_Photo by Bassano, 25, Old Bond Street, W._
Some of the best actors and actresses of the day are forced into this unfortunate position; indeed, they suffer more than the smaller fry—for each theatre requires only one or two stars in its firmament. Theatrical folk are sometimes inclined to be foolish and refuse to play a small part for small pay, because they think it beneath their dignity, so they prefer to starve on their mistaken grandeur, which is, alas! nothing more nor less than unhappy pride.
Clara Morris, one of America’s best-known actresses, shows the possible horrors, almost starvation, of an actress’s early years in her delightful volume, _Life on the Stage_.
She nearly died from want of food, and after years and years of work all over the States made her first appearance as “leading lady” at Daly’s Theatre in New York at a salary of thirty-five dollars a week, starting with only two dollars (eight shillings) in her pocket.
Her first triumph she discussed with her mother and her dog over a supper of bread and cheese. She had attained success—but even then it was months and months, almost years, before she earned enough money either to live in comfort or be warmly clothed.
The beautiful Mary Anderson, in her introduction to the volume, says:
“I trust this work will help to stem the tide of girls who so blindly rush into a profession of which they are ignorant, for which they are unfitted, and in which dangers unnumbered lurk on all sides. If with Clara Morris’s power and charm so much had to be suffered, what is—what must be—the lot of so many mediocrities who pass through the same fires to receive no reward in the end?”
Every one who knows the stage, knows what weary suffering is endured daily by would-be actors who are “resting”; and as they grow older that “resting” process comes more often, for, as one of the greatest dramatists of the day said to me lately:
“The stage is only for the young and beautiful, they can claim positions and salaries which experience and talent are unable to keep. By the time youth has thoroughly learnt its art it is no longer physically attractive, and is relegated to the shelf.”
“Ah, but it is true. At the best the theatrical is a poor profession, and ends soon. Believe me, it is only good for handsome young men and lovely girls. When the bloom of youth has gone, good acting does not command the salary given to beautiful inexperience.”