Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-02-14
ACTRESS TELLS
OF STAGE LIFE
Success Comes Only After
Long, Weary Climb and
Much Self-Denial

The girl who wants to go on the
stage speaks.
"Oh, I'm just crazy to go on the
stage. but my parents won't let me.
They just keep me tied down here at
home where there's nothing more eX-
citing to do than go to parties, and
dinners, and dances, and automobile
rides, and father says I ought to be
thankful that he's able to take care
of me and protect me from the hard
ships of life.
DO you hear that? The hardships
of life, when l am talking about GO
ing on the stage, not going out as a
stenographer, or a clerk, or somebody
that has to work. Why, being an ac-
tress isn't work. It's just fun. It's
just having the best time on earth
and getting paid for it.
ITS wearing the incest of clothes
and having people stare at you wher-
ever you go and say. Ssh, that's
Maude Adams, or Mary Nash, or Janet
Beecher,' or whoever you are. in a
way that makes the little prickles of
delight go up and down your spine
And it's having midnight suppers
with the gayest and wittiest people,
and then rolling home in your limous-
inc, and going out to your grand coun-
try place on Long Island for the week
ends where you have wonderful Rus
sian wolf hounds that you have your
pictures taken with and put in all the
magazines.
"All that you have to do when you
are an actress is just to come out
on the stage in the most beau ti-ful
clothes, and move around. and talk
just like you would IL you were in
your own drawing room-that is, of
course, If you are playing a society
play, you know, just like Ethel Bar
rymore does. And of course, il it's
tragedy, you just scream in the
right places. but that's easy enough,
too.
of row than l do when L get mad.
And for that you get all sorts of
money, and your name in the papers
all the time, and people applaud you
until they split their gloves. That's
what makes being an actress so
easy.
And it's so easy to get to be an
actress. / know. because I've read
all about it Il thousand times. You
just feel in yourself that you are a
genius and that you want to go on
the stage. and you go to New York
and go to a manager, and he looks
you Pover and says. I'm afraid I'll
have to give you a small part to
start with and he gives you a tiny
role.
Maybe you only carry a spear in
the back row of the chorus or play
the part of a maid and hand the
heroine her cloak. but Mr.. Belasco is
in the audience. and he sees what
stupendous talent you've got. and as
soon as the play is over he is wait
ing for you and he offers you con-
tract at a thousand dollars a week.
II know I'd make a great success
on the stage. because people always
applaud at the church fair when ]
recite, Lit-tul Ma-a-bel with her face
against the window pa-a-ne.' And ]
think my father and mother are real
mean not to let me be an actress. It's
such an easy and gay life."
AS 1t Really Is
The actress, reading notices of he1
new play, speaks:
We'll, and so / have arrived at last
but have come by such hard jour.
ney that ] wonder il the goal is worth
the price l have paid to reach it, The
critics exhaust their ad1ectves IN
praise of my last nights performance
but, oh. the times they have fiayed
me with their ridicule, or humbled me
into the dust by ignoring me.
Il wonder if there is any other
success in the world as hardly wor
as that OF the actress. or that is al