Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1898-04-03
WHY DO THEY
RETURN TO
THE STAGE?
Judith Berolde, Minnie SeIigman
and Minnie Maddern Fiske For
sake Domestic Life for Hard
Work on the ad.--Their
Husbands are Rich,
Copyright, 1889

One reads so continually NOWADAYS
OF the disillusions of stage life and the
hardships entailed by constant travel,
one night stands and poor hotels that
the life as seen from the audience s
point of view loses much of its en-
chantment to the thinking spectator.
Interviews with famous actors, men
and women, always make plain the
fact that there are more study and
perseverance required in attaining
success in this field of professional
work than in any other. And while
to-day there are stagestruck youths
and maidens who love to strut about
reciting Shakespeare and picking up
imaginary bouquets thrown at them
by enraptured onIookers the young
man ana woman of average intelli-
gence know that the usual way of go
ing on the stage" nowadays is with a
spear and a badly fitting suit of al
NOR or wreath OF property flowers
and side skipping motion, for which
the youthful aSpirant sometimes com
mands as high a salary as 81 a week.
But that the stage has some unusual
and peculiar fascination is proved by
the fact that nine-tenthS of the women
actors who fOrsake the life for matri-
mony return after a dormant period
and take up the work that they have
put down with apparent pleasure five
or six years before. These are women
not blinded by any glamour or forced
to their profession by the need of
money. They have studied in the
hard school of experience; they have
had the delights of disenchantment
thrust upon them from San Francisco
to Anaconda, Mich, and have broken
ice in the tin wash basins Of C0hoes,
N Y.
Yet they forsake comfortable fire
sides adjoining husbands, good cooks
and all the comforts of ideal civiliza-
tion to return to the irritating annoy
ances of travelling life-life which
must be tuned to an alarm clock, life
of train catching, berth sleeping and
frequently tie walking events.
am not sure that the three partic
Mar stars that | have in mind have
ever lifted their dainty feet in this par
ticular exercise or that there is any
danger of such catastrophe so long as
+here arc admiring husbands at the
end of the wire in some big city. But
there are unavoidable and equally un-
pleasant episodes which occur con-
stantly in the lives of even the most
successful stars.
Minnie Maddern, who had been a
fayorite for many seasons, from the
time she made her debut as a child
On "Fogg's Ferry to her unique per-
formance in "Featherbrain, suddenly
astonished everybody by marrying
Mr. Harrison Grey Fiske, the editor OF
the New York Dramatic Mirror. She
settled down into an ideal domestic
ayistence Her beautiful nome was q
gathering place for the most Driiilant
men and women in the literary ana
arr world. as well as great actors OF
America and from the ola word. ohe
frequently expressed hersel1 as urea
of stage life and its observation-disclosures
Soon several charming one act
,loys anneared over her name. ana her
admirers reioiced that TINS seemed d
much more fitting channel Tor tne eS-
nression Of her peculiarly dencate
penius and originality OF thoushI
Then It was announced that she Woula
(. return To the stare. She mace her re-
annearauce in THE Queen Oh Liars
. NAV written by her husband, and
last season electrified pupiie ana CRIT
les by her wonderful performance III
"Tess Of the DUrbervilles," in which
her acting has been compared 10 thal
of only one other aetress-puse,
\ Within the last few weeks Mlhl,e
Seligman Cutting has rea cap.
upson the vaudeville stage. inis otau,
tifM young woman creaseo a q I'D Mr.
Boh cutting within few weeks OF
heir mAeting at Long Branch during
The e-' SUMNER. Mr.. Cutting Is the son
Of one Of NE richest men in New Jew. Yo orr,
and represspts one OF the Oldest anu
most exclusive families 80,
The devotiosn of this couple mas pe ;eh
perpetuated inv photograph Mni0n