American Men of Mind

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

When Edwin Forrest, heart-broken and discredited, died in 1872, he left his manuscript plays to another great tragedian, whom he regarded as his legitimate successor, John McCullough. In some respects McCullough was a greater actor than Forrest, for he possessed that quality of poetic insight and high imagination which Forrest lacked, while in physical equipment for the great characters of tragedy he was in no whit his inferior.

John McCullough was born in Coleraine, Ireland, in 1837, his parents, who were small farmers, bringing him to this country at the age of sixteen. They settled at Philadelphia and the boy was apprenticed to a chair-maker, but he soon broke away from that hum-drum employment, and in 1855, appeared in a minor part in "The Belle's Strategem." His story, after that, was the usual one of long years of training in various stock companies. He gradually worked his way into prominence, and finally in 1866, became associated with Edwin Forrest, taking the second parts in the latter's plays; and, after Forrest's death, taking his place as the first impersonator of robust tragedy in America.

For ten years his success was tremendous—then came the sad ending. McCullough had always been supremely great in characters requiring the delineation of madness—Virginius, King Lear, Othello. Whether this had anything to do with the final tragedy cannot be said, but in 1884, while playing at Chicago, he broke down in the midst of a performance, and had to be led from the stage. His mind was gone; he never rallied, and ended his days in an asylum for the insane.

One of the most successful engagements McCullough ever had was in 1869 and for some years thereafter, when, with Lawrence Barrett, he appeared at the Bush Street theatre in San Francisco. Barrett's name is also closely associated with that of Edwin Booth, for he played opposite Booth through many seasons—Othello to Booth's Iago, Cassius to Booth's Brutus, and so on; and the two formed a combination which for sheer genius has never been surpassed. But Barrett never commanded the adoration of the public as Booth did, because he lacked that power of enchantment which Booth possessed in a supreme degree. His mind was austere, he could win respect but not affection, and, as a result, criticism was more captious, honors came grudgingly or not at all, and the fight for recognition was up-hill all the way.

Lawrence Barrett was born in 1838, and he began his theatrical career at the age of fifteen. After the usual hard stock-company experience, he secured a New York engagement, where, for nearly two years, he supported such actors as Charlotte Cushman and Edwin Booth. From New York he went to Boston for a similar engagement, but at the outbreak of the Civil War he left the stage, accepted a captaincy in the Twenty-eighth Massachusetts Infantry, and served through the war with distinction. Then he returned to the theatre, gaining an ever-increasing reputation until his death.

Clara Morris called him "The Man with the Hungry Eyes," and they were hungry, for life was always a battle to him. From an obscure and humble position, without fortune, friends, or favoring circumstances he had fought his way upward in the face of indifference, disparagement and cold dislike.

Clara Morris has told the story of her own life better than anyone else could tell it, and has shown in doing it the very qualities which made most for her success—a wide sympathy, an impetuous heart, and an invincible optimism. She, too, had a hard struggle at the first—entering the ballet at the age of fifteen to help her mother after her father's death, and working her way up until she secured a New York engagement with Augustin Daly's famous stock company, where she soon was sharing the honors with Ada Rehan. Ill health shortened her acting career, and compelled her retirement from the stage when at the very height of her powers.

Just the other day there died in California another woman who won a great public a generation ago by a genius and charm seldom equalled. Helena Modjeska's story was an unusual one. Born in Cracow, Poland, in 1844, the daughter of a great musician, her early years were passed in an inspiring atmosphere, and almost from the first she felt an impulse toward the stage. But her family refused to permit her to become an actress, and it was not until after her marriage that her chance came. Her husband consented to a few trial appearances, and her success was so great that she was soon engaged as leading lady for the theatre at Cracow.

But her husband incurred the ill-will of the authorities by his political writings, and she herself got into trouble with them by resisting the Russian censorship of the Polish theatre. It was evident that arrest and banishment for either or both of them might come at any moment, and under this incessant and increasing worry, her health began to fail. So she renounced the theatre, as she thought, forever, came to America, purchased a ranch in California, and settled down to spend the remainder of her life in quiet. But Edwin Booth, John McCullough, and others, encouraged her to study English and appear upon the American stage. She did so, and four months later appeared at San Francisco as Adrienne Lecouvreur. She had an instant success, and for more than thirty years maintained her position as one of the greatest actresses of the day.

Her personal fascination was of an exceedingly rare kind, her figure tall and graceful, her face wonderfully attractive in its intellectual charm and eloquent mobility. Shakespeare was her chief delight, and as Juliet, Rosalind and Ophelia she enchanted thousands.