the aid of the navy. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske has had German maids, and 
 colored maids, and, as I have stated, descend- 
 ants of the Norsemen, but to be successful as 
 maids they must be born to its requirements, 
 and never descend to it from a higher eleva- 
 tion. As to rising to the position, I do not 
 know just where the chrysalis stage does come 
 in, for no one has been able to distinguish the 
 caterpillar age, and after the chrysalis they 
 have always had "vera mooch experience" ; but 
 then a caterpillar's year is only about equal 
 to one of our days, you know. 
 
 I think one of the greatest griefs to a 
 colored maid is the fact that she cannot con- 
 sistently make use of broken and discarded 
 fragments of Continental English without the 
 fraud being discovered, although one tried it 
 
INTERVIEWS 125 
 
 once by saying, "Colored? Did you thing Ar 
 was colored? No, sir. One of my descendants 
 come from the Col-o-nul Duts [I may have 
 to map that — Colonial Dutch], and the other 
 descended from the French Hottentots." Pre- 
 sumably Huguenots. The result of this graft- 
 ing was a peach. Mr. Burbank, please take 
 notice. 
 
 One advantage that the white maid has over 
 the colored, is that when traveling in the South 
 they are allowed anywhere that their mistress 
 is allowed, while the colored sister is allowed 
 nowhere that her mistress is allowed excepting 
 in the theater; and has to be boarded out, by 
 the porter, or one of his kind. 
 
 On the other hand the colored maid, espe- 
 cially when pretty, has one great advantage 
 over her white sister, and that benefit tran- 
 spires when traveling and something is wanted 
 from the diner, and the more particularly out 
 of hours or against the strict rules of the com- 
 pany, for no porter, cook, or waiter is recorded 
 by students of natural history who can resist 
 the wiles of said captivating maid, not one, — 
 
126 MRS. FISKE 
 
 not when she looks "goo-goo" at him. In that 
 respect she can give the paleface cards, spades, 
 and all the trumps and still win hands down. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske was at one time very fond of the 
 automobile, and employed it on ever}^ and all 
 occasions; but all at once went back to the 
 more lowly hack, and that lowly hack in some 
 of the one-night stands was a relic, a curio, an 
 heirloom, handed down from one generation 
 of Jehus to another. 
 
 Once while traveling in the far southern por- 
 tion of old Mexico, from Oaxaca to Mitla, my 
 wife and I were honored with one of these 
 antediluvian conveyances, that had been a vic- 
 toria at one time. What it was then, I for- 
 get, but it belonged to the same pre-glacial 
 period, at any rate. Excuse this divergence, 
 I will not do it again, but I merely use it as 
 an illustration that Mexico is a land of won- 
 derful ruins and prehistoric remains. These 
 carriages or hacks have untold millions of 
 funerals they have attended chalked up to their 
 credit, somewhere, I suppose, and the odor of 
 salty tears outodors the perfume of the orange 
 
INTERVIEWS 127 
 
 blossoms that in its palmy days permeated its 
 upholstery. Sometimes when this "best ker- 
 ridge in town" was discovered in waiting at 
 the station Mrs. Fiske balked, felt the neces- 
 sity for exercise, and walked from the station 
 to the hotel. 
 
 Why don't the "pure food and drug law" 
 folks get after these germ-filled boxes on 
 wheels, or else why do not the museums buy 
 them up and display them along with the fos- 
 sil remains of the icthyosaurus and, as the 
 schoolboy said, the megaphones. 
 
 We would discover sometimes that "the boy 
 lied," and that there was a later edition of 
 hack, a sort of edition de luxe, as it were, which 
 was then at the funeral of the wealthiest man 
 in town; but we could have it to-night. 
 
 One feature of the hack business that was 
 especially and justly annoying to Mrs. Fiske, 
 and to me probably more exasperating, was 
 this playful little swindle. In a small city, 
 with the house as usual filled, the occasion being 
 an event, perhaps, and a carriage engaged 
 ten days in advance by our advance man, after 
 
128 MRS. FISKE 
 
 the performance it would be raining. Do 
 you suppose that livery man would keep his 
 agreement'? Not for one instant. He would 
 never send a carriage to us until the last pos- 
 sible local patron had been squeezed out of 
 that audience, no matter whether they had en- 
 gaged in advance or not, — that cut no figure 
 whatever, — and although Mrs. Fiske had been 
 the means of bringing him this avalanche of 
 business, in answer to my protest he would re- 
 ply, "Mrs. Fiske can wait." 
 
 Now wouldn't that — Ugh! What are you 
 going to do with a man like that, and there 
 being no unwritten law on the subject to get 
 you off? 
 
XI 
 
 THE STAGE CHILD AND THE FACTORY LAW 
 
 IS it reasonable, — I ask you strenuous ad- 
 vocates of the application of the "factory" 
 law or the "child labor" law, or under what- 
 ever guise it may appear, — is it reasonable to 
 suppose that the kind of woman I have faith- 
 fully described, and who has the gentleness of 
 character and the abhorrence of cruelty and 
 injustice that she has, would advocate the an- 
 nulment of an application of law that ab- 
 solutely prohibits the appearance of a child 
 under fourteen or sixteen on the stage, if she 
 did not believe that it is wrong in its effect 
 and unjust toward those who are honest and 
 well-meaning? 
 
 Is not Mrs. Fiske qualified to know whereof 
 she speaks? Is not Miss Lotta also qualified, 
 and where are there more estimable women, or 
 
 women more respected or worthy of respect? 
 
 129 
 
130 MRS. FISKE 
 
 Now a "labor" law is one that is supposed 
 to regulate labor, and not morals. If a law 
 were to be passed entitled, "A Law to Regu- 
 late Labor and Morals," then the mask would 
 be off. One might as well expect to see an 
 elephant and a giraffe yoked together to draw 
 a load. 
 
 When an analysis of the amount of "labor" 
 a child does on the stage is made, it would be 
 found that it does not average over an hour 
 in the day probably, and no child ever goes to 
 it with a dislike for it. Every minute that he 
 passes on the stage is a delight and a benefit 
 to him. There are plays, to be sure, in which 
 a child or several children are required for two 
 hours, or two and a half even, like "The Blue 
 Bird," but they are exceedingly rare. There 
 are not more than two or three plays of the 
 character of "The Blue Bird" and "Peter 
 Pan" in a generation, and can anyone be found 
 to object to them? 
 
 Are they not a benefit to the world in their 
 sweetness and purity and moral*? But with- 
 out children what are they^ Are not "The 
 
CHILD AND FACTORY LAW 131 
 
 Prince and The Pauper," and "Little Lord 
 Fauntleroy" delightful? Are not little 
 Meenie Van Winkle and Hendrick Vedder 
 charming? How long do they "work"? 
 Probably not a half hour. Is it arduous, think 
 you? Does it cripple them, stunt their 
 growth, dull their mentality, kill their ambi- 
 tion? 
 
 I challenge anyone to find a pale, wan, 
 unhappy, dirty, ragged, tired, — or anything 
 other than a well kept and well cared for, — 
 child among the entire lot of "dramatic" stage 
 children. I will explain what I mean by the 
 word "dramatic" in this connection. I refer 
 to those who play parts or appear in repre- 
 sentations of drama in its broad sense, and do 
 not include acrobats and dancers. 
 
 In the great days of the drama probably 
 three-quarters of the greatest actors began as 
 children, although to-day that proportion does 
 not hold] but, then, where are the great actors? 
 
 It has been shown that Mrs. Fiske was first 
 seen on the stage as a baby; then she sang in 
 a Scottish kilt, and next played a small Shake- 
 
132 MRS. FISKE 
 
 spearian character, arriving at the age of six- 
 teen at a fixed position of stardom, where the 
 law now says stage children must begin. 
 
 But they get no education, some say. Is 
 Mrs. Fiske illiterate'? was Edwin Forrest illit- 
 erate'? or, — oh, scores, hundreds, of similar ex- 
 amples among eminent players^ 
 
 Lotta was a star even earlier than Mrs. Fiske, 
 and achieved fame, fortune, respect, and ad- 
 miration; and, let me say now, she gave more 
 good, clean, honest delight to more people than 
 any other living soul. Eliminate Lotta from 
 her period on the stage and you darken the 
 light of millions of homes by the process. 
 
 If the mistaken advocates of the law in 
 Massachusetts, Illinois, Louisiana, and per- 
 haps other States, and for its extension to more 
 States, will come out into the open and ac- 
 knowledge that it is not solely because of their 
 actual hours of "labor," but that they do not 
 think it for their moral advantage, then the 
 ambush would be discovered. 
 
 A cause is measured by its effect, and if the 
 people of eminence, or even of lesser note, on 
 
CHILD AND FACTORY LAW 133 
 
 the stage who began as children will not com- 
 pare favorably morally and mentally with the 
 professions of law, medicine, commerce, litera- 
 ture, art, science, or what you will, then I miss 
 my calculations. 
 
 New York alone has a sane law on the sub- 
 ject, and one that few object to. The State 
 allows a permit to be issued for a child's ap- 
 pearance on the stage when the circumstances 
 and surroundings appear proper. This au- 
 thority is vested in the mayors of cities, and it 
 is by him deputized to recognized and trust- 
 worthy agents or societies. In Massachusetts 
 the law allows no child under sixteen to labor 
 for compensation after 6 p. m., and none under 
 fourteen to work at all. 
 
 The case against myself as manager of the 
 "Salvation Nell" company, in which three 
 children of about twelve or fourteen years were 
 used, was appealed to the Supreme Court, and 
 lost, because former President Eliot of Harvard 
 College and Bishop Lawrence appeared against 
 me. Estimable gentlemen both, cultivated 
 and worthy of everybody's respect, but, what 
 
134 MRS. FISKE 
 
 do the}' know of these conditions, and how can 
 they object to the "labor" of these children'? 
 
 If the supporters of the law will open their 
 minds to fact and reason, and dissociate in their 
 minds the "labor" view from the sentimental, 
 they must see the inequity and injustice of the 
 law's application to the stage child. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske knows, Lotta kno-tvs, Francis Wil- 
 son ktiows, whereof they speak, and I am going 
 to reproduce here an address delivered by Mrs. 
 Fiske at the beneiit for the National Alliance 
 for the Protection of Stage Children at the 
 Century Theater in New York City, February 
 g, 1912, and, let me add, that Mrs. Fiske pre- 
 pares every line of her addresses herself. Her 
 address at Harvard College and other similar 
 papers were never written, edited, or influenced 
 bj' another person. Not bad for one v/ho be- 
 gan as a baby and continued on the stage all 
 her life. Before presenting her article, how- 
 ever, I want to suggest one result of the con- 
 tinuation and extension of this prohibition to 
 other States, and that is this: 
 
 The book-play has been the aim of most au- 
 
CHILD AND FACTORY LAW 135 
 
 thors for years, and in literature and art child 
 life is sweet, interesting, and wholesome. If 
 the author depicts a child, the most lovable 
 and delightful character that was ever written, 
 and that tends to the good in every child, 
 woman, and man, he is liable to lose the op- 
 portunity and remuneration that a dramatiza- 
 tion of that book would create. 
 
 The public also loses the realization of that 
 child on the stage, because a stupid interpreta- 
 tion of an otherwise good law prohibits it. 
 One result of this will be the gradual elimina- 
 tion of children from the literature of the fu- 
 ture, because the author can expect no return 
 for his work other than what the book pub- 
 lication itself produces. 
 
 Is this a consummation to be wished, de- 
 voutly or otherwise, or is it not? 
 
 Now here is Mrs. Fiske's paper, — 
 
 " The narrow prejudice that prevailed formerly has 
 practically disappeared. To-day the theater is better 
 understood and more widely esteemed and supported by 
 all classes of people than at any previous time in its 
 history. And yet, from an entirely new quarter and 
 upon very different grounds it is again becoming the 
 
136 MRS. FISKE 
 
 object of fierce detraction and violent attack, in a move- 
 ment for an enactment of laws to prevent children from 
 appearing on the stage. Already the organized effort 
 has been successful in several of the States, and the 
 managers of the child labor campaign are working 
 vigorously to procure similar legislation in all of the 
 States. The National Alliance for the Protection of 
 Stage Children was formed to combat that injustice 
 and preserve the liberty of the child actors of the pres- 
 ent and the future. The great majority of actors are 
 in complete sympathy with this laudable purpose. No 
 fair-minded man or woman, having knowledge of the 
 facts and the truth, can fail to give unqualified approval 
 of the work of the Alliance. 
 
 "The people of the stage favor judicious legislation 
 for the protection of stage children — such wise, sane 
 regulations, for example, as exist in our State of New 
 York; but they intend to fight to the end against the 
 drastic pernicious measures urged by people who can 
 see no difi^erence between the conditions affecting child 
 actors and child workers in factories. No doubt these 
 people are well meaning. In emancipating children 
 from the slavery of manual labor in the factories they 
 have accomplished noble results. They mean well, but 
 their ignorance of the theater is dense, and gross, and 
 colossal. 
 
 "They do not know the life of the stage child or its 
 conditions. No outsider can possibly understand it. 
 Only those of us who have lived our lives in the theater 
 really know. 
 
 "Undoubtedly there are certain phases of theater 
 
CHILD AND FACTORY LAW 137 
 
 life that would be injurious to the health or the moral 
 welfare of a child, just as there are injurious phases 
 in every other walk of life, and from these children 
 should be protected. But the legitimate dramatic stage 
 has nothing in common with these phases of the theater 
 world. They are so remote that it scarcely knows them, 
 and has no contact with them. A child in the legiti- 
 mate theatrical environment is as safe as the child in 
 the nursery or in the school. 
 
 "To deprive a gifted child of the invaluable school- 
 ing of the stage is to deprive him of his inherited birth- 
 right. It is trite and perhaps superfluous to call at- 
 tention to the established fact that the greatest names 
 of the theater past and present, are the names of 
 artists who became actors in childhood. They are the 
 illustrious examples, but there are hundreds of others 
 less distinguished but equally corroborative of the value 
 of an early beginning in the dramatic career. The 
 misguided zeal of some of the professional and amateur 
 reformers has led them at times to specious misrepre- 
 sentation, and at other times to misguided mendacity 
 respecting the question. 
 
 "In the name of the National Alliance for the Pro- 
 tection of stage children we thank you, ladies and 
 gentlemen, for the support, both moral and material, 
 that your presence to-day gives to this cause, and we 
 hope that you will continue to lend us your sympathy 
 and approval." 
 
 How can any receptive, broad, reasoning 
 
138 MRS. FISKE 
 
 mind fail to agree with the attitude of protest 
 taken by the dramatic profession as a unit, con- 
 sidering the condition that has existed for time 
 out of mind, and with never one protest from 
 its members^ 
 
 When the victims appeal, it is time to come 
 to their relief. 
 
 What does the farmer, or the country mer- 
 chant, or even the city merchant, in our legis- 
 latures know about the requirements of the 
 stage'? Estimable as they may be, and quali- 
 fied as they may be on general principles of 
 agriculture, manufacture, commerce, and com- 
 mon law, one would not expect them to pass 
 upon the merits or demerits of a Rubens, an 
 Angelo, a Titian, a Corot, Millet, or Tintoretto. 
 
 If you are ill, you call in one skilled in 
 medicine, — unless you are Christian Science, 
 and then possibly you call no one, and let the 
 disease cure itself. If a bone is broken a skill- 
 ful surgeon is employed; if you have a case in 
 court, and the verdict hinges upon the quality 
 of a piece of goods, you would call in an ex- 
 pert in that line, not a farmer. 
 
CHILD AND FACTORY LAW 139 
 
 Were it a dispute over vegetables, land, 
 fences, cattle, or roads, then the farmer is re- 
 quired, and not an alienist. In short, it should 
 not be the layman who passes judgment where 
 great interests are involved, but skilled judg- 
 ment that is without bias. 
 
 How many cases of cruelty to children have 
 we all read or heard of in private families, by 
 inhuman parents or step-parents? How many 
 in the schools? Now let me ask if anyone 
 at any time ever heard of a case of cruelty to 
 a child of the theater? Honest Injun now, — 
 hands up, how many? Let me tell you that 
 there is not a more carefully looked after and 
 petted child in your homes than behind the 
 footlights of the theater, nor a more contented 
 one. Then why in the name of all the great 
 writers of all ages, and in the name of Justice, 
 should the sweet and elevating purity of child 
 life in the drama be banished forever from the 
 stage? 
 
XII 
 
 WHY MRS. FISKE HAS NOT PLAYED IN LONDON 
 
 FORMULA FOR A SUCCESSFUL PLAY FOR 
 
 HER SUMMING UP 
 
 I HAVE now given as faithful a description 
 of the progress, achievements, and the per- 
 sonal characteristics of Minnie Maddern Fiske 
 as my weak powers will permit, and the reader 
 who has waded through it all will perhaps 
 have a clearer idea of the human side of a great 
 actress than when he began; but sometimes 
 those who think they know a public character 
 quite well are themselves often in error. For 
 instance, a young son of Murat Halstead, who 
 was at one time present in the audience wit- 
 nessing a performance of "Mary of Magdala," 
 overheard some discussion between parties in 
 the row in front, as to whether the long and 
 luxurious red hair of Mary was Mrs. Fiske's 
 or not. Proud of his acquaintanceship with 
 140 
 
SUMMING UP 141 
 
 the distinguished actress, and doubtless wish- 
 ing to exploit that knowledge to Mrs. Fiske's 
 advantage, as well as his own, young Halstead 
 leaned forward and begged pardon, but wished 
 to say that as he knew the lady well, he could 
 vouch for the fact that the hair they so much 
 admired was her own. 
 
 It wasn't, but how easily one can be mis- 
 taken, and this young man's statement would 
 be taken, under certain circumstances, in a 
 court of law as authoritative evidence. Mrs. 
 Fiske has hair of average length, but not of 
 brilliant red, rather pale, and at times almost 
 blonde in appearance. 
 
 Since a small child she has never played a 
 Shakespearian character, and feels herself to be 
 hopelessly modern; but there are many of her 
 admirers who would delight to see the applica- 
 tion of her inimitable powers for high comedy 
 acting applied to Rosalind, Beatrice, or Imogen. 
 
 Why does Mrs. Fiske not play in England? 
 
 That is a question many ask. In reply I 
 will say I do not know. 
 
 It must be that she has not herself chosen to 
 
142 MRS. FISKE 
 
 do so. In my humble opinion, and from my 
 knowledge of and experience with London 
 audiences, she would be the biggest success of 
 the age. English people, however, are indis- 
 solubly wedded to tradition, and perhaps might 
 not accept her Tess, as not Hardy's, or that it 
 is not English, while in fact it is greater than 
 Hardy's; it is an international Tess, a univer- 
 sal Tess, idealized, although not interpreted 
 with a provincial dialect or accent that tagged 
 it as of the soil. 
 
 "Becky Sharp" would very likely at the 
 time of its production by Mrs. Fiske have been 
 welcomed enthusiastically, had not several 
 people squat upon the claim and pre-empted 
 the ground before she could get there. They 
 were English people, and a beautiful trait of 
 the English people is loyalty to established 
 favorites. 
 
 Ibsen, as a matinee or a repertoire produc- 
 tion, not as a sole reliance, seemed feasible. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske's methods and style are entirely 
 her own, so there is no precedent upon which 
 to establish any calculation. She requires an 
 
SUMMING UP ,143 
 
 ensemble of artists about her keyed to her 
 pitch, elsewise there is a discordant note and 
 an inharmony that fails to create the proper 
 impression. 
 
 These are my ideas — ^in which Mrs. Fiske is 
 in no way responsible. So great an actress as 
 Mrs. Fiske might very likely sweep all pre- 
 cedents and impressions to the four winds. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske has written several short plays 
 herself, one, — "The Eyes of the Heart," in 
 which George Arliss was superb. Another 
 "The Light From St. Agnes," a little master- 
 piece; and still another, "The Rose." Each of 
 these was a gem of literary and dramatic con- 
 struction. She also wrote a play called "Not 
 Guilty," and in collaboration with Mr. Fiske 
 another called "Fontenelle." Were she to 
 take the time there is little doubt that she could 
 write a play of intense interest and true drama- 
 tic technique. Her own experience and knowl- 
 edge have equipped her fully for that work. 
 
 One difficulty Mrs. Fiske labors under is the 
 inability to get suitable plays, although they 
 are submitted by the hundreds; but when one 
 
144 MRS. FISKE 
 
 comes to measure them up to her standard they 
 almost invariably fall far short of require- 
 ments. 
 
 If one could lay out a play with plans and 
 specifications, as an architect does a house, my 
 study of Mrs. Fiske at several thousand per- 
 formances might result in something like this — 
 a sort of ten commandments to be observed. 
 
 First — All construction to be of first class 
 material. 
 
 Second — The acts, or stories, to be three, or 
 not over four. 
 
 Third — The lines to be modern, and on a 
 refined high-comedy plane. 
 
 Fourth — The finish to be delicate and of true 
 humor. 
 
 Fifth — No "tailor made" or "millinery" 
 adornment of the character for Mrs. Fiske. 
 
 Sixth — Throw around this character a strong 
 interest, and provide opportunities for impres- 
 sive pauses as well as scenes of action in ab- 
 solute silence. 
 
 Seventh — Dialogue at times with the op- 
 posite part, of smart repartee and snappy wit. 
 
SUMMING UP 145 
 
 Eighth — Make the other characters as smart 
 and as strong as possible; nothing can take a 
 play or a "situation" from Mrs. Fiske. 
 
 Ninth — ^Adhere strictly to consistency. 
 
 Tenth — ^A gripping undercurrent of plot 
 that is felt at all times to underlay the sparkle 
 and foam that float upon the surface. 
 
 All good houses are not alike, and so all 
 good plays differ, therefore I do not mean to 
 insinuate that no other list of specifications 
 would fit her, or she it; but I do think the gar- 
 ment that fits her best is the one that a drama- 
 tic tailor would model as the architect would 
 a house, on these lines. 
 
 Her Hedda Gabler is a classic, a presenta- 
 tion of an Ibsen character without a flaw; and 
 even Hedda Gabler has humor, keen and re- 
 fined, but oh, so grim ! It is like the badinage 
 that one might expect between a couple of un- 
 dertakers, whose fund of anecdote was culled 
 from the incidents encountered in their trade. 
 
 Mrs. Fiske is now in the heyday of her 
 career; she is at an age when her powers are 
 fully developed and her perceptions keenest. 
 
146 MRS. FISKE 
 
 What she has done with Cyprienne, Tess, Becky 
 Sharp, Cynthia Karslake, and possibly Leah 
 Kleschna, will live, but what she will do in the 
 future is for the playwright to provide and iov, 
 her to accomplish. She has no imitator, no 
 follower, and will leave no successor. Her 
 personality and methods are unique, and hers 
 alone. Her magnetism is not transferable to 
 any heir to her position on the stage, nor is it 
 teachable. Genius is as well non-transferable, 
 unless through the blood, which leaves the stage 
 hopeless, at least, as at present situated. 
 
 An inventory of Mrs. Fiske's assets reveals 
 Genius, the spark that illuminates all she 
 touches; Magnetism, the "wireless" communica- 
 tion with everyone in the house across the 
 footlights: Intelligence, the power of compre- 
 hension of an author's meaning; Intuition, the 
 faculty of getting "inside the skin" of a part; 
 Humor, of a rare order; Cultivation, the man- 
 ner that accompanies true knowledge. 
 
 And so I leave her. 
 
 Buenos noches.