[140] Mary Young, herself a member of Daly’s Company, in a talk to
the Drama League of Boston in 1914, said: “Mr. Daly was a most polite
gentleman, with extraordinary eyes of green, as clear and sharp as they
were kind and laughing; wonderful, all-seeing eyes!... The strictest
discipline reigned everywhere. Every member, with the exception of
Miss Rehan, seemed to be in a state of complete terror. Mr. Daly was
supreme and held his company of distinguished players with a grip of
iron. Rules and regulations were posted everywhere. One or two that I
recall were: ‘The way to succeed--mind your own business,’ and ‘How to
be happy--keep your mouth shut.’ I was amazed to see some of the extra
girls hide behind pieces of scenery rather than face those remarkable
eyes that might be cast their way as Mr. Daly was casually passing
from one part of the stage to another.... However, to my mind he was
a just man, although his temper often caused him to seem to do unjust
things.... His heart was kind and he could not treasure up a wrong
against any one who had once gained his confidence and respect.”
C. M. S. McLellan, who nowadays writes “books” for operettas, (and
who wrote _Leah Kleschna_ for Mrs. Fiske) in 1888 was writing for
the New York _Press_ what passed for amusing comment on theatrical
matters. His chatter about Mr. Daly and Miss Rehan does a little toward
characterizing both: “At the stage door you find a bulldog. Mr. Daly
secluded himself in a padded room at the end of a secret passage. He
comes down to the dog kennel to freeze all reporters. Editors are
invited up to the green room. Henry Irving is supposed to be the only
man who ever penetrated to the padded chamber, and he tells the story
that while he was there Mr. Daly opened a bottle of claret and smiled.
The claret part of the story is generally credited, but unless Mr.
Irving is degenerating in his choice of words we think there was some
mistake about the smile.
“But if any of us ever had doubts concerning the healthfully hilarious
influence exerted by Mr. Daly’s benignity upon a great comedy company
we have only to glance at Miss Rehan and be converted. We have had that
baby pout of hers in opera and in Shakespeare, that imperious, uplifted
nose of hers in Jenny O’Jones and Helena, and as the snows of various
cycles descend on the heads of her worshipers the musical purr of the
Rehan still sings the third sweet song of seven. And when she smiles,
the light of pearls and rubies creeps out and illumines the nooks that
the calcium cannot penetrate.
“So why should not Mr. Daly live in a padded room and manage the
electric buttons that blush all this youth and divine color across a
befogged community? He is entitled to padded rooms, bulldogs and cold
hands. If he does nothing for the next forty years but keep the crack
of doom out of Rehan’s purr he will have earned the right to be made
Sheriff of New York County.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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