The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1912-02-11
A SLY DIG At
PRETTY ETHEL
EDNA MAY, THE ONCE sPRIeHT-
LY DIVA OF MUSICAL COMEDY,
REPUDiATEs STAGE LIFE AND
HAS @sETTLED DOWN.
Special TO The journal.

New York, Feb. 10.-In her repudia-
ton of stage life this week. some of
the former admirers of Edna May.
the once sprfghtiy diva of musical
comedy, discern a sly dig at Ethel
barrymore, Viola Allen and Margaret
Ellington, who, after marrying rich
men and vowing that they would be
happy ever afterward darning socks
and attending the kiddies, gave 1t up
as bad job and returned to the
glamor of the footlights.
Miss May, who in private life is the
wife of Oscar Lewinson, q millionaire
mining man, declares the stage is not
in it with home life, and that she
would not exchange her place now
for the most worshipped prima donna
before the footlights. What makes
Eer views on this subject particularly
interesting at this time is the fact
that the former stage favorite has
been married to Mr.. Lewinson for
more than four years, which is con-
sidered by stage persons as more than
ample to cure one of her pre-con-
oeived notions concerning the at
Effectiveness of the domestic life In
her giddy days, Miss May, who is
sinewy blonde, with big baby blue
eyes. was generally credited with be-
ing welded to her art and to be about
the last person one would ina CINE as
sale career of a married woman of
leisure. As the wife of Fred Tyson.
former champion bicycle rider, she
cherished none OF the goody- goody
domestic views she now expresses and
continued to earn her living in the
chorus of Hammerstein's production
of Santa Maria" until the inevitable
break with hubby came, and the
courts were asked to divorce them.
But then she was what Dooley might
call "a mere scrub of a girl" and could
not have had much luxury at her
disposal if she left the stage and de-
pended upon the income of her bicycle
man. Now she lives in almost regal
splendor and is able to crafty every
whim. In this, however. she is no
different from Ethel Barrymore, who
married Russell Colt, son of the presi-
dent of the Rubber Trust" Margaret
Ellington, who divorced Daniel F'roh-
man, the theatrical manager, in order
to marry William Bowles, we'll to- do
Western lawyer, and Viola Allen, who
married one of the wealthy Duryea
family of this city. To marriage each
of these popular actresses turned as
offering an opportunity to get away
from the monotony and grinding arti-
ficiality of the stage, only to later
realize that their dream of domestic
bliss was, after all, only dream and
not the substantial reality thew be-
lieved 1t would prove to be. With this
discovery they quickly returned to
the footlights for that excitement
which the drudgery of mending the
virtues in hubby's under garments and
adjusting the diapers OF crying babies
failed to supply.
Mrs. Lewinson. who has handsome
home outside of London and another
in Scotland, has been here for a week.
and. as she says, has been just dunned
to death by her old friends of musical
comedy days who ask her how she
can stand the strain Of the quiet life
of a rich business man. To such in
quirfes she replies, her life is fuller
and more active than theirs and that,
like Mary Anderson (Mrs. Antonio de
Navarra). she was never as happy on
the stage as she is now. even when
all the gay blades of London and New
York were Fostering her with atten-
lions, diamonds and lobster suppers,
when she was the vogue az the Saliva
ton Army lass in THE Belle CT New
York"