At Fifteen Dollars a Week.
"Yes," she said, in answer to my reminder about her start, "I began in the chorus of '1492,' at fifteen dollars a week. How did I get the job? Why, I was simply stage-struck. I saw in the newspapers that Mr. Rice wanted chorus-girls for his new production, so I went to the theater and asked for him. He saw me at once, and engaged me.
"You see, I was a Boston girl, and knew something of the show, as it had been given first by our crack regiment, the Boston Cadets. I remember among the girls with me in that special chorus group, which afterward made up the Daily Hints from Paris, were Grace Rutter (now Grace Elliston), who is the Mouse in 'The Lion and the Mouse,' and Minnie Ashley, who married Mr. Chanler a while ago and left the stage.
"When the show was brought to New York, the management gave me, in addition to my chorus specialty, the small part of the Infanta, and my pay was advanced to thirty-five dollars. Then A.M. Palmer, in whose theater we were having our long run, offered to make me the dancing girl in 'Trilby,' and I accepted. After that I went into the Hoyt farces and got up next to leading woman. And this reminds me of a funny experience—funny now to look back on, but rather exasperating at the time.
"I had been understudy to the lead in 'A Day and a Night' one season, and was getting fifty dollars a week. The next year they wanted me to go out as leading woman in the same piece, and offered me the same money. I naturally thought that I ought to have more, and told them so.
Those Elusive Sleepers.
"'Look here, Hattie,' said the manager, 'I tell you what we'll do. I'll make it fifty-five a week and your sleepers. How does that strike you?'
"I was delighted. With my sleeping-car berths settled for by the company, I stood to save a good bit at every jump, which was just like putting so much extra money in my pocket. I accepted, and, will you believe it, we never used sleepers once during the whole tour, for we did all our traveling by daylight. The joke was on me, all right, that time."
When "The Girl from Maxim's" exhausted its drawing power after a long run in town and was sent on the road the lead was awarded to Miss Williams, who acquitted herself so well that she was put into "The Rogers Brothers at Harvard," and played for the first time as a real principal on Broadway. Her imitations of different types, in this show were extremely clever, and she was engaged again for the Washington experiences of the Rogers Brothers the next season. In short, Hattie Williams had "arrived."
She has most peculiar views on applause.