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Actorviews
“Frances,” I said, “here’s hoping your path to the stage is as rosy as your mother’s was.”
“Don’t!” cried Fanny, and grabbed her child from me. “Don’t wish what I got on her . It cost me thirtyfive dollars cash and a million dollars’ self-confidence to become an actress. You know what George M. Cohan said to me when I was rehearsing in the chorus of ‘The Talk of New York’ and he saw me dance? I was as tall as I am now and a hundred pounds lighter — mostly shins — and clumsy! Cohan takes one look at what I dance with, and says out of the corner of his mouth :
“ ‘Back to the kitchen for you.’ ”
“Don’t be ungrateful, Fanny; wasn’t that what drove you into burlesque and got you discovered by Ziegfeld ?”
“It was a boil back of the soubrette’s ear that got me to Ziegfeld, and don’t you ever forget that,” Fanny corrected. “She was the stage manager’s wife and I was her understudy, and when she grew this boil I said, ‘God is good to me,’ and got ready to go on in her place. And at the last minute she puts a big pink ribbon round her neck and goes on herself — with me waiting to drop the scenery on her. But it wouldn’t stand the strain, the boil wouldn’t. It exploded and had to have a doctor, and I went on and got six encores in a song where she’d been getting one; and Ziegfeld heard about me and I was signed for the 1910 ‘Follies.’ ” “That,” I told Fanny, “doesn’t sound very hard, but rather soft.”
“Baby,” wailed Fanny, cuddling her youngster, “that ain’t the half of what happened to your mommuh when she first went to be an actress on the stage.” “Blib-blab-blub,” answered Frances, sympathetically.