Part 90

Once, when Frohman and Paul Potter were coming back from Atlantic City, Potter picked up a theatrical paper and said:

"Shall I read you the theatrical news?"

"No," said Frohman. "I make theatrical news."

* * *

In that supreme test of a man's character--his attitude toward money--he shone. Though his enterprises involved millions, Frohman had an extraordinary disregard of money. He felt its power, but he never idolized it. To him it was a means to an end. He summed up his whole attitude one day when he said:

"My work is to produce plays that succeed, so that I can produce plays that will not succeed. That is why I must have money.

"What I would really like to do is to produce a wonderful something to which I would only go myself. My pleasure would be in seeing a remarkable performance that nobody else could see. But I can't do that. The next best thing is to produce something for the few critical people. That is what I'm trying for. I have to work through the commercial--it is the white heat through which the artistic in me has to come." It was his answer to the oft-made charge of "commercialism."

No one, perhaps, has summed up this money attitude of Frohman's better than George Bernard Shaw, who said of him:

"There is a prevalent impression that Charles Frohman is a hard-headed American man of business who would not look at anything that is not likely to pay. On the contrary, he is the most wildly romantic and adventurous man of my acquaintance. As Charles XII. became an excellent soldier because of his passion for putting himself in the way of being killed, so Charles Frohman became a famous manager through his passion for putting himself in the way of being ruined."

In many respects Frohman's feeling about money was almost childlike. He left all financial details to his subordinates. All he wanted to do was to produce plays and be let alone. Yet he had an infinite respect for the man to whom he had to pay a large sum. He felt that the actor or author who could command it was invested with peculiar significance. Upon himself he spent little. He once said:

"All I want is a good meal, a good cigar, good clothes, a good bed to sleep in, and freedom to produce whatever plays I like."

He was a magnificent loser. Failure never disturbed him. When he saw that a piece was doomed he indulged in no obituary talk. "Let's go to the next," he said, and on he went.

He lost in the same princely way that he spent. The case of "Thermidor" will illustrate. He spent not less than thirty thousand dollars on this production. Yet the moment the curtain went down he realized it was a failure. He stood at one side of the wings and Miss Marbury, who had induced him to put the play on, was at the other. With the fall of the curtain Frohman moved smilingly among his actors with no trace of disappointment on his face. But when he met Miss Marbury on the other side of the stage he said:

"Well, I suppose we have got a magnificent frost. We'll just write this off and forget it."

* * *

Frohman played with the theater as if it were a huge game. Like life itself, it was a great adventure. In the parlance of Wall Street, he was a "bull," for he was always raising salaries and royalties. Somebody once said of him:

"What a shame that Frohman works so hard! He never had a day's fun in his life."

"You are very much mistaken," said one of his friends. "His whole life is full of it. He gets his chief fun out of his work." Indeed, work and humor were in reality the great things with him.

One of the best epigrams ever made about Frohman's extravagance was this:

"Give Charles Frohman a check-book and he will lose money on any production."

To say that his word was his bond is to repeat one of the trite tributes to him. But it was nevertheless very true. Often in discussing a business arrangement with his representatives he would say:

"Did I say that?" On being told that he did, he would invariably reply, "Then it must stand at that."

On one of these occasions he said:

"I have only one thing of value to me, and that is my word. I will keep that until I am broke and then I'll jump overboard."

* * *

In starting a new venture his method was first to ascertain not how much it would enrich him, but how much it would cost. Thus fortified, he entered into it with enthusiasm, and if he lost he never murmured. Having settled a thing, for good or ill, he would never refer to the negotiations or anything that might have led up to the culmination of that business, either for or against. If his attention was afterward called to it, he would quietly say, "That's yesterday," and in this way indicate that he did not wish the matter referred to again.

* * *

Frohman's great desire was to make money for other people. One of his young authors had had a bad failure in London and was very much depressed. Frohman finally worked out a plan to revive his spirits and recoup his finances. He took Alfred Sutro in his confidence and invited the young man to dine. He was like a child, eager to do something good and pleasing. All through the dinner he chaffed the young man, who visibly grew more despondent. Finally he said: