Variety (December 1912)

VARIETY 11 "THE SKIRT" SAYS SHAKING OP WOMAN. MOSTLY MY ACTOR-HUSBAND I shouldn't be suddenly surprised at all if I were you if within a short time you hear of the marriage of two young women now in a Broadway musical production. One, I hear, is going to marry a comedian, while the other has accepted the proffer of a marriage cer- tificate from some one closely connect- ed with the show business. Two professional families have a dark cloud hovering over them. The cloud is composed of a pair of slippers. The jealous wife of a well-known theatrical man while unpacking his grip when he returned from a brief trip last week found a pair of slippers. She recognized the footwear as belonging to an intimate friend. The husband weakly said the other woman must have placed the slip- pers in his grip as a joke, but the wife declares she will inform her friend's hus- band, when two legal actions may be ex- pected. Maud Knowlton, one of the "beau- ties" of the legitimate stage, met Bay- ard Veiller in front of Rector's the other day. Asked about a mutual friend, Maudie replied: "She has gone to Singapore and asked me to write her there, but I cjon't know where Singa- pore is I" Girls will be girls at almost any old time, but never more so than when one bears ill-will toward another. The lat- est illustration occurred recently on the stage of a theatre in which was then going on a Sunday night benefit for a charitable cause. The young women in their make-up glared at one another contemptuously for a few moments, un- til one of the couple on the -opposition side asked the sister of her opposed glarer what the trouble was. It act- ed like a lighted match on oil. The sister to whom the question was put stepped forward as though to clinch, but "set herself instead and told a few things to the inquirer, quoting what a young man remarked about her when she was not present. Several people, including the young man him- self, heard it. The atmosphere con- gealed rapidly, there was an angry tossing of heads for a moment or so, and what might have happened was averted through the stage managers calling upon one of the couple to "go on." The moral of which may be: do not always tell what you think, even in confidence, to someone you like very well—that is, if it is about someone else you may like just as well—where skirts are involved. The somewhat odd picture of the manager of a musical comedy with a chorus of forty or fifty chorus going afield to woo a chorus girl of another company is now being presented to those who watch the funny things on Broadway. It has been some time since the Johnnies have had stage door competition from the managerial forces of the town. It doesn't speak any too well for the chorus of the managers' company, and may prove discouraging to the Johnnies who haunt his stage door to know that the manager, said to be an excellent judge of a pretty chor- ister, should have passed up his whole flock for a little damsel just because this is her first season out There is a musical comedy woman principal "at liberty" just now seeking for a new part. She lost her last en- gagement with a musical extravaganza under circumstances which rob her of all sympathy for her present jobless condition. From the gossip she has for some years been living on the bounty of a theatrical man engaged in the managerial end. Her extravagance is said to have kept his nose to the grindstone and to have contributed to his final breakdown not many weeks ago. He was forced to retire from active business, and almost in poverty, call upon his business associates for financial aid. This was insufficient and the last company with which he was connected voluntarily made up a purse for him. The woman in question was a member of that organization. When/ approached for a contribution she re- marked, "Not much. I'm having all I can do to provide for myself." Which observation came to the ears of the show's owner and forthwith the woman was notified she might dispose of her stage talents elsewhere. A doubly amusing event occurred the other evening. To those knowing the parties, and the circumstances, each in itself was very funny. A comedian, not famous for extravagance, appeared to have become enamored of a come- dienne, so much so the comedian got himself in the "wine buyers' directory." The alarming rate at which the money outpoured for the liquid refreshment spelled bankruptcy for the comedian, according to his friends, but the spend- thrift called a halt one evening while in a cabaret by commencing to tell his wine-drinking companion of his admir- ation for her. It amounted to an in- fatuation, said the comedian, but the woman he had been escorting all over for some days (or nights) received his advances very coldly. She was icy to a degree below freezing, and also froze up the comedian by threatening to in- form her husband of his conversation. While this was going on a nephew of the actress, unknown to the comedian, was serving the couple in his official capacity of waiter at the cabaret. For reasons probably sufficient for herself, the lady of the stage absolutely de- clined to recognize her relative. Throe well known legitimate leading men are looking forward with expect- ancy to a happy Yuletide. The stork is hovering about the hearth of this trio of matinee heroes and if all goes well they look for new possessions about the time that Christmas will be ushered in. They are William Court- leigh, George Nash and Ernest Law- ford. We are friendly now, and we haven't been separated for any length of time during the five years of our married life, but I can't confess that I am the happiest married woman in the world. Maybe a year passes more quickly to actors than the ordinary mortal, or may- be to live a year with an actor is equiva- lent to five years in any other atmos- phere. I am not certain which it is. I suppose my married life would have been more tranquil had I a nature that could have adapted itself to my husband's whims and love of pleasure. But I couldn't bring myself around to watch the four walls of my hotel room until five o'clock in the morning waiting for my husband to come home. Sometimes he would inform me how tired I made him with my questions, and if that didn't stop me, he would swear softly—softly when we were first married—but not so softly after that. Like a parrot I memorized the nice swear words he used, and I com- menced to give them back to him. Soon I nad his vocabulary, and in one hotel where we stopped over an air-shaft I managed to pick up a new line that totally surprised my better half one morning. Then he asked me what was the matter. He was calm, and I was hysterical. But his question made me think. What was the matter? Should I allow my nerves to be shattered altogether and make me, only a girl of 22, a physical wreck be- cause my husband would only consider himself and his pleasures? Or was it just jealousy on my part? But I could not forget that those four walls would be just as blank to me whichever way the answer might be given. Could I have lived in an apartment, or with acquaintances; but no, every "home" I had was a room in a hotel, and every room had four walls. Having nothing to do and not finding myself able to sleep when I didn't know where my husband had gone to after the theatre, I would count the walls of the room. When I found myself looking for .the fifth wall, I concluded I had better pull myself to- gether. The start was made when I gave up crying through having been left alone all night. (I had to be by myself while he was at the theatre.) Before we married, he took pains to let me know that I was different from most girls he had met, and that was one of the things about me that proved most attractive, he said. Having little to spend, there was no place like home. He did not receive much of a salary in those days. Later on he began to earn more in his stage work. I immediately noticed a change. As his salary advanced his cir- cle of friends or calling places changed with the increase. I heard my husband was being flat- tered by associates in step with his ad- vanced rank. He seemed to prefer their company and comment to mine. While he was earning much more money than when we married, he had no more. Often I was at the theatre with him, but I seldom called that someone about did not confidentially inform me of the girls my husband was friendly with, or those who admired him. He met a large number of women in his profession, and I could not drive the jealousy from me. He always stood ready, though, to make an oath he had not met anyone but men when not with me. I threatened once or twice to go home. He bade me do so, and stay there. But one night, when he returned to the hotel a few minutes before I did, he was fu- rious when I did not immediately answer his demand that I tell where I had been that evening. Of late I have been handling him dif- ferently. I have even laughed at some of the stories he has told of things hap- pening around the theatre. For we had stopped swearing then and were living together on a friendly basis, not that he wanted it, perhaps, but because I had taken another view. Why should I, after having gone through the drudgery that comes with an actor who is "broke," leave my place as his wife, to his very evident satisfaction, and give some other girl the opportunity to reap the benefit of his now somewhat munificent, bulky weekly envelope? So I am going to remain with my hus- band, not because he cares, but perhaps for spite, or to see if I can not wean myself from the habit of remaining awake until six o'clock in the morning for a husband who seldom thinks of his wife— because he's an actor. I can't say, of course, that a husband in another walk of life would have been different, but I believe so. The actor tires quickly, then feels oppressed, as far as I have seen. He works for pleasure, marries for pleasure and lives for pleas- ure. Everything to him is himself. That is my husband at least Other actors I have met seem the same. They think in sympathy with one another, and in my opinion where the wife of an actor has not "Buffaloed" him, as the saying is, hers will be a very forlorn existence, if she looks to her husband for the companion- ship wives expect from their mates. As I write this within the same old four walls, all my good resolutions fly when I realize that to-night again, as on other nights, I shall be sitting here, first looking at the walls, then walking about the room, trying to beat down the thoughts that come to my mind, because I can't sleep, can't reail, can't do anything but look or walk, like a lioness in the barred cage. The door is open; I under- stand I can escape, but I don't want to— I didn't marry to do that. What decent man earning $20,000 a year could live on friendly relations with his wife, and yet leave her alone in a stuffy room while he was at a club, in a restaurant or wherever may best please his fancy. Only the actor. Because he knows other ac- tors, and can find congenial company at all hours of the night. But I'm resigned, and shall now make the best of it, though if I had my life to live over, and saw an actor a thousand miles off, I would even then start to run the other way. ALLEN'S PLAY CLEVER. (Special Cable to Variety.) London, Dec. 16. "If We Had Only Known," by In- glis Allen, was shown at the Little theatre. It is cleverly conceived and will doubtless win its way into the regular bill. The subject is the glori- fication of fatherhood.