CHAPTER XIII
IN ANSWER TO MANY FRIENDS
As I have stated in my foreword, this book is not intended to adhere to any fixed plan. I am writing on subjects covering a wide latitude, many of which have been suggested by questions out of letters written to me by friendly spirits who like my picture plays. Although the facts relating to my theatrical career have been published over and over again, hardly a day goes by without receipt of letters on that subject.
The prevailing notion is that I come from a theatrical family and that I was educated for the stage. Nothing is further from the truth. My father was a lawyer with a knowledge of the drama such as few professionals have had. From the time I was able to eat I was fed on Shakespeare. When I was twelve years old I could recite the principal speeches in most of that gentleman’s plays.
My article in Photoplay some months ago gave the whole story in fewest words and the same is herewith appended.
My dramatic education was augmented by frequent contact with great actors. My father was a friend of Mansfield, Edwin Booth, Stuart Robson, John Drew, Frederick Warde and other famous actors who were his guests whenever they visited Denver.
I once asked Mr. Mansfield about the best way to prepare for the stage and he told me that there was no such thing as preparation for the stage; but that there were certain accomplishments that were essential to great success. These included a knowledge of fencing, painting and the French language. Modesty precludes a discussion of the result of following that advice. Suffice to say, I can defend myself fairly well with rapier or broadsword, I can tell a Corot from a Raphael without the aid of artificial devices, and I have made my way through France without being arrested or going hungry.
Writers who give advice to the ambitious usually cite experiences from their own book of life, but if any young man were to follow in my footsteps, he’d take a rather devious path to the stage and he’d have to travel some.
My parents were far from convinced that I was cut out for the stage, so I was sent to the Colorado School of Mines to become a mining engineer. But there didn’t seem to be any room in my head for calculus, trigonometry and such things. I could never master higher mathematics; therefore I could never be a mining engineer, so I quit.
Now I’m not desirous of inflicting a recital of my deficiencies on a magnanimous public; just trying to show that one may fail in many things before finding one’s niche in life. Certainly I failed in many ventures, even in my first attack on the American stage. The first onslaught didn’t even make a dent on that historic institution.