I passed Harry Jarrett recently on Broadway, and I couldn’t help thinkin’ of a little side issue in his career as a manager some twenty-five years, since which was rather interestin’ in itself, and which serves to illustrate pretty forcibly the professional jealousies of actors and actresses among ‘emselves.
About a quarter of a century ago Harry Jarrett took it into his head to startle the English playgoers and put money into his own pocket, by taking over to London an “American” company, all of ‘em first class artists, to show the Covent Garden or Drury Lane audiences what Yankee actin’ was. So, as usual, he made a big fuss and hullabaloo in the papers, and really his company was somethin’ to brag of. He engaged Mark Smith and Harry Perry, Joe Jefferson, John E. Owens and George Jordan, Lizzie Weston (afterward Davenport-Matthews) and Avonia Jones, the daughter of George Jones, the Count Johannes. Every one of these was an “artist,” a representative American actor or actress, and Jarrett and the country were quite proud of ‘em. But, unfortunately, they were all proud of ‘emselves, too proud by half, and didn’t want to give each other a show–each wanted to have the show all to himself or herself–and to tell the truth, the men were worse in this respect than the women.
Harry Perry thought he was several frills better than George Jordan, Joe Jefferson ranked himself as a much “high”-er or “low”-er comedian than Owens, Mark Smith felt he was really the cleverest of the lot, and Lizzie Weston said she “could act all around” Avonia Jones. Every man in the company asserted his right to be “leadin’ man,” every woman was bound to be “leadin’ lady.” There was nobody to take the minor roles. Everybody was all Hamlet; nobody would play King or Ghost, and there would have to be two or three Ophelias. So Jarrett was driven to despair. He had an easy goin’ way with him, and tried to get out of the scrape by promisin’ everybody in secret, “in the strictest confidence,” the leadin’ parts when they should reach England. But they never reached England, as, before they started, they all found out that the manager had said the same things to each one of ‘em and promised ‘em the same parts; so the scheme fell through. The London Lyceum had been positively engaged for the first appearance of this great American galaxy of artists, but the contract turned out to be n. g. All that Jarrett made out of the operation was a lot of ill-will from a lot of actors, takin’ a lot of trouble for nothin’.
When Hamilton, Johnson and Wheelock ran the Grand Opera House here in New York together there was the same trouble. There wasn’t a part worth playin’ in any piece they cast but two, and sometimes three of the three wanted to play it. The result generally was that none of the three would play the parts they should have taken, but they were handed over to actors who were really inferior to any of the three managers. Such is life on the stage, at least. And off of it, sometimes.
I mentioned Lizzie Weston-Davenport-Matthews just now. She was one of the prettiest, pertest and most popular of actresses in her time, and caused no end of trouble among the actors, of course.
As everybody knows, she left Dolly Davenport one Saturday night and married Charles Matthews in Jersey the next Monday. But perhaps very few remember a street scene that came out of this affair right in front of the New York Hotel. Matthews had foolishly said that Davenport had sold him his wife, and Dolly Davenport took him to task for sayin’ this with a whip, with which he lathered Matthews soundly, to the great enjoyment of a number of street boys and spectators. Dolly whipped his man with a will, and Matthews stood and took the whippin’. He couldn’t do much else, as Davenport was by far the younger and stronger man; besides, he was the injured party–that is, if bein’ deserted by a wife who didn’t care anythin’ about her husband is really an injury, which I am inclined to doubt, and to think it is what the parson’s call “a blessing in disguise.”
By the by, mentioning parsons brings to my mind that Tony Pastor made his first public appearance in a church. This is a fact. It was the old Day Street Church, not far from Greenwich street, where Tony was born. It was at a temperance meetin’, too, and little Tony sang a temperance song.
Tony was then only eight years of age, and didn’t really know the difference between whiskey and water. Then after the cold water song Tony gave the audience a comic duet, his partner bein’ Chris Woodruff, then a little New York street boy, who afterward became State Senator. To tell the truth, Woodruff then sang about as well as Tony, and neither of ‘em had the slightest idea what they were singin’ about.
Tony has always kept his head level and his made drink his servant and not his master. In which respect he had the best of a man who once was the most popular fellow in or out of the theatrical profession, before Tony’s time, in the city of New York. I mean Tom Flynn, the favorite of the Old Chatham and Bowery Theatres. Tom Flynn was the best hearted fellow in the world, and old New York owed to him two of its best actors and one of its very best managers. He introduced Robert Macaire Brown to the New York public and F. S. Williams. He also had a hand in bringin’ Billy Mitchell, of the old Olympic, to this country. That was glory enough for one man.
Tom was a sterlin’ actor, too, and could play Dick Dowlas in the “Heir-at-Law” and Jack Absolute in the “Rivals” as they haven’t been played since. He knew everythin’, too, that was worth knowing about stage management, and produced some tip-top pieces. But he loved his glass, and his glass, alas! and another glass to follow it, in which point he closely resembled his most intimate friend, the great Booth.
The elder Booth thought the world and all of Tom Flynn, and Tom was about the only man who could manage him in his tantrums. When Tom was sober and Booth was drunk, which was pretty often, or Booth happened to be sober and Tom was drunk, which was very, very seldom, the boys styled it “high and low Jack;” but when Tom Flynn and Junius Brutus Booth both got drunk togethe, which was not uncommon, then it was “the game.”
Tom Flynn only had one wife, in which he differed all together from Tom Hamblin, who had four wives–at four different times, of course.
Mrs. Hamblin No. 1 was Miss Elizabeth Blanchard, daughter of old Blanchard, the great London comedian. She came with Hamblin to this country and used to be a great favorite at the Park and the Old Bowery. The boys used to clamor for her as Mrs. Haller in “The Stranger.” “Why, she makes yer weep till yer thinks you must have a fire bucket inside of yer,” was the classic commentary passed of her actin’ in this part by a Bowery boy. She had two children by Hamblin, but didn’t get along with him very well, and got divorced. Then she married a young fellow by the name of Charles, and tried to make an actor out of him. And as Mrs. Charles she was quite a favorite down South, at New Orleans and elsewhere. I think she was the mother of a Miss Charles, who afterward married a wealthy Southerner by the name of Brinckley. This Brinckley afterward denied his marriage, but the plucky Miss Charles proved it legally, and beat him in the courts of this State. This affair is still remembered as the Brinckley divorce case.
Mrs. Hamblin No. 2 was a pretty woman, a Mrs. Naomi Vincent, who died. Mrs. Hamblin No. 3 was a quite well-known dramatic authoress, Miss Medina who “adapted” several of Bulwer’s great novels. Mrs. Hamblin 4th, and last, was the finest of the lot, Mrs. Shaw, New York’s pet actress for a while. She was a right smart woman and had been originally married to a Dr. Shaw, from whom she got a divorce. She was engaged several seasons at the Park Theatre, then she went to the Bowery, and as a “b’hoy” remarked “was ‘boss’ at them both.” She used to “boss” Hamblin for some time before Mrs. H. No. 3 died, and when the bills changed from Mrs. Shaw to Mrs. Hamblin the change surprised nobody at all.
Tom Hamblin was always very polite to women, and understood ‘em completely. He never argued with ‘em, considered it a perfect waste of time and temper, always pretended to care a great deal for ‘em, but didn’t really care a straw about ‘em, except when he was with ‘em. “Out of sight, out of mind,” applied completely to women and Tom Hamblin.
And next to women, somewhat strange to say, Tom Hamblin had a sort of warm, social likin’ for clergymen–one of his most intimate friends bein’ a well-known Catholic priest–now although ministers are supposed to be one extreme and actors another extreme, it is a case in which “extremes meet;” for a great many actors have become ministers and some ministers have become actors, and the relations between what they call “the church and the stage” have been pretty intimate.
There was T. P. Adams, he was an actor first, then he turned lecturer, then he turned preacher–orthodox preacher at first, and at last wound up by turnin’ Mormon apostle.
He founded a Mormon colony of about seven hundred people at Beaver Island, in Lake Michigan, and for years was grand high cockalorum of the place. N. B. Clarke was intended for the ministry, but liked stage better than the pulpit. He always had a great respect for the “white neckties,” however, and would never suffer ‘em to be ridiculed on the stage. An actor, a mighty poor actor, too, called Weeks, (of whom it was said that his name was a misnomer, as he was never able to get a “week’s” engagement at any theatre), after hangin’ onto the profession till there was no more “cling” in him, turned “revivalist” and “gospel preacher.” This was in 1858, when there was a big “boom” in “revivals.” As “gospel preacher,” he pitched into the theatres most unmercifully, and said they were “the gateways to hell” and “the devil’s delight.” The “awakened sinners” in his congregation “groaned” at this, but groanin’ and rollin’ up the eyes are not very “fillin’” to a hungry man with a family to support, and in a little while Weeks found himself in danger of starvin’ to death–he and his old mother and two young sisters. The church people couldn’t do anythin’ for him, so he came back to the stage again, and got somehow or other a bare livin’. Then when he had “tided things” over, he came out and blackguarded the theatres once more.
Spencer Cone, the father, I believe, of Kate Claxton, the actress was an actor first and then a clergyman, and Charles Booth Parsons was, like his name, part minister and part actor. He did better as actor than as minister, though, and after leavin’ the theatre for the church, gave up the church for the theatre.
Another chap that tried actor and preacher both, as well as a lot of other things, was W. W. Pratt, not the great American traveler, but the Great American try everythin’-er. This W. W. Pratt was in his time actor, agent, manager, author, painter, musician, temperance lecturer and preacher. As he himself used to say “he had tried a different trade every day in the week for two and two for Sunday.” And he failed in ‘em all. The only thing that remains of him now is a play he wrote or adapted, and called “Ten Nights in a Barroom.”
He had some dry wit about him, and once when he had been compelled to leave the stage for the pulpit, and the congregation of his church did not seem to appreciate him, he gave it to ‘em one Sunday from the text, “the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib, but my people do not know me.” But they did “know” him pretty thoroughly before he got done with that sermon.
But the funniest fact on this subject is that the man in this country to whom the theatrical people are, perhaps, more indebted than any other, in the way of givin’ them places to act in–at least the man who, in his time, put up more theaters than any other man livin’–was first a minister–at any rate, studied for the ministry.
His name was Potter–John S. Potter–and he came of a Quaker family, though his mother had turned Methodist. But he was always fond of two things–readin’ newspapers and seein’ plays. He didn’t care much about books, but he seized hold of a newspaper like a hungry hyena seizes hold of a fat gazelle; and as for theatres, he dreamed by day and stole out to see ‘em at nights. He played the “night school” dodge on his mother for awhile, and while he was lookin’ at the tragedies or comedies, the old lady thought he was gettin’ instruction in arithmetic and geography. But one night he was seen enterin’ a theater by one of his mother’s set of old fogies, and there was no more night school for John S. Potter.
So he up and told the old lady that he was goin’ to be an actor.
Imagine a shoutin’ Methodist of Quaker stock bein’ told her only son was goin’ to be a play-actor. Horrified beyond expression, the old lady consulted her friends, and the boy was sent to a theological seminary where they turned out parsons.
But he turned himself out of the seminary, started out as an actor, then took to managin’ theatres and then to buildin’ them. He became the boss theatre builder of the United States of America. He traveled everywhere, and put up theaters wherever he traveled. He put up theatres in California, Oregon, Mississippi, Iowa, Ohio, New York, Arkansas and Vancouver’s Island. Whenever he couldn’t do anythin’ else he would turn a barn or a warehouse into a “temple of the drama.”
He was a good man, though, and a good fellow, and was more in his natural element and fulfilled his “manifest destiny” better as a first-class theater builder than a fourth-class sermon maker.
[Editor’s notes: “T. P. Adams” correct name was George Jones Adams, and his religious career was far stranger than the above column indicates.
Ten Nights In a Barroom was originally a novel by Timothy Shay Arthur. It was first adapted for the stage by William W. Pratt, and has subsequently been filmed over a half-dozen times.]
