Few of Frohman's "discoveries" justified his confidence with lovelier success than Julia Sanderson. Her first public appearance on the stage had been in vaudeville. When Frohman sought a comedienne with a certain dainty, lady-like quality for the English musical play called "The Dairymaids," which he produced at the Criterion in 1907, his attention was called to this charming girl, then doing musical numbers in a New York vaudeville theater. Frohman went to see her, and was fascinated by her beauty and charm. He noted, most of all, a certain gentle quality in her personality, and with his peculiar genius in adapting plays to people and people to plays, she fairly bloomed under his persuasive and sympathetic sponsorship.
Frohman now obtained "The Arcadians," in which Miss Sanderson was featured. Of all the musical plays that he produced, this was perhaps his favorite. He liked it so much that he told Miss Sanderson one day during rehearsal:
"If the public does not like 'The Arcadians,' then I am finished with light opera."
"The Arcadians," however, proved to be a gratifying success, and Frohman's confidence was vindicated. Frohman was undergoing his long and almost fatal illness at the Knickerbocker Hotel when "The Arcadians" was being rehearsed. He was so fond of the music that whenever possible the rehearsals in which Miss Sanderson sang were conducted in his rooms at the hotel. He always said that he could see the whole performance in her singing. In rehearsing her he always seemed to well-nigh break her heart, but it was his way, as he afterward admitted, of provoking her emotional temperament.
JULIA SANDERSON
He next gave her a strong part in "The Siren," and subsequently made her a co-star with Donald Brian in "The Sunshine Girl," which brought out to the fullest advantage, so far, her exquisite and alluring qualities.
The last star to twinkle into life under the Frohman wand was Ann Murdock. Here is presented an extraordinary example of the way that Charles literally "made" stars, for seldom, if ever, before has a young actress been so quickly raised from obscurity to eminence. Almost overnight he lifted her into fame.
Miss Murdock, who was born in New York, and had spent her childhood in Port Washington, Long Island, was not a stage-struck girl. She went on the stage because she made up her mind that she wanted more nice frocks than she was having. She rode over to New York one day and went to Henry B. Harris's office to get a position. As she sat waiting among a score of applicants, Harris came out. He was so much taken with her striking Titian beauty and unaffected girlish charm that he immediately asked her to come in ahead of the rest, and gave her a small part in one of "The Lion and the Mouse" road companies. When Harris saw her act he took her out of the cast and put her in a new production that he was making in New York.