At the time James A. Hearne gave me the photograph which accompanies this chapter he was one of the best actors, if not the best actor who spoke any language—in my estimation. He was then well into the fifties and for two score years had run the gamut from Bill Sykes (and he was king in that rôle) to the tender Nathan'l in that best of American plays, "Shore Acres."
The reproduction of the inscription which Hearne wrote on the back of his photograph shows that the old gentleman was not without a keen sense of humor.
I knew him all my stage life and in my eyes he was always a most wonderful person. In his early days he was prone to much dissipation, even to ruffianism; but he always drank and fought before the world. He was honest even when violently inclined. He never sneaked up back alleys to fight a foe, but met him in the open—no hiring of rooms in which to get drunk but at the open door where all could see him. And even in those days everybody loved the man.
In his later life he used his great mentality and became a real man, a beatific creature.
He married three times.
His first wife was the distinguished Lucille Western, a most wonderful natural, emotional actress. It is said she has made more money in a single season than any other star of any time. Her first husband, James Meade, a New York gambler, told me he handed her personally more than $600,000 in forty-two weeks! This was during the Civil War.
And she died in poverty!
Herself a spendthrift, she was ably assisted in dissipating her fortune by both Meade and Hearne. Her death followed her marriage to William Whalley, a ne'er-do-well but clever actor and at that time a great Bowery favorite.
After Lucille's death Hearne married her sister Helen, one of the most beautiful women ever born. They were very unhappy and a divorce speedily ended their union.