In speaking of his parents Belasco has deeply impressed me by the fervor and sincerity of his filial affections. “My mother,” he has said, “was the best loved woman in Victoria and in San Francisco,—and she was the truest, best friend I ever had or shall have. She was called ’the Good Angel’ of the poorer quarters. As she grew older, in the latter city, when going about in streetcars, conductors would, when she wished to leave, escort her to the sidewalk, or would bring her to the car, if she wished to board it. When she died she had the greatest funeral a private person ever had in San Francisco. My brother told me it seemed as though every vehicle in town was in the line. She was very poetic, romantic, and keenly imaginative and gentleness itself. Any good I have ever done I owe to her.”—In a letter to a friend he writes thus about his mother:
“ ... I cannot tell you how close we were—how she seemed always to understand me without words and often [seemed] to be near me when I was in trouble and needed help. You know, I believe such feelings are inspired by something real: ’the realities of the spirit are more real than anything else.’... Very often we exchanged messages just by sending flowers, and it was the same way with my little ’Gussie.’... Flowers have always been a passion with me. Ever since I was a little boy, in Vancouver, and my mother used to come and find me dreaming among them on the hillside, I have loved them all.... But the violets were always my favorites, as they were hers. She always had them about her, from girlhood, and, indeed, my father wooed her with them. There was a bunch of them beside her in the little cellar-room where I was born (so she used to tell me), and when they brought me to her on a pillow she took some in her hand and sprinkled them over me. All my clothes, when I was a baby, had a violet embroidered on them, somewhere. The last gift I ever received from my mother was a black silk scarf, with violets embroidered on it,—and long, long hours it must have taken her to do it, for she could hardly hold a needle. Once, when I was a boy, I took $20 from a secret little hoard of hers, to pay for an operation on my throat which I didn’t want her to know about. Of course she missed it but she never said a word, and when I had saved up the money I just put it in a bunch of violets and left it for her. And when at last she went away and I could not be there I sent violets to cover her grave and say my ’Good-bye.’”
BLANCHE BATES AND “NAUGHTY ANTHONY.”
Much the most interesting person and much the ablest performer who has appeared under the management of Belasco is Blanche Bates. At the zenith of her career she exhibited a combination of brilliant beauty, inspiriting animation and impetuous vigor quite extraordinary and irresistibly winning. Her lovely dark eyes sparkled with glee. Her handsome countenance radiated gladness. She seemed incarnate joy. Her voice was clear, liquid, sweet; her enunciation distinct, her bearing distinguished, her action free and graceful. I have seldom seen an actress whose mere presence conveyed such a delightful sense of abounding vitality and happiness. In the last ten years no actress in our country has equalled her in brilliancy and power. She might have grasped the supremacy of the American Stage, alike in Comedy and Tragedy, personating such representative parts as Shakespeare’s Beatrice and Cleopatra and taking by right the place once occupied by Ada Rehan and afterward by Julia Marlowe. While under Belasco’s management she did give three performances which deservedly are remembered among the best of her time,—namely, Cigarette, in “Under Two Flags”; Yo-San, in “The Darling of the Gods,” and The Girl, in “The Girl of the Golden West.” But, although incontestably she possesses intellectual character, a strain of capricious levity is also among her attributes; she has weakly acquiesced to the dictates of vacuous social taste and sordid commercial spirit, paltered with her great talents, thrown away high ambition and golden opportunity, and so came at last to mere failure and obscurity. Her nature and her artistic style require for their full and free arousal and exercise parts of romantic, passionate, picturesque character, admitting of large, bold, sparkling treatment. She acted under Belasco’s direction for about twelve years: since leaving it, in 1912, she has done nothing in the Theatre of importance. “The modern, ’drawing-room drama’ in which she aspired to play,”—so Belasco once remarked to me,—“is not, to my mind, suited to her, and so we parted.”
Blanche Bates is a native of Portland, Oregon, born August 25, 1872; her father was manager of the Oro Fino Theatre, Portland, at the time of her birth. Her youth was passed in San Francisco, where she was well educated. She went on the stage in 1894, appearing at Stockwell’s Theatre (later called the Columbia), in that city, in a play called “This Picture and That.” Her novitiate was served chiefly under the management of T. Daniel Frawley. For several years she acted in cities in the Far West, playing all sorts of parts. At one time, in California, she was professionally associated with that fine comedian Frank Worthing (Francis George Pentland, 1866-1910), who materially helped to develop and train her histrionic talents. Belasco first became acquainted with her while she was yet a child, at the time of his professional alliance with her mother, Mrs. F. M. Bates. In 1896, during Mrs. Carter’s first season in “The Heart of Maryland,” Blanche visited New York, witnessed that performance, and applied to Belasco for employment. At the moment it was not possible for him to engage her, but he was neither forgetful of an old promise of his made to Mrs. Bates that he would assist her daughter, if ever he should be able to do so, nor unmindful of the beauty, talent, and charming personality of the applicant, and he assured her that she “should have a chance” at the first opportunity. That opportunity did not present itself for nearly three years. Meanwhile, Miss Bates returned to California and acted there, for about two years more, with the Frawley company. In the Spring of 1898 she was engaged by Augustin Daly and for a short time she acted under his management. On February 9, 1899, she made a single brilliantly successful appearance, at Daly’s Theatre, as the Countess Mirtza, on the occasion of the first presentment in this country of the popular melodrama of “The Great Ruby.” She disagreed, however, with the autocratic Daly and immediately retired from his company. On March 13, 1899, acting at the Broadway Theatre, New York, in association with Belasco’s old friend and comrade
Photograph by Sarony. Belasco’s Collection.
BELASCO, ABOUT 1899-1900