St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-04-01
SOME FORGOTTEN FAV0RTES,
Some of the Theatrical Celebrities
of Past Times, -
RECALLED BY OLD PHOTOGRAPHS.
Gifted Men and Beautiful Women Who
Charmed the Audiences of Thirty
Years Ago Kindly shadows of
the stage. -

There is curious little shop in an out or
the way corner of New York where are kept for
sale photographs of all the theatrical ceiebri-
Ties OF the past. 1t is well worth visit I
CHANGED upon it the other day and spent a,
delightful half hour rummaging through the
shelves and drawers. The memories revived
by the pictures L saw there are given here
with while the recollections thew evoked
would fill columns.
Here is quaint old photograph of Edwin
Booth and his daughter taken in 1868 when
the reat actor was in the first flush of his
splendid fame. He is gone now, while his
daughter, now grown to beautiful wonanhood
has been happy wife and mother for several
years past
And pretty Agnes Ethel-who does not re-
member her as the sweetest and most WIN
some of Frou-Frous, and the bright par
ticular star in Mr.. Days splendid company.
But that was more than twenty years ago.
She married while her fortunes were still in
the ascendant and has ever since been
stranger to the stage. lone Burke is another
name that is almost unknown to the theatre
goers of the present time but nevertheless
she was the idol of the gilded youth of the
early sixties. Gifted and beautiful the
daughter of one of the greatest actors the
American stage has known, her future seemed
assured, when one day she suddenly disap-
peared and the places that had known her
knew her no more. Later it came out that a
handsome, stalwart Engishman had won her
heart, and that she had gone with him to
make home on the other side of the seas.
She is now an honored and happy wife and
say she has never had cause to regret the
sudden impulse that led her to abandon the
footlight's glare and glitter.
Kate Bateman is another American actress
who has lived so long in England that she is
almost forgotten in the land of her birth.
She and her sister were famous and popular
as infant prodigies forty years ago, and later
she made a name for herself as a capable,
painstaking and conscientious actress,
especially impressive in tragic and melo-
dramatic roles. Her Leah is still remem-
bered as a powerful and moving personation.
She married in England and has since resided
there. For some years she successfully
managed a leading London theatre but of
late years has been seen on the stage only at
rare and infrequent intervals.
A picture of Clara Morris shows her as
she looked when she first startled the town
as a member of Days company more than
twenty years ago. She has grown old since
then and her figure has lost much of its girl
ish slenderness but her moving pathos, her
tragic intensity, and her power to sway an
audience at will, still remain. A picture
of Fanny Davenport shows that gifted and
Woodworking actress as she looked twenty
years ago She, too, has grown old in the
years that have interviewed, but she has gain
ed all the time in BREADTH in scope and in
ready command of her art Poor Sarah jew
etti Who does not recall the days when her
beauty, talent and earnest endeavor capti-
waited the town? She has been for several
years helpless invalid, and will probably
never act again.
What host of recolIections are evoked by
the name of Pauline Markham! l saw her
the other night as graceful and shapely and
almost as beautiful as of yore, but the days
are gone when the youth of the period went
wild over her, and poor old Richard Grant
White, now dead and almost forgotten, was
hopelessly in love with her. In these times
I fear her lines do not always fall in pleasant
places, but in the palmy days of the English
Blondes, Markham was great favorite and
divided popular favor with Lydia Thompson,
the leader of the troupe. Audiences raved
over her, the newspapers praised her, a host
of admirers loaded her with beautiful and
costly presents. Her good fortune seemed q
bubble burst. The public fancy changed and
the Blondes were no longer popular She
had spent her money with lavish hand and
in recent years she has often found herself in
bitter need both Of money and employment.
There is no more pathetic figure than a de-
throned stage queen, and Pauline Markham
is striking proof of this assertion.
Those already named are only few of the
ghosts of the past that my visit to the little
picture shop called up. Here is picture of
Mrs. ID. p. Bowers, one of the most pleasing
and finished actresses the American stage has
ever known, taken before she had begun to
grow old another of James E. Murdoch, the
best Mercutio and Benvolio of his time, and
for many years the nestor of our
stage;. another of John Wilkes Booth,
handsome as Apollo, showing him as
he appeared less than week before the as
sassination of Lincoln: quaint old likeness
Of Agnes Booth, taken when she was the wild
ow of Harry Perry, and when, as rumor has
1t, she had very warm place in her
heart for dashing Frank Mayo, then leading
man at the California theatre in San Fran
cisco; photograph of Maggie Mitchell,
when she was still the devoted wife of Henry
Paddock, and before her age had becomea
stock joke with newspaper funny men; Dion
Boucicault, thirty years ago, when his star
was at its zenith and his cup was filled to the
brim with the good things of this world, and
lll-starred lima di MurSka, whose superb
voice charmed the people of two worlds but
who finally died in the diast poverty, hearto
broken and forgotten.
Here too. are photographs of Lester Wall /,
laak in a dozen different characters: thab
Lester Wallack who was the handsomest act.
or and the finest light comedian of his time,
for quarter OF a century the metropolis
greatest favorite as player and manager but
who is now the inmate of an unmarked grave
in Greenwood, playing in death a role fais
more moving and pathetic than any he eve9s
played during life; and of Harry Montague
handsome, gifted and versatile, whom the
men admired and the women adored butwhe
was cut down too soon for the full ripeninf
of his fame, and who now sleeps near his olG
friend and manager, Wallack. Pictures also
of John Brougham, Charles Walcot and Will
liam Rufus Blake, all famous and gifted COM
edlans, the first generously endowed both as
actor and playwright, the second the best
Bob Acres of his time, and the last-named, a
lover of wine, women and the midnight
chimes, unsurpassed as Jesse Rural
photographs, too, of Barney Williams and
his wife, the Irish boy and the Yankee girl.
Barney was never an actor but the people
liked him, and when he died he had become
one OF the richest players of his time. His
wife, still handsome woman, but with hair
as white as snow, is often seen of an after
noon on Broadway. William E. Burton, great
as Toodles and greater still as Paul Pry;
Laura Keene, fine actress and gifted woman,
who outlived her popularity and died ne
elected and forgotten; Harry and Tom
Placide, the ideal Dromios of their time:
John Z. Ovens inimitable as Wellington de
Boots and Scion Single, who made fortune
on the stage and lost it in speculation; Ada
Clare, woman of wit, talent and sur
passing beauty, queen of the Bohemian
coterle that used to meet at Pfaffs; her
ban r 81.