Variety (December 1912)

X VARIETY "FAIR PLAY AND NO FAVORITES" WHILEOOVE RNORSU LZER REIQNS Intends to Conduct New York State Government Upon Plain Business Basis. Qus Hill's Observations. Bern- hardt^ Route Would Terrify Chorus Girls. A. Toxin Worm Mentions Matters Concerning His Show. Jules Murry's Tough Time. By LEANDBR I met Governor-elect William Sulzer in Washington the other day, and he took occasion to say something which may prove a significant forecast of his administration at Albany. Speaking of a mutual friend, one of the best known theatrical managers in the United States, the future Governor observed: "Word has come to me that Mr. Blank has expressed the conviction that he will be disappointed in me as Gov- ernor of the State of New York. I wish you would tell him for me that he need have no alarm on the subject, and that I am not going to disappoint anybody. People seem to think that it is my purpose to open the floodgates and let in everything and everybody. That is because I am what is generally known as a good fellow. But increased responsibilities have the effect of mak- ing men more conservative, if they don't go crazy under it altogether. I shall conduct the New York State gov- ernment just as I would conduct any other plain business proposition, upon a plain business basis. I hope you will say this to Manager Blank for me." "But," I interposed, "I am very much inclined to doubt that the gentlemen of whom you speak ever said anything of the sort you attribute to him. In the first place, it doesn't sound like the man, and in the second, he is not the kind to criticise his friends. He has plenty of opportunity to exercise his ingenuity in that direction outside the circle of his intimates." Mr. Sulzer did not pause to explain the source of his information, but merely said: • "If our friend Manager Blank ever thinks that I am going to disappoint him by the way in which I handle the Governorship, tell him to send me a telegram and call my attention to the particular matter he has in mind. I will be there every day in the week and every hour in the day. There will be no fooling in the executive offices this trip, and I hope to avoid criticism— or some of it, at any rate, by giving everybody a fair deal and playing no favorites." Gua Hill Reports. Gus Hill has just been kiting around the country on an inspection tour of some of his theatrical interests, and incidentally keeping his eyes open to conditions as they exist, with a view to learning what effect they may be having upon his numerous undertakings. Mr. Hill is one of the few who take notice. The public in general does not hear a great deal about Mr. Hill, in connec- tion with the theatrical business, but, to employ a colloquial phrase, he "cuts considerable ice." He was the first to discover the theatrical possibilities of RICHARDSON the Journal's series of "Mutt and Jeff 9 cartoons, and when he announced that he would turn these into a stage en- tertainment, most other managers near- ly died laughing. But the piece when completed was started out on its travels with results that were almost startling to Hill himself, and the »m^f mediate outcome was the organization £ of five or six more "Mutt and Jeff" companies, which are sweeping through the country drawing extraordinary houses and rolling up profits at mile- a-minute speed. "I found a strange condition in the smaller cities," said Mr. Hil yesterday. "The house managers all along the line were complaining that they were not getting enough attractions, and that outside a certain few of the shows coming to them, only three or four were meeting with prosperity. Those which came to my personal view were my own 'Mutt and Jeff* companies, Maude Adams in 'Peter Pan/ and Al. G. Fields' minstrels. If you can get anything out of this upon which to base an opinion as to the trend of public taste, you are quite welcome to it. "Of course, you would expect im- mense receipts for Miss Adams, by reason of her position as an actress of the very highest type and greatest popularity, though you would find it difficult to believe the extent of her receipts without being actually shown. Rut 'Mutt and Jeff' and the Fields Min- strels, while expected to do a large and profitable business, have been ex- ceeding the limits you would be likely to place upon them. There is abso- lutely no middle ground this year in the show business in the one-night ter- ritory. You either ret it all, or not enough to pay your bcal bill for haul- ing the attraction. For all the shows that the public is not especially and specifically interested in there is abso- lutely no future. They are dead ones." Bernhardt'* Big Receipts. Persons familiar with the spacious Majestic theatre in Chicago have been figuring out whether it was possible for Mme. Bernhardt to play to the $25,- 000 a week receipts which have been quoted in connection with her Chicago engagement. The prices range from 25 cents in the gallery to $1.50 in the boxes, and several fairly durable lead perrcils have been worn down to the stump stage in trying to reach an en- tirely satisfactory conclusion. It un- doubtedly is a fact, however, whether the quoted statement was Correct to a dot or not, that Mme. Bernhardt's crowds at the Majestic were almost stupendous, and that the speculators reaped a rich harvest in Chicago. The French actress is working up into Canada, the richest part of the American continent, where she never has been seen before, and there is lit* tie doubt that the financial result of her tour will outdistance tne wildest anticipations. In addition, she will do some traveling, as the detailed route will prove. In Milwaukee she will have her last week stand, the rest of the time being split up into one, two and three night stops. After Milwaukee, St. Paul and Minneapolis she will proceed to Win- nipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Victoria, Bellingham Bay, Seattle, Portland, Chico, Stockton, San Jose, San Fran- cisco, Oakland, Fresno, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Lincoln, Omaha and Kansas City. If this kind of a tour were to be handed to an American chorus girl, you probably would hear her lamentations throughout the journey. But not so the Bernhardt. She never kicks at hardships, but just tucks away the in- crement. Gaby Haa Them Going. The perfectly sure soul of Philadel- phia, filled with consternation at the prospective advent of Gaby Deslys in that centre, early reached the conclu- sion that the engagement could not possibly succeed, and that the city of Brotherly Love surely would turn the cold shoulder upon the talentless up- start from Paree. Sad as it may be, something seems to have gone slightly wrong with these moral calculations. There lies before me a letter from A. Toxen Worm, who is steering the American tour, and it reads as follows: "As you may know, Gaby Deslys' first week in Philadelphia was over $20,000, and it looks as if her first week here in Boston will exceed that amount, in spite of the facts that it is just before the holidays and there are no Thanksgiving or football nights in this week. Boston really has gone mad over Gaby, and the sale is larger than it was for Bernhardt, Rejane, Mrs. Pat- rick Campbell or Eleanora Duse on the occasions of the visits of these artistes to Boston when I was in charge of their tours. "As an illustration of the whirligigs of time, it may be worth while to com- ment on the fact that Mme. Bernhardt is playing in Chicago at the price of twenty-five cents in the gallery, while the front row seats for Gaby Deslys are $5 each, and have been sold for the entire engagement, with the autograph gold-dipped ticket." Murry Came Back. Jules Murry, who does the booking for the allied attractions of Messrs. Shubert, Brady, Comstock & Gest, etc., has been back at his desk for some little time now, when it was thought for quite a while that he didn't have a chance in a million. Indeed, Murry looks as if he had been through the Balkan war, and buried in the trenches, and hauled out by the heels after a long session of interment. His illness began with a series of carbuncles, which in themselves are entitled to hold the anxious attention of any ordinarily robust man. These passed along by gentle gradations to erysipelas, and thence to blood pois- oning. There isn't one man in a thousand who could have stood such an on- slaught, and one would not have picked Murry, with his rather frail physical appearance, as that particular one. But the extreme uncertainty of the show business in general apparently extends to the individuals engaged in it—for here we have Murry standing up and only slightly the worse for wear. Some Random Notes. "Little Miss Brown," with Madge Kennedy, William Morris and the other members of the original cast at the Forty-eighth street theatre, will go to the Adelphi in Philadelphia for Christmas and New Year's weeks. The Pittsburgh fuss over the issu- ance to the newspapers of a certain number of free tickets every day, which in due course were turned over to the principal advertisers as an inducement to come across, has resulted in an ar- rangement providing that the news- papers shall buy all their seats, and will give no advance notices or other publicity to the theatres, excepting the Tuesday criticisms and the Sunday re- views. The papers will lose some circulation, for the time has arrived when the public insists on reading about actors and actresses. A letter from Lew Dockstader con- veys the gratifying information that the Dockstader and Primrose min- strels have not encountered a single losing week during the current season. There are not so many others. George Musgrove, formerly the part- ner of James C. Williamson in Aus- tralia, is business manager of a not very successful tour of the Antipodes, with his wife, Nellie Stuart, as star of a musical production. When Mus- grove was in America years ago he made quite a flash, and subsequently in London, with "The Belle of New York," he cleaned up a fair fortune. But Fate has not been kind to him since then, and the road is rocky. The Montgomery and Stone and Elsie Janis engagement, at the Globe theatre, clearly will eclipse all the rec- ords of that establishment, and those of some theatres considerably larger. The receipts have been running not far behind #the $20,000 mark, and will exceed that figure for the holiday term. The wonder is, how they manage to get it in. Al Jolson is a big hit in Boston, al- though Gaby Deslys', of course, is starred over him. On the opening night in the second act, Jolson held the stage for forty-five minutes, giving as his final encore a "straight" rendition of "The Rosary," accompanied on the piano by Melville Ellis. "Come around and see me on mati- nee days," said Charles Frohman the other day. "I make it a business not to work at those times." I called up his office last Saturday morning, and found that hr only had three rehearsals on for that pan ihr day. Of course, that was no v.cwk U f Mr. Frohman, but I wouldn't intrude upon his day of rest, and Vept iw*y.