FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
(November 24, 1849 - October 29, 1924)

British-American novelist and playwright who penned three internationally famous novels: Little Lord Fauntleroy (1885-1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden(1911).

"I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden."  Frances Hodgson Burnett

"Two things cannot be in one place. Where you tend a rose, a thistle cannot grow."  Frances Hodgson Burnett

She was born in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, England, the third of five children of an ironmonger and a mother from a well-to-do Manchester family. The good life was not to last long for the Hodgsons.  In 1852 with a fifth child on the way, her father died of a stroke leaving the family without an income.  She was cared for by her grandmother while her mother ran the family business.
Her grandmother bought her books which in turn taught her to love reading. The Flower Girl, her first book had colored illustrations and poems.  Her mother moved with her children to a new home where they lived with relatives in a home that included a large enclosed garden which became her playground.     Perhaps because of the dire living conditions she endured, she developed a very active imagination and wrote stories in old notebooks.  She enthused over Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel
Uncle Tom's Cabin and spent hours acting out scenes from the book.  She and her siblings were sent to be educated at The Select Seminary for Young Ladies and Gentlemen where she was described as 'precocious' and 'romantic'.
               Manchester's cotton economy was ruined by the American Civil War and in 1863 her uncle William Boond asked the family to join him in Knoxville, TN, where he had a thriving dry goods store. In 1865 the Hodgson family emigrated to the United States.  Poverty still hung in the shadows when the uncle lost much of his business and her family went to live in a log cabin outside Knoxville.   They then moved to a home in Knoxville she dubbed "Noah's Ark", Mt. Ararat' inspired by the house's location atop an isolated hill.   She became a writer to earn money and was published in Godey's Lady's Book in 1868. Her stories also appeared in Scribner's Monthly, Peterson's Magazine, and Harper's Bazaar.    In an effort to escape from the family's poverty, she tended to overwork, thus calling herself 'a pen driving machine'.  By 1869 she had earned enough to move her family into a better home in Knoxville. After her mother's death in 1870 she returned to England for an extended visit.    What followed were a series of episodes that included: her marriage to Swan Burnett, an eye and ear specialist;  The birth of two sons--Lionel (1874) and a first full-length novel,
That Lass o' Lowrie's; birth of a second son Vivien.  She made clothing for her sons which was frilly and designed velvet suits with lace collars for them. She also allowed her sons' hair to grow long, which she then shaped into long curls.   And that is how Little Lord Fauntleroy was born!

After the publication of That Lass o' Lowries she became known as a rising young novelist, established a household in Washington D.C. and began work on Haworth's (1879) as well as writing a dramatic interpretation of That Lass o' Lowries's in response to a pirated stage version in London.
      After a visit to Boston where she met Louisa May Alcott (celebrating her 184th birthday November 29, 2016) and Mary Mapes Dodge, editor of
St. Nicholas, a children's magazine, she began to write children's fiction.
     In 1881 she wrote the play Esmeralda in collaboration with
William Gillette which became the longest running play on Broadway in the 19th century.  (Mary Pickford  starred in the silent film in 1915).
     Despite exhaustion and depression from work, family and household maintenance, she became well known in Washington society and hosted a literary salon on Tuesday evenings with celebrated guests. She also suffered from the heat in D.C..  In the early 1880s she became interested in Christian Science as well as Spiritualism and Theosophy.
                                       She began work on Little Lord Fauntleroy in 1884 with a serialization in
St. Nicholas (1885) and the book publication in 1886.  Receiving good reviews, it became a bestseller in the U.S. and England, was translated into 12 languages and secured her reputation as a writer.

She attended Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887, the beginning of many transatlantic trips from the United States to England. Not being able to stand the heat and crowds in the U.K., she took her sons to Florence.  That winter Sara Crewe or What Happened at Miss Michin's was published in the United States. She adapted it into a stage play and later rewrote the story into A Little Princess.

Tragedy struck in 1890 when her eldest son died from consumption in Paris. She sank into a deep depression.    She sought the distraction of charity work, forming the Drury Lane Boys' Club in 1892.   In 1893 she published an autobiography, devoted to her eldest son, The One I Knew Best of All. 

She continued to write novels as a source of income.  Her controversial divorce from Swan Burnett in which she used the cause as desertion (they had orchestrated the dissolution of their marriage some years earlier) was criticized by the press.  They referred to her as a New Woman with the Washington Post writing that the divorce resulted from her "advanced ideas regarding the duties of a wife and the rights of
women."

From the mid-1890s she lived in England at Maytham Hall--which had a large garden where she indulged her love of flowers and resembled a feudal manor house. She socialized in the local villages and enjoyed the country life. After a rather bizarre courtship and marriage to a would be actor ten years younger than her who wanted her money and complete control as a husband, she ended the marriage.

Maytham Hall had a series of walled gardens and in the rose garden she wrote several books; it was there that she had the idea for The Secret Garden in 1904.

It was initially published in serial form beginning in 1910, and first published in its entirety in 1911.  It is now one of Burnett's most popular novels, and considered a classic of children's literature. Several stage and film adaptations have been made.

Several major themes permeate the story.  Rejuvenation: the growth in the garden and Mary is the book's central symbol.  Using the garden motif, she explores the healing power inherent in living things.   Sensibility: There is struggle between common sense and the accepted wisdom of the day, in which common sense wins.  Overcoming trauma:  Both Mary and Colin undergo a great deal of trauma in their childhood. The effects in this book are not glossed over.   The author teaches her audience how trauma can affect children, but also about their resiliency.  Magical realism: the power of positive thinking and belief it can bring about psychological and physical healing.  Burnett was a follower of Christian Science, with its belief in God as a life force rather than a person.

In 2012 it was ranked number 15 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal which has a U.S. audience.

In 1936 a memorial sculpture (pictured here)
by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in Frances' honor in Central Park's Conservatory Garden.  It depicts her two famous Secret Garden characters:  Mary and Dickon.

"If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden."   The Secret Garden

"There's naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean earth, except th' smell o' fresh growin' things when th' rain falls on 'em."
Dickon  The Secret Garden

She wrote fifty novels between 1877 and 1922. She dramatized thirteen of them and involved herself in the rehearsals of all her plays.   Not only did she write for a huge audience, but she also fought for the rights of ownership in works of fiction.  Her legal action in 1888 to establish her claim to the dramatic rights of her famous story Little Lord Fauntleroy effectively stopped unauthorized dramatizations of novels in England.  The 1911 Copyright Act was a direct result of her action.  The Authors' Association of England celebrated her victory at a banquet and presented her with a diamond bracelet and an illuminated memorial inscribed with the names of many leading writers of the time.  During her lifetime she made a lasting contribution to juvenile literature.

Resources:   Wikipedia
Rosemary Gipson.  Notable Women in the American Theatre, A Biographical Dictionary 1989










           

MARIE JENNEY HOWE (1870 - 1934)
Feminist organizer, leading suffragist, founder of Heterodoxy in 1912 for "women who did things and did them openly." It was a gathering place for suffragettes, feminists, radicals, labor organizers and professional women who met twice a month to dispute topics such as women's rights, pacifism, birth control, revolutionary politics and civil rights.

"To her life was not a man's thing, it was a human thing. It was to be enjoyed by women as it was by men; there should be equality in all things, not in the ballot alone but in the mind, in work, in a career."     Frederic Clemson Howe, husband

Drawing on domestic traditions of parlor plays and dramatic tableaux, suffragists used brief plays and monologues to enliven their own meetings and to enlist new members through performances at women's clubs and community theaters.  She wrote the Anti-suffrage Monologue also known as Someone has to wash the Dishes in 1912 for the drama group of the New York Woman's Suffrage Party and other suffrage organizations. She parodied anti-suffragist arguments that relied on stereotypes of female dependence, irrationality, and delicacy even as they also warned that women voters would exert too much power.
(Resource: History Matters, the U.S. Survey Course on the Web, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/)

EXCERPTS FROM THE ANTI-SUFFRAGE MONOLOGUE

Please do not think of me as old-fashioned.  I pride myself on being a modern up-to-date woman. I believe in all kinds of broad-mindedness, only I do not believe in woman suffrage because to do that would be to deny my sex.

Woman suffrage is the reform against nature.  Look at these ladies sitting on the platform. Observe their physical inability, their mental disability, their spiritual instability and general debility!
Could they walk up to the ballot box, mark a ballot, and drop it in?  Obviously not. Let us grant for the sake of argument that they could mark a ballot. But could they drop it in? Ah, no. All nature is against it. The laws of man cry out against it. The voice of God cries out against it--and so do I.

Enfranchisement is what makes man man.  Disfranchisement is what makes woman woman. If women were enfranchised every man would be just like a woman and every woman would be just like a man. There would be no difference between them. And don't you think this would rob life of just a little of its poetry and romance?

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My first argument against suffrage is that the women would not use it if they had it. You couldn't drive them to the polls. My second argument is, if the women were enfranchised they would neglect their homes, desert their families, and spend all their time at the polls.  You may tell me that the polls are only open once a year. But I know women. They are creatures of habit. If you let them go to the polls once a year, they will hang round the polls all the time.

If the women were enfranchised they would vote exactly as their husbands do and only double the existing vote.  If the women were enfranchised they would vote against their own husbands, thus creating dissension, family quarrels, and divorce.

.....Women cannot understand politics. Therefore there would be no use in giving women political power, because they would not know what to do with it. On the other hand, if the women were enfranchised, they would mount rapidly into power, take all the offices from all the men, and soon we would have governors of all our states and dozens of women acting as President of the United States.

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I have talked to many woman suffragists and I find them very unreasonable. I say to them: "Here I am, convince me." I ask for proof. Then they proceed to tell me of Australia and Colorado and other places where women have passed excellent laws to improve the condition of working women and children.  But I say, "What of it?" I ask for proof.

Then they quote the eight million women of the United States who are now supporting themselves, and the twenty-five thousand married women in the city of New York who are self-supporting.  I don't believe in statistics.   I wish to prove anti-suffrage in a womanly way, that is, by personal example.  This is my method of persuasion. Once I saw a woman driving a horse, and the horse ran away with her.  Isn't that just like a woman?  Once I read in the newspapers about a woman whose house caught on fire, and she threw the children out of the window and carried the pillows downstairs.  Does that show political acumen?  Besides, look at the hats that women wear! Have you ever known a successful woman governor of a state?  Or have you ever known a really truly successful woman  president of the United States? Well if they could they would, wouldn't they?
As for the militant suffragettes, they are all hyenas in petticoats.

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I know the suffragists reply that all our activities have been taken out of the home. The baking, the washing, the weaving, the spinning are all long since taken out of the home. I say all the more reason that something should stay in the home. Let it be woman. Besides, think of the modern invention, the telephone. That has been put into the home. Let women stay at home and answer the telephone.

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Let us consider the argument from the standpoint of religion. The Bible says, "Let the women keep silent in the churches," Paul says, "Let them keep their hats on for fear of the angels." My minister says, "Wives, obey your husbands." And my husband says that woman suffrage would rob the rose of its fragrance and the peach of its bloom. I think that is so sweet.

Besides did George Washington ever say, "Votes for women?" No. Did the Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm ever say "Votes for women?" No. Did Elijah, Elisha, Micah, Hezekiah, Obadiah, and Jeremiah ever say, "Votes for women?" No. Then that settles it.

.....Have you ever pictured to yourself Election Day with women voting? Can you imagine how women, having undergone this terrible ordeal, with their delicate systems all upset, will come out of the voting booths and be led away by policemen, and put into ambulances, while they are fainting and weeping, half laughing, half crying, and having fits upon the public highway?  Don't you think if a woman is going to have a fit, it is far better for her to have it in the privacy of her own home?
And how shall I picture to you the terrors of the day after election?  Divorce and death will rage unchecked, crime and contagious disease will stalk unbridled through the land. Oh, friends, on this subject I feel---I feel, so strongly that I can--not think!

Resource:  Wikipedia  Marie Jenney Howe
#heterodoxy  #NationalWoman'sParty  #NewYorkWoman'sSuffrageParty #MarieJenneyHowe
#feminist #suffragist

TERESA WRIGHT (October 27, 1918 - March 6, 2005)
was interviewed by famed publicist John Springer at the Players on January 25, 1998 about her life and career on stage and screen.

Her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination occurred in 1941 for her debut work in
The Little Foxes.  She did win an Oscar for her performance as the daughter in Mrs. Miniver co-starring with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon.

Top film directors, including William Wyler and
Alfred Hitchcock admired her thorough preparation and quiet professionalism.  (source: Wikipedia)





THE INTERVIEW  (transcribed by Mari Lyn Henry)

JS:       Did you always want to be an actress?

TW:     Yes I did. As a very small child, I acted through high school, voted best actress in school, that sort of thing, came to New York after graduation.  Two months later I got a job understudying
Dorothy McGuire in Our Town out on the road and played it.  My first job in New York was in
Life With Father in 1939.
            I celebrated my 21st birthday in the theatre, in the beautiful Empire Theatre.
Russel Crouse walked down the aisle with a birthday cake singing Happy Birthday to You. It doesn't get much better than that.

JS:      Who was smart enough to get you out to Hollywood? Was it Sam Goldwyn?

TW:   I think it was.  I was told that Lillian Hellman saw me in Life With Father and suggested me
to Willy Wyler and to Goldwyn.  Oscar Serlin made my test.  (During Life With Father I had been asked to do a screen test for a role in a film I really wasn't right for. They put a lot of makeup on me and told me which way to turn.  It was awful!  So Oscar suggested if I was ever asked to do another one he would be glad to do it.)   Thank God he (who had made a lot of tests in his life) heard about it and said when it is really important for you to be in something, let me make the test. So when
Goldwyn wanted to see some film on me he just brought me into a studio without any makeup and just talked to me and that was my screen test for The Little Foxes, my first film.

JS:     For her very first film she got her very first Academy Award nomination.

TW:  I was so lucky. It was a great film to start with.  Willy Wyler directed. Bette Davis,
Herbert Marshall, such a wonderful cast!   Then I was asked to come back to New York and do a
play by Ferenc Molnar and fortunately I was asked to return to Hollywood and do the role in
Mrs. Miniver.  Then the day after I finished that I went into Pride of the Yankees.
         An unusual beginning; it didn't last very long but it was great while it lasted.

JS:   You may be the only performer who was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress and Best Performance by a Supporting Actress in the same year.  Mrs. Miniver and as far as I am concerned you should have won for Pride of the Yankees.  There were other pictures for which you should have been nominated--The Best Years of Our Lives and Shadow of a Doubt.

TW:   Those are my two favorite films. One of my favorite roles was not in a film, but in a movie for television.  The American Movie Classic, Ring Lardner Jr.'s  Golden Honeymoon with
James Whitmore.  It was a charming story.

Teresa Wright in Mrs. Miniver

JS:  Let me throw out some names of people you have been associated with.  Anything you can say or want to say about them.
Alfred Hitchock (Shadow of A Doubt)

TW:  He was a delight to work with when I was working with him. The film was one of the first on location, instead of on a studio set. This was in 1942.  His whole family was with him, Pat (his daughter) and Alma (his wife). It was like being with a family. Joe Cotten and his wife were there.  Hitchock was great fun.  It was more like being in a play than being in a film.


JS: You mentioned Bette Davis. She was kind of intimidating for a girl in her first move, wasn't she?

TW:  I was scared before I met her. It was overwhelming. The day I met her I was on the Goldwyn lot and I went into what was the Goldwyn dining room, a little bungalow, and I was talking to some friends and my back was to the door and she came in. I guess I heard her voice and I just had chills down my back.  I was introduced to her, but once I got on the set it was just like being with any other actor in a play, on stage, in rehearsal and she was wonderful!  All the stories about being difficult--the old mill really grinds them up you know. Not any truth in it at all.

JS:   Gary Cooper.

TW:  He was just dear. I didn't feel that I knew him well because for the most part he kept to himself. He used to whittle, sitting there whittling airplanes, and when we weren't working he'd be outside flying them.

JS:  Frederic March.

TW:  I adored Freddy. He was also a good friend. He and his wife Florence (Eldridge) lived near
Bob (Robert Anderson) and I in Bridgewater, CT. We saw a great deal of them.  He was marvelous and very much the spirit of The Best Years of Our Lives.  

JS:  How about Joseph Cotten?

TW:  Joe was very funny. When we were making Shadow of a Doubt we were on location in Santa Rosa, close to the Chinese community in San Francisco. One evening we were treated to a very ancient Chinese feast and Joe kept commenting about all the strange exotic dishes (like hundred year old eggs) and he was hilarious.

JS:   Bob Mitchum.

TW:  Bob was one of the most unusual people I ever worked with. He had a bad boy reputation. For some reason he liked to appear as not caring, not knowing his lines.  He would come in and say what is the scene, what are we doing today, and so forth. Then he would go on and he would know it word perfect. It is a strange kind of psychological thing to let people think you don't care and then be absolutely marvelous on screen.  If you really looked at his face there was always something going on in his eyes and you got it.  That's what pictures really are.

JS:   Marlon Brando who did his first film with you.

TW:  A little bit like Mitchum in that he would like to kid around off stage. He would tell the tallest tales and behave like a twelve year old but on stage he was completely---I mean none of us could touch him in The Men. He was so marvelous and so that person and the rest of us were acting.
On set in those days Marlon was not only good but he didn't want to do anything that was wrong or would rock the boat in any way.  He wanted to learn all about films.
         There was a scene that was very tense and long where the camera had to come in and out, and the technicians would move the carpet as the camera came. When you have done films, you learn not to think about crew members moving around. Between takes, he would ask what they were doing. So I told him that they had to move the carpet for the camera to move in easily. But if it bothered him they were able to do it ten different ways and all you have to do is request that.  He said no. So I went to director Fred Zinnemann and told him about Marlon's question and my response. Fred asked them to do it differently.  That is how much Marlon did not want to rock the boat.  I felt Marlon became disillusioned as an actor, perhaps frightened to go back to the stage. When I think of what he did in
The Godfather, he really is a great, great actor and that shouldn't be forgotten.

JS:   Dame May Whitty. (During filming of Mrs. Miniver)

TW:  Richard Ney (Greer Garson's son in Mrs. Miniver and husband in real life) was just not one of my favorite people. He was difficult to act with. He affected a British accent in his speech throughout the filming.  One day he and Dame May Whitty had a scene together in a swing. It had to be done over and over.  Finally she said, (British and grand) "Dear boy, would you please speak up? I cannot understand you."  And he said, "All right I'll do it your way but I prefer it my way." And she said,
"Your way? You don't have a way!"  Everyone broke up.

JS:  Director Francis Ford Coppola and The Rainmaker? (adaptation of John Grisham's book)
She played role of Miss Birdie in 1997.

TW: I was in the film two weeks. We had a week's rehearsal which I haven't done since the days of William Wyler and Hitchcock.  It makes such a difference when you get to rehearse, really work on something and we had a week's rehearsal in Napa Valley. From there we went to Memphis where we had a week's rehearsal. When we were on the set, I remember the first scene I did. Francis said, "Well we are going to rehearse this on film to get us into it." And that was the take. He likes to do that because we had already rehearsed.

JS:  During the war when we first saw you in Mrs. Miniver, I was with a group of guys who had a crush on you. The other guys had a crush on Betty Grable and Jane Russell. For a long time after I got married my wife could not quite understand that--until today.

Before the interview there was a screening of The Actress starring Ms. Wright, Jean Simmons and Spencer Tracy.  Anthony Perkins made his screen debut in this film.  It was directed by George Cukor and was based on the play Years Ago by Ruth Gordon.  John Springer asked her: "In the business atmosphere of the 1950s, what was your agent's reaction to your leaping from ingenue roles to the mother's role in The Actress?  She didn't remember she had as much screen time as she did.  "It probably couldn't have been better cast. It was lovely working with Jean and Spencer and George. I wasn't old enough for the role, just ten years older than Jean, and today it would be cast better."
Before the beginning of the screening, she had received a telegram from Ruth Gordon which said, "I never thought I'd see the day when you would be playing my mother!"

LEST WE FORGET
HAPPY 116TH BIRTHDAY
HELEN HAYES
(October 10, 1900 - October 10, 2016)
FIRST LADY OF THE AMERICAN THEATRE

In 1972, Helen Hayes and her best friend
Anita Loos collaborated on a book about their 'trip back down' odyssey of rediscovering the fabulous New York city that they so loved.
What emerged was Twice Over Lightly: New York Then and Now.

When Ms. Hayes was asked at a luncheon in her honor, "What do you think we're doing on Broadway that's wrong?

Her reflections on the past, present and future of Broadway were shared with the honesty, passion and love of the theatre that she embraced for over seven decades.

IN HER OWN WORDS
       Well, I think we've become too earnest. We've forgotten that the main function of a player is to play.  I wish we'd all relax and put on some gay, glamorous shows with actors wearing beautiful romantic clothes.
        I think Broadway started to slip when we began to take ourselves seriously as Artists, and spelled it out in capital letters.  We strained for what we called 'artistic integrity.' The trouble was that too many of us mistook pretensions for integrity.  We've been sold on the idea that truth has got to be ugly, depressing, vulgar. In recent years we've tried so hard to strip the theatre of beauty that we've stripped some actors of their costumes.  Let's see what can be done to put clothes back on actors.
       Well, I'd like to see our commercial theatre relieved of its phony pretensions to Art. In all the years I've been in the theatre, I can count the number of great artists I've encountered on the fingers of one hand.   But I've worked with plenty of real pros like me. We adored our jobs, developed and used what talents we had to the limit of our capabilities.  If we fell short of greatness we weren't undone by that so long as audiences liked and appreciated us.
       That was the time when we only hoped to please the public who paid to see us. But now they are the last thing we ever think about.  We only aim to please ourselves and to impress other actors or the critics, whom we pretend to despise.
      Time was when there was a love affair between the theatre and the public, and because love creates a magical illusion we loved ones behind the footlights---those dear, kind footlights!--walked in beauty.  People came to the theatre to see us enacting lives of vivid color, in elegant speech and in gorgeous clothes---all in an aura of Du Barry Pink light.  It was not Art; it was not Truth. But it sure was comforting.  I'd love to see a matinee idol again, suave, impeccably tailored, breaking hearts with a light touch. Or an improbably chic Ina Claire changing Chanel creations eight times a performance and never being caught with her wit down.
      Yes, I'd like to see the commercial theatre relieved of the burden of 'Art' and free to caper.
Let's revive our love affair with the public.  If people really care, they'll find their way back to us. If only we can start people caring again, Broadway will come back."

LEST WE FORGET
HAPPY 116TH BIRTHDAY
HELEN HAYES
(October 10, 1900 - October 10, 2016)
FIRST LADY OF THE AMERICAN THEATRE

In 1972, Helen Hayes and her best friend
Anita Loos collaborated on a book about their 'trip back down' odyssey of rediscovering the fabulous New York city that they so loved.
What emerged was Twice Over Lightly: New York Then and Now.

When Ms. Hayes was asked at a luncheon in her honor, "What do you think we're doing on Broadway that's wrong?

Her reflections on the past, present and future of Broadway were shared with the honesty, passion and love of the theatre that she embraced for over seven decades.

IN HER OWN WORDS
       Well, I think we've become too earnest. We've forgotten that the main function of a player is to play.  I wish we'd all relax and put on some gay, glamorous shows with actors wearing beautiful romantic clothes.
        I think Broadway started to slip when we began to take ourselves seriously as Artists, and spelled it out in capital letters.  We strained for what we called 'artistic integrity.' The trouble was that too many of us mistook pretensions for integrity.  We've been sold on the idea that truth has got to be ugly, depressing, vulgar. In recent years we've tried so hard to strip the theatre of beauty that we've stripped some actors of their costumes.  Let's see what can be done to put clothes back on actors.
       Well, I'd like to see our commercial theatre relieved of its phony pretensions to Art. In all the years I've been in the theatre, I can count the number of great artists I've encountered on the fingers of one hand.   But I've worked with plenty of real pros like me. We adored our jobs, developed and used what talents we had to the limit of our capabilities.  If we fell short of greatness we weren't undone by that so long as audiences liked and appreciated us.
       That was the time when we only hoped to please the public who paid to see us. But now they are the last thing we ever think about.  We only aim to please ourselves and to impress other actors or the critics, whom we pretend to despise.
      Time was when there was a love affair between the theatre and the public, and because love creates a magical illusion we loved ones behind the footlights---those dear, kind footlights!--walked in beauty.  People came to the theatre to see us enacting lives of vivid color, in elegant speech and in gorgeous clothes---all in an aura of Du Barry Pink light.  It was not Art; it was not Truth. But it sure was comforting.  I'd love to see a matinee idol again, suave, impeccably tailored, breaking hearts with a light touch. Or an improbably chic Ina Claire changing Chanel creations eight times a performance and never being caught with her wit down.
      Yes, I'd like to see the commercial theatre relieved of the burden of 'Art' and free to caper.
Let's revive our love affair with the public.  If people really care, they'll find their way back to us. If only we can start people caring again, Broadway will come back."

LEST WE FORGET GENEVIEVE WARD
(March 27, 1837 - August 18, 1922)

She was appointed Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire on her 84th birthday in 1921.

"She is the greatest actress I have ever seen, and quite the most artistically faultless."
           Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Born in New York City to Colonel Samuel Ward and his wife Lucy, she was the granddaughter of former mayor Gideon Lee. When she was three years old, she accompanied her parents to Europe. (Imagine being a toddler on a ship in 1840!)   While there she became interested in the visual arts and music, and became proficient on the piano.

At the age of 19 she married a Russian count, Constantine de Guerbel. When the family returned to New York, she met Henriette Sontag who encouraged her to study singing in Italy and Paris.  Her debut appearance under the stage name
Ginevra Guerrabella occurred at Bergamo in the opera Stella di Napoli (1855).  Following appearances were in Lucrezia Borgia (Milan, 1856); Don Giovanni (Paris, 1859); Robin Hood (London, 1861) and her final role in La Traviata (New York, 1862).
          Loss of her voice due to an illness obliged her to leave the operatic stage and for some years she taught singing in New York.

A DRAMATIC CAREER

Queen Margaret in Richard lll

She returned to England in 1873 and began a long successful dramatic career.  Roles include: Lady Macbeth at Theatre Royal, Manchester; The Hunchback with Charles Wyndham; Rebecca in Ivanhoe (1875). Her most popular success was as Stephanie de Mohrivart in H. C. Merivale's and
F.C. Grove's Forget Me Not which she produced at the Lyceum Theatre (1879). She toured with it over 2,000 times all over the world.
       In her later years she portrayed character roles in Shakespeare's Coriolanus as Volumnia and Margaret of Anjou in Richard lll at the Old Vic theatre in London.

What follows are her published thoughts on the essentials and qualifications of a good actor.
I think for the actors who read this blog that you will find them insightful and inspirational.


IN HER OWN WORDS
             "In my opinion the physical attributes of an actor or actress should be a good figure, an expressive face, clear, sonorous, penetrative voice, articulation distinct and unhesitating, and a graceful bearing.  Mentally he or she should be endowed with a keen perception of character, artistic tastes, and above all, the dramatic instinct.
              By dramatic instinct I mean that natural quality which enables one almost intuitively to simulate the effects produced by the various emotions and passions of the human creature, and to understand the workings of these emotions.  This inborn power of controlling the means employed for the simulation of these emotions is the sine qua non in every actor, or in any one who would seek "by action and utterance and the power of speech to move men's hearts." The method to be used in mastering these means will vary with the individual student. The only certain formula I can name is work and observation.
           In addition to natural gifts, all who have reached eminence on the stage of the past or the present have had this capacity for constant and untiring industry. 'There are no gains without pains.'
          With regard to emotion and whether an actress should "feel" her part, I cannot do better than recall the remarks I contributed some years ago to Mr. Archer's symposium on 'The Psychology of Acting'.  Tears come to my eyes in a moving situation, but seldom run over. Sometimes they are unbidden, and sometimes I work on them.  I have been obliged when studying a part (Constance in King John for instance) to stop tears and sobs and would not have attempted to play it until I could control my feelings.    ....I have not found it made any difference with my audience whether I actually shed tears or not (very few see the real tears).  They feel the pathos of the situation and do a good part of the acting themselves.
         Many sad experiences in my life have helped to intensify my feelings on the stage. I have seen a young actress, whose pathos rarely touched her audience, perform one night under the influence of the deepest sorrow, tears rolling down her cheeks freely, and sobs breaking her voice. Yet the audience was quite as unmoved as on other occasions in the same situation.  To my mind this proves that personal emotion, unaccompanied by the power of dramatic expression, is not sufficient to move an audience."

RESOURCES

Sue Young Histories.  Blog: Genevieve-ward-1837-1922

Genevieve Ward.  Both Sides of the Curtain
A volume of her reminiscences.  1918

Wikipedia

MISS ELLEN TERRY was born at Coventry on February 27, 1848. She made her first appearance at the Old Princess's Theatre, then under the spirited management of Charles Kean, playing Mamillius in A Winter's Tale.  She has told us how her heart swelled with pride when she learned what demands the part made upon her histrionic powers.

     "A small go-cart, which it was my duty to drag about the stage, was also a keen sense of pride, and a great trouble to me. My first dramatic failure dates from that go-cart.  I was told to run about with it on the stage, and while carrying out my instructions with more vigor than discretion, tripped over the handle, and down I came on my back.
                                                      A titter ran through the house and I felt my career as an actress was                                                       ruined forever!"
            She later played Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which had a run
of two hundred and fifty nights at the Princess's.
                  "I revelled in the impish unreason of the sprite and even now feel the charm of parts where the imagination can have free play, and there is no occasion to observe too closely the cold, hard rules of conventionality and fetters of dry-as-dust realism."

ELLEN TERRY IN HER OWN WORDS
Early training with Mr. Byrn

"Perhaps a word or two with reference to the dear old days when I too was a beginner on the stage may best illustrate my thoughts on the actor's apprenticeship.  It was at the old Princess's that I was grounded in the essentials of an actress's education.  Well do I remember the lessons in 'deportment' which I received at the hands of dear old Mr. Byrn, the prinicpal tenet of whose dramatic faith was that -----"an actress was no actress unless she had learned to dance early."
          He would have had walking and posturing reduced to an exact science. An old-fashioned minuet step--to which he attached special importance--and, "walking the plank," which was to walk first slowly, then quicker, then at a considerable pace, along one of the planks extending the whole length of the stage, without deviating an inch from the straight line, were among his methods of giving an actress ease and grace in her actions.  Although we children used to laugh at Mr. Byrn's military orders, I for one have since learned to appreciate the value, not only to deportment, but to a clear utterance, which lies in observing the order 'a chest thrown out, and a head thrown back.'

ARTICULATION LESSONS
           In the most essential detail of articulation I learned from Mrs. Kean even at this early period of my apprenticeship; for although that gifted actress mainly directed her instructions to the grown up ladies of the company, I was always a willing pupil at her little lectures.
     "A, E, I, O, U my dear 'she used to say,' are five distinct vowels, so don't mix them all up together as if you were making a pudding. If you want to say, 'I am going to the river,' say it plainly and don't tell us you are going to the 'rivah'!  You must say her, not har; it is God not Gud; remonstrance, not remunstrance, and so on."  As to gesture she would say, 'Use your arm from the shoulder; not from the elbow. Get your action free; don't stand like a trussed fowl"

ADVICE TO THE ACTOR IN HER OWN WORDS

The value of such teaching when the mind is young and impressionable cannot well be overestimated. It has always seemed to me, however, that the best school of acting is the theatre, where students may go and witness good acting for themselves, with their eyes and ears open to the varying shades of expression, the propriety of actions, and interpretation of character.

I consider it is a very important thing that actors should, at an early stage of their careers, come under the influence of the immortal Shakespeare. The Shakespearean drama is the most wholesome of all food for the actor. During my juvenile days at the Princess's, that theatre was almost entirely given up to Shakespeare, and although I was very young then, I am conscious that, even, as early as that, association with the Shakespearean drama was most beneficial to me, and the lessons I learned almost unconsciously at the Princess's have, I am persuaded, been of no little use to me in my career.
                                        One thing which the young actress must always bear in mind is, that no stage effects should be left to chance.  Everything should be rehearsed and foreseen. No greater mistake is made than to suppose that because certain effects on the stage may seem to be spontaneous they are due to the 'inspiration of the moment.' The true artist always calculates to a nicety what he or she will do at certain crucial points in the progress of the play, and it is when the action thus prearranged is carried out with the appearance of spontaneity that the art is true.  Seemingly accidental effects may thus be, and in a great artist always are, the result of much study and elaborate rehearsal.  The beginner may regard the advice, "Always act at rehearsal." as one of the axioms of acting.
                                        Another important thing is to have a reason for every action on the stage. Every movement, every look of the eye should tell to some purpose; there should be no meaningless gesticulation.  Repose is at once the most necessary and the most difficult thing to cultivate; but by perseverance the art of appearing at perfect ease under the critical gaze of an audience can be mastered.

RESOURCE:  Hammerton, J. A.  The Actor's Art: Theatrical Reminiscences and Methods of Study and Advice to Aspirants specially contributed by Leading actors of the Day. Preparatory note by Henry Irving.  London.  George Redway. 1897
         

LEST WE FORGET MARIAN SELDES
(August 23, 1928 - October 6, 2014)

When the brilliant actress Marian Seldes died, the New York Times obituary referred to her as a 'regal personality' in New York theatre for more than six decades in plays ranging from whodunits to the work of
Tennessee Williams (The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore) and, especially Edward Albee (A Delicate Balance, Three Tall Women, Tiny Alice).
           Perhaps she is best known as the actress who never missed a performance.  Understudies were told up front they never would go on for her.  She co-starred in Ira Levin's 1978 thriller Deathtrap for almost 1800
                                        performances and earned an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records.
She performed more than 900 times in Peter Shaffer's Equus. In 2005 she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame and in 2010 she was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the
Tony Awards ceremony.

MARIAN AND ME



I was fortunate to be in the very packed Players Grill on June 19, 1997 when she reminisced about her life and career.  Her talk was filled with wit, wisdom, a sharp sense of humor, passion, humility and most of all her love for her beloved husband Garson Kanin whose extensive writing credits included Born Yesterday,
Three Men on a Horse, Do Re Mi and five film scripts for Tracy and Hepburn.
      She married Garson in 1990 after his marriage to actress and playwright Ruth Gordon for 32 years ended with her death. This evening marked their seventh anniversary.  She referred to their marriage as 'an amazing experience which caused her life to rhyme'.

I taped her conversation and sent it to her for review and corrections. She returned it with her edits in red ink and a note thanking me, adding "I've gone over this very quickly because I'm about to go into rehearsal for IVANOV at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre."  Kevin Kline who played the title role had been one of
                                                          her students at Juilliard.
                                                       
MS. SELDES IN HER OWN WORDS

Garson Kanin

  "I am going to introduce myself with a playwright's words. Because you never know who you are. You only imagine that. These words are from a play called Another Time by Ronald Harwood.  I think these words reflect what most of us think about the theatre.
     "I am a lover of books, a lover of poetry, a lover of art--I mean literature, the theatre, music, painting, ballet, opera. All art is an expression of what is best about each and every one of us. My belief is that art is a solace, art is a benediction. My prayers are for more Shakespeares and George Eliots. There is not a thought in my head, not a feeling in my body that art hasn't in one way or another informed and fired. I believe there is a chance that art might, just might turn the whole world upside down."

The theatre that I began in the late forties was the theatre that I had dreamed of and the theatre I thought would go on forever. Talk about denial! I thought I would do all the great classic plays and that would be my life. It never occurred to me that people wouldn't want to see them. Or that they wouldn't be done. I realized what would be greater than being in classic plays would be to create parts in new plays.
         I wanted to be a dancer.  When I went to the Neighborhood Playhouse I studied with
Martha Graham and it changed my life. She was a great teacher and I could do modern dance. I wasn't afraid of it. I think because I am tall and I think because all you've got is yourself. I was terribly lucky that I had the dream of wanting to be a dancer because it is not just important to move well, but also to not be afraid to move.
          Early in my career I was told I was too tall and I would never play opposite anybody and if you listen to that you can jump in the river. Those things are so insignificant really. They are only significant when they keep you from working.
         I really dreamed of a kind of transcendent career. Every year I would be in a great play with a great part. I mean I lived in a dream.  Lucille Lortel called me up one day and said I am going to do a play about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.  I am fortunate enough to have had a father who knew Gertrude Stein and so I read her always.  I knew Lucille was going to give me a chance to play Gertrude and she said "And I want you to play Alice B. Toklas." I thought she knows me and what I can do.  I have never had such an experience in my life as in that part.  I went into my father's world, a world of Paris in the twenties when you could live on writing words and the romance and the greatness of their love.  I just adored it. I mention it because you don't always know what you should play. You don't always know what you can play.

FRIGHTENED OF FAILURE
                  I have a reputation in the business for never missing a performance. As a child I never missed school.  It really isn't anything to do with acting. I try not to take on anything I cannot do. I'm frightened of failure.  I'm frightened of not getting someplace on time, of not showing up. I have tremendous anxieties so that my way of quelling them is to establish a record I cannot break. The other part is childish too. It is sort of your own part. From the time you play it, it is really yours.

DEATH TRAP
                Death Trap was the first play I was in in which the excitement of the audience was almost palpable.  The shrieking and screaming would be there every night and it was extremely exciting. It was a wonderful experience to do and I loved it. When people say, well you were in it 1,800 times, I never say well I was in half of it, because of course they killed me.  You might ask me why I stayed so long in the play. I am going to tell you the truth and it troubles me in a way. Because nothing else came my way!  I wasn't really looking for a world record. I would have gone. But I am not good at seeking things out and I am not good at self-promotion.  I'd have gone, but if I could live the Death Trap experience over again, I would have fired my agent and I would be a really big star now.
             I didn't mind. I was teaching at Juilliard the whole time. I had an amazing life. I had those great students and that really wonderful school and this sort of organized life in the play. I never made money in the theatre.  I made enough to buy an apartment.

WORKING WITH GREAT ACTORS
               Another answer to the question to why did I stay? There were only these two plays (Death Trap and Equus) that I stayed in so long.  Everybody else left (not because of me)! But I was playing with an amazing number of other actors and in the case of both plays--some major actors. I don't think you would give up acting with Richard Burton or Stacy Keach or Anthony Perkins.
              When I see a cast list of anything I am going to be in, I want someone to be there who is remarkable.  For the first ten or fifteen years of my career, the actors, the directors, the scene designers were remarkable people. I have to force myself not to live in the past.  I was born in New York and Broadway is the theatre from my own heart in the city where I live. That in my life I could have been in the plays of Tennessee Williams, Peter Shaffer, and more recently Edward Albee-I have been so lucky. And the idea of having an actual living playwright in the case of Garson.
    Garson's play Happy Ending is about a couple something like the Lunts, so revered, who are coming to the end of their lives and their careers in the theatre.  I played it with Peter Donat who has some of that incredible sweetness that men have, that thing that draws you to them.  Burton had it too, to an extent that your heart stopped.  When he looked at me he said "You're very tall!" and I said "Well there's nothing wrong with that."  He never mentioned it again.

Because I never got to do all the parts I dreamed of playing, maybe it has made me see that is another way to love the theatre.  To do whatever comes along. I had three lines as Eleanor Roosevelt in
Truman, but I got to work with Lee Richardson.  I feel about him and his work and about his life in the theatre the way I felt about people's pictures I cut out of magazines when I was a kid.
              I married Garson Kanin, and there you are.

LEST WE FORGET MARIAN SELDES
(August 23, 1928 - October 6, 2014)

When the brilliant actress Marian Seldes died, the New York Times obituary referred to her as a 'regal personality' in New York theatre for more than six decades in plays ranging from whodunits to the work of
Tennessee Williams (The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore) and, especially Edward Albee (A Delicate Balance, Three Tall Women, Tiny Alice).
           Perhaps she is best known as the actress who never missed a performance.  Understudies were told up front they never would go on for her.  She co-starred in Ira Levin's 1978 thriller Deathtrap for almost 1800
                                        performances and earned an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records.
She performed more than 900 times in Peter Shaffer's Equus. In 2005 she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame and in 2010 she was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the
Tony Awards ceremony.

MARIAN AND ME



I was fortunate to be in the very packed Players Grill on June 19, 1997 when she reminisced about her life and career.  Her talk was filled with wit, wisdom, a sharp sense of humor, passion, humility and most of all her love for her beloved husband Garson Kanin whose extensive writing credits included Born Yesterday,
Three Men on a Horse, Do Re Mi and five film scripts for Tracy and Hepburn.
      She married Garson in 1990 after his marriage to actress and playwright Ruth Gordon for 32 years ended with her death. This evening marked their seventh anniversary.  She referred to their marriage as 'an amazing experience which caused her life to rhyme'.

I taped her conversation and sent it to her for review and corrections. She returned it with her edits in red ink and a note thanking me, adding "I've gone over this very quickly because I'm about to go into rehearsal for IVANOV at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre."  Kevin Kline who played the title role had been one of
                                                          her students at Juilliard.
                                                       
MS. SELDES IN HER OWN WORDS

Garson Kanin

  "I am going to introduce myself with a playwright's words. Because you never know who you are. You only imagine that. These words are from a play called Another Time by Ronald Harwood.  I think these words reflect what most of us think about the theatre.
     "I am a lover of books, a lover of poetry, a lover of art--I mean literature, the theatre, music, painting, ballet, opera. All art is an expression of what is best about each and every one of us. My belief is that art is a solace, art is a benediction. My prayers are for more Shakespeares and George Eliots. There is not a thought in my head, not a feeling in my body that art hasn't in one way or another informed and fired. I believe there is a chance that art might, just might turn the whole world upside down."

The theatre that I began in the late forties was the theatre that I had dreamed of and the theatre I thought would go on forever. Talk about denial! I thought I would do all the great classic plays and that would be my life. It never occurred to me that people wouldn't want to see them. Or that they wouldn't be done. I realized what would be greater than being in classic plays would be to create parts in new plays.
         I wanted to be a dancer.  When I went to the Neighborhood Playhouse I studied with
Martha Graham and it changed my life. She was a great teacher and I could do modern dance. I wasn't afraid of it. I think because I am tall and I think because all you've got is yourself. I was terribly lucky that I had the dream of wanting to be a dancer because it is not just important to move well, but also to not be afraid to move.
          Early in my career I was told I was too tall and I would never play opposite anybody and if you listen to that you can jump in the river. Those things are so insignificant really. They are only significant when they keep you from working.
         I really dreamed of a kind of transcendent career. Every year I would be in a great play with a great part. I mean I lived in a dream.  Lucille Lortel called me up one day and said I am going to do a play about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.  I am fortunate enough to have had a father who knew Gertrude Stein and so I read her always.  I knew Lucille was going to give me a chance to play Gertrude and she said "And I want you to play Alice B. Toklas." I thought she knows me and what I can do.  I have never had such an experience in my life as in that part.  I went into my father's world, a world of Paris in the twenties when you could live on writing words and the romance and the greatness of their love.  I just adored it. I mention it because you don't always know what you should play. You don't always know what you can play.

FRIGHTENED OF FAILURE
                  I have a reputation in the business for never missing a performance. As a child I never missed school.  It really isn't anything to do with acting. I try not to take on anything I cannot do. I'm frightened of failure.  I'm frightened of not getting someplace on time, of not showing up. I have tremendous anxieties so that my way of quelling them is to establish a record I cannot break. The other part is childish too. It is sort of your own part. From the time you play it, it is really yours.

DEATH TRAP
                Death Trap was the first play I was in in which the excitement of the audience was almost palpable.  The shrieking and screaming would be there every night and it was extremely exciting. It was a wonderful experience to do and I loved it. When people say, well you were in it 1,800 times, I never say well I was in half of it, because of course they killed me.  You might ask me why I stayed so long in the play. I am going to tell you the truth and it troubles me in a way. Because nothing else came my way!  I wasn't really looking for a world record. I would have gone. But I am not good at seeking things out and I am not good at self-promotion.  I'd have gone, but if I could live the Death Trap experience over again, I would have fired my agent and I would be a really big star now.
             I didn't mind. I was teaching at Juilliard the whole time. I had an amazing life. I had those great students and that really wonderful school and this sort of organized life in the play. I never made money in the theatre.  I made enough to buy an apartment.

WORKING WITH GREAT ACTORS
               Another answer to the question to why did I stay? There were only these two plays (Death Trap and Equus) that I stayed in so long.  Everybody else left (not because of me)! But I was playing with an amazing number of other actors and in the case of both plays--some major actors. I don't think you would give up acting with Richard Burton or Stacy Keach or Anthony Perkins.
              When I see a cast list of anything I am going to be in, I want someone to be there who is remarkable.  For the first ten or fifteen years of my career, the actors, the directors, the scene designers were remarkable people. I have to force myself not to live in the past.  I was born in New York and Broadway is the theatre from my own heart in the city where I live. That in my life I could have been in the plays of Tennessee Williams, Peter Shaffer, and more recently Edward Albee-I have been so lucky. And the idea of having an actual living playwright in the case of Garson.
    Garson's play Happy Ending is about a couple something like the Lunts, so revered, who are coming to the end of their lives and their careers in the theatre.  I played it with Peter Donat who has some of that incredible sweetness that men have, that thing that draws you to them.  Burton had it too, to an extent that your heart stopped.  When he looked at me he said "You're very tall!" and I said "Well there's nothing wrong with that."  He never mentioned it again.

Because I never got to do all the parts I dreamed of playing, maybe it has made me see that is another way to love the theatre.  To do whatever comes along. I had three lines as Eleanor Roosevelt in
Truman, but I got to work with Lee Richardson.  I feel about him and his work and about his life in the theatre the way I felt about people's pictures I cut out of magazines when I was a kid.
              I married Garson Kanin, and there you are.

GEORGE ADE, HOOSIER HUMORIST, PLAYWRIGHT, JOURNALIST, STORYTELLER

(1866 - 1944)

REMEMBERING HIS VALUES, CHARACTER, PHILOSOPHY ESPECIALLY DURING THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS OF 20016

Before his death, he knew that life had been good to him. "I feel that I have been fortunate in arriving on earth just when things were beginning to happen. As a member of the reception committee I have greeted the telephone, the electric light, the airplane, motor cars, moving pictures, radio, concrete highways, electric refrigeration, air conditioning, woman suffrage, television, and a lot of interesting by-products...It's a great world and most of the people are worth knowing. I am glad to have been among those present."  But it was in his essay, "The Yankee's Prayer" that his philosophy was eloquently expressed and inspirational.   Here below is the text.

Help me to get things straight. Give me an outlook on the whole world. Open my eyes to the truth regarding the material wealth and the golden opportunity of my native land, but strike me with swift punishment if I roll my 'r's in speaking the "great" or feed the vanity of my ignorant neighbors who think that the U.S.A. has become a symbol of perfection.

Help me to understand that the comforts and luxuries and pleasant accessories of modern life abound in my bailiwick because my friends and I have moved into a new country in which there is much recent wealth to be divided.  Teach me to modify my sense of importance with an humble thankfulness.

     Save me from delusions regarding continued and abounding prosperity. Give me the wisdom to preach against wastefulness.

     Incline me to avoid boasting, but keep me from being an idle weeper or an idle faultfinder. Let me read history aright and learn that a people seldom can be made happy and prosperous by involved and ponderous legislation. Assist me and my associates to look to ourselves and not to Congress.

     Give me patience and tolerance and strength to brace myself against sudden and hysterical and gusty changes of popular feeling.  Let me not construe the rule of the majority into a fool axiom that the majority is always right. Cause me to bear in mind that in every age of which we have record, an unpopular minority advanced measures, which, later on, were accepted by the majority.

    Protect me against labels and memberships and binding obligations which will submerge me as an individual. Save me from being enslaved or hampered by catch-phrases. May I never take orders which will make me a coward in the sight of my conscience. Let it not be said of me that I "belong" to a political party.

    Lead me to an understanding of the new meaning of "service."  Help me to believe that the man prospers best and longest who is concerned as to the welfare of the people about him. Compel me to see that our organization is a huge experiment in cooperation and not a scramble for prizes.

    Give me large portions of charity with which to regard the performances of my easy-going countrymen. Help me to judge every act by the intent of it.

    Increase my usefulness by giving me an X-ray vision, so that I may detect the goodness and deservedness of those who do not wear my kind of clothes, worship in my church or live in my township.  Make it open to me that integrity and patriotism cannot be monopolized.

   Keep me from trouble, but make me dangerous if I am drawn into a fight. Convince me that every battle should be fought to a finish, so there will not be any argument later on.

   LET me remain level-headed when I am envied by the people of other lands, but do not take away the things which arouse their envy. PERMIT me to retain my heritage as long as I know how to take care o fit.

Reference:
Google search
Wikipedia: George Ade
Kelly, Fred C.  GEORGE ADE WARMHEARTED SATIRIST. 1947

                                               SARAH BERNHARDT AT THE PLAYERS IN 1911

                                                      A loving memory from George Middleton

                  George Middleton was a Player for 40 years. In his autobiography, he describes in detail Sarah Bernhardtʼs visit to the Players in 1911.  

         “My one meeting was at the Players: a reception, one of the very few our club ever gave a woman. She plucked the carnations from a vase on a tea table by which she stood. She gave me mine. I can see the smile yet. Iʼll wager I am the only one who still has the flower. I have always been sentimental about the great ladies of the stage. Sentiment is all I could ever give them in return for what they have given me. Ada Rehan moves into my thoughts often, and even now, as I write. . . . But place a Sarah, for her little scene.

          " It is hardly anything---a flower, and a woman in a crowd; but I have kept the impression.  She was more than an individual, of course--such personalities suggest so much beyond their mere being; she was a world of emanations, the countless memories others like myself have kept alive which she gave birth to!  She was a tradition that those of us still living helped to make. She was to be the last of a royal line, and in her turn, had made the theatre of her time great. Also, she was unquestionably the most famous woman then alive. Yet, only a few years later, I was to stand at her grave...... 

           She came to the Club June 20, 1911, with a couple of secretaries and Lou Tellegen, her last romance. She was still able to walk in spite of her bad leg. She stood by the stairs to greet us with the spontaneous grace which had, no doubt, become a mechanical habit.  She wore a toque, on the side of which a bunch of grapes seemed mysteriously to dangle. Her hair edged about this---it was not gray, of course. The gown was of yellow lace, with golden buckles around her waist. The collar reached chin-high so that her neck was hidden; the sleeves ended in long points which left only the fingers visible. It was all designed to mask her age; for even then she was past sixty. " Her face was a marvel of make-up; the eyes shadowed, the cheeks without a wrinkle! The only time her age showed was when she smiled; for nothing could conceal the way the skin sank back around the mouth. She carried her habitual long scarf, wound around her back and over both arms. "

                     Francis Wilson, Vice President, greeted her in French. He didnʼt know French; but, to our astonishment, he had acquired this perfect sample. That was Frank. " She responded, full of emotion. How happy she was to be there! Her arms lifted up ecstatically and held high and pausing, for a moment, as I had so often seen her on the stage--while the long scarf hung from them, lining her in its frame. Her face at times was innocent, almost virginal; yet, in profile, it was a sphinx cynically guarding every secret of life she herself had devoured. It was a double woman I saw. As she talked, the scarf wound constantly with the serpent life she gave it.  We went out where tea was served. She stood by the table and poured. She hesitated to put sugar in one cup, as there were no prongs. A member gallantly begged her to use her fingers. She smiled and did. It was then she reached for the red carnations and gave them to us--to me; just so that I could write this now perhaps.

             A telegram from John Drew, our President, who was on the road, was passed to her. I was standing behind her when she eyed it, clasped it to her heart, overcome with sentiment. But I noticed that she held the wire upside down. With the resource of one who had forgotten a cue she handed it over and mentioned that it be read out loud. Some one translated it. She got it that way. How moved she was!

           A tactless, well intentioned member brought forward a photograph she had given the club many years before. The sun had faded it even more than time had touched her own youth. She looked at it and murmured softly in French, so that only those of us near could hear: “I will give you another, but not so pretty.”

      She kept her word. There hangs now in the clubhouse a striking photograph of her as Pierrot. Under it she wrote:

                      “Cʼetait pour les aveugles, fermez les yeux et admirez.”

POSTSCRIPT

This photo by Nadar may not be the one hanging in the clubhouse, but I found it on the Internet and thought it was appropriate.

George Middleton. These Things Are Mine The Autobiography of a Journeyman Playwright 

The Macmillan Company. New York. 1947

BOOK Cover portrait by Gordon Stevenson 

Book owned by Mari Lyn Henry