Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-03-06
ACTORS AND ACTRESSES.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE PEOPLE CT
TIE STAGE.
What Our Correspondent Thinks O.
Some Of the Folks Behind
the Footlights.
SAN FRANCISCO, March 3, 1850.

MitIS "ooAN
''Sybil " and her friends and yesterday
little vision of myself, when was small
country girl, flashed across me and gave
me my cue. saw myself standing in di-
lapidated shoes and calico apron eating a
cracker and listening in awe to the con-
versation going on between two other girls.
[ wonder if those other girls remember
it as well as l do. We were in the
alley-way at the side of the Orleans
Hotel in Pacerville, which hotel was
then in my eyes equal in gorgeous
ness to the Crystal Palace, and the con-
versation was about a company of theat-
rieal folk who had come to town and put
up at the Orleans. Now had never seen
an actor in all my little life, SO the subject
was an immense one to me, and | listened
with all my ears to the various items OF
how the head actress was called star y
of how the biggest actor looked of how
there was child belonging to the CON-
panv who Travelled about with them every
where and then | was stricken dumb at
being told that when they were killed on
the stage they used ''red flannel for blood.
When | came to San Francisco / had been
to theater just once, and then | saw
James Stark in the play of Napoleon,
and the curdling awe of that communica-
ton about red flannel still thrilled me.
The thought that comes to me is perhaps
that ''Sybil may be interested to know of
TWO OR THREE THEATRICAL FOLK
l have known-not folk of worldwide
greatness or fame, perhaps but people who
have done faithful, honest work in their
profession, who have been successful with
the public, some of item, or unsuccessful
as it may have happened. My first &C
quaintance came by an accident. She was
young lady with pretty, dark eyes, be-
longing to the well-known Chapman fam.
lily, friend of friend of mine and passing
our house they happened in. She seemed
to me at great distance fromme, a different
person altogether, but very nice and very
charming. She sat down to the piano and
sang little ballad with no particular voice,
but with good deal of style, and by and
by the two went away. The next morning
my sisters and cousins and aunts were
blank at the thought of having had an ac-
tress in the parlor. Indeed, am not sure
but the parlor next day received thor
ough busting and sweeping, but, in spite of
all, the young girl came again and yet
again, and by and by the prejudice against
her died away. No. was an actor-a
real live alligator l could not have
regarded with more of reverence. He also
called with lady friend. He must have
seen the admiration trembling in my eyes,
and been amused thereat, and | should not
wonder if it had delighted him thus to be
regarded as a little god. At any rate |
went to the theater with him by and by,
feeling weight of guilt upon my soul, and
l laugh now to think how he must have
laughed to see me tremble at the thought
of going anywhere with an actor. To do
my best to rescue him from perdition l
took him to prayer-meeting afterward, and
seated him between hard-shell deacon
and Mortified member of my own family,
and was surprised to learn that for some
years he had gone to Sabbath-school in
that very church. He went away pretty
soon, and wrote me a letter, which | held
for some time at arms length, like burn
ing brand 1t had amused him probably
to write it to the foolish little girl that |
was, and / deserved to be laughed at well
Dut, On HedFtuS. HOW my llluslOA WAS
dispelled His writing was cramped and
poor, and one word was spelled with two
Is where there should have been but one.
My ideal was shattered at once, and to the
best of my remembrance the letter was
never answered.
ONE DAY IN THE CAR
| met a gentleman with Miss Caro- True,
the Oakland favorite. She was plain
young girl who carried flowers in her hand,
and | had met her a number of times be-
fore. She was then an attendant at the
Denman School, and one of the teachers
had remarked to me that there was girl
of that name whose papers in the examina
ton had attracted her notice. She said
they were true all the way through-just
as much pains shown In the last page as in
the fair first one. Caro- is just as con-
scientious now when she dances an Irish
jig or comes out as Dutch women as she
was then about her examination papers.
The gentleman that day with her in the
car asked me to go and see a lady living
near me who was dying of cancer in the
breast, and who would be glad to have
me visit her. Said he "Her name
is known to the public as Belle Devine
she was an actress, but she is a
woman" 1 found her in one of these
city tenements, in a back room, up
two flights of stairs, with her daughter
and her little boy, and thereafter saw her
frequently. Nearly always she lay, dressed,
upon her bed, always cheerful, and always
glad to see me as | ran in. She had flowers
always about her, for it was flower season,
and they stood in a porcelain pitcher on a
little stand where she could put her hand
to them. She drew aside her dress once
and showed me her shrunken breast, the
fearful cancer feeding upon it and eating
her life away. Many and many tale she
told me of her experiences, her hopes, her
failures, her triumphs, her dresses, her
songs, her studies, and the dangers that
lie thick in the path of young actresses.
By the aid of the Methodist Church South,
a struggling little congregation on Minna
street, she was going East TO doctor, who
could cure her without the knife. When
she went away she looked about for some
thing to give me, but her room was bare
enough and she must have had little enough
to spare. Her eye lit upon bunch OF
honey suckle pertaining the little, old
pitcher, and so, with an apology and a kiss
of farewell, she gave me the flower and the
dish. She sent me letter from Boston,
the most resigned, patient letter, to tell
me the doctor had refused her case and she
was
MAKING READY TO DIE.
answered it, but she died before it
reached her hand. My acquaintance with
that dying actress dropped the glamour
and tie scales from my eyes, and made me
see the woman in all other actresses.
had seen an actress cheerful In poverty,
had seen her scant of friends, had seen
her weighed with griefs, l had even kissed
her lips and taken farewell of her just this
side of death-henceforth to me- by the
death OF Belle Devine, all actresses should 4
have the benefit Of their womanhood. 1t
was some months after this when an invita-