The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-04-26
EVER HAD STAGE FEVER?
N. S. A., Who Has Been Behind the
Bulbs, Tells You To Forget 1t!

Dear AJC-You know Art, the
theater is a funny thing, it consists of
two things, grief and fascination.
There is a lot of grief in order to keep
working, you have job part of this
season and then next season you have
to start all over again and dig up
new job. It's just like a fellow fol-
lowing a man down the street. The
man in front has a nice large fat
pocketbook hanging out of his back
pocket and the guy behind is trailing
along waiting for it to fall. But there
is no chance for the dern thing to fall.
And it never does. And yet it is fas-
cinating to stand up on a stage and
hear a thousand people laugh, and
to know that they are laughing at
your efforts, something that you did
or said. But after you are past forty
the theater does not want you any
more. There is always some one
younger and better than you coming
up, and will take your place. l know.
have seen the worst and the best,
I've had my name out in electric lights
on Broadway, but Art, can't eat that
when I am sixty years old. I picked
up a Chicago paper last night and 1
saw two items that might go into the
obit column, but somehow they won't
fit there. 1t says. they laid away a
battered old body in the Cook county
morgue last week. In the neighbour
hood in which the bag lived, in a
squalid basement, fi1ching a filthy sub
sistence from the garbage cans in the
nearby alleys, she was known as "Old
Maria" In the records of the county
morgue she was registered as Mrs.
Maria Leavitt. In the memories of a
few old-timers she blaZed brilliantly
as Marie Rose, a Chicago favoFite of
the music halls thirty years ago.
Time is the master of makeup, and
all he uses is years. The changes be-
tween act one and the final curtain are
sometimes tragic and nearly always
dramatic.
And then Art, in the same paper, It
said, that in south side apartment
smell of gas. When the police broke
into the flat from which the odor
came, they saw the body of a beauti-
full woman on the floor of the kitchen
cite, her perfectly coiffered head rest
ing on a couple of silken pillows. her
hands folded in the traditional pose
of those who have passed. She was
dressed in handsome black evening
gown and satin slippers. Around her
throat hung necklace of pearls and
on her fingers blazed four diamond
rings. There was rouge on her lips
and her striking face was made up"
as if due to 'go on" any minute. But
instead of going on she was making
her final exit. She died an hour later
in the hospital without making a state
ll4eIIl one was MASSEY, OF a well
known musical show in Chicago. And
Art, I hear girls, most every day, say
I'm crazy to go on the stage'e
Art, they have to be. 1t is a long pull
up long hill, and that hill is only
made by a few. Thousands try il,
But they fall by the wayside. And
Art, Bob Mack called on me yester-
day. He sat at my desk and we talked
of climate. romance, the uncertainty
OF life. the whitherness of why. the
fifth dimension. the infaIlibility of
taxes and the social status of alien
enemies in Wyoming. When I asked
him for theater news, he said he
thought so. When I pressed him to
say what it was he thought so decid-
eddy, he said he thought he better not
talk about it. Mack is as full of news
as the Melan Bridge. 1 could tell you
lot of things that might interest you
about the theater but have to dash
home now and squirt some bug juice
on the ants. And, oh, T nearly forgot
to tell you that an optician hates to
see duck blind, and CUES that will
be about all. N S. A.