Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-01-03
ANENT MATINEE IDOLS
Impression That They Should
Not Marry.
FIN ANCIAL REASONS
SHOP WINDOW ROBBERS IN NEW
YORK.
Cornelius Vanderbilt Very Popular
With the Masses of the
People There.
FIN ANCIAL REASONS
Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
NEW YORK, January 2. 1908.
Shall a matinee idol marry? The caramel
devouring matinee girls shake their heads
and say no, emphaticaly. The managers
say no, almost screaming it in their frenzy.
The press agents say no, banging Their
typewriters with frantic denials that the
starring matinee idol is even contemplating
matrimony. And then. in spite Of all. the
| matinee idol goes off and gets married. One
Of them, perhaps the champion matinee
idol Of the lot, a stage swashbuckler par
excellence, perfect dream Of cooer
in his theatrical love-making scenes, went
off and got married only the other day.
Worse and more Of it, he married an actress
who herself has been worshiped by the
matinee girls. His manager gurgled in in
effectual wrath. The press agent, right up
to the hour of the marriage, besieged the
| newspaper offices with hysterical denials
that the idol had any such notion in his
head as marrying. The actor really in
tended to have the ceremony performed sub
rosa, but it couldn't be done. There was
possibility of his being married in New
York, on account Of clause which was in
corporated In the divorce granted his first
wife while back, and SO the correspond
ents in all towns in the adjoining states
have been on the alert for some time.
So the marriage was announced this week,
and a settled gloom pervades the office of
the actors manager. When, some years
ago, this same matinee idol married a
woman not of the stage the matter was
kept quiet for a full two years, and then
1t leaked out by accident. From the hour
of the revelation the idol was not the same
to the matinee girls. They transferred their
adulation to idols who were known-as far
as such things can be known with respect
to stage persons-to be single. Then sud
denly, this matinee idols wife sued him
for a divorce. The actor was playing in
New York at the time. Immediately the
matinee girls began to flock to his theater
again. They could not forgive him for
marrying. When however he landed in the
divorce court it was all right-they forgave
him the grave indiscretion of marrying and
renewed their allegiance.
Why Does Marriage Annul INTEREST,"
Why do the matinee girls-theater-go,
women generally, in truth - Immediately
lose interest in stage heroes who marry?
The replies of the amateur psychologists
who have tackled the problem are unsatis-
factory. Three or four years ago there was
a New York stage idol an Englshman.
who married the daughter of a Tammany
| politician. The marriage had no sooner
been announced than the actor began to
play to empty seats at the matinees The
actor had only been married a few months
when he began to beat his wifes counten-
duCS 10 pulp every lew Gays, PROBABLY IOr
exercise. One day he almost beat her to
death with his fists because she forgot to
take the fish off the fiat dumb waiter, or
something of that sort, and she had him
arrested. The magistrate sentenced him to
six months on Blackwells Island He
served the time. When he got out he i'm
medlately appeared on the stage again in
a rapier-fashing, what-ho-varlet part. The
theater wasn't spacious enough to hold the
matinee girls who f1ocked to see him. Was
it because he had blackened his wife's
eyes? Who knows?
This matinee IDOL who was recently mar
ried to the actress, is said to mediate ap-
pearing shortly In play with his new
wife his leading lady. He will, how
ever, probably not be so foolish to carry
that meditation to an actually. Married
co-stars are sadly neglected by the Amer
lean theater-going public, no matter how
excellent both may be as performers. 1t is
not necessary to mention names Those
who follow theatrical matters will have no
difficulty in calling to mind the prominent
theatrical husbands and wives who are now
heading different companies of their own.
Most of them tried the experiment, when
they married, Of playing together, and they
all quickly found out that the plan would
not do. 1t may be due to the strength of
the American sense of humor.
Conception Of the Stage Lover.
In this country it is deemed ridiculous for
a stage lover to make imprisoned love to
stage sweetheart who is really his wife,
and fun is the foe of romance. Actors and
! actresses such familiar personages in
this country that theater-going folk cannot
disassociate their private lives from their
| stage roles
1t is WHISPERED that two very notable
American actresses, both of whom are sup
| posed by their enthusiastic admirers to be
| confirmed bachelor girls, are in reality
married, and have been for some time. 1t
| always means heavy financial losses for
stage idols. men or women. when the first
| news of their marriage gets out. Padrew-
| ski didn't do half so we'll on his last tour
! of this country as he did on his first, be-
| cause he had been married in the interval
| between the two visits. Some very shrewd
managers in New York express the belief
| that Mascagni's tour of this country
wouldn't have been so disastrous had the
| young Italian composer not brought his
| wife along with him-for it was by no
| means generally known in the United
States that Mascagni was married-and,
consequently "shelved'- A
few weeks before the wnd-up last year of
the American tour of young kubelik. the
vioinist, somebody or other-probably
rival press agent to kubelik's-sprung the
| canard that the young Bohemian fiddler
was married and had been for more than
a year, to young Hungarian girl. 1t was
amazing to observe how. the attendance of
the young women fell away at Kubelik's
concerts while that canard was working.
1t required about weeks time to thor
oughly disprove the story, but it was dis
I proven Thoroughly, lISIl Tie yOuIS
women returned to the Kubelik perform
ances, and sighed over his monumental
| mop of hair and mobbed him the
stage after the performances they had
| done before the springing of the marriage
yarn.
Shop Misunderstanding Robbers.
The other evening a young fellow, who
had lost his job as bell boy, and who
was hungry, homeless and cold, arrived at
the determination that he would have
try at making himself comfortable. That
which caused him to make up his mind in
| this respect was a magnificent display of
| diamonds in the window of 42d street
pawn shop. There were about $50 600
worth Of gems on view in the window. The
chance that the homeless and freezing
youth took was desperate one, and he
| did not get away with it. He hurled
| cobblestone through the pawnbrokers
| window grabbed tray containing $25, 600
| worth of jewels and made sprint for it.
After a run of several blocks the cops
nailed him and they beat him almost to
! death before they put him in the wagon
| and sent him to the station.
There Is good deal of penny wisdom and
| pound foolishness in this town. About this
| season, two or three times every year regu-
| larJv the cohhlestOnes begin to flv through