The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-09-18
ABOUT PLAYS AND PLAYERS.

OI MIS-. VICES OF the CABBAGE BdIcn,
is a story Of an ambitious little girls
tussle with big New York, says the
Matinee Girl in the Mirror.
Under a slightly different patrOnym
she was one Of the brightest of the
high school girls at Shreveport, La.
When a little more than six years ago,
with high courage and fiattened peck
etboOk she gathered up what remained
Of two generations of her family and
came to New York to commence a Ca
reer, the Shreveport, La, papers al
luded to her with graceful southern
gallantry as "one Of Shreveports love
lest and most gifted dawtahs''
The slim, brown-eyed yOungster final
~ attached herself to one of the pig
mills on Park Row, and an old and
ugly fairy gOdmother found her there,
her youth and beauty being slowly
ground out of her between the relent-
less upper mill stone of incessant rou-
tine and the unyielding lower one of
metropolitan editorial infexibility.
Leave newspaper work. Go on the
stage" commanded the ugly fairy god
mother The stage is the profession
for women who are adapted to it,"
But ] am getting on in the news
paper field. l am the only woman who
interviewed Admiral Dewey. although
l did cry when the interview began.
III get over that and"
And shrivel into dust at your post, ="
grimly interrupted the godmother.
THE successful person capitalzes his
assets. Now what are yours? Beauty
Absolutely useless in the newspaper
business. Positively i'm your way some
times. II gives you good start on the
stage. frees you from handicap at the
beginning. lovely Maxine Elliott to the
contrary notwithstanding Brains,
They are necessary on a newspaper,
but useful on the stage, a lot of So
called actresses to the uneXpressed con-
trary, notwithstanding. Youth! Against
you on a newspaper, where mature
judgment is always i'm demand-during
the papers lucid intervals; for you, on
the stage"
Then, because she still saw hesita-
ton in the wistful brown eyes, the
ugly old fairy gOdmother spoke the
magic word, Money
I'm the last analysis we always come
to dollars" she said. How much do
those newspaper women earn whose
standing on the Row correspond to that
of Mrs. Fiske and Julia MarloWe on the
stage2 A hundred and a quarter a
week. and that If their paper is liberal,
and their particular editor chooses to
like them, and lots Of things. You may
earn that when you're 80. if you're not
dead before
And although she saw the dawning
of conviction the Old gOdmother added
a feminine postscript:
Newspaper work makes a woman
old. Acting keeps her young. The
stage is the perpetual fountain of
youth
The tired newspaper girl put on her
black hat with the wreath Of peoples
and went out to look for a beginning on
the stage. She got it at last i'm the left
wing of a chorus. The next season and
the next she went TO that nard dramat-
ic school. a stock company. The ugly
gOdmother heard of her in Philadel-
phia. i'm Newark, in Ohio, and next
week she is going to see her as Miss
Lucy"
Nora Selby has had the inevitable
hard knocks from stage fortunes
knuckles, though never such hard ones
as Francis Wilson got from Mackin,
who punched the head wherein dwelt
the comic mind" because young VIII
son said he was tired being a minstrel
and aspired to something higher. Miss
Selby's deepest hurt came when she
was offered a salary Of 50 a week by a
manager who nap Kipling's IAN for the
JOY of Working printed on the pro-
grammes.
Here's luck to the little girl from
Shreveport, who minded her godmoth-
err
Although the country may be paying
too much attention to war news to
notice it, Edna May is back. In New
York she is appearing in The School
HfrTf ,Irr1. 4
a birthday, and while it was on she
tailed.
Everybody las been very nice TO
me, and 1 am very glad" she said,
simply crossing her hands in her lap,
and a grateful light in her eyes. I'm
glad, first of all, because 1 wanted-oh,
so much-to redeem myself from the
failure / made when last here. OF
course. The Girl from Up There was a
bad piece. and try as I would / couldn't
make the ice on the, Ice Maiden melt
il froze and froze until felt positively
CONCEALED. They said a lot of thin-s
about me, bur nothing which hurt me
so much as that / was no LONGER an
American girl but Sickeningly Eng
lish. That made me want to go back
on the very next boat-for they were,
and are. kind TO me over there-and
the memory of il made me afraid to
come this time / dreaded that they
might say again that l was 'sicken-
ingIy English; but they didn't, did
they?"
No they didn't.
And don't you think with a flick
oripg appeaI from the drab orbs. that
it was rather unfair TO charge me witE
.lE Urned english 1 didn't mean
10 be- really | didn't. Il was-it was
Unconscious.
yes, that's it-unconsciOus Per
haps ] had changed. One is apt to get
into the habit OF speaking and acting
like people with whom one is thrown
Perhaps ] had lost my Yankee twang
But now that ] am here once more 1
may find it again"
If you find the missing wang. please
return ii to Miss Edna May. Schuyler
apartments. and no questions win be
asked. Meeting her Will be reward
enough.
II am 20 today" said Miss MAY.
but" she warned. eafter today III
not tell my age. II gets to be serious
once 4 woman has passed %. And
here am With another birthday
Counting back. Miss May figured il
was eight years ago when she made
her first appearance on the stage
1T was here in New York in Santa
Maria which, Mr.. Hammerstein wrote.
YOU remember. and I had q small part