Charles Frohman: Manager and Man Part 52

Frohman could pack a world of meaning in a word or a sentence. As Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree once expressed it, "he was witty with a dry form of humor that takes your breath away with its suddenness." He gave an example of this with Tree one day in London. They were discussing French plays for America. The question of American taste came up. Frohman described certain primitive effects which delighted our audiences.

"Ah," said Tree, "America can stand that sort of thing. It is a new country."

"_Was_," came the laconic reply.

Frohman's retiring disposition and dislike for putting himself forward was one of his chief traits. An ill.u.s.tration occurred when he controlled the Garden Theater. It was during the presentation of Stephen Phillips's play "Ulysses." There was a new man on the door one night when Frohman dropped into the theater for a few minutes' look at the play. The doorkeeper did not know the producer, his own employer, and would not allow him to enter without a ticket. Instead of storming about the lobby, Frohman simply walked quickly out of the door, around to the stage entrance and through the theater. At the end of the act he walked out of the main entrance. The doorkeeper, recognizing him as the man he had "turned down," was about to ask him how he got in when the manager of the house interposed.

He liked surprise and contrast. On one occasion his old chum, Anson Pond, wanted to talk over business matters with him.

"Let's go to a quiet place," said Frohman.

They went to a Childs restaurant. Before their luncheon was served an intoxicated man came in, ordered a plate of beans, and then exploded a package of fire-crackers on it.

When he went to pay his check Frohman's comment was:

"I didn't know they had changed the date of the Fourth of July."

No other theatrical manager in New York had a better news sense than Frohman. He knew just what a paper wanted, and all the matter sent out from his offices was short, newsy, and direct. He knew how to shape a big "story," and could offhand dictate an interview that was all "meat."

While he had little time in New York to greet newspaper men personally, he was especially cordial to all that came to see him on the road. He never went out of town without visiting some of the older critics he had known throughout his career, men like George P. Goodale of _The Detroit Free Press_, and Montgomery Phister of _The Commercial Tribune_ in Cincinnati. When in Baltimore he invariably gave an hour for a long interview to Walter E. McCann, the critic of The News of that city.

Frohman knew a newspaper's wants and limitations as far as theatrical matter was concerned. He knew just how far his press representative could be expected to go, and what his obstacles were.

On one occasion in Cleveland, when he was producing a play by Clyde Fitch for the late Clara Bloodgood, the chief press representative from the New York office was taken along to look after the work. The press agent sent stories to all of the papers for Sat.u.r.day morning's publication, and to his dismay not a line was used. Feeling that Frohman would be hurt about it (for Charles was hurt and not angered by the failure of any of his men), he wrote a note to his chief, stating that he was sorry nothing had been used in print and did not understand it.

At lunch that day Frohman remarked to the agent:

"Why did you send me that note about the papers?"

"Because," replied the young man, "I feared that you would think I had not attended to my work."

"Well," said Frohman, "you sent matter to all the papers, didn't you?"

"Yes," said the agent, "all of them, of course."

"Then," said the manager, "what else could you do? You are not running the papers."

It was not only an evidence of Frohman's fairness, but an instance of his knowledge of newspapers.

Frohman had a remarkable memory. One night during Collier's London engagement he asked the actor to meet him at the Savoy the next morning at nine o'clock. Collier, who had been playing bridge until dawn, showed up at the appointed time, whereupon Frohman said:

"How did you do it?"

"I sat up for it," said Collier.

Five years later Frohman asked Collier one night to meet him at nine o'clock the next morning. Then he added, quickly:

"You can sit up for it."

Frohman got much amus.e.m.e.nt out of a butler named Max who was employed at his house at White Plains. One of the most original episodes in which this man figured happened on the opening night of "Catherine" at the Garrick Theater.

The play was a little thin, and the whole action depended on a love scene in the third act, in which the hero, a young swell played by J. M.

Holland, on telling his mother that he loved a humble girl, gets the unexpected admonition to go and be happy with her. Dillingham had two seats well down in the orchestra. Frohman was to sit in the back of a box. Just before the curtain went up Frohman said to Dillingham, who then had a house on Twenty-fourth Street, "Let us have some of those nice little lamb chops and peas down at your house after the play."

"All right," said Dillingham, and he telephoned the instructions to Max, who had been drafted for town service.

The curtain went up, the first two acts went off all right, and the house was dark for the third act. The seat alongside Dillingham was vacated, so Frohman came down and occupied it. The curtain went up and the action of the play progressed. The great scene which was to carry it was about to begin when Dillingham heard a loud thump, thump, thump down the aisle. Frohman turned to Dillingham and said:

"What in the name of Heaven is that? The play is ruined!"

The thump, thump, thump continued, coming nearer. Just in the middle of the act a German voice spoke up and said:

"Oxkuse me, Meester Dillingham, dere ain't a lam' chop in der house."

It was Max, the butler, who, worried over what seemed the imminent failure of the midnight repast, had come to report to headquarters for further instructions. Fortunately the interruption pa.s.sed unnoticed and the play made quite a hit.

On one occasion Nat C. Goodwin invited him to the Goodwin residence in West End Avenue, New York. The comedian wanted to place himself under the management of his guest. Goodwin stated the case, and Frohman then asked how remunerative his last season had been. The host produced his books. After a careful examination Frohman remarked, with a smile:

"My dear boy, you don't require a manager. What you need is a lawyer."

XVIII

THE MAN FROHMAN

Great as producer, star-maker, and conqueror of two stage-worlds, Charles Frohman was greater as a human being. Like Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, he was more than a man--he was an inst.i.tution. His quiet courage, his unaffected simplicity, his rare understanding, his ripe philosophy, his uncanny penetration--above all, his abundant humor--made him a figure of fascinating and incessant interest.

No trait of Charles Frohman was more highly developed than his shyness.

He was known as "The Great Unphotographed." The only time during the last twenty-five years of his life that he sat for a photograph was when he had to get a picture for his pa.s.sport, and this picture went to a watery grave with him. Behind his prejudice against being photographed was a perfectly definite reason, which he once explained as follows:

"I once knew a theatrical manager whose prospects were very bright. He became a victim of the camera. Fine pictures of him were made and stuck up on the walls everywhere. He used to spend more time looking at these pictures of himself than he did attending to his business. He made a miserable failure. I was quite a young man when I heard of this, but it made a great impression on me. I resolved then never to have my photograph taken if I could help it."

Once when Frohman and A. L. Erlanger were in London he received the usual request to be photographed by a newspaper camera man. The two magnates looked something alike in that they had a more or less Napoleonic cast of face. Frohman, who always saw a joke in everything, hatched a scheme by which Erlanger was to be photographed for him. The plan worked admirably, and pictures of Erlanger suddenly began to appear all over London labeled "Charles Frohman."

He could be gracious, however, in his refusal to be photographed. One bright afternoon he was watching the races at Henley when he was approached by R. W. MacFarlane, of New York, who had been on the Frohman staff. MacFarlane asked if he could take a photograph of Frohman and give it to his niece, who was traveling with him.