MAUDE ADAMS
To say that she is the most valuable piece of theatrical property in the country is a brutally commercial way to speak of an artist; but that is the familiar and true, if one-sided, estimate of Maude Adams. From a small career, notable in its way, as a child actress, through a girlhood that had its struggles and trials, to an early share of success and then to an amazing degree of affectionate popularity, a popularity far exceeding that of greater artists, has been her record. The mere announcement of her name, without respect to the play she is acting, is enough to fill any theatre in the United States. Her popularity is such that it amounts almost to an unreasoning worship. One can safely say that, among the women, at least, of America there is an unorganized Maude Adams cult. And whatever the lack of proportion between this adulation and the intrinsic artistic worth of her achievements, it cannot be said that Miss Adams’ popularity has been unfairly won. She has let her acting—whatever its limitations—and her variously expressed ambitions speak for themselves, without Bernhardtian advertising. The public knows her not at all except as it sees her across the footlights. She is one of the dignified women of the theatre.
MAUDE ADAMS
Her mother, Annie Adams, an actress well known to the passing generation of playgoers, was descended collaterally from the Presidential Adamses of Massachusetts. James Kiskadden, the father of Maude Adams, “a man of handsome masculinity,” at the time of his daughter’s birth had come out of the Middle West to practice in Salt Lake City his business of banking.[196] Annie Adams has been better known as the mother of Maude Adams than as an actress in her own right; nevertheless she has had a long career as a capable actress. When Maude was born in Salt Lake City, on November 11, 1872, her mother was a member of the local stock company.
The public had not long to wait for its first glimpse of Maude Adams. When she was nine months old she was taken one night to the theatre where her mother was playing. According to the custom of the day, the evening’s entertainment ended with a short farce, this time The Lost Child. In this piece a baby is carried on and off the stage several times, to be finally carried in on a platter and set down before its distracted father. The baby used on this occasion was only a month or so old, and, as might have been expected, it began to howl lustily in the midst of its travels about the stage. Just at this moment Mrs. Adams, who was not playing in the second piece, was about to leave the theatre, when the stage manager caught sight of little Maude. Miss Adams’ début took place instantly, for she was placed on the platter and rushed onto the stage in place of the howling child. As the latter was some eight months the younger, the audience was treated to the unusual spectacle of seeing a child take on twenty pounds in a few minutes.
After a while the family moved to San Francisco. From time to time the little Maude appeared on the stage, although for the most part she lived the life of the ordinary child. Her glimpses of the life of the stage were probably more than enough, however, to “bend the twig.” Once her mother was supporting J. K. Emmett in Fritz in Ireland. Mr. Emmet had seen Maude and wished to have her play a child’s rôle in this piece. Her father at first demurred, as Maude was only five. The child was eager to take the part, however, and was finally allowed to do so.
After another interval of dolls and books, she played, when about six, the child in A Celebrated Case. She learned her small part so well that she had ample leisure to memorize most of the rest of the play. One man in the company, it is said, was often in her debt for swift and accurate prompting.
The rest of her childhood was divided between school—the Presbyterian School for Girls in Salt Lake City—and occasional appearances on the stage. Her mother insisted on the schooling, and Maude was bright enough at her studies. But one cannot wonder that the life of the stage had already enthralled the little girl. At any rate she left her books on occasion, to play such parts as Eva in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Paul in The Octoroon, and Oliver Twist.
“Little Maudie Adams” came to be the first choice for children’s parts in the best companies playing along the Pacific coast. One who saw much of her in those days, and who took pains to give her much undoubtedly valuable instruction, was David Belasco. “I was the stage manager of the Baldwin[197] then,” said Mr. Belasco. “James A. Herne and I were playing there together, and in our plays there was usually a child’s part. Annie Adams I had known for some years as one of the best character actresses of the West, but my first remembrance of Maude Adams is of a spindle-legged little girl, unusually thin and tall for her age, with a funny little pigtail and one of the quaintest little faces you ever saw. I don’t think even her mother considered Maudie pretty in those days. But even in her babyhood there was a magnetism about the child,—some traces of that wonderfully sweet and charming personality which was to prove such a tremendous advantage to her in the later years.... She could act and grasp the meaning of a part long before she was able to read. When we were beginning rehearsals of a new play I would take Maudie on my knee and bit by bit would explain to her the meaning of the part she had to play. I can see her now, with her little spindle legs almost touching the floor, her tiny face, none too clean, perhaps, peering up into mine, and those wise eyes of hers drinking in every word. I soon learned to know that it was no use to confine myself to a description of her own work: until I had told the whole story of the play to Maudie, and treated her almost as seriously as if she were our leading ‘star,’ she would pay no attention. She was serious-minded in her own childish way even in those days, and once she realized that you were treating her seriously there was nothing that child would not try to do.”[198]