The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-06-16

say. bring me match. if you don't I'll
raise hell There are not matches,
Jawn,' his wife would answer. Then I'll
raise hell, anyway. he would shout back.
And he always did. Brady could be de-
pended upon and Johnnie Quinn and I
were always on hand to see the pro-
gramme carried out
"Many's the pleasant evening we've
passed in front of Brady's. This proved
a great help to me, though johnnie in
time took to drink. Here's what | was
going to say: Both of us were members of
Father Mathews Total Abstinence So
ciety and when the society gave an enter
tainment Johnnie and l gave an imitation
of Brady and his wife, called "A Quiet
Evening at Home By making an awful
racket we brought down the house. / owe
great deal to Mrs. Brady"
She was your inspiration ~ suggested
he displayed.
es and no., replied Mr.. Monroe.
George S. Knight really put me in the
part I've been playing so many years
was with him in over the Garden WALL
when his wife made up her mind that the
role she was playing was too rough for
her so knight made it rougher still
and gave 1t to me, while his wife took q
pretty part. That settled me. From that
day to this I've played nothing but an
Irishwoman. I formed a partnership with
John c. Rice, and for nine years we ap-
peared in My Aunt Bridget. written by
Scott Marble, who is now in the Actors
Fund home. And / know I'm doomed
to play my old role, with variations, to
the end of my days
The best of it all was to hear Mr.. Mon
roe tell how he had picked up Aunt
Bridget and placed that long lived char
acter on the stage
MY mother was Irish, and she had
sot of relatives, he explained. They all
wanted to be American, and when they
came to the house on Sunday in their
best clothes they would try to be so
nice sitting around the parlor that the
humor of it struck me. That's where
picked up Gee whiz!' and other sayings.
1t was in my mothers parlor that | got
the idea of playing an Americanzed irish
woman. without a brogue
1.-THE less brogue the better is the rule
I've followed. I've been criticised for
being boisterous, but to play the part
quietly would be to kill it. At the same
time I've tried to make it a character
more or less true to tife. You may have
noticed that l always repeat certain
phrases. This trick / caught from an
aunt who would remark, for example, 1
made that pie myself say | made that
pie myself Good old Aunt Ann-Ive
never forgotten her. But of course | had
to be careful at the time. Irish people
though they're always initiating other
people. l can say this, because I'm Irish
myself And Irish expressions are full OF
character. For instance, If / ever did any
thing that my mother disliked she would
say, You had very little to do This
was so characteristic of her that when
she heard judge had sentenced Quaker
Murphy, as he was called--and bad boy
he was-to u years for shooting a police
nan, she promptly passed sentence on the
tldge by saying: He had very little to
do Surt. Quaker Murphy meant no
harm. He's good .ad-I've known Linn
for years That's the way IL went IN
my mothers parlor. But it was mo-. hero
that got the phrase BE that as it may
found that reading Dickens, who said 1t
seriously in Old Curiosity SHOP l think
1t was Would you believe it?''
Who wouldn't believe an lrishman?