Madame Sarah Bernhardt declares Clarkson, of London, to be the “king of wig-makers,” and he has made every wig she has worn in her various parts for many years.
“She is a wonderful woman,” Mr. Clarkson said, “she knows exactly what she wants, and if she has not time to write and enclose a sketch—which, by the way, she does admirably—she sends a long telegram from Paris, and expects the wig to be despatched almost as quickly as if it went over by a ‘reply-paid process.’”
“But surely you get more time than that usually?”
DRAWING OF COSTUME FOR JULIET, BY PERCY ANDERSON.
“Oh yes, of course; but twice I have made wigs in a few hours. Once for Miss Ellen Terry. I think it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Bells—at any rate she was to appear in a small first piece for one night. At three o’clock that afternoon the order came. I set six people to work on six different pieces, and at seven o’clock took them down to the theatre and pinned them on Miss Terry’s head. The other wig I had to make so quickly was for Madame Eleonora Duse. She arrived in London October, 1903, and somehow the wigs went astray. She wired to Paris to inquire who made the one in La Ville Morte with which Madame Bernhardt strangled her victim. When the reply came she sent for me, and the same night Madame Duse wore the new wig in La Gioconda.”
By-the-bye, Madame Duse has a wonderful wig-box. It is a sort of miniature cupboard made of wood, from which the front lets down. Inside are six divisions. Each division contains one of those weird block-heads on which perruques stand when being redressed, and on every red head rests a wig. These are for her different parts, the blocks are screwed tight into the box, and the wigs are covered lightly with chiffon for travelling. When the side of the box falls down those six heads form a gruesome sight!
Most of the hair used in wig-making comes from abroad, principally from the mountain valleys of Switzerland, where the peasant-girls wear caps and sell their hair. A wig costs anything from £2 to £10, and it is wonderful how little the good ones weigh. They are made on the finest net, and each hair is sewn on separately.
When Clarkson was a boy of twelve and a half years old he first accompanied his father, who was a hairdresser, to the opera, and thus the small youth began his profession. He still works in the house in which he was born, so he was reared literally in the wig trade, and now employs a couple of hundred persons. What he does not know can hardly be worth knowing—and he is quite a character. Not only does he work for the stage; but detectives often employ him to paint their faces and disguise them generally, and he has even decorated a camel with whiskers and grease paint.
The most expensive wig he ever made was for Madame Sarah Bernhardt in La Samaritaine. It had to be very long, and naturally wavy hair, so that she could throw it over her face when she fell at the Saviour’s feet. In L’Aiglon Madame Bernhardt wore her own hair for a long time, and had it cut short for the purpose: but she found it so difficult to dress off the stage that she ultimately ordered a wig.