I've put one over at last! My play with the surprise finish is a bear. Al Woods wants to read all of my scripts; Georgie Cohan speaks to me as an equal And the office boy swings the gate without being asked. I don't care if the manager's name is as large as the play's Or if the critics are featured all over the ash cans. I'm going to get mine and I'm going to live. A Rolls-Royce for me and trips "up the road," Long Beach and pretty girls, big eats at the Ritz And the ice pitcher for the fellows who snubbed me. How the other reporters laughed When I showed my first script and started to peddle! "Stick to the steady job," they advised. "Play writing is too big a gamble; It will never keep your nose in the feed bag." I wrote a trunkful of junk; did a play succeed, I immediately copied the fashion; Like a pilfering tailor I stole the new models. Kind David Belasco, with his face in the gloom, And mine brightly lighted, said ministerially: "Rather crude yet, my boy, but the way to write a play Is to write plays from sunrise to sunset And rewrite them long after midnight. Try, try, try, my boy, and God bless you." Broke and disgusted, I became a play reader And the "yessir man" to a manager. I was a play doctor, too. A few of my patients lived And I learned about drama from them. How we gutted the scripts! Grabbing a wonderful line, a peach of a scene, A gem of a finish Out of the rubbish that struggling poor devils Borrowed money to typewrite and mail to us. It's like opening oysters looking for pearls, But pearls are to be found and out of the shell heaps Come jewels that, polished and set by a clever artificer, Are a season's theatrical wonder. Finally came my own big idea. I wrote and rewrote and cast and recast, Convinced the manager, got a production. Here am I young and successful, And Walter and Thomas and Selwyn have nothing on me. Press agents are hired to praise me. Watch for my next big sensation, But meanwhile I hope that that play-writing plumber, Who had an idea and nothing else, Never sees this one.
They've got me down for a hick, bo, Sam Harris says I'm the best boob in the biz, And that no manager will cast me for anything else. Curses on my hit in "'Way Down East" That handcuffs me forever to yokels, And me a better character actor than Corse Payton! That's how it is they're stuck on types, And the wise guy who plays anything Isn't given a look-in. Listen to me, young feller, and don't ever Let 'em tab you for keeps as a type. It's curtains for a career as sure as you're born. Why, there's actors sentenced to comedy dog parts, To Chinks, to Wops, to Frenchmen and fluffs. There ain't no release for them. The producers and managers can see only one angle, And you may be a Mansfield or Sothern. It's outrageous that's what it is, that make-up And character acting should be thrown in the discard. You can sit in an agent's office for months Before a part comes along that you fit without fixin'. This natural stuff puts the kibosh on art And a stock training ain't what it used to be. Say, if ever I rise to be hind legs of a camel Or a bloodhound chasing Eliza, I'll kick or I'll bite The type-choosing manager.
