Being a Truthful Portrayal of the Author’s First Appearance on Any Stage; Morristown, N. J., July 18, 1890.
At the second performance, at Morristown, N. J., I was cast for the enraged spouse. I believe I was made up for the part fully an hour before the house opened. How nervous I was awaiting my cue, but when it came, my ears seemed to hear nothing but wife, wife, wife, and instead of saying, “Where’s my husband?” I said, “Where’s my wife?” * * * I won’t repeat what my father said, but what with the tears of mortification that flowed from my eyes and the perspiration from the pores of my face, almost made washing-up a superfluity.
After that awful first night I got away with the part without any trouble, and even indulged in conversations while awaiting my cue, which I had always thought to be a physical impossibility.
Billy Birch, who was with us, used to suffer severely from rheumatism, and just before parade would say to me, “‘Cully,’ would you mind going over to the hotel, on the bureau, right hand side, and get my medicine?” Would I go? I felt honored.
At the opening performance we had a song and dance team who, like myself, were just breaking into the business. Their act was not an unqualified success and extra tickets to Morristown were not purchased. Some one asked Bob Slavin what he thought of the act, to which he replied: “As a success, they’re a failure; as a failure, they’re a success.”
The company closed early in November and a couple of weeks before Christmas I consented to wrap parcels at Wanamaker’s store in Philadelphia for a small weekly stipend. It was hard to work for wages after having received a salary.
Various mercantile positions were mine until the Fall of 1894, when the late Harry Mann opened the old Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia for the production of the old farces such as “Box and Cox” and others of a like nature. I had heard that there were to be specialties between the acts, wrote for an engagement and shortly afterwards received a reply from Mr. Mann asking me to call. (I have that letter yet.) I told him that I had a black-face monologue that was absolutely original; he told me that he could get Willis P. Sweatnam, but decided to give me the preference, I was quick to reply that I wasn’t as good as Sweatnam. (I was frightfully modest those days.) However, I was engaged, and was to receive $10 for my week’s services; I was certain he could not get Sweatnam for less than $12.50 or possibly $15. Monday, September 24, we opened; I wore a pale-blue suit and a pleasant expression; on Tuesday I still had the suit, but had lost the expression, caused by the sudden closing of the house. I have always maintained that if I had been billed stronger, the house might have remained open longer; possibly another night; the $1.67 due me for my one performance, I never received, but as compensation, one of the papers said that my monologue, besides being good in itself, was excellently rendered. It’s not true that the reporter who wrote this, attended a prizefight that evening. I banked a whole lot on that blue suit; it was part of my plan to be different from any other monologist, and I still think I was. Instead of making my entrance in the conventional manner, I hit upon the idea of having one of the scenes part in the centre, and then walk on saying, “I just blew in,” carelessly pointing to my blue suit at the same time.
The more I thought of this, the greater the sensation I was sure I would create; I pictured the reserves being called upon to quell the riot; I saw myself taking encore after encore, and conjured the immense audience rising in their seats as one, begging for just one more glimpse of that blue suit; I was so sure of my success to be, that in a burst of confidence, I told a friend about my idea, and was horrified to learn that George Thatcher had done the self-same thing some time before. Here was a dilemma, what was I to do? I had known Thatcher from boyhood, and the idea of utilizing any of his ideas was not to be thought of; fortunately, about this time, he (Thatcher) played an engagement at the National Theatre (Philadelphia), and I decided to see him and explain the situation thoroughly. I found him one evening standing on the steps of the theatre; I told the whole story, reserving nothing, and explained that I was willing to relinquish my idea if he thought it would conflict with him in any way, but with rare generosity he agreed not to prosecute me for plagiarism or piracy.
A week later I opened at Easton, Pa. I had a cold in the head and an old wig; the cold I obtained in Philadelphia, the wig in Easton, it was an old one (the wig) having lost my good one in Philly the week previous. * * * An uncle of mine graciously advanced me the price of a ticket to Philadelphia. * * * The watch was worth considerably more than $2. Six months later I might have been seen doing my specialty in Paterson, N. J.; provided you came Monday afternoon. * * * A performer in the same dressing-room asked me how much I paid for my trunk, which was a duplicate of his; $6 I said; why, I paid $12 for mine, he averred. And that was all I got out of the engagement. But that suit, little did the young lady who made it for me dream it would one day become historical; she is now a sedate matron in Detroit. Wonder if she still remembers it?
In the fall of 1898 I was a member of one of the many California Minstrel organizations that have invaded the country in the past fifty years. The Spring and Summer of 1900 found me selling pasteboards to the Southerners while with the Primrose & Dockstader Minstrels; in the Fall of 1900 I was agent for Andrew Robson in “The Royal Box;” 1901-02, agent for “Pud’dnhead Wilson,” with William S. Gill in the name part, Walker Whiteside, and a return to Primrose & Dockstader; 1902-03, manager, Western Alphonse & Gaston Co.; 1903-04, treasurer, Great Lafayette Company.