Easy to Make a Reputation—Difficult to Keep One—The Theatrical Agent—The Butler’s Letter—Mrs. Siddons’ Warning—Theatrical Aspirants—The Bogus Manager—The Actress of the Police Court—Ten Years of Success—Temptations—Late Hours—An Actress’s Advertisement—A Wicked Agreement—Rules Behind the Scenes—Edward Terry—Success a Bubble.

MANKIND curses bad luck, but seldom blesses good fate. It is comparatively easy to make a reputation once given a start by kindly fate; but extremely difficult to maintain one in any walk of life, and this applies particularly to the stage.

Happening to meet a very pretty girl who had made quite a hit in the provinces and was longing for a London engagement, I asked her what her experience of theatrical agents had been.

“Perfectly horrible,” she replied, “and heart-breaking into the bargain. For three whole months I have been daily to a certain office, and in all this weary time I have only had five interviews with the manager.”

“Is it so difficult to get work?”

“It is almost impossible. When I arrive, the little stuffy office is more or less crowded; there are women[Pg 326] seeking engagements for the music halls, fat, common, vulgar women who laugh loud and make coarse jokes; there are sickly young men who want to play lovers’ parts on the legitimate stage, and who, according to the actors’ habit, never take their hats off. It is a strange fact that actors invariably rehearse in hats or caps, and sit in them on all occasions like Jews in synagogues.

“There are children who come alone and wait about daily for an engagement, children who have been employed in the pantomime, and whose parents are more or less dependent on their gains, and there is one girl, she is between thirteen and fourteen, whom I have met there every day for weeks and weeks. Seventy-four days after the pantomime closed she was still without work, and I watched that child get thinner and paler time by time as she told me with tears in her eyes she was the sole support of a sick mother.

“When I go there, the gentleman who has the office makes me shrivel up.

“‘Do you specialise?’ he asks, peeping over the edge of his gold-rimmed spectacles. He jots down my replies on a sheet of paper. ‘Character or juvenile parts?’ he inquires. ‘What salary? Whom have you played with?’ And having made these and other inquiries he looks through a series of books, turns over the pages, says, ‘I am sorry I have nothing for you to-day, you might look in again to-morrow.’ And this same farce or tragedy is repeated every time.”

“But is it worth while going?” I asked.

[Pg 327]

“Hardly; one wears out one’s shoe-leather and one’s temper; and yet after all the theatrical agent is practically my only chance of an engagement. This man is all right, he is not a bogus agent, but he simply has a hundred applicants for every single post he has to fill.”

She went back day after day, and week after week, and each time the same scene was enacted, but no engagement came of it. Finally, brought to the verge of starvation, she had to accept work again in the provinces, and so desert an invalid father. She happened to be a lady, but of course many applicants for histrionic fame ought to be kitchen-maids or laundry-maids: they have no qualifications whatever to any higher walk of life.

Below is an original letter showing the kind of person who wants to go on the stage. It was sent to one of our best-known actresses when she was starring with her own company.

“... Castle  
“Oct 19th 1897

“Dear Madam

“i writ you this few lins to see if you would have a opening for me as i would be an Actor on the Stage for my hole thought and life is on the stage and when i have any time you will always feind me readin at some play i make a nice female as i have a very soft voice Dear Madam i hop you will not refuse me i have got no frends alive to keep me back and every one tells me that you would make the best teacher that i could get Dear lady i again ask you[Pg 328] not to refuse me i will go on what ever termes you think best i have been up at the theatre 4 times seeing you i enclose my Card to let you see it plese to send it back again and i enclose 12 stamps to you to telegraf by return if you would like to see me or if you would like to come down to the Castle to see me No more at present

“but remans your          
“Obedient servant  
“Peter W——.”

This was a letter from a man with aspirations, and below is a letter from Mrs. Siddons. If this actress, whose position was probably the grandest and greatest of any woman on the stage, can express such sentiments, what must be the experiences of less successful players?

“Mrs. Siddons presents her compliments to Miss Goldsmith, & takes the liberty to inform her, that altho’ herself she has enjoyed all the advantages arising from holding the first situation in the drama, yet that those advantages have been so counterbalanced by anxiety & mortification, that she long ago resolved never to be accessory to bringing any one into so precarious & so arduous a profession.”

The deterrent words of Mrs. Siddons had little effect in her day, just as the deterrent words of those at the top of the profession have little effect now. Consequently, not only does the honest agent flourish,[Pg 329] but the bogus agent and bogus manager grow rich on the credulity of young men and women.

Speaking of the bogus manager, Sir Henry Irving observed:

“The actor’s art is thought to be so easy—in fact, many people deny it is an art at all—and so many writers persistently assert no preparation is needed for a career upon the stage, that it is little wonder deluded people only find out too late that acting, as Voltaire said, is one of the most rare and difficult of arts. The allurements, too, held forth by unscrupulous persons, who draw money from foolish folk under the pretence of obtaining lucrative engagements for them, help to swell very greatly the list of unfortunate dupes. I hope that these matters may in time claim the attention of serious-minded persons, for the increasing number of theatrical applicants for charity, young persons, too, is little less than alarming.”

This remark of Sir Henry’s is hardly surprising when below is a specimen application received by the manager of a London suburban theatre from a female farm servant in Essex:

“Deer sur,—I works hon a farm but wants to turn actin. Would lik ingagement for the pantomin in hany ways which you think I be fit for. I sings in the church coir and plais the melodion. I wants to change my work for the stage, has am sik of farm wark, eas last tater liftin nigh finished me.”

Another was written in an almost illegible hand which ran:

[Pg 330]

“Honoured Sir,—i wants to go on the staige i am a servent and my marster sais i am a good smart made so i wod like to play act mades parts untill i can do laidies i doant mind wages for a bit as i like your acting i’d like to act in your theter so i am going to call soon.”

Truly the assurance of people is amazing; to imagine they can enter the theatrical profession without even common education is absurd. Only lately another stage-struck servant appeared in the courts. Although an honest girl, she was tempted to steal from her mistress to pay ￡3 7s. to an agent for a problematical theatrical engagement. She is only one of many.

One day a woman stood before a manager. She had been so persistent for days in her desire to see him, and appeared so remarkable, that the stage door-keeper at last inquired if he might admit her.

“Please, sir, I wants to be an actress,” she began, on entering the manager’s room.

“Do you? And what qualifications have you?”

“I’m a cook.”

“That, my good woman, will hardly help you on the stage.”

“And I’ve been to the the-a-ters with my young man—I’m keeping company with ’im ye know, and——”

“Well, well.”

“And ’e and I thinks you ain’t got the right tone of hactress for them parts. Now I’m a real cook I am, and I don’t wear them immoral ’igh ’eels, and[Pg 331] tiny waists, I dresses respectable I do, and I’d just give the right style to the piece. My pal—she’s a parlourmaid she is—could do duchesses and them like—she’s the air she ’as—but I ain’t ambitious, I’d just like to be what I am, and show people ’ow a real cook should be played—Lor’ bless ye, sir, I don’t cook in diamond rings.”

That manager did not engage the lady; but he learnt a lesson in realism which resulted in Miss FitzClair being asked to dispense with her rings on the stage that night.

With a parting nod the “lady” said as she left the door:

“Your young man don’t make love proper neither, you should just see ’ow ’Arry makes love you should, he’d make you all sit up, I know, he does it that beautiful he do—your man’s a arf-’arted bloke ’e is, seems afraid of the gal, perhaps it’s ’er ’igh ’eels and diamonds ’e’s afraid of, eh?”

The lady took herself off.

These are only a few instances to show how all sorts and conditions of people are stage-struck. That delightful man Sir Walter Besant lay down an excellent rule for young authors, “Never pay to produce a book”—it spells ruin to the aspirant. The same may be said of the stage. Never part with money to get on the stage. It may be advisable to accept a little if one cannot get much; but never, never to pay for a footing. Services will be accepted while given free or paid for, and dispensed with when the time comes for payment to be received.

[Pg 332]

Among the many temptations of stage life is drink. The actor feels a little below par, he has a great scene before him, and while waiting in his dressing-room for the “call boy” he flies to a glass of whiskey or champagne. He gets through the trying ordeal, comes off the boards excited and streaming at every pore, flings himself into a chair, and during the time his dresser is dragging him out of his clothes, or rubbing him down, yields to the temptation of another glass. Many of our actors are most abstemious, though more than one prominent star has been known to mumble incoherently on the stage.

Matinée days are always a strain for every one in the theatre, and there are people foolish enough to think a little stimulant will enable them to get through, not knowing a continuance of forced strength spells damnation.

Yes. The stage is surrounded by temptations. Morally, extravagantly, and alcoholically the webs of excess are ready to engulf the unwary, and therefore, when people keep straight, run fair, and save their pennies, they are to be congratulated, and deserve the approbation of mankind. He who has never been tempted, is not a hero in comparison with the man who has turned aside from the enticing wiles of sin.

There is a certain class of woman who continually appears in the police courts, described as an “actress.” She is always “smartly dressed,” and is generally up before the magistrate or judge for being “drunk and disorderly”—suing her husband or some one else for[Pg 333] maintenance—or claiming to have some grievance for a breach of promise or lost jewellery.

These “ladies” often describe themselves as actresses: and perhaps they sometimes are; but if so they are no honour to their profession. There is another stamp of woman who becomes an actress by persuading some weak man to run a theatre for her. Sympathy between men and women is often dangerous. She generally ends by ruining him, and he in running away from her. These bogus actresses, with their motor cars and diamonds, are more dangerous and certainly more attractive than the bogus manager. They are the vultures who suck young men’s blood. They are the flashy, showy women who attract silly servant-girls with the idea the stage spells wealth and success; but they are the scourge of the profession.

Good and charming women are to be found upon the stage. Virtue usually triumphs; they are happy in their home life, devoted to their children, sympathetic to their friends, and generous almost to a fault. The leading actresses are, generally speaking, not only the best exponents of their art, but the best women too. The flash and dash come to the police courts, and end their days in the workhouse.

The stage at best means very, very hard work, and theatrical success is only fleeting in most cases. It must be seized upon when caught and treated as a fickle jade, because money and popularity both take wings and fly away sooner than expected. In all professions men and women quickly reach their zenith, and if they are clever may hold that position for ten[Pg 334] years. After that decline is inevitable and more rapid than the ascent has been.

If a reputation is to be made, it is generally achieved by either man or woman before the age of forty. By fifty the summit of fame is reached, and the downward grade begun. One can observe this again and again in every profession.

A great actor, doctor, lawyer, writer, or painter has ten years of success, and if he does not provide for his future during those ten years, ’tis sad for him. As the tide turns on the shore, so the tide turns on the careers of men and women alike.

Public life is not necessarily bad. In the first place, it is only the man with strong individuality who can ever attain publicity. He must be above the ordinary ruck and gamut, or he will never receive public recognition. If, therefore, he is stronger than his brother, he should be stronger also to resist temptation, to disdain self-love or vainglory. The moment his life becomes public he is under the microscope, and should remember his influence is great for good or ill. Popular praise is pleasant, but after all it means little; one’s own conscience is the thing, ............