It was but natural that his prodigious success should suggest the idea to Wilson of striking out for himself. He had saved a great deal of money, and the year after Hopper became a star Wilson launched out at the same theater—the Broadway—in "The Oolah."
Snatched Victory from Defeat.
The curtain fell on what even the actors were forced to admit to themselves and one another was a failure. Gloom thick as night pervaded the region behind. For a while Wilson sat there with his head in his hands; then his indomitable courage asserted itself, and he sprang up with the exclamation:
"We have got to make this go. Let's get to work at it."
His company stood nobly by him. His leading woman, Marie Jansen, and the other principals, begged him not to consider them in the alterations, but to give the public more of himself. With much cutting and slashing of the book and innumerable rehearsals, the thing was whipped into shape, and turned out one of the successes of the season. It was followed the next year by "The Merry Monarch," which placed Wilson securely on the throne he continued to occupy until last year, when he decided to step down—or rather up, as no doubt he would prefer to put it, from musical to straight comedy.
Apropos of Wilson's beginnings, a well-known writer on dramatic topics was "reminiscing" some time since, and recalled the wigging he had received in his early days—along in '72 or '73—when he was a very young city editor of the Buffalo Evening Post. He had gone to Dan Shelby's Terrace Theater, and devoted considerable space the next day to praising the work of two men who took part in the variety show there current, and it was for this eulogy he had been called down by his chief. One of the men was Denman Thompson, who was using "Uncle Josh" in its crude, one-act form; the other was Francis Wilson, who was doubling song and dance with Jimmie Mackin.
TWO IMMORTAL HYMNS.
Interesting Stories of the Origin of World-famous Sacred Lyrics Which Have Been Sung in Every Country on the Globe.
