Los Angeles herald., 1907-05-27
BOSTON REPORTER
MAKES WORLD TOUR
GATHERS MANY SHEKELS ON
THE TRIP
Charles Leonard Fletcher Finds the
Whole World Likes a Good Vau-
devilIe stunt-Hopes to
Retire Soon

Fourteen years ago Charles Leonard
Fletcher deserted his desk in the OF
fees of the Boston Globe to become an
actor. He has just returned by way
of San Francisco from trip around
the world. AS he dressed the Wig
which he wears in the characters OF
Fagin, Dickens and other studies AT
the Orpheum, he told reporter now
one can make the tour of the world In
ten months and gather ten thousand
good dollars by the way.
"Of course such trip requires con-
siderable preparation" he said. Il be-
gan my preparations when l left my
thirty-dollar job on the Globe to join
a theatrical troupe at one-third the
money.
Everyone in the office laughed ut
me. My manager said with fine scorn:
"'You will be back begging for Job
in less than six months. But remem-
ber-if you quit there's no sneaking
back. Stay here and 1 promise you
will be assistant manager in five years.
Go, and you go for good
Goes Back Hero
at went, and when I saw Boston
again it was as leading man in
melodrama company. l had made the
first step towards my trip around the
WOrlQ. lne SeCOIu SLcP was "hSAi =
went into vaudeville.
"The third was my first London en-
gagement. There 1 met Harry Rick
ard. Rickard engages no acts in
America. He has to please an ultra
English, audience in his Australian
houses and will not take an act which
has not been tried and found success
fui i'll London.
"I came home from England with
Richards contract in my pocket, but
it was dated three years ahead. Then
I played another season in the east and
one here in the west. 1t was In De-
cember. 1905, that was last at the Los
Angeles Orpheum.
Back again for few weeks in Lon
don and then off for the other side OF
the world.
Cairo was the first stopping place.
There played six weeks in the palatial
theater which Pat Sheedy, the king of
American gamblers, has erected in, the
Egyptian capital. Sheedy's theater Is
the first and only vaudeville theater in
the land of the Pharaohs. One per-
formance a day six days a week, but
even at that the weeks pay was we'll
earned, for Cairo, Egypt, is hotter than
Cairo, Illinois-and then some.
Plays in India
'E'rOfn CAIRO dnOIItT leap was DletuC
into the regions of hell. When 1 struck
bottom 1 found myself at Bombay
India. Here and all through India l
organized my own entertainments, acted
as my own manager, press agent and
what not. But with all that it was
easy money for the Englishmen who
are bearing the white mans burden
| in India are show hungry and any
thing that gives them a vision of the
| iel hot oaI
is sure Of patronage. The fact that
had been a success at the Tivoli, AL
hambra and Palace in dear old Lunnun'
was all the advertisement needed.
Columbo, Ceylon, was the next port of
call, then off for Australia.
"Twenty-six weeks in Perth, Mel
bourne, Adelaide and Sidney found me
pretty homesick. Mr.. Rickard offered
me another twenty weeks, but just then
a cable from San Francisco offered me
an engagement on the Orpheum circuit.
That clinched the matter. The Or
pheum is always on the lookout for
acts returning from Australia by way
of San Francisco.
"As I passed the Golden Gate
thought that the little old United
States would do for me thereafter. But
when 1 reached the hotel and found a
letter from Rickard, which had come
over by the same boat as I did, offer
ing me an engagement in 1909, and re-
called the good times spent with that
jovial, whole-souled Australian,
signed that contract and mailed 1t at
once lest 1 should change my mind.
vaudeville now reaches all the way
around the world. From it's birthplace
in London, where the Middlesex music
hall recently celebrated it's two hundred
and f1ftieth birthday, it has taken in
every country where there are enough
Europeans to furnish an audience. Tie
Asiatic races do not take kindly to the
variety theaters They patronize melo-
drama and everything else but variety.
well, it took me twelve years to
get good and ready and ten months to
make the trip. After 1 return from my
second tour in 1910 1 am going to re-
tire and-well perhaps I may go back
and ask for job on the Globe.
what about Squires? Well, over
there they think he will bring back the
championship to Australia.
But you know as much about him as
anyone else does.
"He's a good man all right, but
whether he's good enough remains for
Tommy Burns to tell"