I don’t remember much about the A’s but the B’s were led by the name of William A. Brady. For a week I called at his office daily with my play under my arm. There seemed to be a certain vagueness among Mr. Brady’s clerks as to when he could be seen and after five or six days I ventured to ask one of them where Mr. Brady was, to be met with the heart-felt answer: “I wish to God I knew.” Which goes to prove after all how slight are the changes the years bring.
Pursuing my alphabetical course, I came at last to the H’s and found the name of “Gus Hill.” After diligent inquiry I discovered that Gus Hill was the manager of “Gus Hill’s Stars,” at that time holding forth in a burlesque theater in Brooklyn. The day before the D’s having failed me in the person of the late Augustin Daly, I started for Brooklyn and Gus Hill. I asked for Mr. Hill at the stage door of the Star Theatre and was pointed out his dressing room and told that Mr. Hill was “in there.” I knocked somewhat timidly at this door and a voice called “Come in,” and I entered to see a slight, blond, pleasant-looking man, quite naked, who was rubbing himself down with a towel. I later learned that Mr. Gus Hill was at that time the “Champion Club Swinger of the World” and that he had just finished his usual stunt of swinging great clubs several times larger than himself.
“The B’s were led by the name of William A. Brady”
(Photo by White Studio)
“Henry Miller was ... the greatest teacher of acting I have ever known.”
(Photo by Arnold Genthe)
As this turned out to be the critical moment of my life, pardon me if I drop into the dialogue form in an attempt to do it justice. Mad as the following may seem, it is true to the very last word. This is what actually took place between a very much embarrassed youth and a bland, blond, smiling and quite naked gentleman named Gus Hill:
SCENE
Gus Hill’s Dressing Room in Star Theatre, Brooklyn.
CHARACTERS