The speed with which theatrical fame is made and lost is startlingly demonstrated by a glance through a book on celebrated actors of the day, published only ten years ago. Out of thirty players, only five are now as much in the center of the limelight as they were then. The others are either dead or have sunk back into obscurity.
The volume contains no mention, for instance, of a name now so high on the dramatic scroll of to-day as that of Mrs. Leslie Carter. It was in that very year of 1896 that Mrs. Carter was laying the foundation of her vogue by her swing from the belfry in David Belasco's "Heart of Maryland."
She hails from the West, and grew up as Caroline Louise Dudley, with never an aspiration for the stage. She recalls the first performance she ever saw as being "Joe" Jefferson in "The Cricket on the Hearth" at MacCauley's Theater, Louisville. She was not particularly carried away by it, although for some time thereafter her father facetiously dubbed her "Tilly," after the Tilly Slowboy of Dickens's story.
After her father's death the family moved from Kentucky to Ohio, and here she met the wealthy Leslie Carter, of Chicago, and married him. But the match proved an unhappy one, a divorce followed, and Mrs. Carter was very ill for a long time. On her recovery she faced the necessity of earning her own living, and as she could neither sew, teach, nor manipulate a typewriter, she turned to the stage, as so many others, in similar cases, had done before her.
But it was a heart-breaking task to find some one to give her even a chance to show what she could do. The haunting of managers' offices day after day, the making of appointments with them that they never kept nor thought of keeping, the lying in wait for them at dark turns on the stairs, and the dashing across the street to intercept them in their walks abroad—all this fell to the lot of Louise Leslie Carter, as she was known when Belasco finally consented to put her out in "The Ugly Duckling," by Paul Potter.
But the play failed, and all seemed lost except two things: Mr. Belasco's faith in Mrs. Carter and her trust in his judgment of her abilities. Another essay was made the next year—1891—this time in a vehicle of an altogether different description, "Miss Helyett," a musical comedy with the score by Edmond Audran, who wrote "Olivette" and "The Mascot," and in which Mrs. Carter played the part of a Quaker maiden who has droll adventures among the Spanish Pyrenees.
This did better than "The Ugly Duckling," but still the star failed to "arrive," and still she and her manager kept up their belief in each other. Mr. Belasco now decided to try a play of his own making, and with this the victory was won.
No, not quite all. It remained for "Zaza," adapted from the French, and brought out at the Garrick in New York, January 9, 1899, to round out the little story which David Belasco told in his curtain speech on that now historic night. He spoke only two sentences, but they comprised the career of the star who came to be the inspiration of all the theaters that now bear his name.
And this is what he said:
"Nine years ago a poor woman threw herself at my feet and asked me to help her. Now she is the happiest woman in the world, for she can telegraph to her son that you like her in 'Zaza,' and that the boy may be proud of his mother."