A messenger, hastily summoned, was said to have released the actor shortly after the hour for "ringing up." The idea that a barber could keep a thousand people waiting for their entertainment was both novel and humorous, and, in the vernacular, our story "landed hard." The strike of the Helen May Butler Military Band at the Woman's Exhibition was arranged with equal ease and proved equally good. That exhibition was wonderfully fruitful. Almost anything the women did seemed amusing, and the show itself was so extraordinary that its smallest features were interesting.
As elaborate a tale as, for example, the famous Anna Held milk bath story, to which I have referred, requires more plotting and arranging than would the founding of a revolutionary society in Russia. One may spend weeks of work and hundreds of dollars on such a "fake," only to trace its subsequent failure to some trifling flaw in the chain of circumstance. Widely though a successful story of this sort may be chronicled, the reward is absolutely incommensurate with the labor involved, and I think few press agents would ever attempt one were it not for a gambler's love of excitement.
It was during Judge Alton B. Parker's presidential campaign that I evolved what I consider my most magnificent "fake." At that time I represented several attractions in New York, chief among the number two musical comedies, entitled "The Royal Chef" and "Piff, Paff, Pouf." I wired Judge Parker's secretary that the choruses of these productions had formed a club, which was to be known as The Theatrical Women's Parker Association, and the purpose of which was to induce male performers to go home to vote. Would Judge Parker receive a delegation from this society? The wire was signed "Nena Blake," and, in due time, Miss Blake received a courteous and conclusive reply. Judge Parker would not.
That message was a stunner. In the face of it, there was only one thing to do—send along our delegation on the pretence that no answer to our communication had ever been received. Nine chorus ladies were picked out in a hurry, placed in charge of a shrewd newspaper woman who passed as another show girl, and the whole outfit was dispatched to Aesopus. The newspaper woman had instructions to register at a prominent hotel as a delegation from the Theatrical Women's Parker Association, and to parade herself and her charges before all the alert correspondents in the little town on the Hudson. That done, we who had stayed behind got ready photographs of the pilgrims and waited.
The wait was not long. By nine o'clock that night the bait had been swallowed at Aesopus, and my office was crowded with reporters anxious to verify the story wired from up the river. Judge Parker, with characteristic kindness, had lunched the party, allowed it to sing to him, and sent it away rejoicing. Most of the boys "smelled a mouse," but the thing was undeniably true and much too important to be ignored. The Theatrical Women's Parker Club, "Piff, Paff, Pouf" and "The Royal Chef" were well advertised the next morning.
It was the failure of a prominent newspaper to mention either of our plays by name that drove me to further utilization of this scheme. Such an omission is always unfair and unjust. A story is good enough to be printed or it is not; if not, nobody has cause for complaint, if it is, there is no reason why a newspaper should deny the expected compensation. Resolving that I would compel this payment, I immediately arranged for a public meeting of the Theatrical Women's Parker Club. The Democratic National Committee furnished us with a cart-load of campaign literature and with three speakers, one of whom was Senator Charles A. Towne. The other orators we provided. They were Eddie Foy, Dave Lewis, Nena Blake, Grace Cameron and Amelia Stone. The juxtaposition, I felt confident, was sufficiently grotesque to provoke comment.
"A public meeting of The Theatrical Women's Parker Club"
I wrote nine political speeches for the occasion, held two rehearsals, and, when our advertisements failed to draw an audience, secured a fine one by sending to such congregating places as the Actors' Society. The affair passed off beautifully, Senator Towne adapting himself to circumstances and making one of the most graceful and agreeable addresses imaginable. I heard it from a nook in the fly gallery, where I remained until the meeting was adjourned. This "fake" accomplished its purpose, the delinquent newspaper falling in line with the others in publishing the story.
It would tax your patience and your faith in the existence of modesty were I to go into detail regarding a score of similar "fakes" which come to mind. How this same Nena Blake was kidnapped from the Garrick Theater, Chicago, and sent to New York in the costume she wore in "The Royal Chef"; how her sister, Bertha, was sent to Zion to kiss the unkissed son of John Alexander Dowie; how a supposed German baron threw across the footlights to Julia Sanderson a bouquet from which dropped an $18,000 diamond necklace; how a chorus girl named Thorne created a sensation at a Physical Culture Show in Madison Square Garden by declaring the costume she was expected to wear "shockingly immodest"; how a niece of Adele Ritchie changed her name to Adele Ritchie Jr., and Miss Ritchie herself was sought in marriage by a Siamese millionaire—all of these anecdotes must pass with the mere mention that they were successful "fakes."