“I must disclaim any intention of having attempted to coerce the court into appointing the receiver I desired. Realizing as I did the enormous amount of labor and energy expended by Mr. Belasco in making the tours of ‘The Auctioneer’ a success, and appreciating as I did that without me in the cast it was a grave question whether the success of ‘The Auctioneer’ could continue, I thought it but proper for me to inform the court that conscientiously I could not continue to act unless Mr. Belasco was appointed receiver. I am very sorry that my statement had the effect it did have, but it is pleasing for me to learn that the charges made by Mr. Brooks against Mr. Belasco were unfounded and not believed by the court, because the court in its opinion says that were it not from a desire to rebuke me it might have felt inclined to have appointed Mr. Belasco receiver. That is sufficient satisfaction to us who know Mr. Belasco’s character, because it is certainly fair to assume that the court would not have felt inclined to appoint Mr. Belasco receiver if it believed the charges brought against him.
“I am forced to continue the stand I originally took. I have closed the season of ‘The Auctioneer,’ nor will I continue to act in that play under the management of any person but Mr. Belasco.”
Brooks applied for a mandatory injunction to compel Warfield to continue acting in “The Auctioneer,” under the receivership direction of Mr. Olcott, and arguments supporting and opposing that application were heard before Justice Leventritt in the Supreme Court on January 26, 1904. Counsel for Warfield contended that while the court might enjoin Warfield from acting for any persons outside of his contract, it had no jurisdiction to compel him to act if he declined to do so. Justice Leventritt agreed with that view of the matter and held that a mandatory injunction as prayed for could not issue. Warfield did not act again for eight months.
TEMPERAMENTAL SYMPATHY.—EARLY READING: “THE LOW SUN MAKES THE COLOR.”
In his youth Belasco was an omnivorous reader (as he continues to be), but his favorite reading was that of History, and among historical characters that specially enthralled his imagination was Mary, Queen o’ Scots. Indeed, he has, in conversation, given me the impression that, from an early age, his mind has been deeply interested in the study of those famous women of history whose conduct of life is shown to have been governed by their appetites and passions. That taste seems morbid, but it is readily explicable. Such women have been, are, and always will be a direct spring of tense, dramatic, romantic situations and tragic events, and sometimes their experience involves incidents and culminates in catastrophes which make a strong appeal to persons who possess, as Belasco does, a highly emotional temperament. Queen Guinevere, in Tennyson’s pathetic “Idyl,” remarks that “the low sun makes the color.” Such women as Malcolm’s Queen Margaret of Scotland or Mme. Roland, probably, would be viewed by Belasco with merely languid respect or indifference. Such a woman as Navarre’s Marguerite de Valois, or Queen Catherine the Second of Russia, or the irresistible siren Barbara Villiers, or that all-conquering captivator Arabella Stuart,—whose image lives, perpetual, in sculpture and, as Brittania, on the coins of Great Britain,—would, on the contrary, provide for him an exceedingly interesting study. It is not, therefore, altogether surprising that when Belasco had established Mrs. Leslie Carter as a successful star it pleased him to select for public illustration in a drama one of the most depraved and dissolute feminine characters that hang on the fringes of history,—the shameless hussy who, about 145 years ago, was picked out of the streets of Paris, and under the auspices of the most notorious titled blackguard of his time wedded to a complaisant degenerate, in order that she might succeed Mme. Pompadour as the mistress of King Louis the Fifteenth of France. Marie Jeanne Becu (1746-1793), who began life in Paris as a milliner, became a courtesan, under the name of Mlle. Lange, was later a lure for a gambling house, then, ennobled as the “Countess du Barry,” was installed as the mistress of the corrupt King Louis the Fifteenth,—whom practically she ruled for five years,—and finally was slaughtered in the Reign of Terror, is the theme of one of the most pictorial, popular, and successful of Belasco’s plays. His selection of a story of that remarkable female’s adventures for dramatic exploitation was not, however, wholly spontaneous. In 1899, aware that a successor to the torrid termagant of the Paris music-halls would presently be required for Mrs. Carter’s use, he began to cast about for a play with a central character suited to her personality and method. Not finding anything which he deemed satisfactory in the numerous dramas, old as well as new, by many authors, which he examined, he began, regretfully, to contemplate the necessity of writing one to fit his star,—regretfully, because he was weary and would have been glad to avoid adding the labor of authorship to that of business and stage management. His election had practically fallen on Queen Elizabeth as the central figure to be shown, when he abruptly determined to visit England, partly in faint hope of finding there a drama which would serve his end; more with intent to refresh his mind by change and travel and to stimulate himself to his new task by visiting all the places associated with the life and reign of Elizabeth. He sailed from New York on June 14, 1899. Soon after he arrived in London an American playbroker, Miss Elisabeth Marbury, communicated to him that “she had a great idea for a part for Mrs. Carter.” Belasco, entertaining a high opinion of Miss Marbury’s judgment and rejoiced at the sudden prospect of escaping the labor of authorship, immediately went to see her, at Versailles, in France, and there was informed that the French poet M. Jean Richepin “proposed to write a play founded on the life of du Barry.” The appended account of what followed has been written by Belasco, and it provides explicit information on a subject that at one time was disputed with acrimony in the newspaper press and occupied much of the attention of the theatre-going public:
GENESIS OF BELASCO’S DU BARRY.—CHARACTER OF THE HISTORIC ORIGINAL.
“Miss Marbury outlined the plot as told to her by the dramatist, and, as she repeated it to me, the story seemed to possess great possibilities. I had produced Revolutionary plays with much success and the period was dramatic. No manager in search of a woman’s play could have resisted the fascinating little milliner of history! Not long after our first interview I made arrangements with M. Richepin. I smile at the recollection of my conversation with the French author! He spoke very little English and I no French at all; yet I seemed to know what he said, and he grew most enthusiastic over my pantomime. The contracts were arranged, the advance royalties paid, the costume plates begun, and before I left for London the scene models were ordered from the scenic artist of the Comédie Française. Carried away by the enthusiasm of M. Richepin, I bought yards and yards of old du Barry velvets, antique silks, and furniture of the period. When I left for home I had made all arrangements to produce a play not a line of which was written. I returned to New York elated, feeling certain that in a few weeks M. Richepin would have the piece ready for rehearsals. When the manuscript of ‘Du Barry’ arrived, I could scarcely wait to open the package. Alas! I was doomed to disappointment. ‘Du Barry,’ in the literary flesh, was episodic. It was poetic and beautifully written, but deadly dull. It differed entirely from the story I had heard in Versailles. My company was practically engaged, my models done—and no play! I wrote to M. Richepin, and gave him my opinion of the manuscript. I did not utterly condemn his first draft, for I hoped that with some suggestions, he might be able to reshape his material; but the longer he worked the more impossible the manuscript became, until at last I lost all faith in it. It possessed a certain charm, but—it was not a play. By this time I had paid M. Richepin something like $3,000 in advance royalties, and the properties and scenes were almost all delivered. I was so deeply involved that I saw no way out of it. As du Barry was free to any dramatist, I decided it was time to have a hand in dramatizing the lady myself. I knew exactly what I wanted and what was best suited to Mrs. Carter. Under the circumstances, it seemed to me that I could save time and cablegrams by taking my own suggestions instead of sending them to Paris. I arrived at this decision only when I found that M. Richepin was a far greater poet than playwright. So I threw out his play and set to work on my own.”
Speaking of the character of “the little French milliner,” Belasco has said: “History paints du Barry as the most despised woman of her time. She is said to have been the most evil creature antedating the French Revolution. I had a vast number of books relating to du Barry, and ransacked them all for one redeeming trait in her character: not one kind word. Alas! Not one! For the first time in my life I found myself in the hands of a really bad woman. I had never met one before (bad men I have met, but women,—never!). I felt a desire to rush to her defence.... But—I need not have troubled myself to defend the lady, for, good or bad, from the first night until the close of the play three years later the public liked the French milliner and the houses were sold out.”
A little more careful ransacking of his vast du Barry library might have revealed some of the kind words about “the lady” which Belasco sought. Voltaire, in 1773, signified his appreciation of du Barry’s charms in the following couplet, which certainly carries adulation to an extreme limit: