I went down to Long Branch the other day, and drivin’ around the outskirts of this famous waterin’ place I saw several fine cottages and valuable tracts of land belongin’ to the popular actress Maggie Mitchell, whose play of “Fanchon” has been more often played and drawn more money than any other, if we except “Lady of Lyons,” “Camille,” and “East Lynne.”
It is safe to say that Maggie Mitchell’s entire fortune has been made out of “Fanchon.” And yet, while the actress in the play has earned from it nearly half a million of dollars in percentages, salaries and Investments, the author of the play has never received a dollar and the adapter of the play, who is still livin’, has received but a few, a very few hundred dollars, about one-tenth of one percent of the money his play has brought to the actress. While the man to whose advice and friendly encouragement the actress, according to her own confession, owes her original acceptance and appearance in the play, has never, up-to-date, received anythin’ but the mere statement of the fact that the lady owes her all to him.
It is a somewhat singular coincidence that at Long Branch, at the present time, there are residin’ three conspicuous livin’ illustrations of the startling dramatic differences, in a pecuniary point of view, between the authors and actors of plays.
“Cliff” Tayleure has a modest cottage there. Cliff wrote, or rather dramatized, “East Lynne,” a play out of which over three hundred thousand dollars has been made for actors, while considerably less than one thousand dollars–less than five hundred dollars in fact, all told, directly and indirectly–has been realized by the author or adapter.
Near Tayleure lives in good style the rich Frank Chanfrau, who owes his start to poor Ben Baker, who wrote for him “Mose,” which laid the foundation of his fame and fortune. Directly and indirectly off of “Mose,” Chanfrau has made a hundred thousand, while Ben Baker made about a hundred, more or less.
But perhaps Maggie Mitchell’s “Fanchon” furnishes the most conspicuous example of all, in the way of illustratin’ the difference in the rewards of writin’ and actin’ the same thing.
Some twenty-four years ago Maggie Mitchell was young and poor, “hard up,” financially, knowing not what to do pecuniarily or professionally. She had been playin’ in a rather lively piece called “Anthony and Cleopatra,” had been tryin’ all sorts of plays, not doin’ well in any, and was, dramatically speakin’, on her “last legs.”
She was almost in want. Above all she wanted a play–a good play, adapted to her peculiar, though limited talents.
Among her newspaper acquaintances at that time was a man named John W. Overall, the then literary literary and dramatic editor of the New Orleans True Delta, who was then himself quite a young man, and fond of the theatre and theatrical people.
Maggie Mitchell and her mother were very intimate with Overall and had great confidence in his judgment–a confidence which was justified, as the result proved.
One day Miss Mitchell and her mother had a long talk with Overall and told him how they were situated and in what sort of “a fix” they were. Overall got interested and said he would see what could be done, and he did.
Among his friends just then was a gentleman, a German by birth, named Waldauer, connected with a theatrical orchestra, leader of the St. Charles Theatre Orchestra, I believe, under Ben De Bar’s management.
This Waldauer, besides bein’ an excellent musician, was a man of some literary ability, and among other things, had translated and adapted a play from the German, the MSS. of which he had shown to his friend Overall, who one day, thinkin’ of this piece, told Miss Mitchell that he thought the principal role would be just the part for her.
Maggie Mitchell read Waldauer’s adaptation, on Overall’s representation, and rather liked the piece. Still she wasn’t quite certain whether it was in her line or not. She had been playin’ rollickin’ farces and decidedly Frenchy and unsentimental pieces, and as “Fanchon” was almost all sentiment, she distrusted her own abilities in this line. In fact, spite for her rather likin’ the piece, she came near, just as Sothern did in “The American Cousin,” throwin’ away the great chance of her life, had not her friend Overall earnestly persuaded her into acceptin’ the piece.
Finally the piece was produced at the St. Charles Theatre, New Orleans, the night following Washington’s birthday celebration, in the year ‘61, when the Civil War broke out, and an elaborate and favorable criticism of the piece written by Mr. Overall at once attracted attention to it, and the world knows the rest. The piece was a success, and has remained one for a quarter of a century. In fact, it has been the only success which Miss Mitchell has achieved. She has played other pieces, but they have made no “hit.” Several have proved dead failures. She still remains only Fanchon, and the only Fanchon in the public’s pecuniary and professional estimation.
For this play Waldauer received a few hundred dollars, less than three hundred, I believe. Which has been all he has ever received for it, less than the actress has often made in a single night by playin’ it. While the friend to whose judgment and advice she owes her acceptin’ the piece, received nothin’ at all, save a public acknowledgment some time ago in a newspaper.
Miss Mitchell has claimed that she has greatly improved, almost rewritten the piece since she received it, added the music and introduced the famous shadow dance in it herself–a dance which, by the way, made the chief hit in the opera of “Dinorah.”
But Waldauer and Overall have always claimed that the lady is mistaken in these points, and Waldauer claims to this day that he wrote the original music for this piece and introduced the shadow dance himself.
At any rate, the history of “Fanchon,” as I have given it, is an interestin’, and to authors and adapters, a painfully instructive reminiscence. While the fact that a livin’ actress has made off of a popular play a thousand dollars to the livin’ author or adapter’s one, tells its own story and points its own moral–for authors and adapters.
[Editor’s notes: Following the Civil War, John W. Overall came North and became the literary and dramatic editor of the New York Sunday Mercury for fourteen years–this column appeared a few years later, in the same paper.]
