Charles Frohman: Manager and ManMarcosson, Isaac Frederick
General
Charles Frohman: Manager and Man
Marcosson, Isaac Frederick
Frohman, Charles, 1860-1915; Theater -- United States
Charles Frohman's ignorance of money matters was proverbial. One day
just as he was about to take the train for Washington a friend stopped
him and said:
"I've got a great investment for you."
"No," said Frohman, "I never invest in anything except theaters."
"But this is the real thing. The only possible fact that can spoil it is
war, and we are widely remote from war."
In order to get rid of the man Frohman consented to a modest investment.
When he got to Washington the first thing that greeted him was the
announcement that we were on the verge of war with Mexico.
* * *
William Harris once gently remonstrated with Frohman for such lavish
expenditure of money.
"It's simply awful, Charley, the way you spend money," he said.
Frohman smiled and said:
"It would be awful if I lost a finger or a foot, but spending money on
the things that you want to do and enjoy doing is never money wasted."
* * *
At one time he owed a great deal of money to actors and printers, but he
always scorned all suggestions that he go through bankruptcy and wipe
these claims out. He said he would pay in full some day, and he did,
with interest. An actor to whom he owed some four hundred dollars came
to him and offered to settle the claim for one hundred dollars. Frohman
said he did not believe in taking advantage of a man like that. He
advanced the actor one hundred dollars, and eventually paid the other
three hundred dollars.
* * *
Like every great man, Frohman's tastes were simple. He always wore
clothes of one pattern, and the style seldom varied. He wore no jewelry
except a Napoleonic ring on his little finger.
* * *
Frohman never married. A friend once asked him why he had chosen to be a
bachelor.
"My dear fellow," he answered, "had I possessed a wife and family I
could never have taken the risks which, as a theatrical manager, I am
constantly called upon to do."
He lived, in truth, for and by the theater; it was his world. His heart
was in his profession, and no enterprise was too daring, no venture too
perilous, to prevent him from boldly facing it if he believed the step
was expected of him.
* * *
To his intimates Frohman was always known as "C. F." These were the
magic initials that opened or shut the doors to theatrical fame and
fortune.
* * *
Frohman loved sweet things to eat. Pies were his particular fondness,
and he never traveled without a box of candy. As he read plays he
munched chocolates. He ate with a sort of Johnsonian avidity. When he
went to Europe some of his friends, who knew his tastes well, sent him
crates of pies instead of flowers or books.
He shared this fondness for sweets with Clyde Fitch. They did not dare
to eat as much pastry as they liked before others, so they often retired
to Frohman's rooms at Sherry's or to Fitch's house on Fortieth Street,
in New York, and had a dessert orgy.
Frohman almost invariably ate as he worked in his office. When people
saw sandwiches piled upon his table, he would say:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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