The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-10-22
STAR IN HIDING.
MrS.James Brown Potter Forced
off the Stage.
Her Downfall Came at Savoy
Theater, London.
AUDIENCE WAS UNKIND
Pathetic Ending OF a Largely
Sensational Career.
Actress Almost Broken Hearted
Over Verdict of Audience.

A London dispatch says: After
twenty years of social and dramatic
successes Mrs. James Brown Potter
has Withdrawn from the stage broken
in body and spirit, and retired TO her
country place, Bray lodge, not far
from w. w. AstOr'S Cliveden. Old De-
fore her time, a failure before the
whole world in the completeSt sense of
the term, she stood a fortnight ago
upon the stage of the Savoy theater in
this city in her emotional" gowns,
with scarcely a trace of her former
beauty to tell the tale of her youthful
triumphs, and looked out upon a dis
approving audience. with eyes hot, dry
and restless, cheeks pallfd even be-
meath the rouge and grease paint and
lips that dropped path etically as the
curtain was rung down upon her futile
attempt to win favor in her sisters
drama, THE Golden Light"
On the day before this final collapse
of the actress whose name has been
familiar to both continents, James
Brown Potter, after eighteen years IN
the role of a deserted husband, years
brought to New York his second bride,
a southern belle. Miss May Handy.
Within twenty-four hours the first
wife, who had deserted him for stage
life, was forced by the jeers of her
London audience to close her career,
maybe forever.
Unquestionably the failure of her
latest play, THE Golden Light" was
known for years. 1t is quite true that
London audiences are sometimes I'M
kind, but few actresses have met with
such adverse criticism and sneerlng
comment as has been visited upon Mrs.
Potter. There has really not been one
not of encouragement for her Sell
dom has a new production been re-
ceived with jeering from beginning to
end, without the saving grace of a sin
gle cold touching of the finger tips in
q courteous attempt at applause.
Such. however, was the fate of THE
Golden Light" which went out at the
first cold blast of popular disapproval
And with its vanishing Mrs. Potter
vanished from London.
So Mrs Potter packed up her emo
tional gowns" disbanded her company,
put away the manuscripts of her play
and declared she would not appear
again this season. In all liability
she will never attempt the stage again, !
at least in this country. Such is the
passing of the star who startled all the
world when she deserted her husband |
and home almost twenty years ago to !
follow the fitful flicker of the footlights !
None who might see Mrs. Potter to-
could fancy her again tempting fate by (
posing as a stage beauty. Even the |
kindly footlights and the rouge and /
powder could not conceal the fact that |
she is a broken woman, not old in years, |
but weary of everything. Nothing so 1
ages a woman as disappointment, and /
Mrs. Potter, hiding in her little English /
home, is a disappointed woman Years /
of struggle to appease an unquenchable |
thirst for admiration, years of sacrifice /
upon the altar of vanity, years of striv- |
ing for public reclamation, have left |
their traces upon her once beautiful |
face, have completely stolen the luster /
from her eyes, the roundness from her |
cheeks, the grace from her figure.
Mrs. Potter has changed greatly ply
eically within the past year or so. She |
,V,I,rr lash, 3fcr11f .raD hnv al
most fat. There is no longer any SEM |
blance CT her former sylph-like appear
ance. She has tired. weary look, /
there is a pathetic droop to the lips /
once so well formed. her smile is 10 |
longer full of mirthfulness. The chin |
IS peaked. cheeks wan and her eyes
have a list1ess glance through the half |
closed lids. Her shoulders are somewhat /
stopped. Those who remember Cora |
Urquhart Potter in the early days of /
her social triumphs-when as a beauti- !
full girl bride she took New York sOcfe- I
" by Storm when she danced on the /
night of her first ball with Ward Nc |
Allister, when she stood in the corners |
of fashionable drawing rooms in her
little homemade frocks and recited !
% 'Ostler joe and 1.-The Devil in Search |
of Wife" and later when in London |
she made a conquest of the prince of |
Wales@night feel that the mills of God |
had ground too small could they see !
her today on the brink of the down !
ward path of life alone without one of |
the things that make the old age of |
woman beautiful and happy, without /
the love OF husband. the love of chill
dren. socially. domestically and at last
artistically a failure.
Mrs. Potter gave up all that women
hold dear to indulge her passion for
the stage. She had wealth, surprising
beauty, social prestige, a handsome
and adoring husband and a baby girl |
just learning to lisp the word mann
ma" She could have become one
of the foremost women in New York |
society. But her craving for the stage
led her to leave her husband, home
child and friends. Now she has moth
ing to look forward to but a cherries
old age Her ambition thwarted, her
life a disappointment, from the other