Los Angeles herald., 1910-07-31
MUCKRAKES FAKE
DRAMATIC SCHOOL
Henrietta Crossman Sounds
Warning to Stage-StruCk
Young Persons
CAUSES RUIN OF HUNDREDS
Pseudo institutions Fatten on lg-
norant and Simple, Driv-
ing Many to Suicide
CAUSES RUIN OF HUNDREDS

That, in this country, there are in
Vulnerable fake dramatic schools
which fatten upon ignorant and simple
stage-struck youth, causing the ruin
of hundreds and driving many to sui
eide, is the revelation made by Miss
Henrietta Crosman, the noted actress,
in an article in the August number of
Hamptons Magazine.
Miss Crosman, before exposing the
methods of the pseudo and fake
schools, says:
"Inasmuch as I myself began on the
stage and not in a dramatic school,
admit I am prejudiced in favor of real
stage work for beginner. l believe
in going up in balloons to learn bal
looming; it may break your neck, but,
then, there is something actual, and
decisive even, in a broken neck. With
equal frankness, however, I will admit
that some of the best stars on the
American stage today came out of the
good dramatic schools in New York,
Chicago and Boston; and that, there
fore, good word must be said for
some of these schools and their sys-
TENS
1.-THE trouble is, most candidates for
stage education are beginners; and the
inevitable and pathetic quality of
beginner is that he doesn't know any
Intead of going on the stage, thou
sands of stage-struck youth are lured
to the schools of made-to-order emo
tion and thus to shattered ambition
"I have watched the operations of
these stage sycophants for years." says
Miss Crosman, land am firmly of the
opinion that the great bulk of them
always excepting the worthy few-are
undoubtedly pernicious in their inf1u-
ence and are designed to take money
from the silly and ambitious but i'm
possible amateur. If the dramatic
schools encouraged only people who
had real talent, they would have very
few pupils, but I have yet to hear of
an applicant to a dramatic school
being refused on the ground that he
or she had no natural gifts"
OF the many cases of defeat which
Miss Crosman cites one of the most
pathetic is the following:
"Take the case of Molly Daley and
what I will call the Horatio Gull Dra-
matte academy. This institution is
type of many others. Mr.. Horatio Gull
was a quack actor. Molly Daley was
easy prey for Gull because she had
talent, and his training consisted in
letting her do the work she thought she
could do, whether or not she was suited
to it.
Gull gave special performances by
his pupils Here would gather the
host of admiring friends, relatives,
prospective pupils, and boosters
Thus he showed that he was actually
turning out actors and actresses.
The sympathy of the audience was
always with the performers, the plays
were therefore successful-and profit
able to Mr. Horatio Cults pocket.
"Molly Daley shone in these sim
pie pieces. She played Nora in ''The
Dolls House This was her last and
crowning effort. She went next to
big theater in san Francisco with her
little diploma and the conviction that
she was going to be a great success:
For several months she stayed around
the theater. doing extra work when |
she could get it (Which was seldom, |
always encouraged and carried along |
by the fattery of the managers.
"Finally. she saw she was being |
fooled and came to New York; here
she went around to all the agents and
managers. telling them she had grad !
uated from the Gull school. After
she had been for year repeatedly
turned down, a kind-hearted agent told
her that if she wanted to get an en-
ga cement it would be wise to sup |
press the fact that she had ever been
to a dramatic school, particularly this
one. The rest of her history is the
usual Tenderloin story, taking any
work she could get because she was
desperate, and letting intinentlal men
do as they liked with her"
Miss Crosmans words have the
weight of long experience and wis
dom. She concludes her article with an
appeal every parent and stage-am-
bilious young person should read.
Girls" she says, edo you feel that
you must go on the stage? Are you
sure that years from now YOU will not
be a total failure as an actress and IS
a woman? For the odds are great
that If you are not successful on the
stage you yourself will follow the path
that so many others have trod. Neces-
sity is a difficult thing to face. and
necessity makes many a woman do
lot of things she would not think of
doing If there were any other way to
face the condition that confronts her
after failure I could tell you cases
of girls BY the score, girls I myself
have seen gradually change from their
simple country ways to an acceptance
of the mean Righteousness Of the big
cities after reaping the inevitable fruit
of original Incompetence. The pity of
ii is that all this annual contribution
of bright-eyed ambitious young wo-
manhood to failure has not advanced |
the stage one bit. has not added one
per cent. of worthy acting to the an
nails of the stage.
''I want you to understand that to
one with genuine talent-and they are
comparatively feW-the stage is just !
as safe as a business office. But the
stage attracts more young women, |
without an iOta of talent, than the |
business office. It is terrifying to con- |
slider the legion of young people abso- |
lutely untitled for stage success, who, |
after trying in vain. sink to the easiest |
o11 bTipfpst W9v Df mn king a living - |