The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-10-15

Lillian Russell has lived forty-five
years and hasn't lost any OF the beauty
of twenty-five. Her voice has shrunk
and her figure has swelled; her skin is
painted and her hair is bleached, but
the loveliness of her features remains
unblemished and still is the American
popular standard Of perfection. She
is our queen of cigarette packets and
empress Of poetic pets, our deity Of
decorative placards and goddess of re
splendant billboards. Besides these
things she is a fashion plate beau
teously incarnated in the eyes of her
sex. That reason counts for more than
the others ] am thinking, 10 make the
female crowds that go to look at her
these afternoons. The theatre in which
she is appearing for the first time in
vaudeville within a quarter of CEN
tury is In the shopping district, and the
advertisements, Wilde vague as 10 what
else she does, is explicit that she wears
brand new gown each week. The
daytime audiences are composed chief
~ of women and girls who have been
taught pictOFially, from childhood OF
infancy, that Lillian Russell is Venus
transformed from Grecian haze TO
American palpability. And they go TO
the theatre, as theS would TO a bar
gain sale at a department store, expect
Ing 10 find her marked down from dra-
matte to vaudeville prices. But the
shoppers don't get her at cut rates.
The charges at the variety show matt
nee, usually % cents to so at the box
Office, are marked up by the sidewalk
statesmen TO double and treble those
figures.
The reason Proctor gives for charg-
as much for some minutes of Lillian
III ballads as we paid last season for
some hours Of her i'm comic opera is
that she costs him s., 900 a week. And
don't doubt him, for by chance
know that her salary at Weber q
Fields music hall was 81 900 weekly
during eight months in the year, and
she would be sure to double it for a
shorter engagement in vaudeville Lii
liam is wealthy. fOTtOne thing; she has
domicillate attachments for another
thing. and she can choose the kind of
work she will do for a living What
does she do for her high wages? -Four
teen times a week-for she exhibits
twice on Sunday, too-she sings four
songs IN fifteen minutes for a hundred
and seven dollars, fourteen cents and
three mills.
II Is as new sight. though. and not
as Il singer. that Lillian is a satisfac-
ton TO that portion of the public which
is seeing her now. Her gown this week
is white. with what | presume is EN-
broidery all over and through it-or
maybe it is lace-anyWay, it is sleazy.
and full of holes. and wouldn't do TO
make trousers of; and she carries a
fluffy, feathery mass that is muff, /
guess; and from her fair, round throat
TO where her unknown knees ought TO
be hangs a string of pearls THAI il
they came from fishshellS and not from
beeswaX. may have cost far more than
even the big motor car that carries her
10 and from the theatre, She wears
a smile. too, and it doesn't come off at
any time during her songs. They are
amorous in their words, and, although
not passionate in manner. are very
amiable. The first is a tribute in
French to sexual affection, the second
is an acknowledgment in English Of the
delights of d kiss, third is a most aes-
thetic appreciation Of romantic love,
and the fourth, with a cruelty to the
personal pronoun not indicated by the
sweetly ungrammatical lips, choruses a
fond chaps assertion:
IN tell you what,
I'd give lot
II the boy she loved was me-"
The curtain closed down on no such
airy, fairy Lillian" as poet laure-
ate would rave over I'm rhymes, but
such pump lump Of Lillian loneliness
as the multitude can dote on as their
wax doll ideal of perfect beauty. When
the curtain opened up again We saw q
stageful of monkeys, some of them biz
d pes, In such contrast with the proceed
ing exhibit that the manager may have
meant they should-as they surely die
awaken US from a dream Of fair wo-
man to feel that it had been worth ouI
mOnes. The monkeys activity, on food
and lodging only, was quite as differ
ent from LilIian's inertness at s.. 0a0 4
week. She had looked no more sentieni
than a human curiosity on a museum
platform. Yet l knew that in heI
ealmness, she had dissembled like al
artist, for she had smiled when she hao
felt Ike weeping. She had come di-
rectly from d hospital, where surgeons
had almost killed her daughter, and she
was going right back TO see ifi then
kind cruelty might save her loved ones
| life. FRANKLIN FYLES.