Shall we be?
I wonder!
JOHN McCULLOUGH
At the end of the year 1882 I attracted the attention of the manager of the Dramatic Festival which was to be held at Cincinnati and was engaged to play the grave digger in "Hamlet" and Modus in "The Hunchback." Neither of these parts had ever been assumed by me prior to his engagement. It had always been my desire to appear in Shakespearean rôles and other legitimate characters.
The Dramatic Festival was a splendid success, artistically and financially. We began April 30, 1883, the first performance being "Julius Caesar." My associates were John McCullough, Lawrence Barrett, James E. Murdoch, Mary Anderson, Mlle. Rhea, Clara Morris and Kate Forsythe. The other plays given were "The Hunchback," "Much Ado About Nothing," "Othello," "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet." The enterprise was managed by R. E. J. Miles and stage-managed by William H. Daly. The receipts for the week were in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars. It was a happy time, marred only by our discovering that poor John McCullough was a doomed man, his mind showing a gradual decay. It was the beginning of the end, for in a few months the curtain rang down on dear John and he walked the stage no more.
A great, big-hearted, genial soul was lovable John McCullough! Everybody loved him and who could help it? Broad-minded and equally broad-shouldered, his companions ranged from prize-fighters to senators, wantons to duchesses. He was a splendid player and many suggestions have I received from him. He was a tragedian on the stage, a comedian off. I knew him for twenty years and in all that time, as intimate as we were, I always addressed him as "Mr." McCullough—and it annoyed him greatly.