Beside it was a complete living suite, practical but furnished with antique plunder. There he often lived while in the pangs and ecstasies of conception, preparation, and consummation of his plays. Few ever penetrated that sanctum.
He had another private retreat on the balcony level, walled in off the nave. There he received esoterically but with broad hospitality, with a steward to serve drinks and tidbits.
In that room, one night, while a hit play was in action below, he got word from his stage manager that a feminine principal had fluffed some lines. He sent for her after the act. In the presence of one of your authors, he berated her as a gold-bricker and an ingrate.
"I gave you everything you ever had," he shrilled. "And the first thing I ever gave you was a bath!"
She bitched up no lines in the next act.
The next season another beauty gave him the romantic interest he required for a later success.
At the height of its run, he was stricken with pneumonia. His amazing constitution and will licked it, though he had passed his 76th birthday.
Weakened as the great Belasco was, the soul of the great lover still burned within him. He had been in retirement for weeks. The girl, a blonde this time, was young, and, he feared, fickle. As long as he was on his feet, none of his mistresses dared stray around. But he had been laid up for weeks.
The inamorata of the moment was ensconced in a private three-story residence not far from the Gladstone Hotel where he lived. Because of his family she could not come to see him during his illness. He did not tell her when he would be allowed out again. And, the first night he could ambulate, he decided to spy on her.
He set up his post across the street, where, from behind a light-pole, he could look up and over.