It is not very often that I take notice of the way ladies dress or where their hair–ladies’ “fashions” ain’t much in my lin–but at the Langtry first appearance last Monday night, I could not help but notice the style in which some young girls wear puffs in their hair, in front, over their foreheads. And as I did so I was reminded of the fact that this way of wearin’ the hair was first introduced into New York by one of the prettiest women and smartest actresses who ever charmed old and young New York. I mean Clara Fisher, whom I saw once at Brougham’s Lyceum as Mrs. Maeder.
Clara Fisher came from England when she was “sweet sixteen.”–”sixteen” really and really “sweet.” She was a pretty, plump little thing, with the finest figure in the world. And she played boys’ parts in a way that set the town wild. She became the rage at once–the fashion. And when a woman once becomes that in New York she can do what she likes with it–while she lasts. Clara wore her hair short, so as to suit her boys’ parts, but to make up for it bein’ so brief behind, she spun it out and rolled and puffed it before, so as to make round the head an even thing of it. The women took to these rolls or puffs at once. Even the papers got to noticin’ ‘em and said how becomin’ they were to young women; and you would have thought that there wasn’t an old woman in New York, for everybody that wore a petticoat wore a puff or roll. The dowagers went into the roll business just as strong as their daughters or granddaughters. In fact, after a while these rolls, or puffs, got to be a sign of age rather than youth, for the more years a woman had to carry the more roles, or puffs, she generally wore. So the fashion, like all other fashions, gradually wore itself away.
Clara Fisher also had, or affected to have, a lisp–a very sweet lisp–that became the fashion, too, and everybody lisped–even the grandmothers and the mothers-in-laws lisped. You heard women lispin’ sweetly–or what they intended to be sweetly–all over town. Then there were “Clara” scarves and “Fisher ties,” and race horses were named after her, and stages, and chaps dedicated their verses to her. But little Clara had a level head, and all this fuss and feathers didn’t make her crazy. She kept on actin’ and pocketin’ her little salary and puttin’ by money. And, where she was smartest of all, she always behaved so as to keep the ladies on her side. All the society women were her friends, and their friendship proved to be worth somethin’.
For in course of time she lost a good deal of money–some of it in the burstin’ of banks, some of it in trying to be a manageress–and then the ladies of New York, the society ladies, came to the front and got her up a benefit–a regular ladies’ benefit–ladies on the committee, ladies gettin’ up subscriptions, sellin’ tickets and all that.
The consequence was that the men bought all the tickets the women could sell, and pretty little level-headed Clara Fisher cleared several thousand dollars by her benefit.
Another favorite actress of old New York, quite as much so as Clara Fisher, though she never got to be town talk, was Emma Wheatley. She was a prime favorite, as “Our Mary” Taylor was afterwards. She commenced stage life, which to her was real life, young–as a mere child. Fanny Kemble took a great likin’ to her. So did Sheridan Knowles, when in this country, and before she was seventeen she was the leadin’ lady of old Wallack’s National Theater. There she supported the elder Vandenhoff, and proved herself as good an actress as she was a woman.
Young Mason, a New York swell, with more brains than most swells, fell in love with her and married her, when she of course retired from the stage.
Mason’s father was the president of the Chemical Bank, and very fond of his son, and of his son’s wife. He gave his son a fine country place, and there he and Emma settled down together and lived very happily.
But when old Mason, the father, died, the trouble came. Somehow a will of his was produced disinheritin’ his son and takin’ away his country place. Then Emma Wheatley Mason came out strong. She went on the stage again and got money enough by actin’ to give her husband money enough to engage the best lawyers in the city and to contest this will. It was a hard fight against the other claimants, but Emma Wheatley Mason, though the sweetest kind of a mild-tempered woman in peace, was the pluckiest kind of a fighter in times of war, and she meant war this time. The more money the lawyers wanted for litigation the more money she made actin’, and the big men of New York aided her all they could. Just as the woman had come to the rescue of Clara Fisher, so the men came to the rescue of Emma Wheatley. Merchants and lawyers, and gentlemen like Howe and Livingston and Ogden and Laight, Drew, Schuyler, Clinton, King and Brevoort got up a testimonial benefit for her, and not only lent their names but used their influence and gave their money. The consequence was that this benefit was a genuine benefit and amounted to a little fortune.
With it she continued the legal fight and it last won it. The will was set aside and the country place was restored to young Mason–now middle-aged Mason–and his wife, who, however, was not permitted to enjoy it very long, for she fell sick shortly after comin’ back to her own and died, almost as much to everybody else’s regret as her own.
“Good character” paid on the stage thirty or forty years ago in New York.
People may not believe it, but it is fact that there is something about the life of an actress which often makes her a more lovin’ mother than women in private life. Perhaps it may be that the wanderin’ and uncertain life of an actress, preventin’ her from makin’ many home ties, ties her all the more closely and dearly to those she has got. But at any rate it is often the fact, and it was so in the case of a mother and daughter, both of whom were on the stage, and both of whom were model women in their domestic life. Mrs. Johnson, a once popular actress in New York, almost worshiped her married daughter Mrs. Hillhouse, and Mrs. Hillhouse absolutely adored her mother.
But even such a love as this cannot keep sickness away, or drive off death, and Mrs. Johnson died in her distracted daughter’s arms. She was buried and her daughter, who was, like her mother, an actress, had to go on the stage and earn her livin’ as before. The curtain cares not for the coffin–it must go up, though the coffin goes down.
But one night when the theatre was full, right in her best scene, poor despairin’ Mrs. Hillhouse could not go on with her part–”stuck” as it is called. Right before her eyes, as she said afterwards, rose her mother in her shroud, and her tongue was paralyzed. Nearer and nearer to the grief distracted woman on the stage came the beloved one from the churchyard, and under the strain not only poor Mrs. Hillhouse’s memory left her, but her reason fled. She stalked round the the stage striving in vain to clasp her departed parent, till with a shriek, like Lucia in the mad scene, she rushed off–mad.
She was confined in an asylum, and, altho’ she ultimately recovered her reason, she never acted, I believe, again.
It was love like this, domestic, family love that led poor ——– the other day to join his dead wife through a dose of laudanum.
There is such a thing as home life and love after all among the strollin’ actors and actresses the people of the stage.
[Editor’s notes: The last anecdote of the above column refers to “Mrs. Hillhouse,” but the woman’s married name was Hillson–which in turn was a name assumed by her husband, whose real name was simply Hill.]
