Part 38

Dillingham had been a newspaper man in Chicago at a time when George Ade, Peter Dunne, and Frank Vanderlip (now president of the National City Bank) were his co-workers. He became secretary to Senator Squire, and at Washington wrote a play called "Twelve P.M." A manager named Frank Williams produced it in the old Bijou Theater, New York, just about the time that Charles Frohman was presenting John Drew across the street in "The Masked Ball." Dillingham had previously come on to New York, and his hopes, naturally, were in the play. "Twelve P.M." was a dismal failure, but it brought two unusual men together who became bosom friends. It came about in this extraordinary way:

During the second (and last) week of the engagement of "Twelve P.M." at the Bijou, Dillingham, who came every night to see his play, noticed a short, stout, but important-looking man pass into the playhouse.

"Who is that man?" he asked.

He was told it was Charles Frohman.

A few days later he received a letter from Frohman, which said:

Your play lacks all form and construction, but I like the lines very much. Would you like to adapt a French farce for me?

Dillingham accepted this commission and thus met Frohman. Dillingham was then dramatic editor of the New York Evening Sun. One day he called on Frohman and asked him to send him out with a show.

"When do you want to go?"

"Right away."

"Very well," said Frohman, who would always have his little joke. "You can go to-morrow. I would like to get you off that paper, anyhow. You write too many bad notices of my plays."

Dillingham first went out ahead of the Empire Stock Company and afterward in advance of John Drew, in "That Imprudent Young Couple." He left the job, however, and soon returned to Frohman, seeking other work.

"What would you like to do?" asked Frohman.

"Take my yacht and go to England," said Dillingham, facetiously.

"All right," said Frohman. "We sail Saturday," and handed him fifty thousand dollars in stage money that happened to be lying on his desk. Dillingham thought at first he was joking, but he was not. They sailed on the St. Paul. Frohman had just established his first offices in Henrietta Street. There was not much business to transact, and the pair spent most of their time seeing plays. Dillingham acted as a sort of secretary to Frohman.

One day a haughty Englishman came up to the offices and asked Dillingham to take in his card.

"I have no time," said Dillingham, whose sense of humor is proverbial.

"What have you to do?" asked the man.

"I've got to wash the office windows first," was the reply.

The Englishman became enraged, strode in to Frohman, and told him what Dillingham had said. Frohman laughed so heartily that he almost rolled out of his chair. After the Englishman left he went out and congratulated Dillingham on his jest. From that day dated a Damon and Pythias friendship between the two men. They were almost inseparable companions.

The time was at hand for another big star to twinkle in the Frohman heaven. During all these years William Gillette had developed in prestige and authority, both as actor and as playwright. The quiet, thoughtful, scholarly-looking young actor who had knocked at the doors of the Madison Square Theater with the manuscript of "The Professor," where it was produced after "Hazel Kirke," and whose road tours had been booked by Charles Frohman in his early days as route-maker, now came into his own. Curiously enough, his career was to be linked closely with that of the little man he first knew in his early New York days.

Frohman, who had booked and produced Gillette's play "Held By the Enemy," now regarded Gillette as star material of the first rank. Combined with admiration for Gillette as artist was a strong personal friendship. Gillette now wrote a play, a capital farce called "Too Much Johnson," which Frohman produced with the author as star. In connection with this opening was a typical Frohman incident.

The play was first put on at Waltham, Massachusetts. The house was small and the notices bad. Frohman joined the company next day at Springfield. Gillette was much depressed, and he met Frohman in this mood.

"This is terrible, isn't it? I'm afraid the play is a failure."

"Nonsense!" said Frohman. "I have booked it for New York and for a long tour afterward."

"Why?" asked Gillette in astonishment.

"I saw your performance," was the reply.

Frohman's confidence was vindicated, for when the play was put on at the Standard Theater in November, 1894, it went splendidly and put another rivet in Gillette's reputation.

Frohman now had two big stars, John Drew and William Gillette. A half-dozen others were in the making, chief among them the wistful-eyed little Maude Adams, who was now approaching the point in her career where she was to establish a new tradition for the American stage and give Charles Frohman a unique distinction.