Courtesy Miss Blanche Bates. The Albert Davis Collection.
MRS. FRANK MARK BATES SALLIE HINCKLEY
From old photographs
died, in San Francisco, January 17, 1872, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, leaving no work undone that he could do and therefore ending in the fulness of time. He was acquainted with grief, but there was one sorrow he escaped,—he never knew “how dull it is to pause.”
It is obvious that no influence could have been more helpful to the eager, ingenuous, stage-struck Belasco than that of this sturdy, experienced, grand old actor and director, attracted and pleased by the fervor of a schoolboy seeking ingress to the Theatre. Belasco’s assurance that he wrote a good hand when he was a boy, however difficult that may be to believe now, is correct (I have independently ascertained that he took a prize for penmanship at the Lincoln School), and Smith,—who was stage manager of the California Theatre,—gave him odd pieces of work to do making fair copies of prompt-books of plays produced at the California, and also, from time to time, employed him to “go on” in the mobs, crowds, etc. To him Belasco confided his ambition to act Hamlet, Iago, and romantic characters, and by him he was advised to throw away ambition of that kind, physical exility making his success improbable (“you would need to be a head taller,” the veteran assured him), and to devote himself to what are termed “character parts” (miscalled by that designation, every part being a character part: “eccentric” is the quality really meant) and the study of stage management. If Smith had lived a little longer Belasco probably would have had better opportunity at the California Theatre, but the old man died before the youth had been more than about six months embarked on his professional theatrical career. Nevertheless, he owes much to the instruction and advice of that wise and kind friend.
ADOPTION OF THE STAGE.
Belasco’s actual adoption of the dramatic calling as a means of livelihood, as nearly as the fact can be determined, occurred on July 10, 1871, near the close of his eighteenth year, when he acted a minor part in a play called “Help,” by Frederick G—— Marsden, which was presented with Joseph Murphy (1832-1915) in its central part. This actor had been for some time a favorite minstrel and variety performer in San Francisco, generally billed as “Joe” Murphy (his real name was Donnelly), and had made his first appearance in this play of “Help,” May 8, 1871, at Wood’s Museum, New York, acting Ned Daly, an Irish comedy character, shown under several aliases and in various amusing and otherwise effective situations. Murphy’s professional associates at the Metropolitan, among whom Belasco was thus launched upon actual theatrical employment, were John R. Woodard, J. H. Hardie, J. C. McGuire, W. C. Dudley, Frank Rea, H. Swift, George Hinckley, R. A. Wilson, J. H. Vinson, Mrs. F. M. Bates (mother of that fine actress Blanche Bates, so widely and rightly popular in our time), Mrs. Frank Rea, Sallie A. Hinckley, Carrie Lipsis, Jennie Mandeville, Susie Soulé, and Ada Shattuck. Belasco, at first, was a super, but later he was provided with a few words. His school days had now come to an end, and from the time of his appearance in “Help” he continued, irregularly but persistently, and at last successfully, in the service of the Theatre.
BELASCO’S THEATRICAL NOVITIATE.
Belasco believes that soon after his appearance with Murphy, in “Help,” he was associated with the Chapman Sisters, but he is again mistaken. Murphy was at the Metropolitan in July, 1872. There is no record of an appearance of the Chapman Sisters there between that time and March 5, 1873, on which latter date a “Grand Re-Opening of the Metropolitan Theatre” occurred, under the direction of John Woodard. That “re-opening” was announced thus:
“The want of a People’s Theatre having long been felt in this community, the management has determined to present their patrons a First Class Theatre with First Class Stars and a First Class Company, with prices of admission placed within the reach of all.