Meetin’ a lot of theatrical people the other night, we got discussin’ matters and things connected with the stage. Among other points, the question came up which actress had been the greatest favorite with women. Some said Adelaide Neilson, others Mary Anderson; but the truth is, the woman performer who caused the greatest stir among women was Agnes Robertson. This lucky female created more stir among females than any other female. Tickets of admission to the theatre during her engagement, twenty-eight years ago, were sold at a premium, sometimes as high as three or four dollars. On her benefit night the street in front of the theatre was completely blockaded and travel through it was suspended. This is a literal fact, yet only a year or two ago the same Agnes Robertson played in New York to comparatively empty benches. Such is theatrical life.
Durin’ the height of her popularity Agnes Robertson was almost a nuisance. She always caused a crowd and commotion wherever she went. Whole parties of women would follow her about in the streets. Crowds of females would rush after her into the shops. One drygoods store keeper made a furore by announcin’ a visit from Agnes Robertson. His place was jammed with females all day long; but instead of makin’ money he lost by it, for everybody came to see Agnes Robertson–nobody came to buy any drygoods. The hotel corridors where she stayed were choked up with women who burst into her apartments and came near carryin’ off their idol bodily. It was a regular craze; but while it lasted it made heaps of money for Miss Robertson, Moses Kimball, her manager, Dion Boucicault, her husband, and the various theaters at which she played, among which were the old Wallack’s, under manager Stuart, and the new Burton’s.
As a mere matter of fact, figures, and dollars and cents, this Agnes Robertson craze or furore surpassed anythin’ of its kind ever seen among New York women in general, before her time or since.
Agnes Robertson was always an easily managed woman professionally, and never had any hobbies of her own to interfere with her success, differin’ in this respect very much from Rose Coghlan, whose hobby for starrin’ in the legitimate, as it is called, has time and time again nearly proved her ruin.
By the by, Rose Coghlan had a narrow escape of bein’ a nun. Her mother was a very devout woman, and tried to make Rose equally pious, and for some years Rose took very kindly to piety. But her favorite brother, Charles, first married an actress, and then turned actor himself, and this decided Rose. She gave up the nunnery idea and followed her brother on the stage, havin’ a harder life of it, too, as an actress at first than she would have had as a nun.
Rose Coghlan came over to America with Lydia Thompson as a blonde (instead of a nun) and then played with Sothern awhile. Lester Wallack didn’t know or care anythin’ about her till one night he happened to sit through in front a performance of the “Happy Pair,” in which piece she played, and played so well that Wallack the next mornin’ offered her an engagement.
Her career as a whole has been very smooth and easy, ever so much easier than such women as Charlotte Cushman or Lucille Western, or than such men’s careers as, say, John McCullough’s, for example.
John McCullough don’t say much about it now, but the truth is that he had the hardest kind of a time at first–a terrible time, in fact.
John’s father was a small–a very small–Irish farmer, and as careless and reckless as most Irishmen are, whether farmers or not. He died in a hurry, leavin’ John to the care of an uncle, who got rid of John in a hurry by sendin’ him off to New York by the steerage with all his worldly goods in a small handkerchief and without any money to speak of.
John knocked around the New York wharves awhile, eatin’ what he could pick up, but not bein’ a sparrow, this wasn’t much; so he walked to Philadelphia, where he got a job at wheelin’ coal to the gas works. This was hard work and dirty work, but it was work any way, and brought in enough to keep the man from peggin’ out. Then John got a chance to drift into somethin’ better–chair makin’, and for some years he catered, not to the understandin’s, but the undersittin’ of the multitude.
One of his employers was a stage struck old chairmaker who spouted Shakespeare, and who gave McCullough his first idea of bein’ an actor. John turned amateur spouter, then got an offer from old Fredericks of the Arch Street Theatre to be a “regular actor” at four dollars a week. John made friends with E. L. Davenport, who gave him a lift, and at last hit Forrest, who from the start took an immense likin’ to him. With Forrest it was either hatin’ an actor and snubbin’ him, and bullyin’ him, or it was fairly lovin’ him, and huggin’ him, and doin’ everythin’ in the world for him. And luckily for John McCullough, Forrest treated him the latter way. For many years Forrest and McCullough were almost inseparable, and ever since Forrest’s death McCullough has been livin’ by imitating him.
Writin’ of Forrest reminds me of a fact which is of some little interest perhaps. On the night of the Forrest-Macready Astor Place riot, John Gilbert came mighty near bein’ killed in the row. Gilbert was then playing at the Bowery Theatre, but this night he was not on the bill. So he took a night off and went to see Macready. He stuck it out as long as he could and then, seein’ that there was goin’ to be a disturbance, he went home, leavin’ the theater just ten minutes or so before the soldiers fired on the mob.
Gilbert had previously been playin’ under Hamblin at the old Park Theatre, where he, along with the rest of the company, was burnt out. By the by, John Gilbert spoke the very last words ever spoken on the stage of the old Park Theatre in the tag to the piece called “Naval Engagements,” which was the last piece played before the fire broke out.
I have just said somethin’ about John McCullough imitating Forrest. The fact is that McCullough never came so near Forrest as Frank Chanfrau in his famous imitations in “Jeremiah Clip.”
And talkin’ about Frank Chanfrau reminds me of the fact that he had about as hard a time of it at first as John McCullough ever had.
Frank was a New York boy, bred and born. He first saw the light in the old Tree House, as it was called, at the corner of the Bowery and Pell street. His father was doin’ a good business, and everybody thought that Frank Chanfrau was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But, people don’t see everythin’, and Frank’s father failed, leavin’ four brothers Chanfrau to look out for ‘emselves.
Frank had a taste for ship buildin’ and tried the trade out on West awhile, but he didn’t like the West, somehow, and he pined for New York; so he determined to get back to the great metropolis, which after all he had a right to yearn for, as it was his birthplace.
So, as he had no money, he worked and walked his way back to New York, all the way from Cleveland. He drove canal boat horses most of the way.
He wasn’t a success, either, as a canal boat horse driver. You see, he was too impatient to get to New York and drove the horses too fast. The horses weren’t used to it, nor their bosses, either.
“Young man,” said one of the canal boat men to the ardent but youthful Chanfrau; “that ‘ere hoss is not a race hoss,” and he wasn’t; he could not go over 2:40, that is, 2 miles and 40 feet an hour. So Frank gave up canal boat horse drivin’ and preferred doin’ chores on the boats ‘emselves; it was less irritating.
At last he got to New York and got some work; but the work didn’t last long, and Chanfrau didn’t know what in the world to do. He had no Long Branch lots then, and hadn’t eaten anythin’ for nearly forty-eight hours.
So meetin’ an actor whom he knew, Sam Wallis (the husband of that splendid artist, Mme. Ponisi), who was then the property man at the old Bowery Theatre, under Tom Hamblin, Chanfrau stated his distress, and asked Wallis, for God’s sake, to give him a job.
Wallis had known Chanfrau in his better days; had heard of him as a member of the Forrest Dramatic Association, and knew that he had a good deal of mechanical ability, so he engaged him to do odd jobs around the theatre at a salary just enough to keep him from starvin’.
While workin’ around the theatre Chanfrau used to amuse himself and others by imitatin’ the popular actors of the day.
And he got old Sam Wallis to believe in him thoroughly as the greatest imitator livin’. While matters stood thus Chanfrau got his chance, but not as an actor; no, his first hit on the stage was made by Frank Chanfrau as a mechanic.
Tom Hamblin was producin’ a show piece called “The Yankee in China.” It was a show piece indeed; one water scene occupied the entire stage. It represented a lake with real water, five feet deep, filled with boats, which in their turn were filled with officers and characters in the piece.
Well, there was a Sunday night rehearsal of this scene, when it was discovered that the tank leaked, and had sunk considerably. Nobody knew what to do, except Frank Chanfrau. He knew just what to do and did it. His knowledge of shipbuildin’ saved the scene and made him solid.
Wallis praised him. Hamblin praised him, and what was best of all, Mrs. Shaw, then Mrs. Hamblin, praised him, and afterward, seein’ how gracefully Chanfrau rowed about the lake in one of the boats, Mrs. Shaw remarked to old Sam Wallis: “That young man ought to be an actor.”
“‘E is nan hactor, ma’am,” said old Sam Wallis. “You ought to hear him imitatin’ your ‘usband or Forrest or Booth.”
And soon Mrs. Shaw had an opportunity to hear his imitations, and from that time on Frank Chanfrau was a made man. He had found his opportunity and the rest of his life was easy.
