Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-10-29
MAGAZINE SECTION for October 20, 1916

1t is the profits. In the majority of cases
the star, like the manager, CANDLES.
Laurette Taylor received only modest
salary of 5000 a week for playing the lead
in "Peg O My Heart. But in her con-
tract she inserted something about share
OF the profits, and these continued to flow
into her stocking for eighteen continuous
months in New York and almost as many
in London. In her case it is perhaps
family arrangement, since she happens to
be the wife of the author Mr.. j. Hartley
Manners. When she undertook the play
she probably wrote her husband down as
block of watered stock
But, even when there is no member of
the family to speculate on, the star usually
gets his share of the profits. He figures,
rightly, that his reputation alone is part
OF the capital of the production. Besides,
every actor accepts very real risk when
he undertakes a new part. If the play
fails, he is out on the street, looking for a
new job; and three or four successive
failures are almost enough to wipe him off
the theatrical map.
Bertha Kalich and Nance O'Neill, two
of the ablest actresses in the country, are
almost exiled from the boards because
they were put into hoodoo plays. There
are not more than seventy-fve actors in the
country Outside of vaudeville and stock
who have longtime contracts. Specula-
ton, in fact, is the stars one means of
securing remuneration comparable to
the salaries paid in the movies. The
$4,000 which Gaby Deslys drew each Sat
urday night from stop, Look, Listen
can not be duplicated in the Legitimate,
where $500 is usually the limit.
The Highest Paid Author
WHEN a playwright submits play
like @The Lion and the Mouse or
within the Law he is offering COM
modify worth to him from 100000 to
$500,0OO. He is the worlds most highly
paid author. Theodore Roosevelt is said
to have received from Scribner's Magazine
dollar for each word he wrote about his
African ion-hunt. The successful play
wright, if you care to figure it by words,
gets rate twenty or thirty times as high.
Even in the old days, before Broadway
began to crack the whip for the nation,
successful plays brought royalties in the
hundred thousands. Augustus Thomas
cleared $4,000 from ARIZONA" and
later did even better with "The Witching
Hour.
Margaret Mayo is the most successful
woman playwright in America, and hence
in the world. From her plays and farces,
Polly of the Circus "Baby Mine, and
Irwin Beds, she has cleared not less than
half million. George Conan used to re-
ceive money from his plays in the four
capacities Of author, actor, theater owner,
and manager.
Merely to accept five per cent. of your
plays gross receipts is not gambling. But
the author is not asleep. He may turn in
his play as watered stock to the extent of
from ten to twenty-five Tor even fifty per
cent. of the total capitalization. Besides,
many of the playwrights whose names are
on the bill-boards are not the authors of
the plays from which they receive their
royalties. They are often only expert
enced hacks who have rewritten some
body else's manuscript and have taken
most of the credit as well as the cash. The
day is past when the author was content
with pittance and garnet for his genius.