Part 91

"I have decided to revive a very good play, and I have booked an American tour for it." Then he told the young man that this play was his first success.

* * *

Charles Frohman's ignorance of money matters was proverbial. One day just as he was about to take the train for Washington a friend stopped him and said:

"I've got a great investment for you."

"No," said Frohman, "I never invest in anything except theaters."

"But this is the real thing. The only possible fact that can spoil it is war, and we are widely remote from war."

In order to get rid of the man Frohman consented to a modest investment. When he got to Washington the first thing that greeted him was the announcement that we were on the verge of war with Mexico.

* * *

William Harris once gently remonstrated with Frohman for such lavish expenditure of money.

"It's simply awful, Charley, the way you spend money," he said.

Frohman smiled and said:

"It would be awful if I lost a finger or a foot, but spending money on the things that you want to do and enjoy doing is never money wasted."

* * *

At one time he owed a great deal of money to actors and printers, but he always scorned all suggestions that he go through bankruptcy and wipe these claims out. He said he would pay in full some day, and he did, with interest. An actor to whom he owed some four hundred dollars came to him and offered to settle the claim for one hundred dollars. Frohman said he did not believe in taking advantage of a man like that. He advanced the actor one hundred dollars, and eventually paid the other three hundred dollars.

* * *

Like every great man, Frohman's tastes were simple. He always wore clothes of one pattern, and the style seldom varied. He wore no jewelry except a Napoleonic ring on his little finger.

* * *

Frohman never married. A friend once asked him why he had chosen to be a bachelor.

"My dear fellow," he answered, "had I possessed a wife and family I could never have taken the risks which, as a theatrical manager, I am constantly called upon to do."

He lived, in truth, for and by the theater; it was his world. His heart was in his profession, and no enterprise was too daring, no venture too perilous, to prevent him from boldly facing it if he believed the step was expected of him.

* * *

To his intimates Frohman was always known as "C. F." These were the magic initials that opened or shut the doors to theatrical fame and fortune.

* * *

Frohman loved sweet things to eat. Pies were his particular fondness, and he never traveled without a box of candy. As he read plays he munched chocolates. He ate with a sort of Johnsonian avidity. When he went to Europe some of his friends, who knew his tastes well, sent him crates of pies instead of flowers or books.

He shared this fondness for sweets with Clyde Fitch. They did not dare to eat as much pastry as they liked before others, so they often retired to Frohman's rooms at Sherry's or to Fitch's house on Fortieth Street, in New York, and had a dessert orgy.

Frohman almost invariably ate as he worked in his office. When people saw sandwiches piled upon his table, he would say:

"A rehearsal accompanied by a sandwich is progress, but a rehearsal interrupted by a meal is delay."

* * *