Charles Frohman: Manager and ManMarcosson, Isaac Frederick
General
Charles Frohman: Manager and Man
Marcosson, Isaac Frederick
Frohman, Charles, 1860-1915; Theater -- United States
He was producing a play at Atlantic City that seemed doomed from the
start. In writing to a member of his family he said:
_I never saw the waves so high and the receipts so low._
Frohman and Pinero were dining in the Carleton grill-room one night when
a noisy person rushed up to them, slapped each on the shoulder, and
said:
"Hello, 'C. F.'! Hello, 'Pin.'! I'm Hopkins."
Frohman looked up gravely and said:
"Ah, Mr. Hopkins, I can't say that I remember your name or your face,
but your manner is familiar."
* * *
When Edna May married Oscar Lewisohn she gave a reception on her return
from the honeymoon. She sent Charles one of the conventional engraved
cards that read:
"_At home Thursday from four to six._"
Frohman immediately sent back the card, on which he had written, "So am
I."
* * *
Once when Frohman and Dillingham were crossing to Europe on the
_Oceanic_ they had as fellow-passenger a mutual friend, Henry Dazian,
the theatrical costumer, on whom Charles delighted to play pranks. On
the first day out Dillingham came rushing back to Frohman with this
exclamation:
"There are a couple of card-sharks on board and Dazian is playing with
them. Don't you think we had better warn him?"
"No," replied Frohman. "Warn the sharks."
* * *
Some years ago Frohman sent a young actor named John Brennan out on the
road in the South in "Too Much Johnson." Brennan was a Southerner, and
he believed that he could do a big business in his home country. Frohman
then went to London, and, when playing hearts at the Savoy one night
with Dillingham, a page brought a cablegram. It was from Brennan,
saying:
_Unless I get two hundred dollars by next Saturday night I can't
close._
Whereupon Frohman wired him:
_Keep going._
Frohman delighted to play jokes on his close friends. In 1900,
Dillingham opened the New Jersey Academy of Music with Julia Marlowe,
and it was a big event. This was before the day of the tubes under the
Hudson connecting New Jersey and New York. When Dillingham went down to
the ferry to cross over for the opening night he found a basket of
flowers from Frohman marked, "Bon voyage."
* * *
Nor could Frohman be lacking in the graceful reply. During a return
engagement of "The Man from Mexico," in the Garrick Theater, William
Collier became very ill with erysipelas and had to go to a hospital.
The day the engagement was resumed happened to be Frohman's birthday,
and Collier sent him the following cablegram:
_Many happy returns from all your box offices._
He received the following answer from Frohman:
_My happiest return is your return to the Garrick._
Behind all of Frohman's jest and humor was a serious outlook on life. It
was mixed with big philosophy, too, as this incident will show:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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