DAVID BELASCO
Inscription:
“To my friend of many years, William Winter.”
From a photograph not before published—by the Misses Selby.
Author’s Collection.
comprehended by anybody. We have glimpses of each other; but, practically, each individual is alone. In the most favorable circumstances, accordingly, no life can be more than approximately summarized until the record is complete—perhaps not even then. It was perception of this fact that caused the old grave-digger of Drumtochty to declare that there is no real comfort in a marriage because nobody knows how it will turn out; whereas there is no room for solicitude about a funeral, because, at all events, the play is over. David Belasco, although he begins to see the shadow of the Psalmist’s threescore years and ten, is still in the full vigor of life; he is, indeed, the most powerful, vital influence now [1917] operant in the English-speaking Theatre,—Herbert Beerbohm-Tree, in London, being his only competitor,—and (as I hope and believe) is approaching the highest achievements of his long, varied, and brilliant career, which there is reason to expect will continue for many years....
Actors, it has been noted, who are actors only, often are remarkably long-lived. Men who attain eminence in theatrical management,—whether they be also actors or not,—seldom are so: Sir William Davenant died at sixty-two; Garrick at sixty-one; John Kemble at sixty-six; Thomas S. Hamblin at fifty-one; Charles Kean at fifty-seven; Benedict De Bar at sixty-three; John McCollough at fifty-three; Lester Wallack at sixty-eight; Lawrence Barrett at fifty-two; Edwin Booth at sixty; John T. Ford at sixty-five; Augustin Daly at sixty-one; A. M. Palmer at sixty-seven. Garrick had been three years in retirement when he died; Kemble, six; Kean, nearly one; Booth, more than two; Palmer, five. Belasco’s career has already extended over a period of forty-six years and, excepting Wallack, he is now older than any of those men were when their professional labors ended,[7]—yet there is in him none of the dejection of age; none of the despondency of fatigue; no abatement of his ambitious purpose, resolute enterprise, and amazing energy; no sign of that forlorn loneliness which often settles on the mind as friends die, things alter and long familiar environment drifts away, the old order changing and giving place to new. On the contrary, his health is excellent, his mind virile, his courage high, his spirit cheerful, and in every way he shows as indeed “strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” It is, therefore, a specially difficult and dubious task to attempt to make at this time a summary of his character, life, and labor. But if another of the abrupt and lamentable bereavements of the Stage which it has so often been my task to chronicle and estimate should befall at this time; if, suddenly, now, while all around seems bright and full of life and hope, mortality’s strong hand should close upon Belasco and I should be required to write of him as of one whose work was finished and who had “bid the world good-night,” I should write in these words:
From the beginning and until the end David Belasco was an embodiment of high ambition, zealous enterprise, resolute endeavor, and patient endurance. He did not drift into his career—he selected it. His natural proclivity for the Theatre was irresistible; in youth his aspiration was to reach a dominant place in that institution; all his early life was spent in arduous toil to equip himself for the eminence at which he aimed; through long years, in which he became well acquainted with bitter strife and grievous disappointment, he never lost hope or faltered in the purpose which at last he achieved,—supremacy in the American Theatre. He was a rare and vivid personality; an extraordinary and many-sided man; the natural successor of Lester Wallack, Edwin Booth, and Augustin Daly as the leading theatrical manager of America; and, in the English-speaking world, he was absolutely the last of the managers who, personally, were important and interesting. His place will not be filled. It has been said of David Belasco that he was a “posing and posturing charlatan.” That harsh censure is the tribute of envy to merit and it is as unjust as it is mean. His nature was impetuous, his temperament was intensely dramatic, his sensibility was extreme, the tone of his mind was at times exuberant and florid, and, consequently, his language and his conduct were sometimes extravagant. He, also, understood the uses of advertising; he was occasionally over-solicitous as to public opinion; he possessed a full share of very human, almost childlike, vanity, and certainly he managed the public as well as the Theatre. But his devotion to the dramatic calling was true, passionate, and entire and to it he gave his life: he never desired retirement and never thought of it. The secret of his success—if any secret there be—was his inveterate determination, indefatigable labor, and profound sincerity of purpose. If the public poured great wealth into his hands (as it did), he never spared wealth, labor, and time—toilsome days and sleepless, care-full nights—to give the public in return the very best there was in him and to make that best as good as it could be made. He was a master of every detail of his vocation and, alone among American theatrical managers of the past twenty years, he understood and practically recognized that Acting is a Fine Art and not merely a business. The main result at which he aimed was always good plays, correctly set and superbly acted. If that result was not always attained by him, neither has it always been attained by any other worker of the Stage,—not since “Roscius was an actor in Rome.” While judgment and taste must deplore his production of “Zaza” and “The Easiest Way” justice and candor must concede his right to be remembered by the best and most influential of his works, which comprehend an amazing variety of subjects and of merit, ranging, for example, from “May Blossom” to “Peter Grimm,” from “Men and Women” to “Sweet Kitty Bellairs,” from “The Heart of Maryland” to “The Music Master,” from “The Charity Ball” to “The Girl of the Golden West,” from “The Girl I Left Behind Me” to “Adrea,” from “Lord Chumley” to “Madame Butterfly,” from “The Darling of the Gods” to “A Grand Army Man,” and which, first and last, deal with most of the great elemental experiences of human life.
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