Part 89

Great as producer, star-maker, and conqueror of two stage-worlds, Charles Frohman was greater as a human being. Like Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, he was more than a man--he was an institution. His quiet courage, his unaffected simplicity, his rare understanding, his ripe philosophy, his uncanny penetration--above all, his abundant humor--made him a figure of fascinating and incessant interest.

No trait of Charles Frohman was more highly developed than his shyness. He was known as "The Great Unphotographed." The only time during the last twenty-five years of his life that he sat for a photograph was when he had to get a picture for his passport, and this picture went to a watery grave with him. Behind his prejudice against being photographed was a perfectly definite reason, which he once explained as follows:

"I once knew a theatrical manager whose prospects were very bright. He became a victim of the camera. Fine pictures of him were made and stuck up on the walls everywhere. He used to spend more time looking at these pictures of himself than he did attending to his business. He made a miserable failure. I was quite a young man when I heard of this, but it made a great impression on me. I resolved then never to have my photograph taken if I could help it."

Once when Frohman and A. L. Erlanger were in London he received the usual request to be photographed by a newspaper camera man. The two magnates looked something alike in that they had a more or less Napoleonic cast of face. Frohman, who always saw a joke in everything, hatched a scheme by which Erlanger was to be photographed for him. The plan worked admirably, and pictures of Erlanger suddenly began to appear all over London labeled "Charles Frohman."

He could be gracious, however, in his refusal to be photographed. One bright afternoon he was watching the races at Henley when he was approached by R. W. MacFarlane, of New York, who had been on the Frohman staff. MacFarlane asked if he could take a photograph of Frohman and give it to his niece, who was traveling with him.

"No," said the manager, "but you can take a picture of your niece and I will pose her for it."

* * *

Frohman's shyness led to what is in many respects the most remarkable of the countless anecdotes about him. It grew out of his illness. In 1913 he had a severe attack of neuritis in London. Although his friends urged him to go and see a doctor, he steadfastly refused. He dreaded physicians just as he dreaded photographers.

One day Barrie came to see him at his rooms at the Savoy. Frohman was in such intense pain that the Scotch author said:

"Frohman, it is absurd for you not to see a doctor. You simply must have medical attention. As a matter of fact, I have already made an engagement for you to see Robson-Roose, the great nerve specialist, at four o'clock to-morrow afternoon."

Frohman, who accepted whatever Barrie said, acquiesced. Next day, when half-past three o'clock came, the manager was almost in a state of panic. He said to Dillingham, who was with him:

"Dillingham, you know how I hate to go to see doctors. You also know what is the matter with me. Why don't you go as my understudy and tell the doctor what is the matter with you? He will give you a nice little prescription or advise you to go to the Riviera or Carlsbad."

"All right," said Dillingham, who adored his friend. "I'll do what you say."

Promptly at four o'clock Dillingham showed up at the great specialist's office and said he was Frohman. He underwent a drastic cross-examination. After which he was asked to remove his clothes, was subjected to the most strenuous massage treatment, and, to cap it all, was given an electric bath that reduced him almost to a wreck. He had entered the doctor's office in the best of health, He emerged from it worn and weary.

When he staggered into Frohman's rooms two hours later and told his tale of woe, Frohman laughed so heartily over the episode that he was a well man the next day.

* * *

Frohman had a great fund of pithy sayings, remarkable for their brevity. With these he indicated his wishes to his associates. His charm of manner, his quick insight into a situation, and his influence over the minds of others were great factors in the accomplishment of his end, often attaining the obviously impossible.

For example, when he would tell his business manager to negotiate a business matter with a man, and it would come to a point where there would be a deadlock, he would say:

"I will see him. Ask him to come down to my hotel."

The next morning he would walk into the office with a smile on his face, and the first thing he would say perhaps would be:

"I fixed it up all right yesterday; it is going your way."

"You are a wonder!" his associates would exclaim.

"Oh no! I just talked to him," was the reply.

* * *

Frohman disliked formality. He wanted to go straight to the heart of a thing and have it over with. Somebody once asked him why he did not join the Masonic order. He said:

"I would like to very much if I could just write a check and not bother with all the ceremony."

* * *

Although he never spoke of his great power in the profession, occasionally there was a glimpse of how he felt about it as this incident shows: