The Washington herald., 1919-01-14

New York, Jan. l3.-George NJ. Co
han counts that theatrical season lost
If he does not do something spectacu-
lar. All Broadway is afiutter over
his latest exploit. Cohan recently
dramatized a short story. "A Prince
There Was" 1t might be added il
had nothing to do with the crown
prince.
Handsome Bob HilIiard was selected
for the star part. Hilliard is good
actor, but he has grown too fat TO
play the part of a prince. The public
| is opposed to fat princes. Witness
| Eitel.
| Cohan liked the play. but after the
first three nights all Broadway and
Park Row knew the play was going
to fiivver. 1t would do well to last
the week. with "papered' houses.
Then Cohan, who has saved plays
! by hopping across the stage waving
the grand old flag, jumped into the
breach. At the matinee performance
it was announced that George NJ. Co
han would take the leading part. No
other announcement had been made.
| Shrewd press agency indeed.
The next day the play got a new
start and the critics came, saw and
/ were conquered. They believe the
! play, with Cohan in the star role, will
last until spring.
1t Is evident that Cohan's action
was sudden. He did not even have
time to discuss 1t with his wife on
their farm at Great Neck. L. /. He
sent her a message which said: Send
| me my suitcase. I'm going to return
to the stage"
And that is how Cohan came back
to Broadway after several years re-
| tirement. In fact, many said that he
had decided to Quit the stage for good
and all. His health has not been the
best, and since the death of his father
and sister he has been pretty much
| of a recluse.
Very few would know the George
NJ. Cohan of today as the leading Jack
knife dancer of yesterday. He has
grown very gray, very serious in his
manner, yet when he stepped into the
youthful part he was to portray he
| seemed TO be as young as he was
when the Four Cohans toured the
country.
| The woman with nerves" is pass
ing out of New York social life. The
fact is that NERVES" are going out of
! style. The war brought 1t all about.
Women who wanted to be Red Cross
| nurses found suddenly that they were
without nerves. Just as the vapors of
the mid-Victorian period went out nm
| der the athletic vigor of the late nine
| teenth and early twentieth centuries.
so have nerves" gone out of fashion.
1t is a fact that several famous nerve
specialists who catered to society
nerves have taken up new specializa-
| tion work. When the baby girls of to-
| day come to the debutante's estate
our present fashionable maladies will
no doubt seem quite as dull and stupid
| as the complaints OF the Jane Austen
period when women wept and swooned
| and died If their sweet but captious
wills were crossed.
Shades of Frank Merriweu. The
5-cent novel is coming back into favor,
| The movies killed them for awhile,
but now the Tousey firm in New York,
that published all the old-timers. has
found new market for them. and the
sales are leaping steadily from week
to week No one seems to know the
reason for the sudden demand. The
trouble now, It Is said, will be to get
writer's for this class Of fiction. The
writer's of all the old-timers have
graduated into first-class novelists or
contributors to the better magazines,
and would not care to go back to the
old style form of novels.