New-York tribune., 1921-12-04

IN THE fan Of 1901 Charlis Burgess. =
butcher from out San Francisco wav.
hung up his hat at the Republic Theater.
tnnk seat In big chair at the stage
.ntrsnce and leaned back and faced Forty
.,s.nd Street To-day that same stage en-
f,.pce is still there; that same chair Is still
4hrre, and the same Charlie is still there.
Eight hours every day for twenty years he
has sat in his tilted chair In the heart Of
New york's theater belt, seeing what there's
teen To sea
Charlie Burgess was Just "Charlie" TO
everybody when he took his JOB as stage door
man, and nov at seventy-fve he's still Just
sChare" TO everybody-he's that to his boss
and other peoples BOSSES to actors, managers
p!aywrights composers, Congressman, chorus
girls, brokers. messenger boys, and all others
who for various reasons are brought to the
enarled chair at the Republics stage entrance
Not everybody who knows Charlie as Charlie
succeeds in getting past that chair.
When Charlie pulled of his meat choppers
apron out in California and decided to come
East and devote the rest of his life to the
show business he made up his mind that he
would stick to one end Of the game-tlle stage
door end. stage door1nan when he began
he Is stage doorman now, and will continue
as such. And II he were possessed Of Baron
Rcsen's singular gifts he might triunphantlv
chronicle in some such volume as "Twentv
Years in a Stage Doornaan's Life" that he
had scorned opportunities to do Macbeth or
take fling at bedroom farce A specialist Is
Charlie.
The Great White Way Of to-day is, of
course, greater and whittier than, If not so gay
as, that Of 1901. Charlie Burgess has found that
changes have been wrought in all phases Of
the show business during his twenty-year oc-
cupancy of the stage-door chair; everything
in the Broadway Forty second Street vicinity
has undergone some sort of change. save. DOS
sibly. David Belasco's mode Of dress 1t was
the Clyde Fitch play that was the talk of the
town when the ex- butcher from the Coast took
up his post at the fringe OF Times SQUARE
Charles Frohman was busy nroducer and
Nat T. Goodwin was familiar figure along
Broadway. Tips that doorrnan receive from
players in 1901 amounted to SIS week: in
1921 they average about 81. To Charlie that's
change of no little Importance.
When Charlie presided over his California
l1neat shop he had very definite opinions about
the meat selling industry; his opinions about
The play producing business are equally
definite He has become unconscious stu
dent Of things theatrical, and in his own way
has appraised and classified all playwrights.
actors, composers, managers and stage door
pests within his range of observation. He
knows who's who and what's what and has
long since picked his own all-star Broadway
team Charlie has sat in that big chair with
ltts back tilted against the wall, but he's kept
awake
Until he came East in 1901 Charlie Burgess
knew lot about lamb chops, but nothing
about the theater. He had seen but dozen
shows in his life, and all of those had been
seen in San Francisco. Charlie sold choice cuts
to David Belasco when Belasco was stage man.
ager of the Baldwin Theater. There came
time when Belasco got too big for the Pacific
Coast and set out for New York. Charlie
Burgess was left behind selling beefsteak.
But in 1901 Charlie followed the producer.
When he arrived in New York he located the
Beasco Offices In Carnegie Hall, found the