Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-09-28
Dean Of the Spoken Drama Predicts a
Bright Future for His Art,
Notwithstanding Entertainments
and other Diversions Applands
PubHc's Demand for Better Plays.

yard loved nothing better than dressing
up and doing something dramatic to make
the chills run up and down the spines of my
little friends. AT these shows, charged pins
or apples. Sad parts were my specially I
loved to see my audience cry. There are, Incl
dentally, many persons today who feel cheated
at show, If they can't have a real good cry"
MIR. BelaSco'S early activities, recalled, did
not end with such productions AS a youth
he knew virtually every branch of the show
business. Supernumerary, actor, company
manager, agent, publicity man, playwright,
stage manager, director, producer, dramatist,
instructor of acting, scene painter, stage hand,
calIboy and bill-sticker-he performed all these
functions at an age when many youths still
at school I recalled a bit of autobiography
he had once given at dinner in New York
when he said:
sRY the time that was 20 had been a
stroller who had acted ITS different
parts. I had played sometimes at the head
Of a company and sometimes at its foot.
had appeared not only in the large cities, but
also in the mining camps and rough towns
of the Old West-when Virginia City, New,
used to be called Hell, with the blower on and
when admission to see the show was often
paid in gold dust; when it was no infrequent
sight to see a citizen suspended by hempen
necktie from a convenient signpost or tree;
when strolling often meant walking into town
beating big drum-and running out Of town
pursued by an irate sheriff or a still more
irate hotel keeper with bill in one hand and
a six-shooter in the otherl
'I had also appeared with few of the worst
actors that every liyed-and with great many
of the very best. In childhood with Edwin
Forrest and Charles Kean. Later. with sedley
Smith and Harry Edward and Handsome
Walter Montgomery: with Barry Sullivan the
manly John Mccullough, the noblest Roman
Of them all; with the restless and gifted Bar
rett and Booth, the greatest American tragedi-
ans, and with Dion Boucicault; with the win
ming, gentle Edwin Adams, and Owens and
Raymond; with Ellen Tree and Julia Dean
Hayne and Mrs. D. P. Bowers; with Mrs.
Judah and Mrs. John Drew and Katherine
Rogers and Charlotte Thompson and dear little
Lolita and the adorable Adelaide Nelson.
cit was no uncommon thing in those days
for manager to read play for the first time
On Wednesday, or even on a Thursday night,
and 10 have rewritten it and see it produced
on the following Monday evening, Those
were the days!"
But please don't ask me to look back over
my hfe," smiled the dean of the theater, when
reminded him OF these things. IT do not
live in the past That is only for the aged
and decrepit. Reminiscing is all well enough
If you cannot live entirely in the present.
You know age is not measured by years. Why
should any one say am an old man? 1t isn't
fair. Just because I have celebrated my sew
enty-sixth birthday, here in Atlantic City with
a cake and all the nxings?
Most men think entirely too much about
themselves. They are afraid to eat this or
that and conflne themselves to q certain num-
Der Of hours Of sleep lest they be UNIT for
work. Their lives are unhappy If they cannot
get IN several games of golf a week. That's
all poppycock. We make our own limitations.
The best thing to keep one going at any age
Is good, hard work which absorbs ones time
and thought.
AS man gets on in years, we are told, he
should stick to a light diet, and get to bed