Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1883-09-17
LEADING LADY.
A FOOtlIght Queens Expenses
How a Husband May be
Utilized.
New York Morning Journal :


dred dollars a week you consider good
pay, but | can tell you it doesn't 60
far with the life we have to lead aud
the burdenslwe have to bear. Ii |
could get 500 week the year round
| should have no cause to grumble.
| don't know that | have much cause
as it is, but | do resent the idea
that is constantly being advanced
by the papers that that is a great deal
OF money for the work we do. True,
the actual work of the star is but
three hours day, perhaps four, con-
sidering that have to be in my dress
ing-room one hour before the per-
formance begins, and on an avarage |
can get out by ll:30.
First Of all, an ordinary engage
ment runs from thirty to thirty five
weeks. If anything comes after that
it is chance, and a lucky one. A thirty
five weeks engagement is a fair one to
make an average upon. That is
5000 year. | make $40 a week.
Now, then, | have a husband who,
poor fellow, doesn't do much. How
can he, when most of the time he has
to look after me2 The children com
pei us to keep a nurse to look after
the children, am away so much.
Now, you know that in a fat with a
servant, husband and two children,
it is the easiest thing in the world to
get away with $40 or $50 week,
Even that would be all right, and
| should have little to complain Of if
it were not that at any moment | must
hold myself in readiness to be called
away on a travelling tour. Do you
know what that means2 Well, we
often travel pretty nearly all day and
| must pay for my own sleeping berth
at night, if don't want to sit up.
The manager does not pay for that,
only for the regular fare in the regular
car. Then must pay my own hotel
bill, on an average OF So to $3.50 per
day. The fare to and from the depot
counts a good deal at the end of
week, and any little luxury is an ad-
ditional and important expense. At
any rate this travelling life runs away
very easily with $50 or $40 a week,
and the home in New York must be
kept up all the time. You see there
is not much left, is there, when the
salary comes to be paid and enough
put in the bank for the summer va
cation2
Then there is that important item
OF dresses. The manager furnishes
none Of the ordinary run OF dresses,
only when he wants something extra
ordinary to be done that he contrib
utes anything to the expense, and then
there is always a lot Of wrapgling
about it. My stage dresses cost me
$500 easily in q season | am lucky
when that is all they come to. Be-
sides there are stage boots and gloves
and wigs and toilet articles averaging,
| should say, 81 or IS a week. An
actress earning 500 a week must keep
up appearances. She must dress be-
comingly on the stage. On wet nights
she must take a carriage home and
occasionally tired and hungry, she
wants a bite of supper somewhere.
Occasionally she advertises in the
dramatic papers to keep her name be-
fore the managers who are the stingiest,
not to those who have the least talent,
but to those who are least known.
I'm the way of work there is the
terrible bore of rehesrsals. You don't
know what it means to be kept for six
or seven hours days after day, some
times for weeks, sitting around a cold,
damp, i'll lighted stage. The indig.
mites one has to suffer are nameless.
Not always, but often, most of the
managers, you know, are not gentle
men,"
And yet young women want to be
aotressesP"
II often wonder whether they have
any idea what is in store for them. Ii
| complain that my life is a hard one
on 500, what must be the life of those
who are paid sl2, 500 and 1902"
Does not the item Of q husband
make difference2"
mo, except in the right way. When
| married my husband was making Sl5
a week in store. was getting S25.
He stayed at SIS; | got up to 800,
What is the use of his fooling his life
out on such salary when have
enough for both, and he can be OF more
than that value to me2 He attends to
all my business affairs, and does them
better than | could. II it were not for
him | should now be getting about $50
a week. He knows the newspaper
men, and gets squibs in the press
about me. He is at the theater to
take me home, to do thousand things
without which an actress life would
be unbearable. People have all sorts
of swindles ready for lone woman.
A man prevents them If | didn't
have him should be living alone in
an apology of a home, scandalized and
talked about as all unmarried &C
tresses are who talk to a gentleman
more than once. I've seen so much of
it, you know"
THE chances for Advancement
"Well, they are few after a woman
once gets into o leading position. L
suppose with good luck l may go on
increasing in value as | become more
aud more known, till get $2OOa week.
Then if l have failed to become a star,
and the chances of that are not many
(there are about six successful female
stars among 1000 actresses in this
country, shall sink back suddenly
to old woman parts. In other words,
| shall have lost the power to simulate
youth. | shall be fat and my rouge
will not conceal my wrinkles. Then
they will offer me $40 or $50 a week to
play the Marquise de st. Maurs and
the Mrs. Mslaprop. All the "old
women on our stage we're once lead
ing ladies, and can refer back to their
triumphs in the 0phelias, Desdemonas,
etc. Oh, no, the way to take the stage
is as a serious business, not as an
amusement. 1t is hard, unrelonting
stepmother with no soitness, no affec-
ton, no hope, but to the young novices,
and they meet their disfrancisement
in the first or second year upon il"
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