Part 28

This production had an influence on Charles Frohman's life far greater than the association with his first star, for Annie Adams now began a more or less continuous connection with Charles Frohman's companies. Her daughter, the little girl whom Charles had met casually years before, was now about to make her first New York appearance as member of a traveling company in "The Paymaster." Already the energetic mother was importuning Charles to engage the daughter. His answer was, "I'll give her a chance as soon as I can." He little dreamed that this wisp of a girl was to become in later years his most profitable and best-known star.

Charles was, of course, keenly interested in "A Toy Pistol." He conducted the rehearsals, and on February 20, 1886, produced it at what was then called the New York Comedy Theater. It failed, however. The New York Comedy Theater was originally a large billiard-hall in the Gilsey Building, on Broadway between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth streets, and had been first named the San Francisco Minstrel Hall. It became successively Haverly's Comedy Theater and the New York Comedy Theater. Subsequently, it was known as Hermann's Theater, and was the scene of many of the earlier Charles Frohman productions.

* * *

Charles now became immersed in productions. About this time Archibald Clavering Gunter, who had scored a sensational success with his books, especially "Mr. Barnes of New York," had written a play called "A Wall Street Bandit," which had been produced with great success in San Francisco. Frohman booked it for four weeks at the old Standard Theater, afterward the Manhattan, on a very generous royalty basis, and plunged in his usual lavish style. He got together a magnificent cast, which included Georgia Cayvan, W. J. Ferguson, Robert McWade, Charles Bowser, Charles Wheatleigh, and Sadie Bigelow. The play opened to capacity and the indications were that the engagement would be a success; but it suddenly fizzled out. On Sunday morning, when Charles read the papers with their reviews of the week, he said to Randall, with his usual philosophy:

"We've got a magnificent frost, but it was worth doing."

This production cost the youthful manager ten thousand dollars.

* * *

Frohman still had control of "time" at the Standard, so he now put on a play, translated by Henri Rochefort, called "A Daughter of Ireland," in which Georgia Cayvan had the title rôle. Here he scored another failure, but his ardor remained undampened and he went on to what looked at that moment to be the biggest thing he had yet tried.

Dion Boucicault was one of the great stage figures of his period. He was both actor and author, and wrote or adapted several hundred plays, including such phenomenal successes as "Colleen Bawn," "Shaughraun," which ran for a year simultaneously in London, New York, and Melbourne, and "London Assurance." There was much talk of his latest comedy, "The Jilt." Frohman, who always wanted to be associated with big names, now arranged by cable to produce this play at the Standard. Once more he plunged on an expensive company which included, among others, Fritz Williams, Louise Thorndyke, and Helen Bancroft.

For four weeks he cleared a thousand a week. Then he put the company on the road, where it did absolutely nothing. Charles, who had an uncanny sense of analysis of play failures, now declared that the reason for the failure was that theater-goers resented Boucicault's treatment of his first wife, Agnes Robertson. Boucicault had declared that he was not the father of her child, and when she sued him in England the courts gave her the verdict. Meanwhile Boucicault married, and in the eyes of the world he was a bigamist. This experience, it is interesting to add, taught Charles Frohman never to engage stars on whom there was the slightest smirch of scandal or disrepute.

At Montreal Boucicault refused to continue the tour, and this engagement, like so many of its predecessors, left Charles in a financial hole. Despite all these reverses he was able to make a livelihood out of the booking end of the office, which thrived and grew with each month. Nor was he without his sense of humor in those days.

One day he met a certain manager who had lost a great deal of money in comic opera. Frohman said to him that he heard that there was much money in the comic-opera end of the business.

"So there is," replied the manager.

"You ought to know," responded Frohman, "for you have put enough into it."

This remark, often attributed to others, is said to have originated here.

* * *

Frohman was now an established producer, and although the tide of fortune had not gone altogether happily with him, he had a Micawber-like conviction that the big thing would eventually turn up. Now came his first contact with Bronson Howard, who, a few years later, was to be the first mile-stone in his journey to fame and fortune.

Howard's name was one to conjure with. He had produced "Young Mrs. Winthrop," "The Banker's Daughter," "Saratoga," and other great successes. Charles Frohman, yielding, as usual, to the lure of big names, now put on Howard's play, "Baron Rudolph," for which George Knight had paid the author three thousand dollars to rewrite. Knight gave Frohman a free hand in the matter of casting the production, and it was put on at the Fourteenth Street Theater in an elaborate fashion. The company included various people who later on were to become widely known. Among them were George Knight and his wife, George Fawcett, Charles Bowser, and a very prepossessing young man named Henry Woodruff.

"Baron Rudolph" proved to be a failure, and it broke Knight's heart, for shortly afterward he was committed to an insane asylum from which he never emerged alive. It was found that while the play was well written there was no sympathy for a ragged tramp.

Whether he thought it would change his luck or not, Charles now turned to a different sort of enterprise. He had read in the newspapers about the astonishing mind-reading feats in England of Washington Irving Bishop. Always on the lookout for something novel, he started a correspondence with Bishop which ended in a contract by which he agreed to present Bishop in the United States in 1887.

Bishop came over and Frohman sponsored his first appearance in New York on February 27, 1887, at Wallack's Theater. With his genius for publicity, Frohman got an extraordinary amount of advertising out of this engagement. Among other things he got Bishop to drive around New York blindfolded. He invited well-known men to come and witness his marvelous gift in private. All of which attracted a great deal of attention, but very little money to the box-office. Frohman and Bishop differed about the conduct of the tour that was to follow, and M. B. Leavitt assumed the management.

While at 1215 Broadway Charles Frohman established another of his many innovations by getting out what was probably the first stylographic press sheet. This sheet, which contained news of the various attractions that Frohman booked, was sent to the leading newspapers throughout the country and was the forerunner of the avalanche of press matter that to-day is hurled at dramatic editors everywhere.

* * *

The booking business had now grown so extensively that the office force was increased. First came Julius Cahn, who assisted Randall with the booking. Al Hayman took a desk in Frohman's office, which, because of Hayman's extensive California enterprises, had a virtual monopoly on all Western booking.

Now developed a curious episode. Charles, with his devotion to big names, used the words "Daly's Theater Building" on his letter-heads. This so infuriated Daly that he sent a peremptory message to the landlord insisting that Frohman vacate the building. Frohman and Randall thereupon moved their offices up the block to 1267 Broadway.

Charles Frohman made every possible capitalization of this change. Among other things he issued a broadside, announcing the removal to new offices, and making the following characteristic statement:

Our agency, we are pleased to state, has been an established success from the very start. We now represent every important theater in the United States and Canada, as an inspection of our list will show, and we will always keep up the high standard of attractions that have been booked through this office, and we want the business of no others. Mr. E. E. Rice, the well-known manager and author, will have adjoining offices with us, and his attractions will be booked through our offices. We transact a general theatrical business (excepting that pertaining to a dramatic or actor's agency), and are in competition with no other exchange, booking agency, or dramatic concern. Neither do we have any desk-room to let, reserving all the space of our office for our own use.

Attached to this announcement was a list of theaters that he represented, which was a foot long. He was also representing Archibald Clavering Gunter, who had followed up "A Wall Street Bandit" with "Prince Karl," and Robert Buchanan, author of "Lady Clare" and "Alone in London."