The Life of David Belasco; Vol. 2

by William Winter; William Jefferson Winter

Count d’Aubeterre	Frederic de Belleville.
Lazare	—— Robert Warwick.
Count de Mornay
Chanoinesse	Elita Proctor Otis.
Viscount Raoul de Mornay	Eugene O’Brien.
Jean Renaud	Otis Skinner.
Dennis O’Rourke	N. C. Goodwin.
Corporal	Walter F. Scott.
Seneschal	George Allison.
Captain	John Warnick.
Duchess d’Aubeterre	Minna Gale Haynes.
Little Adrienne	Mimi Yvonne.
Martha	Beverly Sitgreaves.
Julia	Ruth Farnum.
Madeleine Renaud	Helen Ware.
Adrienne Renaud	Ann Murdock.
Annette	Esther Cornell.
Valentine de Mornay	Florence Reed.
Julie	Marie Sasse.

LENORE ULRIC.—AND “THE HEART OF WETONA.”

Many players of talent and present eminence have been fostered and developed under Belasco’s management—that being, indeed, one of his most important services to our Stage. He is an inveterate theatre-goer,—attending performances everywhere and, sooner or later, seeing practically everything and everybody visible on the American Stage. This customary vigilant observance of all activity within his profession he facetiously describes as “my fishing trips,” and, conversing with me on the subject, he has remarked: “It is often a long time between ‘bites,’ but one of the delights of the sport is that you never know, as the curtain goes up, how soon you may ‘hook a big one.’ Among the biggest I have ever landed is, I believe, little Miss Ulric: I think she will grow bigger every season she is before the public.”

Miss Lenore Ulric, to whom Belasco thus referred, was born at New Ulm, Minnesota, July 21, 189—. In childhood she knew the meaning of hardship, and she has studied and learned in the often harsh school of experience. Whether or not she will fulfil Belasco’s high expectation time alone can tell, but one thing about her is certain: she belongs to a class of which there is urgent need on our Stage,—she is “a born actress.” She resorted to the dramatic calling not through mere vanity, the impulse of personal exhibition, or the acquisitive hope of profit,—motives which actuate a majority of the young women who go upon the Stage,—but because her natural vocation is acting. As far as known, no precedent member of her family was ever associated with the Theatre, and for some time her choice of that calling met with severe paternal disapproval. Her novitiate was served in various stock companies in Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Chicago, and Syracuse. In August, 1913, Miss Ulric appeared as Luana, in “The Bird of Paradise,” under the management of Mr. Oliver Morosco: she acted that part for two seasons. In 1914, while playing at the Standard Theatre, New York, she wrote to Belasco asking him to witness her performance of that part and expressing the hope that after having done so he might find a place for her in some one of his companies. “I have long made it a rule,” writes Belasco, “to comply with such requests from young players whenever it is possible for me to do so. I well remember how long I pleaded with dear John McCullough for a hearing before I got it and I know the discouragement of ‘hope deferred.’ Besides—nobody can make a fairer proposition than ‘watch my work and, if you think it is good, engage me.’ But I was extremely busy when I received Miss Ulric’s request and couldn’t give the time,—so I sent my secretary, Mr. Curry. His report was so favorable that I felt I must see her at work—so, since I could not go to her, I had Mr. Roeder bring her to me by making her a tentative offer of an engagement to act in George Scarborough’s play of ‘The Girl.’ She accepted, of course (she has told me, since, that she had set her heart on getting with me and would have accepted almost any offer to do so), and I had my stage manager call a rehearsal. I was not supposed to attend,—but I slipped into the gallery unknown to anybody (a little trick I have) and watched her carefully. After twenty minutes I knew I was watching a very talented and unusual young woman—one who with opportunity and proper training might do great things. Before the rehearsal was over I had told Roeder to close the arrangement with her to play the leading part in ‘The Girl,’ which, afterward, became ‘The Heart of Wetona.’”

In its original form the scene of that play was “A Middle Western Town” (Missouri), its five characters were Caucasian, and its story was one of erring love, deceit, shame, and rescue set in a commonplace rural environment,—a main purpose of its author being, presumably, to exhibit a group of conventional persons impelled by violent passion yet restrained by religious feeling. In that form it received a trial presentment, June 28, 1915, at Atlantic City, New Jersey, with this cast:

In the Prologue.

David Greer	William H. Thompson.
Elizabeth Greer	Lenore Ulric.

In the Play.

Jonathan Wells, D.D	Arthur Lewis.
Anthony Wells	Lowell Sherman.
The Rev. Frederick Forbes	John Miltern.
Elizabeth Greer	Lenore Ulric.
David Greer	William H. Thompson.