From an old photograph. Belasco’s Collection.
the Edwin Forrest. The dramatic movement, once started, became vigorous and swift. In 1851, in San Francisco, the Jenny Lind and the American theatres were built, and in 1853 a spacious and handsome playhouse was erected, called the Metropolitan, and also a theatre called the Adelphi was opened, in which performances were given in French. Among the managers who were active and prominent in early California days were Wesley Venua, John S. Potter, Joseph Rowe, Charles Robert Thorne (the Elder), Daniel Wilmarth Waller, George Ryer, Charles A. King, McKean Buchanan, J. B. Booth, Jr., and Samuel Colville,--the latter subsequently so widely known and so popular in New York. Among actors of the period who were local favorites were James Stark, James H. Warwick, William Barry, “Dan” Virgil Gates, John Woodard, Edward N. Thayer, Frank Lawlor, John Dunn (often jocosely styled “Rascal Jack”), Elizabeth Jefferson (Mrs. Thoman, afterwards Mrs. Saunders), Mrs. Emanuel Judah (Marietta Starfield Torrence), Mary Woodard, and Marie Duret,--“the limpet,” once for some time associated with Gustavus Vaughan Brooke (and so called because she “stuck to him” till she had accumulated considerable money and jewelry, and then left him; she seems to have been a great annoyance). Before Belasco’s birth (1853) the Drama had become well established in California, and during his boyhood there and his early professional association with it,--that is, from about 1865 to 1882,--its condition was generally prosperous, often brilliant. Within that period the San Francisco Stage was illumined by actors of every description, some of them being of the highest order as well as of the brightest renown. Belasco’s personal association with the Theatre, as has been shown, began in infancy; his earliest impressions were imbued with histrionic and dramatic influence. Charles Kean, Edwin Forrest, and Julia Dean were figures in his childish mind that he never could forget. Among the notable actors whom he saw, with many of whom at one time or another he was actively associated, and among whom are numbered some men and women whose histrionic genius has not been surpassed, were Catharine Sinclair, Matilda Heron, James E. Murdoch, James William Wallack, the Younger; Charles Wheatleigh, William A. Mestayer, John Wilson, Mrs. Saunders, Kate Denin, John Collins, Mrs. Poole, John E. Owens, Edwin Adams, Walter Montgomery, James Stark, Edward A. Sothern, Frank Mayo, Barry Sullivan, Edwin Booth, James O’Neill, Lewis Morrison, Eben Plympton, John Brougham, James A. Herne, Frank S. Chanfrau, James F. Cathcart, William H. Crane, (Charles) Barton Hill, W. J. Florence and Mrs. Florence, Barney Williams and Mrs. Williams, Benedict De Bar, George Rignold, George Fawcett Rowe, Charles F. Coghlan, W. E. Sheridan, Mrs. D. P. Bowers, Adelaide Neilson, William Horace Lingard and Mrs. Lingard (Alice Dunning), Lotta (Charlotte Crabtree), Charlotte Thompson, Carlotta Leclercq, Neil Warner, Daniel E. Bandmann, Minnie Palmer, Jean Davenport Lander, Mrs. F. M. Bates, Sallie A. Hinckley, Dion Boucicault, Katharine Rodgers, Helena Modjeska, and Rose Coghlan. Those, and many more, were not mere _names_ to Belasco: they were the vital, active personification of all that he most loved and desired--the Stage. The environment of his youth, allowing for all the trials and hardships to which incidentally he was subjected, must, obviously, have been conducive to the opening and enlightenment of his mind, the direction of his efforts into the theatrical field, the development of his latent powers, his education as actor, dramatist, and stage manager, and the building of his character. He was a sensitive, highly impressionable youth, possessed of an artistic temperament, romantic disposition, innate histrionic and dramatic faculties, ardent ambition to excel, eager interest in life, abundant capability of enjoyment, an almost abnormal power of observation,--that “clutching eye” which has been well ascribed to Dickens,--and a kindness of heart that made him instantly and eagerly sympathetic with every form of human trial and suffering. Such a youth could not fail to respond to some, at least, of the improving influences to which he was exposed. In the ministrations of such men and women as I have named he saw the rapid and splendid growth of the Theatre in California, the swift accession to the number of fine playhouses,--the building of Maguire’s Opera House (afterward the Bush Street Theatre), the California Theatre, Shiels’ Opera House, Maguire’s New Theatre, and Baldwin’s Academy of Music,--and with all of them, and with others, he became, at one time or another and in one way or another, connected.