Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-06-30

Of even moderate duration. The
Bogart, suddenly become associate
enough merited. too, in Mr.. Bogart
they are only enabled to pay off del
and the wine merchant. Take it
mourners supporting the bar and
drawing an Grant foot from the GU
the lot of the play actor is lean
shadow of want is ever overcasting
of Junius Brutis Booth, did he ever
And as contrast to this dismal
circumstance there Is invariably res
urrrected the wistful past. Those.
indeed, were the days. At every hand
the lambert glow of affiuence and
prestige cast a happy radiance upon
the artist. Nations delighted TO honor
him. and old men from their Union
League chimney corners tottered
forth to cast largesse at his con-
gress- gathered feet. Look. for ex-
ample, at Mr.. Booth. so well founded
in this worlds goods that he could
summon all eligible troupers TO share
his mansion and his heritage of Is
Gramercy Park. Mansfield, too. was
an affiuent fellow, his evening studs,
genuine pearls almost as big as the
caviar he affected for hors d'oeuvres;
his sealskin surtout not of the Hud-
son Bay, but of the more authentic
variety. Nobody ever heard of Uncle
John Drew walking to a matinee.
No, sir; Patrick and the bays were
there, and half a century before
even this opulent era throngs rioted
in Aston Place and were only dis
PEELED by the military over the rival
merits of local boy making good as
Hamlet. and one mailing from the
shores of Albion.
THERE is, to be sure, no field of en-
deavor, from that of the court
monocle grinder to the soap fat COL
lector, that does not mourn the good
old days, but in no field, either. does
nostalgia seem more fatuously mis-
directed than that of the theater.
Here, if anywhere, under the benev-
client progress of civilization and re-
current democratic administrations,
has the lot of the participant i'm
measurably improved. Mr.. Macready
and the elder Barrymore may very
well have sported watches with
chimes on solid gold Albert chains
and slipped an occasional first en-
pire cognac with their Turkish coffee,
but had the John Drew fund of the
kindly players been then in opera
ton, it would have been more put
to it than even in these days of adj
ministrstive wealth sharing and king
doms for every man.
A FEW years since we interviewed
an ancient who had been a stage
hand in the happy period known
technically as the good old days.
Days Theater was, to him, deviSing
of a modern and latter time; one felt
he had known Dion Boucicault when
THE Streets of New York" was as
yet unwritten. The Empire repre-
sented to the amiable gaffer what the
Radio City Music Hall does to the
current generation, gaudy place at
best, far too far uptown, and patiently
not here to stay.
I'VE fellers with the company had
no easy life" deposed grampa, "espe-
cially on the road. when they we're
playing one-night stands in the up
state and Middle West parts. We had
to strike the scenes, pack them. get
to the station. load them, ride with
them to the next town, a few hours
of, and spend the next day setting
them again. There wasn't much time
for sleep, and sandwiches and beer
was the main fare for weeks. But
the actors, haw! they looked just like
the caricatures of 'em you see in the
papers-stovepipe hats. the fur all
the wrong way, moth-eaten fur coats
and sort of shaved blue. There were
Pullman palace cars then, but they
always rode in the smoker. and the
Depot Hotel in Railroad street was
where they stayed. If there had been
good hotels they would never have
been in them except when somebody
gave them q free feed. The actors,
haw! Scene shutters lived like gen.
tlemen by comparison"
One suspects that, in its vernacular