Part 76

"Because I wanted to see it played," answered Frohman. "I knew it would not be successful, but I simply had to do it. I saw every performance and I liked it better every time I saw it."

Often Frohman would make a contract with a playwright for a play, and long before the first night he would realize that it had no chance. Yet he kept his word with the author, and it was always produced.

The case of "The Heart of a Thief," by the late Paul Armstrong, is typical. Frohman paid him an advance of fifteen hundred dollars. After a week of rehearsals every one connected with the play except Armstrong realized that it was impossible.

Frohman, however, gave it an out-of-town opening and brought it to the Hudson Theater in New York, where it ran for one week. When he decided to close it he called the company together and said:

"You've done the best you could. It's all my fault. I thought it was a good play. I was mistaken."

Frohman took vast pride in the "clean quality" of his plays, as he often phrased it. His whole theatrical career was a rebuke to the salacious. He originally owned Edward Sheldon's dramatization of Suderman's "The Song of Songs." On its production in Philadelphia it was assailed by the press as immoral. Frohman immediately sold it to A. H. Woods, who presented it with enormous financial success in New York.

He was scrupulous to the last degree in his business relations with playwrights. Once a well-known English author, who was in great financial need, cabled to his agent in America that he would sell outright for two thousand dollars all the dramatic rights to a certain play of his that Frohman and an associate had on the road at that time. The associate thought it was a fine opportunity and personally cabled the money through the agent. Then he went to Frohman and said, with great satisfaction:

"I've made some money for us to-day."

"How's that?" asked Frohman.

Then his associate told the story of the author's predicament and what he had done. He stood waiting for commendation. Instead, Frohman's face darkened; he rang a bell, and when his secretary appeared he said:

"Please wire Blank [mentioning the playwright's name] that the money cabled him to-day was an advance on future royalties."

Then he turned to his associate and said:

"Never, so long as you work with me or are associated with me in any enterprise, take advantage of the distress of author or actor. This man's play was good enough for us to produce; it is still good enough to earn money. When it makes money for us it also makes money for him."

* * *

By the force of his magnetic personality Charles amiably coerced more than one unwilling playwright into submission to his will. An experience with Margaret Mayo will illustrate.

Miss Mayo returned on the same steamer with him when he made his last trip from London to the United States. As they walked up the gang-plank at Liverpool the manager told the author that he had a play he wished her to adapt.

"But I have decided to adapt no more plays," said Miss Mayo.

"Never mind," replied Frohman. "We will see about that."

Needless to say, by the time the ship reached New York the play was in Miss Mayo's trunk and the genial tyrant had exacted a promise for the adaptation.

Miss Mayo immediately went to her country house up the Hudson. For a week she reproached herself for having fallen a victim to the Frohman beguilements. In this state of mind she could do no work on the manuscript.

With his astonishing intuition Frohman divined that the author was making no progress, so he sent her a note asking her to come to town, and adding, "I have something to show you."

Miss Mayo entered the office at the Empire determined to throw herself upon the managerial mercy and beg to be excused from the commission. But before she could say a word Frohman said, cheerily:

"I've found the right title for our play."

Then he rang a bell, and a boy appeared holding a tightly rolled poster in his hand. At a signal he unfolded it, and the astonished playwright beheld these words in large red and white letters:

Charles Frohman

Presents

I DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT

A Farce in Three Acts