Part 35

As Zuzanne in "The Masked Ball," Miss Adams went to a ball and assumed tipsiness in order to influence her dissipated husband and achieve his ultimate reformation. The way she prepared for this part was characteristic of the woman. She wore a hat with a long feather, and she determined to make it a "tipsy feather." This feature became one of the comedy hits of the play, but in order to achieve it she worked for days and days to bring about the desired effect. The result of all this painstaking preparation was a brilliant performance. When the curtain went down on that memorable night at Palmer's Theater the general impression was:

"Maude Adams will be the next Frohman star."

The morning after the opening Frohman went to John Drew and said: "Well, John, you don't need me any more now. You're made."

"No, Charles; I shall need you always," was the reply.

Out of this engagement came the long and intimate friendship between Drew and Frohman. The first contract, signed and sealed on that precarious day when Frohman was seeing the vision of the modern star system, was the last formal bond between them. Though their negotiations involved hundreds of thousands of dollars in the years that passed, there was never another scrap of paper between them.

Seldom in the history of the American theater has another event been so productive of far-reaching consequence as "The Masked Ball." It brought Clyde Fitch into contact with the man who was to be his real sponsor; it made John Drew a star; it carried Maude Adams to the frontiers of the stellar realm; it gave Charles Frohman a whole new and distinguished place in the theater.

Frohman was quick to follow up this success. With Drew he had made his first real bid for what was known in those days as "the carriage trade"--that is, the patronage of the socially elect. He hastened to clinch this with another stunning production at Palmer's. It was Bronson Howard's play, "Aristocracy."

The play, produced on November 14, 1893, was done in Frohman's usual lavish way. The company included not less than half a dozen people who were then making their way toward stardom--Wilton Lackaye, Viola Allen, Blanche Walsh, William Faversham, Frederick Bond, Bruce McRae, Paul Arthur, W. H. Thompson, J. W. Piggott. "Aristocracy" was Bronson Howard's reversion to the serenity of the society drama after the spectacle of war. The first night's audience was fashionable. The distinction of the cast lent much to the success of the occasion.

* * *

When John Drew called on Charles Frohman for the first time at his offices at 1127 Broadway, his way was impeded by a bright-eyed, alert young office-boy who bore the unromantic name of Peter Daly. He incarnated every ill to which his occupation seems to be heir. Without troubling himself to find out if Mr. Frohman was in, he immediately said, after the grand fashion of theatrical office-boys:

"Mr. Frohman is out and I don't know when he will return."

"But I have an engagement with Mr. Frohman," said Drew.

"You will have to wait," said the boy.

Drew cooled his heels outside while Frohman waited impatiently inside for him. When he emerged at lunchtime he was surprised to find his man about to depart.

Daly was immediately discharged by Julius Cahn, who was office manager, but was promptly reinstated the next day by Frohman, who had been greatly impressed with the boy's quick wit and intelligence.

This office-boy, it is interesting to relate, became Arnold Daly, the actor. No experience of his life was perhaps more amusing or picturesque than the crowded year when he manned the outside door of Charles Frohman's office. Instead of attending to business, he spent most of his time writing burlesques on contemporary plays, which he solemnly submitted to Harry Rockwood, the bookkeeper.

During these days occurred a now famous episode. Young Daly was luxuriously reclining in the most comfortable chair in the reception-room one day when Louise Closser Hale, the actress, entered and asked to see Charles Frohman.

"He is out," said Daly.

"May I wait for him?" asked the visitor.

"Yes," answered Daly, and the woman sat down.

After three hours had passed she asked Daly, "Where is Mr. Frohman?"

"He's in London," was the reply.

Afterward Daly became "dresser" for John Drew, the virus of the theater got into his system, and before long he was an actor.

Thus even Charles Frohman's office-boys became stars.

* * *

Epochal as had been 1892, witnessing the first big Frohman star and a great artistic expansion, the new year that now dawned realized another and still greater dream of Charles Frohman, for it brought the dedication of his own New York theater at last, the famous Empire.

Ever since he had been launched in the metropolitan theatrical whirlpool, Frohman wanted a New York theater. As a boy he had witnessed the glories of the Union Square Theater under Palmer; as a road manager he had a part in the success of the Madison Square Theater activities; in his early managerial days he had been associated with the Lester Wallack organization; he had watched the later triumphs of the Lyceum Theater Company at home and on the road. Quite naturally he came to the conviction that he was ready to operate and control a big theater of his own.

The way toward its consummation was this: