The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-03-12
RANKIN A VETERAN.
An Interesting Actor of the Old
School
IS EKEE RANKIN NOW HERE.

A Talk With Him About Other Well
Known ActOrs-He Plays to an Im-
xnense Audience ut the Grand.
On Thursday it will be thirty four
years since Mckee Rankin spoke his
first lines from the professional stage
He is one of the ''old timers" He knows
everybody on the stage that has been on
any length of time and rybody knows
him.
He is full of stories of men that have
been famous in his time, and he has seen
lots of them GO to the top and come
down again. He likes to look back over
the years that have passed him on the
stage, and compare the past with the
present. He is a pleasant man to talk
with.
In his dressing room last night the
subject turned to actors of the present
mo person is an actor" said Mr.. Ran
kin, "who does not put something into
his part that is Original-an improve
ment over every other person who has
played the part There are great many
people on the stage today who can take
part that someone else has created and i'm
itats the work, of course, but there should
be very little credit attached to that sort
of thing.
81 can take an ordinarily intelligent
and we'll appearing young man or woman
who may never have been on the stage
before, and coach him in a part for three
weeks, and he will go on and play it
good enough. An average audience
wouldn't know he was not an actor. There
are surprising number of that kind of
people on the stage today.
"rhat is the Gustave Frohman school
Look at the first Girl l Left Behind Me"
company that played the west this year
(This company visited Topeka.) They
had only one actor with them, and that
was Mart Kelsey. l had heard of him.
The rest were all new. and had been
drilled in their own parts only. Heisey's
Major Burleigh was very good. All the
rest of the company was very weak.
None of the acting was natural 1t was
all exaggerated and distorted.
"Then there is the other sort of actor
who has had u world of experience with
ont the instinct Look at Frank Bangs
who is with the alabama" company.
Did you ever hear of mortal acting like
Frank Bangs or even looking like Frank
Bangs looks in his part as Col. Preston
He is the blot on a very good cast.
CAT a benefit entertainment in Kansas
City short time ago Frank and
dressed in the same room together for
the first time in twenty-nine years.
Bangs is older than l am.
81 said to him, Frank, why don't you
do thus and go in that part?'
Bangs was shocked. 'Oh, my dear
boy he said. that would not be art
"'Of course it wouldn't, said I, it
would be nature though and that's better
than all your art
Follow nature closely and you cannot
go wrong"
Have you seen the Paul Kauvar'
company that was west this season. was
asked.
GOOD heaven" exclaimed Rankin,
"you surely don't call those people
actors? If you would see good people in
that piece it would make you weep TO
see these. l saw it and it was terrible,
terrible"
Rankin is q student of nature, and tries
his best to follow it whenever he can.
In making up the face he is as par
ticular as he can be. One of the young
women on the stage last night had too
much black grease paint on her eye
lashes Rankin went to her and told her
to rub most of it off
"When a woman does that sort of
thing" he said, "she fools nobody but
herself It was well enough once, but
not in these days when almost every
laboring man can afford the luxury of an
opera glass"
One of the first men Mckee Rankin
enquired about when he reached Topeka
was ]. Fred Scott, who holds an import
ant position in the treasurer's office of
the Santa Fe.
Several theatrical people have in
quired about Mr. Scott this winter.
eighteen years ago." said Rankin,
EScott was the manager of the Chestnus
street theater in Philadelphia, and l was
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