“It so happened that at this time the first of the ’beauty doctors’ and the ’facial-massage’ school were making fortunes with their lotions. It may be interesting to know that Mrs. Carter was sorely tempted to enter this field and bring out a preparation for the complexion. In fact, she negotiated with a well-known chemist, who advised her to carry out her idea. Lack of necessary capital prevented, however, and she kept to the stage instead of becoming a business woman. The world may have lost a very good ’skin-food,’ but it gained a fine actress.
“When ’The Heart of Maryland’ was finished models of the scenes were made and I found myself with a play and a star—but no financial manager. Every one to whom I read the manuscript was eager to accept it, but no one wanted Mrs. Carter, despite the success she had made. Every manager had a leading woman far, far better suited to the part of Maryland. I never heard of such wonderful leading women! The town was alive with them! ’Mrs. Carter is not a public favorite,’ I was told on all sides. ’However, the play was written for her, and I’ve made up my mind not to take it away from her,’ I answered. The Lord knows she had suffered enough while waiting for it.”
Mrs. Carter, beyond demonstrating her possession of genuine though nascent histrionic ability, obviously had not made any “success,”—except in her approving preceptor’s mind. Indeed, the disastrous fate of “The Ugly Duckling,” impending legal contentions, and the general social oppugnancy to Mrs. Carter were strong, in fact seemingly insuperable, reasons for managerial hesitancy in making any venture vitally dependent upon her for its success. Belasco, though he adhered to his resolve that only Mrs. Carter should act the part of Maryland Calvert, which he had devised for her, felt himself almost nonplussed. He was heavily in debt; he had no employment; he felt himself to be the object of active journalistic animosity; he possessed no financial resources; he seemed, in short, to be on the verge of defeat. Charles Frohman chanced to meet him at that time and, mentioning to him “a play with music” which had then recently been presented in Paris, made a suggestion that led to their first partnership in theatrical management. “The piece seems to have made a sensation,” said Frohman: “the American rights are owned by Charles Wyndham. The leading characters are a Quaker father and his daughter. The daughter is the part. Can Mrs. Carter sing? Because, if she can and you want to produce it with me, I’ll get an option from Wyndham: you and Mrs. Carter go to Paris and see the piece—and, if you think she can play the part and that it will be a go in this country, we’ll do it together.” Belasco, although somewhat doubtful whether Mrs. Carter could successfully sustain the requirements of a singing part, felt that the proffered opportunity must not be neglected; after discussing the point with his pupil a decision to essay the venture was quickly made, and, on April 15, 1891, laying aside for the moment all other plans, Belasco, Mrs. Carter and her mother sailed for England on board the steamship City of New York, and from Southampton proceeded at once to France. “When we reached Paris,” writes Belasco, “we found the Bouffes Parisiennes ’selling out’ and ’Miss Helyett’ the talk of the town. It was so full of possibilities that I cabled ’C. F.’ to secure the rights before I saw the last act.” That recommendation was promptly heeded by Frohman. Writing of an interview with Edmond Audran, author of the music, which occurred soon after he had seen the play, Belasco records:
“I asked him to give me a letter in praise of the singer who was to play the part, but without mentioning her name, for not only did we wish to create a surprise in America, but to avoid complications with Wyndham in London. I knew he would want us to engage a singer of established reputation, so I avoided mentioning the name of the artist who was to have the title-part, Wyndham was quite insistent when I met him in London, but I handed him Audran’s letter, which proved to be the magic stroke. Before the day was over, all arrangements were made by cable.”
“MISS HELYETT” AND MRS. CARTER.
The production of the mongrel play with music, called in our Theatre “Miss Helyett,”—a fabric which commingles comic opera with the farrago known as “farce-comedy,”—was a minor incident in Belasco’s struggle for advancement. Audran’s music, though not in his best vein, is generally tuneful, gay, and spirited. The text was “rewritten from the French of Maxime Boucheron by David Belasco,” and the play was first produced in America, November 3, 1891, at the Star Theatre, New York, Mrs. Carter then making her only appearance in a musical composition, and that being also Belasco’s only association with comic opera, after he left the Theatre of San Francisco. The scene is laid at the Hotel del Norte, in the Spanish Pyrenees Mountains. The story, which is indelicate, relates to a ludicrous accident to a young Quakeress, of demure appearance and frolicsome disposition, whose hypocritical father is conducting her through Europe in search of an advantageous marriage. This female, known as Miss Helyett, falls over a precipice and is caught, buttock-end uppermost, in a convenient tree, from which predicament she is rescued by a strolling painter. She manages to conceal her face from her deliverer, and she parts from him without ascertaining his identity or disclosing her own. Later she determines to discover and to marry the man who is already so familiarly acquainted with her “secret symmetry” (as Byron calls it), and that purpose she ultimately accomplishes. Her search for the unknown and her discovery and conquest of him constitute the substance of this operatic farce.
Mrs. Carter’s personation of Miss Helyett, while not deficient of piquancy, was insignificant. As a singer she was in no way unusual. Belasco relates that, while in Paris with her, to see the French original, he requested Audran to hear Mrs. Carter sing and, if he thought well of her as a singer, to teach her the songs in “Miss Helyett.” “Audran was charmed with her ability,” he says, “and gave her a number of rehearsals. Then he recommended an instructor and even wrote an extra musical number for her,”—which indicates that Audran, as a musician, was easily pleased. His operetta was highly successful in Paris, and hardly less so in London, where Charles Wyndham brought it out, at the Criterion Theatre, under the name of “Miss Decima.” It was generally, and justly, though without rancor, condemned by the press of New York. Nevertheless it had a considerable though not very remunerative career in the metropolis: it was acted at the Star Theatre till January 10, 1892, and on January 11 was transferred to the Standard Theatre, where it maintained itself till February 13,—the 100th performance occurring there on January 29. Belasco seems to have set some store by it at one time, but that was long ago. Wyndham’s London presentation of the composition was made July 23, 1891. This was the original cast of “Miss Helyett” in New York:
| Paul Grahame | Mark Smith (Jr.). |
| Todder Bunnythorne | M. A. Kennedy. |
| Obadiah Smithson | Harry Harwood. |
| Terence O’Shaughnessy | G. W. Travener. |
| Jacques Baccarel | J. W. Herbert. |
| Max Culmbacher | N. S. Burnham. |
| MacGilly | Edgar Ely. |
| Prof. Bonnefoy | Gilbert Sarony. |
| Señora Carmen Ricomba della Torquemada | Kate Davis. |
| Marmela | Laura Clement. |
| Mrs. Max Culmbacher | Adelaide Emerson. |
| Mrs. MacGilly | Lillian Elma. |
| La Stella | Henrietta Rich. |
| Miss Helyett (Smithson) | Mrs. Leslie Carter. |
After its New York engagement “Miss Helyett” was taken on a tour of principal cities of the country and was performed until the close of the theatrical season of 1891-’92. Notwithstanding its intrinsic paltriness and vulgarity, that play was practically useful to Belasco and Mrs. Carter, providing a temporary source of subsistence for both of them; yielding the actress some useful experience of the stage; permitting the dramatist some leisure for meditation and for rectification of his then immatured Civil War play, and leading, indirectly, to the writing and production of one of the best dramas with which his name is associated.