The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 74

Page Two The Early Struggles of Broadway's Big Names Some of the Bitter Disappointments of Sam Shipman, W. A. McGuire, Marjorie Ram-beau, Winifred Lenihan, David Belasco and Others Before They Emerged from the Shadows Into the "'h'fm -412 And yet there is a distinct probability that back 1 1 2 the more sympathetic among Miss Larrimore's friends might have been heard to say, "Oh, I do hope Francine gets a good job soon so that ehe can buy a new coat." Francine Larrimore was a super that year. Broadway did not know her from Adam's off ox. She was beginning to be known when one evening Samuel Shipman took her to dinner at the Ritz or some such bonton caravansary.

Shipman, having been on his uppers himself, is interested in those who still are. He might not be where he is today if it were not for the fact that others are equally interested in struggling owners of uppers. Clara Lipman staked him for years while he was vainly trying to make a living out of the writing of plays. She loaned him $12,000 in all. He hasn't forgotten that, nor has he forgotten the days Marjorie Rambeau Who Taught in an Alaskan School to Raise Money to Go to New York ui when he needed it.

So he said to Miss Larrimore as they sat down to dinner, "What would you like to have?" And in answer she exclaimed, "Oh, may I have anything I want?" "Sure!" said Shipman, or something like it. It is a safe guess that Francine was hungry; just how hungry, though, history does not say. Anyhow, she should have ordered a huge dish of corned beef and cabbage. Instead she said: 'I love caviar. And I don't get it often.

Can I have some now?" "Sure," said Shipman once more and he motioned to the waiter. All the waiters in the most expensive restaurants know Mr. Shipman today and call him by name, though they would have been decidedly uppish with him ten years ago. So the waiter was at his elbow in an instant. In another instant, it is said, or at most two, an enormous dish of caviar was set before Miss Larrimore.

She began to eat. And before she had finished there had been consumed exactly $12 worth. Francine Larrimore was a thoughtful girl in those pre-caviar days. She always helped her family instead of spending all of what little she earned on herself. Just as the current new year was coming in, Winifred Lenihan made her appearance in the title role of "Saint Joan," the latest play by Bernard Shaw, now being given its first production on any stage at the Gar-rick Theater.

Shaw plays make dramatic history, and there is probably not an actress in England or America who would not give a year or so of her life to create a Shaw character. Miss Lenihan may be said to be extremely fortunate. During the early part of the new year of 1918 Wini-fred Lenihan, as obscure an actress as ever there was and exceedingly doubtful in fact as to whether Winifred Lenihan, Who Plays the Title Role in a C. B. Shaw Play, Was on Her Uppers in 1918 Evelyn Gosnell, a Star Who Threw Away the Money She Earned as a Stock Player By Arthur Pollock IT'S too bad 'Sancho Panza' is a failure," said a friend of Russell Jannoy's some weeks ago when it was announced that Otis Skinner would end his brief run in that play at the Hudson Theater.

"I'd like to see Russell have a success so that he could buy a new overcoat." Young Mr, Janney became a producer of plays a few years back and has not yet made a fortune at it. "Marjolaine" was one of his productions, "Sancho Panza" another. If Janney made anything on the former he lost it on the latter. But don't feel sorry for him. As likely as not in 1935 he will be rated as one of the most successful of theatrical managers.

Things happen that way in the theater. Success comes slowly to some, suddenly to others. Perhaps men so soon as nest year, while rummaging among relics of the past, he will happen upon this year's overcoat, sigh and say, "Ah, those were the happy days I remember that coat. I wore it when I hadn't a half million to my rame. And it was a good coat." How many actors and actresses whose names, written in large electric letters over the fronts of theaters blind you as you walk up Broadway, have not, at one time or another, been on their uppers? How many managers? How many playwrights? Nine out of ten, perhaps, though possibly only six out of ten will admit it.

Samuel Shipman, author of "East Is West," one of the most successful plays of the last five years; of "Friendly Enemies," "Lawful Larceny" and other successes, used when a student to walk in snow knee-deep from the lower east side to Columbia University, too poor to go by trolley or by elevated. Today he owns a string of apartment houses. And he is just the same Sammy that he used to be. "When William Anthony McGuire's comedy, "Six-Cylinder Love," was presented in New York it made for its author thousands of dollars. Before being brought to Broadway it was tried out in Atlantic City.

The day it opened there McGuire, broke, had to borrow $5 so that he might take his wife to lunch. If the play had been a failure in the New Jersey resort the chances are that William Anthony McGuire would have walked home. He had been trying for years to write a successful play and for years he had failed. Not long ago Francine Larrimore was offered the leading role in a play being prepared for production. Francine Larrimore is popular as an actress, she knows it, and being a good business woman she will not act for nothing, nor for next to nothing, either.

She consented to take the role, provided she received a certain salary. She mentioned the figure and the producer gasped. When he had recovered, she added calmly that she would work at that salary only if he would agree that she be given a large percentage of the profits. It happens that the manager in question Is himself a good business man. It occurred to him that he had not gone Into the producing business for the sole purpose of making Francine Larrimore rich.

So he said good day, she said good day, and there their business relations end'd. Last season Miss Larrimore was under contract to Sam IT. Harris. Mr. Harris could find no play suitable for her.

The actress spent the greater part of the season in idleness, out of work, so to speak. But by the terms of her contract. Mr. Harris had to "play" her or, pay her, and pay her every wek. Miss Larrimore, however, did not come to him each week to get her alary.

She simply s- nt her chauffeur on pay day, and fee brought her horn1 $1,000 tor her week's rest. she really was an actress at all, might have been discovered wearing: out the pavements of Broadway in search of a job. Winthrop Ames, a millionaire theatrical manager, who has never been on his uppers so far as is known, but who knows all about the uppers of others and is friendly to those who wear them, gave her a chance to prove that she could act. He had never heard of her before. But she looked young and eager and he wanted girls to play the six prospective brides of Tyltyl in Maeterlinck's "Betrothal," soon to be produced by him.

He let her read to him from "Romeo and Juliet" and he liked what he heard very much. He engaged her. That was in the spring or early summer. The play would not be presented until fall. What was she to do for a living in the meantime? she wondered.

He was aware of her wondering. So he asked her what she would do. She replied that she would get a job as a stenographer and so tide herself over the lean summer months. Mr. Ames had a better idea.

He told her to spend her time in study and gave her $25 a week all summer for doing so. All of the six brides in "Betrothal" were unknown when Winthrop Ames engasred them. All of them are more or less famous today. Marjorie Rambeau played in stock for years out West, longing all the while to come to New York, the heaven of the stock actor and actress, but too poor to do so. So she went to Alaska, which happened to be a bit nearer her starting point, and there she taught in school until she saved money for the trip across the continent.

She appeared on the stage first in an obscure vaudeville theater, became a leading lady in stock, eventually took over the management of a stock company herself and at one time hired Nat Goodwin as her leading man. It is in the modest stock companies scattered in profusion about the country that most of the uppers of actors are worn to the topmost edge. Unknown and un-admired, except by the local yokels, they save and sometimes starve with the hope of some day reaching Broadway, walking into Belasco's office and being "discovered" by him. Many have succeeded, more have failed Blanche Bates succeeded long ago. So, more recently, d.d Frances Starr and Lenore Ulric.

Belasco is the stock actors' god. No other name means anything to them. They would pay their way to Broadway and work for him for nothing just for the honor of appearing in one of his companies. And Belasco? Well. David Belasco.

idol of all troupers though he is. has been on his uppers many a I. me himself. And more than once, so he says, he has slept in jail because he could not pay the dollar or two he owed his landlady. Of course, all stock players are not poor.

There was Evelyn Gosnell, for instance. She staited in the "Kollies," later deciding to become a "legitimate" actress. To learn her business she went one summer into a stock company in Waterbury, Conn. She needed Plenty of experience, but her uppers were of the finest kid and her heels were high. Money meant nothing to her.

in fact. And so, in order to prove it. she stepped the stage door each week-end immediately, the ghost had walked and threw her salary, dollar by dollar, dime by dime, to the urchins in the street. 1 ft.