Daniel Frohman

“ If the President of the United States wants to reward a soldier he says to him, 'I will make you a general.' By the same process I say to an actor, 'I will make you a star.'
"All the stars under my management owe their eminence to their own ability and industry, and also to the fact that the American is an individual-loving public. In America we regard the workman first and the work second. Our imaginations are fired not nearly so much by great deeds as by great doers. There are stars in every walk of American life. ”

“ It more nearly means that the less a man pays to get into a theater the more he demands of the play.
"An American audience is different, because it has a fine sense of humor. When an American pays his money through the box-office window he feels that it is gone forever. Anything he receives after that—the lights, the pictures on the walls, the music of the orchestra, the sight of a few or many smiling faces—is so much to the good. So keen is the American play-goer's sense of humor that often when a play is wretchedly bad it comes to the rescue, and the applause is terrifically loud. ”

“ In a supreme moment of the most colossal drama that human passion ever staged, fate literally hurled him into the universal lime-light to enact a part that gave him an undying glory. The shyest of men became the world's observed.
The last tribute to Charles Frohman was the most remarkable demonstration of sorrow in the history of the theater. The one-time barefoot boy of Sandusky, Ohio, who had projected so many people into eminence and who had himself hidden behind the rampart of his own activities, was widely mourned. ”

“ Whereupon Frohman said: "Let Gillette throw it. He can make a penny go further than any man in the world."
Such was Charles Frohman's English life. It was joyous, almost rollicking, and pervaded with the spirit of adventure. Yet behind all the humor was something deep, searching, and significant, because in England, as in America, this man was a vital and constructive force, and where he went, whether in laughter or in seriousness, he left his impress. ”

“ When once he determined to produce a play, only a miracle could prevent him. The more his associates argued to the contrary, the more dogged he became. He had superb confidence in his judgment; yet he invariably accepted failure with serenity and good spirit. He always assumed the responsibility. He listened sometimes to suggestions, but his views were seldom colored by them.
His association with men like J. M. Barrie, Haddon Chambers, Paul Potter, William Gillette, Arthur Wing Pinero, and Augustus Thomas gave him a loftier insight into the workings of the drama. ”

“ A producer of plays, assuming that he is a man of experience, never feels comfortable after a great reception has been given his play on a first night. He knows that the reception in the theater does not always correspond to the feelings of future audiences. Every thinking manager knows that his play, in order to succeed, must send its audience away possessed of some distinct feeling. A successful play is a play that reflects, whatever the feeling it reflects. ”

“ He was talking about people of the stage who constantly air themselves and their views to secure personal publicity. It moved him to this remark:
"Some people prefer mediocrity in the lime-light to greatness in the dark."
Herein he summed up the reason why Miss Adams has been an elusive and almost mysterious figure. By tremendous reading, solitary thinking, and extraordinary personal application she rose to her great eminence. With her it has always been a creed of career first. Like Charles Frohman, she has hidden behind her activities, and they form a worthy rampart. ”

“ They are hypnotized by the play and the acting. Who ever, on coming out of the theater after seeing a play that has pleased him, has felt a sense of happiness that his pleasure had also pleased the actor, or the author of the play, or the management of the production? Loyalty, generosity, and encouragement, as applied to audiences, are so many empty words. Play-goers who apply them to themselves cheat themselves. Miss Maude Adams is the only stage personage within my experience who has a distinct public following, loyal and encouraging to her in whatever she does. ”

“ No star or manager should feel grateful to any audience for the success of a play in which he has figured. A play succeeds because it is a living, vital thing—and that is why it has got upon the stage at all. ”

“ G reat as producer, star-maker, and conqueror of two stage-worlds, Charles Frohman was greater as a human being. Like Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, he was more than a man—he was an institution. His quiet courage, his unaffected simplicity, his rare understanding, his ripe philosophy, his uncanny penetration—above all, his abundant humor—made him a figure of fascinating and incessant interest. ”

“ Once in London Frohman unbosomed himself about play requirements, and this is what he said:
"I start out by asking certain requirements of every piece. If it be a drama, it must have healthfulness and comedy as well as seriousness. We are a young people, but only in the sense of healthy-mindedness. There is no real taste among us for the erotic or the decadent. It is foreign to us because, as a people, we have not felt the corroding touch of decadence. Nor is life here all drab. Hence I expect lights as well as shadows in every play I accept. ”

“ He never tired of telling of one experience. He had left the theater on the first night, as he expressed it, "with the other mourners." He returned to his office immediately to cast a new play for the company. Yet he lived to see this play run successfully for a whole season. This led him to say:
"There's nothing more deluding to the player and the manager than enthusiastic applause. The fine, inspired work of a star actor often makes an audience enthusiastic to such a boisterous extent that one forgets that it is an individual and not the play that has succeeded." ”

“ In reply to the oft-repeated question as to why he took his American stars to London when they could play to larger audiences and make more money at home, he said:
"In the first place, such exchanges constitute the finest medium for the development of actress or actor and the liberalizing of the public. Face to face with an English audience the American actress finds herself confronted by new tastes, new appreciations, new demands. She must meet them all or fail. What does this result in? Versatility, flexibility, and, in the end, a firmer and more comprehensive hold upon her art." ”

“ When Frohman was asked to define success in theatrical management he made this answer:
"The terms of success in the theater seem to me to be the co-operating abilities of playwright and actor with the principal burden on the actor. In other words, the play is not altogether 'the thing.' The right player in the right play is the thing."
The shaping of William Gillette's career is a good example of Frohman's definition of a successful theatrical manager, whose best skill and talents are employed largely in the matter of manipulating a hard-minded person to mutual advantage. ”

“ But it was an enterprise that revealed, perhaps as nothing in his career had revealed, the depths of his artistic nature.
With his marvelous grasp of things, Frohman swiftly got at the heart of the Repertory proposition. When he launched the enterprise at the Duke of York's he said:
Repertory companies are usually associated in the public mind with the revival of old masterpieces, but if you want to know the character of my repertory project at the Duke of York's, I should describe it as the production of new plays by living authors. ”

“ One of Frohman's delights when in England was to go to Barrie's flat in London, overlooking the Victoria Embankment. He liked this place, first of all, because it was Barrie's. Then, too, he could sit curled up in the corner on a settee, smoking a fat, black cigar, and look out on the historic Thames. Here he knew he would not have to talk. It was the place of Silence and Understanding. He was in an atmosphere he loved. In the flat above lives John Galsworthy; down-stairs dwells Granville Barker; while just across the street is the domicile of Bernard Shaw, whose windows face Barrie's. ”

“ I have never known any one more modest and no one quite so shy. Many actors have played for him for years and never spoken to him, have perhaps seen him dart up a side street because they were approaching. They may not have known that it was sheer shyness, but it was. I have seen him ordered out of his own theater by subordinates who did not know him, and he went cheerfully away. "Good men, these; they know their business," was all his comment. ”

“ When Frohman went to rehearsal one day he noticed that the company seemed a trifle nervous.
"What's up?" he asked, abruptly.
Some one told him that the players were fearful lest all the details of the costume and play should not be carried out in strict accordance with history.
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Frohman. "Who's Shakespeare? He was just a man. He won't hurt you. I don't see any Shakespeare. Just imagine you're looking at a soldier, home from the Cuban war, making love to a giggling school-girl on a balcony. ”

“ The ideal play for Charles Frohman was always the one that he had in mind for a particular star. His special desire, however, was for strong and emotional love as the dominant force in the drama. He felt that all humanity was interested in love, and he believed it established a congenial point of contact between the stage and the audience. ”

“ He realized further that the public adored personality and that the strongest prop that a play could get was a fascinating and magnetic human being, whether male or female. The old stars had made themselves—risen from the ranks after years of service. Frohman saw the opportunity to accelerate this advance by providing swift and spectacular recognition. The new stars that were now to blossom into life under him owed their being to the initiative and the vision of some one else. Thus he became the first of the star-makers.
Charles was now all excitement. ”

“ Frohman now said to Miss Jolivet:
"You had better hold on the rail and save your strength."
The ship's list became greater; huge waves rolled up, carrying wreckage and bodies on their crest. Then, with all the terror of destruction about him, Frohman said to his associates, with the serene smile still on his face:
"Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure of life." ”

“ Frohman loved to present farce. He enjoyed this type of play himself because it appealed to his immense sense of humor. He delighted in rehearsing the many complications and entanglements which arise in such plays. The enthusiasm with which French audiences greeted their native plays often misled him. He felt that American theater-goers would be equally uproarious. But often they failed him.
The same thing frequently happened with English plays. He would be swept off his feet by a British production; he was at once sure that it would be a success in New York. ”

“ The demure little girl, who had made her way from child actress through the perils of vivid melodrama to a Broadway success, now set foot on the real highway to a stardom that is unique in the annals of the theater.
Brilliant as was his experience with the various men and women whom he raised from obscurity to fame and fortune, the case of Maude Adams stands out with peculiar distinctness. It is the one instance where Charles Frohman literally manufactured a star's future. ”

“ Nor did Barrie ever weary of telling him how the play began as a nursery tale for children; how their insistent demand to "tell us more" made it the "longest story in the world"; how, when one pirate had been killed, little Peter (the original of the character, now a soldier in the great war) excitedly said: "One man isn't enough; let's kill a lot of them."
No one will be surprised to know that in connection with "Peter Pan" is one of the most sweetly gracious acts in Frohman's life. The original of Peter was sick in bed at his home when the play was produced in London. ”

“ You have only to enumerate the plays to realize the drain even one management can make upon what is, after all, a limited supply of capable leading actors. This is because the American stage is short of leaders. There is a world of actors, but too few leading actors."
"What do you mean by leading actor?" he was asked.
"I mean that if in casting a play you can find an actor who looks the part you have in mind for him, be thankful; if you can find an actor who can act the part, be very thankful; and if you can find an actor who can look and act the part, get down on your knees and thank God!" ”

“ To Harry Powers, manager of Powers Theater, Chicago, where his play "The Beautiful Adventure," with Ann Murdock, was then running:
Regarding "The Beautiful Adventure," if I am doing wrong in making a clean situation out of one that is not clean, I am going to do wrong. The theater-going public in the cities may not always get a good play from me, but they trust me, and I shall try and retain that trust. We may not get the same amount of money, but if we can live through it we will get a lot more satisfaction for those we like and for ourselves. ”

“ As the husband, Jack Barrymore is every inch a John Drew. He feels, and makes the audience feel, the humiliation of his position. When he confesses, it is a terrible confession. Hattie Williams, in her odd manner, imitated Nazimova—as Nazimova would play a butler.
So these artists step out into the light—before a houseful of great laughter; one feels that they have struck the true note of what you meant your play should have. I think the impossible seriousness of triangle scenes in modern plays has been swept off the stage here—and "A Slice of Life" has done it.... ”

“ In the same way he developed men like Michael Morton. He would see a French farce in the Paris theaters, and, although he could not understand a word of French, he got the spirit and the meaning through its action. He would buy the play, go to London with the manuscript, and get Morton or Paul Potter to adapt it for American consumption.
Life in London to Charles Frohman was one series of adventures. Like Harun-al-Rashid in the Arabian Nights, he delighted to wander about, often with Barrie, sometimes with Lestocq, seeking out strange and picturesque places in which to eat. ”

“ You will be delighted with him, and Miss Ferguson will be more than delighted with him, because he will be so delighted with her. It is a fine thing to have so nice a man as Davies arrive, and entirely misunderstanding the person he is to rehearse because the surprise will be all the greater. It pleases me, knowing what a fine emotional (one of the very best in the world) young actress our star is. ”