The San Francisco Call and Post from San Francisco, California • Page 25

from player in a Circus to theatrical Manager The Prince of All Vaudeville Managers Who Has -Played More Varied Parts and Had a Greater Number of Amusing and Thrilling Experiences Than Probably Any Other Man in the Theatrical Profession, THE privileged person who has the "open Became" to the rehearsals which are held ln the Orpheum Sunday morning will find that the chief figure on these occasions Ib always a rather thin and by no meane tall gentleman, generally wearing a comfortably loose gray business suit, a high silk hat and a cigar. This individual Is the central pup. about which every or.c else ln his vicinity for the time being. He is the Alpha and the Omega of this preparatory entertainment, which Is given for his special benefit, and during Its course he plays more parts than any of the regular actors therein, for he officiates as audience, literary, dramatic and musical critic, callboy, prompter, stage manager and adapter, As an audience he Is not exhilarating, for he Is never enthusiastic and Is rarely known to vouchsafe to any of the actors and actresses who appear at these special performances, no matter how great may be their merit, even a modicum of the applause so dear to 'he histrionic '-art. But things have not always been thus with John Morrlsey.

To whatever position he has attained It has been by Indefatiga- Me efforts and a most severe practical pchoollng. No more entertaining moments can be passed than to get Morrisey ln reminiscent mood and have him tell of his early and boyhood. He was a mite of a freckled youngster ln those days. He was nobody at all but Johnny. People now call him Morris of the Orpheum.

"Those days" were when he started in the show business. They were a long, long while ago? and they were not very happy. They were full cf hard work by day and hard by night, and beatings hoth times. Heaven knows why he kept to the life. Perhaps because there was no pleasantor one to choose.

For he was a lonely little freckled boy. and It is the lonely people of this world who do most of its work. Morrlsey made his debut In a basket. A named Ray saw a coming man behind the freckles and took possess! of him for his basket trick It was Heller's adaptation of an old East Indian bit of magic. The youngster's part of the performance was to climb Into the basket, let the audience see him curled up there, then to be covered and pitted through the cover by the magician.

Ray drew a blood-stained sword forth from the basket and all the little children in the audience said "Ah!" while their mammas said "Ugh:" Then, before there was time to go home and dream bloody dreams In popped this Irrepressible Johnny at the entrance door, and the aisle he marched, not one whit like the dead walking. The basket was a naughty fibbing thing ar.d it had a false bottom. It was the victim's business to get through that false bottom In quick time. But now and then a very- little boy will make a very little blunder, even with the best Intentions in the world. That Is why John stuck In the basket one night when the false bottom failed him.

It was only a second that he stuck, but it was a second too much. Presto, after him came the sword. It hurt. He cried out lustily with all the strength of his little boy lungs. He was such a very young youngster, you recollect.

That Is about all of the story. Only that there was a man who waxed angry at an audience's laughter and a little boy who crawled away to a late bed with a lame body and a sore heart. But there were so many little boys ln the world that Just one didn't count. In spite of all his troubles, and by them, John Morrisey was learning the show business. He was learning It ln the allround wav that men did in those the way that he claims makes the best ehowmen "The fellow who knows only one specialty Is lost if he turns to any other line of work, and he can never be a manager because he doesn't understand all sides of the matter." Mr.

Morrlsey will tell you His curriculum was made up of courses In Juggling, clowning, singing, playing and doing the end man in a traveling minstrel company. The small Johnny was shifted from hand to hand faster than a Juggler's ball. After the basket trick with Ray came a tour with Walter Wentworth, the contortionist. This same Wentworth has seen three-quarters of a century now and he Btlll lives to continue selling his double- Jointed body to physicians. The two traveled afoot on their route, and the Utile back ached many a weary ache under the load of costumes and properties put upon it.

There were never such hot and. dusty days since time began as those days of tramping. It was thirsty August weather in the Eastern States, and when yellow peaches hang close to a shed roof and the shed roof slopes temptingly toward a fence: who wouldn't? John would. He simply couldn't help it. The contortionist was sitting on the box of tights farther down the road, and John mounted the fence.

The shed was an easy climb. peaches swung in the drowsy air and shades of the windows were low against an afternoon sun. Besides, there were so many peaches that nobody would ever care. But there was one person awake. She was small and harmless enough under the bigness of her sunbonnet, but she meant business.

"You're a naughty, bad boy." she stormed as she flung away a Rolla book. "I've got a real burglar at last," she added to the dog. "and you must kill him all dead or you can't have a single bone for your supper." She started toward the chair. John saw at a glance that she and the dog were confidential friends. He also saw that the dog was a person to command respect.

He measured distances and he saw that there was nothing for it but strategy. He rose majeetic upon the shed roof. He was very dirty, but his dignity was a wonder. "Walt!" he commanded ln the voice of a prophet. "If you stir one step to release that dog I will conjure up my His language was born of his profession.

His plan was born of his own little head. The sunbonneted vengeance stopped, doubtful. He followed up an advantage. "Come hither. ha J3fi turned and beckoned to Wentworth, who had started along.

"I am attacked. Come and frighten away this wicked female," he continued. Wentworth knew his man and he guessed enough to come in at the cue. The vengeance saw something in human form alight upon the shed roof. Then began a series of the most diabolical contortions that ever took place THE SUNDAY CALL.

on any staee. Was it man or writhing serpent or Satan himself? The Vengeance forgot to unchain the doe. She fled. "I think we can take our time about the peached," remarked John. -f The hardest seven years of all Morrisey's life were the following years spent under the canvas.

He passed from circus to circus during that time, but It was always somebody's tanbark. "Most of the circuses that he traveled with camped for only a night at a place, and It was up with the stakes and away every midnight. Twelve at night was breakfast time, and the journey followed. The morning hours that men call night were spent on the road, and the usual bed was a blanket spread on the pole wagon. A night in the band wagon was a now-and-then luxury.

Sometimes the rain sneaked in under miserable covers and sometimes it didn't trouble Itself to sneak at all. but lashed his poor little body when there was no wagon cover. John In the morning there were animals to rare for and tents to put up. There was usually a cross ringmaster or a cross lionkeeper or a cross elephant to please. The life was too hard for its livers to be goodnatured all the time.

There were two elephants with one of these a big one and a little one and It took all the tact that John was master of to get the youngster fed. The big elephant would reach a snaky trunk stealthily over the little one's head and snatch away a bite before you could twinkle. There was up end to the demands made upon Morrisey's versatility. Besides the work that the "hands" about a show do now, he was required to play in the band, to "clown It" and to sing and dance in the concert that followed lo cents, please; keep your seats after the show or you'll miss, etc. The clown work he liked well enough, but he hated the baas drum with PHOTO BY a deadly hate that he could only relieve by pummellng It.

When the show would draw near to a large town it would halt ln the outskirts, touch up Its furbelows and make a grand entrace ln the forenoon with thi band in merry accord. Mr. Morrlsey relates that when he had begged dozens of times to be relieved from drum duty he gave up all hope of mercy and determined to relieve himself. So while the parade was entering Albany by way of a steep hill he deliberately and with malice aforethought fell out of the band wagon and rolled with his drum down the hill. It wasn't good for the lt was so bad for it.

in fact, that the drummer was put at other work. 7 The seven years of circus life led Morrlsey through our own States and Canada besides. There were all kinds of adventures, from breaking down on rough roads to smuggling liquor over the United States line. The wages paid were so poor that it was as "much as he could do to keep body and soul together, and in spite of this there was an outlay for each new turn. He took part ln what was called "The Barber Shop Act," wherein he was the victim of the shaving, half drowned at each performance in the generous sudsing of the clown' barber.

The same suit was made to bear this dally ducking for three years. Circus life very nearly wore out the little fellow's strength, and while still in his teens he gave It up for work in a St, Louis stock company. In this he played with Fritz Emmet, who was yet unknown. But the class of entertainment proved a little tame for Morrlsey, and ho soon gave over this for a minstrel show. Whitmore and Clark took him In hand and he toured Canada and New -land with them.

The northern nights were so cold 'hat he can remember rubbing a snowball on the tips of both ears where they were frostbitten. Business so bid for a time that the company lodged anywhere that a roof could be found, and a fire was un thought of. There were mornlnsrs when the bedclothes were found stitched with frost work to the foot of the bed. There were breakfasts when one coffee was ordered for three men and the three took turns warming their hands at the cup. Morrisey's minstrel days date back to the time when Walter was at the same business and when Georee Primrose, had his fame vet to win.

Primrose was doing a cine dance in a little Buffalo theater when Morrlsey first knew him. The two of them were youne then, and they formed a strong friendship that resulted In a plan to combine forces. But one of the little thlnes that co to mold nations and theater? happened, and West took the place that was to have belonged to our Orpheum manager. Another move brought his path with that of Emmet once more. This time they were both to piny In the band.

Fritz attended to the snare drum and John to the bass, and they were required to'plav before every performance In a balcony built out in front of the theater. This was to draw the crowd, and as soon as the crowd arrived the band retired and the drummers disappeared to their dressing rooms to make ready for their parts In the play. The balcony hung low over the street and was within flirting distance of the crowd. John was old enough by this time to improve opportunities. The result was a flirtation that lasted during the company's engagement.

The young lady of the case knew John only as the player of the big bass drum, and she never guessed him throueh the disguise of his character part. That is how it happened that she tried thus to console him for what he represented to her as his Inglorious position in the, company: "Jacky. I don't think you oueht to be ashamed of your work one bit. Why. you are much more important than any actor in the company, even if they won't acknowledge it.

I've seen them, and there isn't one who can act worth a cent." He never was very, susceptible to stage fright, but now and then stumbling came from too much or too little preparation He tells of playing in the old Bowery with Mrs. Paul Falk and singing "Annie Laurie" under her or trying to, for she had made him rehearse so steadily that when he came on the stage he could not remember a line. But for the most part a manager could count on his being clever ln emergencies. He was once with a company which was playing the "Black Crook." It was the scene when Black Crook sum- mons Zamuel. Zamuel appeared, stepped through a trap hole in the stage and was picked up In the lower regions unconscious.

There was no understudy for him so he had to be revived; meanwhile there was an interval to fill ln and the stage manager grabbed Morrisey, who was loafing In the wings, placed a gnome's mask over, his head and a cloak on his shoulders. "Get out there and keep the audience busy while we patch this fellow up." he said, and then Morrlsey found himself In the middle of the stage without an Idea In his mind and an ar.gry Black Crook glaring at him. A derisive laugh from the front of the house aroused him. He gave a yell, rushed at the Black Crook, forced him Into a corner and then, at the top of his voice, roared the whole length of a stump speech he had learned when with a minstrel show. It made a hit and by the time the audience had finished applauding 'his unrehearsed innovation Zamuel had been aroused from his trance and was ready to go on with his part.

He had hard discipline under old Ben Trimble of "Trimble's Varieties." "The old fellow used to listen like a cat to performance." Mr. Morrlsey says, "and his way of letting us know that something was going wrong was to shake down the ashes ln the stove with such a rattling as might have frightened any one. We always listened for the shaking." Mr. Morrlsey declares that he made the "hit of his life" In Cincinnati, where he played Robert Forester in "Nick of the Woods." The part of Forester Is a goody-goody sort of a role, with a lot of talk and no action, and feminine guardian angels continually stand between him and threatening danger. The play had a lone run, and every night ln the last act Tlllle, the Indian girl, stepped in between him and the bullet that really ought to have ended his milkand-water career.

On the very last night of the play, however, just as Tillle selfsacrificlngly did her duty, one of the "set" trees fell over on Morrlsey and knocked him senseless, to the uproarious delight of the discriminating but utterly audience. "I never got so much applause before or since." says the veteran manager, "and I never deserved it less, for It was not I but poetic justice that arranged matters that time." "One of the funniest performances that I ever assisted in." he states, "was a presentation of the play popularized by handsome Montague, in which great Interest centered around the affection existing between a big Newfoundland dog and his master. The leading man's own dog generally appeared In this drama, but on this occasion he was invalided and we had to borrow another one that 'knew not He was a thorough amateur and got stage fright in Its worst form, but he waj too good-natured to bite, and so all through that long performance one or the other of us, to the delight of the whole company, simply dragged him about by the collar to the places where he was supposed to bound with much alacrity and wagging of tall because of his love for his persecuted owner. "In the last scene, wherei Jack comes Into his fortune, and in the exuberance of his happiness orders his dog admitted to his ancestral drawing room, the spectacle of the leading lady pulling that reluctant beast along by the neck while he dug his obstinate nails into the carpet, the while she said admiringly, 'See how he loves his master! There must be something very sweet In your nature, Jack, to make a poor animal care for you like made audience and actors roar In unison and the curtain went down untimely In the midst of a gale of laughter." John Morrisey does not play drums nowadays nor pitch circus tents nor ride on pole wagons. He does business ln softly carpeted offices above the Orpheum and often people come there to ask his advice about starting on the stage.

Sometimes he gives them encouragement and sometimes he sends them away disappointed. It takes him less than five minutes oJ talk to decide. People from 5 years old to 60 come to him. If the applicant is a woman and Is determined to be heard he takes her downstairs to the big empty theater some morning and lets her show him what she can do. "If the applicant Is a man he does not grant him a trial unless he gives real 2 promise.

"You can talk to a man, but you refuse a woman," he says. "Everything in the vaudeville business goes by fads. If we have a child performing here mothers from all over town will bring their own darlings to me to beg for an engagement. When Mrs. Shaw was here I had calls from more than a hundred whistlers." Mr.

Morrisey has great faith In California talent, especially that of the children. Little Arnold Grazer Is his newest discovery in this line. The youngster's amateur work caught the manager's eye. and Arnold is now fairly started on his career. To 'protect Mr.

Morrlsey, let mo add that all Infants are not 25.