The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-06-29
WHEN SHOWS BUST"

Dark Side of the Press Agents Life. ''The good stories are not always the ones that get printed" said the retired press agent, sadly. The dia- |monds that the actress loses are always found; the cab accidents are never so serious but the star can appear the next night. But once in a while good story fails to connect, or if it does it reflects no credit upon the hard working press agent whose fertile brain conceived the dope.
 "'The worst jolt a press agent ever got, to my knowledge, occurred when
 the late Charles Coghlan was playing Citizen Pierre at the old Fifth Ave- Inue Theatre. The press agent decided that something must be done, quickly in the newspapers if a grateful public wanted to see Mir. Coghlan many weeks longer. Business was not good, and so he decided upon a master [ piece of fiction. AE ...
 "The idea was to have the leading tlady of the production abducted. The leading lady was glad enough to stand for the yarn, because it meant getting her picture into the papers. The trouble was to find the abductor. Fi- nally the press agent hired an ex-actor out of a job to pose as. the abductor, | for a ten dollar bill. .i... ..... "The leading lady died in the third act and was out early, so she soon had changed her costume and dressed for the street. It was about half past 10 on Saturday night, As she left the stage door burly individual threw a cloak around her and rushed her into 8 cab standing at the curb. "She let forth two or three shrill
 shrieks, not loud enough to attract the police, but loud enough to be heard distinctly by three reporters standing on the corner talking to the press agent. Then the cab whipped off into the darkness toward Sixth Avenue,
 and the great abduction was on. ''The frantic press agent rushed to the telephone to dispatch the glad tid- ings down to the newspaper row, Then inc called up the police to tell them a, wealthy Texas catlernan who had be-
 come enamored of the actress had ab-
 ducted her. The police were asked to | find the abductor.
 ':This gave a police end to the story 1 in order to make the newspapers think the thing genuine. Then the
 press agent handed out photographs
 of the lady, and the reporters fairly
 ran for the Elevated to get downtown with the story.
 Then the press agent went back to
 the stage, proud of having done his duty, and anxious to make favorable | impression upon Coghlan by telling
 him of the display stories to be printed on the morrow. But Coghlan was not | in his dressing room.
 "The press agent went on the stage
 and found an excited mob of actors surrounding Coghlan and his mana ger, who were having an argument. The play was over, the audience was
 gone, and Coghlan was delivering an 1 iultimatum. }"%
 "'Unless I and the company are paid every cent tonight declared Coghlan, there will be no perform
 ance in this theatre Monday night | And there wasn't The show closed that night. At midnight the
 press agent called up the newspapers
 and asked them to kill the story.
 ''The show's busted,' he said Save
 the elopement, story for a few weeks
 and I'll use it with the next show I'm
 with
 " Sorry, old man. came one an-
 swer over the phone, but the story
 is in type, with a big picture, and will , go to press in our first edition in a few imintutes.' ...