The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-01-15
EDYTHE CHAPMAN'S
STAGE CAREER
Especial to the Advertiser.)

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 4.-fhe Neill
Company is playing Held by the En-
envy" in Los Angeles this week. The
Neills have done a good business in !
Southern California. Curiously enough |
| Edythe Chapman, who is James Neills !
| wife, is playing the same role which !
she played when she trod the dramatic !
stage for the first time Miss Chap
man will be well remembered in Hon
olulu, where she has played twice. +
Those who saw her, easy and graceful
OF manner and gowned in the most
beautiful creations of the Paris mo-
distes, hardly suspect that only a few
years ago she was a struggling dram
attic student, earning her own way, and
living on but few dollars a week.
Several years ago, when she was
student in the New York Lyceum
School Of Acting, she was told that it 1
would be folly for her to continue the :
career she had chosen. Franklin H.
Sargent, then as now, the head of the 8
school, and then as now, recognized as :
one of the best judges of dramatic art 8
n the country, was the man who dis s
outraged her. He said she never would =
make an actress. Miss Chapman had &
'een teaching elocution in a school at .
ialesburg, Ill, and in that way she =
lad earned enough to pay for a year &
t the Lyceum school. The course was 8
or two years. Where to get the sec e
nd years tuition was a question that s.
eened to have nothing but a mega 3
Fha rT,Ix-
e 10 go back to Galesburg. The dis g
engagement offered by Sargent was
lshearteninS, almost humbling but 4
ke all those who possess talent Miss g
hapman felt somehow that she would y
2 an actress in time
This substratum of self-confidence q
light not have been sufficient to carry y
er through the anxiety and doubt of a
lother year had it not been for the 8
Encouragement of another man, then =
1 Instructor in the Lyceum school *
Nv believed to be the one man in the 3
orld of dramatic production who has e
MUS, who might if he felt so inclin- 8
SO his ardent admirers say-start .
Bernhardt factory, or produce from a
me stray plastic material another q
wing or Duse. That man was David q
lasco He had worked with her, had
IN her make an unusual success of 9,
cen II dSeuS, anu ne naQ talrh her
Iure- That was in the days before =
lasco had become a name to coniure s
tn, before The Charity Ball. before
SHE Carter And the state of his
ances was in direct ratio to the ex~I q
t of his fame. He was a struggling =
matic instructor with an expensive &
nily Yet nothing more surely in as
ates his insight than the judgment -
made at that time of the young as ,sssuz
ant whom Sargent had declared
eless. When Miss CHAPMAN left {
v York to return to Galesburg, Be
% with his secretary. Roeder. who 3
ever since been with him, came to
train to see her off. Belasco had a 3
en- of violets; Roeder a box of can 4
1t was not Beiasco's habit to show 4
much interest. "a
want to see you back here next b
:, he said to her. Il believe you're
e TO make an actress. I'm not a
rich man, as you know, but if YOU
t see your way clear to afford TO 4
m, come anyway, and I'll stake
You can pay it back when you
ready
a curious stroke of good fortune
chapman was not obliged to avail
elf Of Belasco's offer a distant q
lFe-one she had never heard Of
enlently died and left her 1910 B
81 70 see hef through the second b
with tight squeezing. Her first
cement was made with charles
man at the recommendation of
d Belasco. She began as the lead
woman in Held by the Enemy"
any, and from then till now she
never played any but leading
One of the treats that Miss
man is looking forward to is an
france sometime before David Re-iS
Confident in her as a studentiE
IS never seen her as a professional
So.
FREDERICK O'BRIEN.