Part 29

Frohman and Randall stayed at 1267 Broadway for a year. Shortly before the next change Randall, who had become extensively interested in outside enterprises, retired from the firm. His successor as close associate with Charles Frohman was Harry Rockwood, ablest of the early Frohman lieutenants.

Rockwood was a distinguished-looking man and a tireless worker. The way he came to be associated with Charles Frohman was interesting. His real name was H. Rockwood Hewitt, and he was related to ex-Mayor Abram S. Hewitt of New York. He had had some experience in Wall Street, but became infected with the theatrical virus.

One day in 1888 a well-groomed young man approached Gustave Frohman at the Fourteenth Street Theater. He introduced himself as Harry Hewitt. He said to Frohman:

"My name is Hewitt. I would like to get into the theatrical business."

Gustave invited him to come around to the Madison Square Theater the next day, and asked him what he would like to do.

"Oh, I should like to do anything."

Frohman then gave him an imaginary house to "count up."

Rockwood, who was an expert accountant, did the job with amazing swiftness. Whereupon Gustave Frohman telephoned to Charles Frohman as follows:

"I've got the greatest treasurer in the world for you. Send for him."

Charles engaged him for a Madison Square Company, and in this way Rockwood's theatrical career started. It was the fashion of many people of that time interested in the theatrical business to change their names, so he became Harry Rockwood. In the same way Harry Hayman, brother of Al and Alf Hayman, changed his name to Harry Mann.

In 1889 came the separation between Randall and Frohman. Randall set up an establishment of his own at 1145 Broadway, while Charles, who was now an accredited and established personage in the theatrical world, took a suite at 1127 Broadway, adjoining the old St. James Hotel. In making this change he reached a crucial point in his career, for in these offices he conceived and put into execution the spectacular enterprises that linked his name for the first time with brilliant success.

"SHENANDOAH" AND THE FIRST STOCK COMPANY

With his installation in the new offices at 1127 Broadway there began an important epoch in the life of Charles Frohman. The Nemesis which had seemed to pursue his productions now took flight. The plump little man, not yet thirty, who had already lived a lifetime of strenuous and varied endeavor, sat at a desk in a big room on the second floor, dreaming and planning great things that were soon to be realized.

Although staggering under a burden of debt that would have discouraged most people, Frohman, with his optimistic philosophy, felt that the hour had come at last when the tide would turn. And it did. At this time his financial complications were at their worst. Some of them dated back to the disastrous Wallack Company tour; others resulted from his impulsive generosity in indorsing his friends' notes. He was so involved that he could not do business under his own name, and for a period the firm went on as Al Hayman & Company.

One of the very first enterprises in the new offices cemented the friendship of Charles Frohman and William Gillette. While at the Madison Square Theater he had booked Gillette's plays, "The Professor" and "The Private Secretary." Frohman, with Al Hayman as partner, induced Gillette to make a dramatization of Rider Haggard's "She," which was put on at Niblo's Garden in New York with considerable success. Wilton Lackaye and Loie Fuller were in the cast.

Gillette now tried his hand at a war play called "Held by the Enemy," which Frohman booked on the road. Frohman was strangely interested in "Held by the Enemy." It had all the thrill and tumult of war and it lent itself to more or less spectacular production. When the road tour ended, Frohman, on his own hook, took the piece and the company, which was headed by Gillette, for an engagement at the Baldwin Theater in San Francisco. He transported all the original scenery, which included, among other things, some massive wooden cannon.

The San Francisco critics, however, slated the piece unmercifully. The morning after the opening Gillette stood in the lobby of the Palace Hotel with the newspapers in his hand and feeling very disconsolate. Up bustled Frohman in his usual cheery fashion.

"Look what the critics have done to us," said Gillette, gloomily.

"But we've got all the best of it," replied Frohman, with animation.

"How's that?" asked Gillette, somewhat puzzled.

"They've got to stay here."

This little episode shows the buoyant way in which Frohman always met misfortune. His irresistible humor was the oil that he invariably spread upon the troubled waters of discord and discouragement.

It was while selecting one of the casts of "Held by the Enemy," which was revived many times, that Charles Frohman made two more life-long connections.

At the same boarding-house with Julius Cahn lived an ambitious young man who had had some experience as an actor. He was out of a position, so Cahn said to him one day:

"Come over to our offices and Charles Frohman will give you a job."

The young man came over, and Cahn introduced him to Frohman. Soon he came out, apparently very indignant. When Cahn asked him what was the matter he said:

"That man Frohman offered me the part of a nigger, Uncle Rufus, in that play. I was born in the South, and I will not play a nigger. I would rather starve."

Cahn said, "You will play it, and your salary will be forty dollars a week."