A FIGHT WON (?)
MILES and BARTON, lessees of the Bijou Theatre, New York, took me under contract in 1886 and immediately I embarked for Europe in search of material. As I was scheduled to follow Henry E. Dixey, who had made himself famous at the time by his performance of Adonis, I realized that my task would be a heavy one. On my arrival in London I put myself in touch with several authors and succeeded in purchasing the rights of "Little Jack Shepard," "Erminie," "Turned Up" and a musical comedy called "Oliver Cromwell."
Armed with this material I returned to America with William Yardley, intending to open the season at the Bijou with the musical play "Little Jack Shepard" under his direction. We produced this play in the autumn, but did not realize our expectations. In the cast were Loie Fuller, who played the title rôle, Charles Bishop, Lelia Farrell and a prima donna whose name I forget. (She couldn't sing for nuts, but fortunately the first night she suffered from a severe cold which forced her to speak the lyrics.)
During the run of "Little Jack Shepard" I read the various librettos I had purchased abroad and while Miles (dear old Bob!) congratulated me on my perspicacity in procuring such material, Barton objected strenuously to one and all of them and advised me to dispose of them to the best advantage. I immediately sought Frank Sanger and disposed of all my holdings to him at just what they had cost me. I had previously read the book of "Erminie." Gus Kerker played the score for us. Barton, with his usual capacity for doing the wrong thing, violently protested against "Erminie," saying it was a reflex of the old play "Robert Macaire" and vastly inferior!
When business dropped with "Little Jack Shepard," Miles and Barton were in a quandary as to what would follow it and came to me with a request that I put on one of the plays which I had brought over from Europe. I asked them which they preferred and they decided upon "Erminie." "Very well," I said, "I will see what I can do, but unfortunately I have disposed of the rights to Mr. Frank Sanger." We called him up on the telephone and found that he had left the office at the request of the management of the Casino, but would be back in half an hour. I jumped into a cab, went to the office and saw Frank. He informed me that he had just sold the American rights to Aronson, manager of the Casino, who had engaged Francis Wilson to play the leading part. Sanger was much distressed about this as he considered that the part would suit me "down to the ground." Everyone knows the history of "Erminie." It made everybody connected with it rich. Through Barton's dogmatic stupidity we all lost fortunes.
I asked Frank if he had disposed of all the material that I had sold him and discovered that "Turned Up" was still in the market. He very kindly offered it to us for a thousand dollars down (he had previously paid me five hundred cash for it) and only (!) ten per cent of the gross receipts. We were forced to accept the play upon those conditions. We opened with it, in conjunction with a burlesque on "The Bells" written for me by Sydney Rosenfeld. In this I appeared as Mathias, giving an imitation of Henry Irving. We retained most of the cast that we had used in the previous bill with the exception of Robert Hilliard and Charlie Coote whom I engaged to play the two light comedy rôles.
I have never been associated with an entertainment which was received with such manifest appreciation as that double bill. We thought we were in for a run of at least one season and maybe two. So sanguine was Hilliard over the success of that evening that he spent two hundred dollars the following day in decorating his dressing-room. He was sure we had found our theatrical home for six months or a year.