Los Angeles herald., 1910-12-28
MARY MANNERING, A BIT HOMESICK,
TALKS OF XMAS, ART AND KIDDIES
LISTEN, COAST WRITER'S !
ACTRESS SEEKS COMEDY
Fair Player Lauds FootIight Ca
reer but Doesn't Want Her
Daughter on the Stage

Acting is a great profession for
woman who must earn her own living,
said Mary Mannering, playing this
week at the Majestic theater, but II
has two terrible drawbacks. In the
first place it is such a lonely life. 1t
! means months of time passed away
from home and friends and family, and
Il constant living among strangers"
Miss Mannering looked adorably
pretty as she said this, and her great
dark ewes had almost a tragic light as
she thought of herself passing her
holiday week here on this coast when
close associates. both socially and pro-
fessionally. were all so far away.
glance about the comfortable apart
ments in the Alexandria, where she is
established, rather belied her loneliness
for on every side stood great jars and
baskets filled with roses and poinsettias,
Beeonias and ferns were growing in
a wide wicker box on the window seat
and everywhere the Christmas colors
of crimson and green were repeated in
flowers.
1T is, perhaps, the greatest thing
! about acting that a woman has to win
new friends. new audiences, SO often
said Miss Mannering. This keeps her
up to the pitch. and acts to her spirit
like spur to mettlesome steed.
applause is to every actress the sign
of her power. As the coquette gloues
over her power with one or two men,
as the writer enjoys that ability which
enables him to write a song to move
whole nations to peace or sorrow or
war. so the woman of the stage must
know the strength OF her magnetism,
her personality and her art as she
carries her audience with her to tragic
gloom. riotous merriment or ecstatic
bliss
But YOU cannot do that all alone.
no matter how splendid your talent;
you must have a playwright who can
rive YOU the situations to handle" was
suggested.
"Oh. don't I know that! 1t is the
bane of my existence that / cannot
find satisfactory play said Miss
Mannering Last year l read three
hundred plays and from that number
7 handed three to the Shuberts, and
only one of that trio would do at all
for me-"
Miss Mannering has a unique method
by which she keeps a memorandum of
the plays she reads, and her comment
as to their worth and their possible
success with an audience. In several
cases she has found her judgment con-
drmed by the production, but, of course,
has not always been able to know the
ultimate fate of each.
"Just now I am looking for COM
cdv for use next season, for have
nIaved this piece two seasons now, and
want a change" she said.
Poor Miss Mannering! Aspiring play
wrights of the Pacific coast probably
will haunt her steps from now on. They
may rejoice in her own admission that
once she promises she reads play
thoroughly.
'yyhat do you regard as your most
successful piece, according to the decls-
ion of the audiences, the critics, your
own sentiments and that final judge,
the box ofice?" the interviewer asked.
ooh, Glorious Betsy by all means
50 far as the audiences and the box
office went. OF course, it was a poor
nlav. but the people liked ii, even
though the critics did say hard things
about it."
While Miss Mannering believes the
stage to offer a great cereer to women,
she hopes that her own little daughter
will not want to undertake such a vo-
cation
q hope that she will develop talent
for writing" she said, but whatever
ability she has I shall cultivate. for L
believe that every child should be
taught some profession or trade.
THE aversion to allowing children
upon the stage seems most uneXplain-
able to me-" she continued, for in the
atmosphere provided by a reputable
company child is guarded and cared
for as in no other place. Mrs. Short
who travels with her little girl in our
company. is always with her child, and
the MANAGERS wife gives her two hours
I of school every tN NtIIllS' III Nlll''
gets "A practical knowledge of the world
i'm travelling about and learns tact ana
the ability to strike d harmonious pitch
in her work which cannot fail to make
her most successful in whatever walk
Of life she may elect as she gnows
older
DO many children go on the stage
whose parents are not already more
or less in the profession?' she was
, asked.
Not so many, perhaps, and in this
case the mother of this little girl has
two talented children. One is with
Mrs. Fiske, and both are charming little
actors. The children have earned suf-
hcient money so that in another year
they are to leave the stage and come
to Los Angeles to go to school. Their
, parents have bought a home here and
will live here while the children gnow
up in the everyday, prosiac atmos-
phere of school room until they
know what their life profession shall
be.
5 II think many young girls who are
employed in shops as cash girls would
be infinitely better off If they might
be placed with good theatrical COM
Danies. Their mental and moral
growth would be regarded more highly,
and certainly their physical strength
l. ,v.<1gH