The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-12

By DOLLY DALRYMPLE


 Have you seen pretty attractive, little week?
 She's the most refined, the most lady, like. the most genteel little bit of Dres- den china that you've ever beheld, all pink and white and blonde and fluffy!
 Perhaps
 You remember her best as the girl who sang Ask Her When the Band Is Play ing" in MT. Victor Herbert's beautiful opera, Algeria"
 Well. anyway
 Little Ethel Green and her Mamma" are two very important personages in things theatrical this week.
 I say her mamma for that is exactly the situation.
 You've heard of the man behind the gun" and the girl behind the man be- hind the gun" but it was my first experi- ence in finding a real mamma behind the scenes helping the star" skin into her other stockings and make all four of the lightning like changes that little Ethel makes in her "skit."
 But
 This wasn't all that Mrs. Green was doing.
 Her bright eyes summed up the audi ence out in front her finger was on the pulse of the house, so to speak, to see how they were going to receive her dainty little daughters songs, and how the songs were going" even while she stood taut and expectant for the next moment, when the same young person would dance out of the limelight for a brief moment to return the next, entirely transformed.
 And
 You'll just adore little Ethel, first drawing out one of her songs, and then warbling another like an uncaged bird and her clever little verses and cunning little tricks.
 With apologies and explanations for using a Billy Baxter expression (hut nothing else quite comprehends the situ- ation) everybody was 'sweatin' like a I arrived at the threshold of little Ethel Greens dressing room at the Lyric
 The stage hands running about helter skelter, pel mell, arranging for other 'acts" which were either getting "off' the stage or on and my attention being diverted for a moment toward the big tank that the diving seal occupies was soon steered into another direction by the diving seal himself walking slowly by me-on his way to the center of the stage, all the while little Ethel being "out front" singing some old fash toned song that ends her act-maybe Darling l am Growing Old," or some thing else that everybody loves.
 Ethel Green is almost little girl.
 Shes quite d little one with her mamma so it was one, as much as the other, who told me about her stage career and it's beginnings.
 You don't look d bit like an actress '' l said as she perched up on the dressing table in her fluffy frock and dangled her tiny little feet.
 That's the greatest compliment l ever had paid me-" said little Miss Green en- thusiastically. q don't want to look actress-y. You know I had a dreadful time getting on the stage-prejudices. old fashioned ideas and all that" Why shouldn't l have opposed it?" Ethel Greens mamma interrupted. she was the only little girl l had and I was reared as she was-in an atmosphere of narrowness and bigotry. Ethel's grand father was an Irish Quaker and an off cer in the English army, and you know what that means" But she must have had some sort of an ancestor-way back even who had a sneaking idea of the stage as a profess sion, else she couldn't possess the talent she does to so marked a degree
 "Ill tell you a secret" Mrs. Green said eonfidentially. T wanted to go on the stage myself, but dear me- it was con sidered disgrace then for a girl to be an actress. I always shall believe, how ever. that I had talent."> And l could readily believe it, from her manner. her tone. her general make up and her prettiness. for Mrs Green still retains beauty that is undeniable and appealing.