BLANCHE BATES BALKED.
As a School Marm She Got Behind Footlights
to Dodge Promotion from
Kindergarten to Primary Grade.
I knew that Blanche Bates came of a theatrical family, and that, therefore, she had an open sesame to the stage, but I did not know just when she made her first appearance, and to learn this for The Scrap Book I sought her out in the brief interval of rest she has, without a costume change, between the first and second acts of "The Girl of the Golden West."
"How did I make my start?" she repeated in answer to my question. "Well, I rather think it was because I balked at the idea of being known as a 'school marm.' I'll tell you about it. Although both my father and mother were on the stage, I didn't care for the life in the least. In fact, in my small young mind, I set up to being a very grand lady.
"'An actress? No, indeed,' I told myself. 'Something much better than that for me.' I was interested in young children and became a kindergarten teacher in San Francisco, where my mother was playing with L.R. Stockwell. But it was my very success with the youngsters that brought about the close of my career as a teacher. If I could do so well in the kindergarten, the committee argued, I was worth promoting, so one day they came to me with the announcement that I had been advanced to the charge of a grade in the primary department.