J. K. Emmett, or Joe Emmett, as he is familiarly called the world over, was born in St. Louis on March 23, 1841. He early had a penchant for the stage, and could rattle bones, play a drum or do a song and dance on a cellar-door better than any of his companions. He began life as a painter, but soon left the pot and brush for the stage of the St. Louis Bowery, where his specialty was Dutch "wooden-shoe business." He could sing finely, and was as graceful as a woman. So popular did he become in his line that Dan Bryant engaged him for his New York house in 1866. Two seasons later Charles Gayler wrote "Fritz," a nonsensical play without rhyme or reason, and Emmett opened with it in Buffalo. His success was indifferent at first, but within a short time "Fritz" and Emmett became the rage, and for fifteen years the people have actually run after this star. His name and play will fill any theatre in the United States, and in many places outside of the United States. He is the great pet of the public. Time and again has he disappointed them, but it makes no difference; the next time he announces himself ready to play they are there in throngs. Joe Emmett has friends the whole world over, and he is welcomed and admired everywhere. John T. Raymond's real name is John T. O'Brien. He became stage-struck while clerking in a store, and after a brief amateur experience made his first appearance on the professional stage as _Lopez_, in "The Honeymoon," on June 27, 1853, and played comedy with varying fortune until 1874, when "The Gilded Age," which had been dramatized, was brought out at Rochester, New York, on August 31st, and he made an immense hit as _Col. Mulberry Sellers_. Next to _Colonel Sellers_, John T. Raymond's enduring popularity rests upon his impersonation of _Fresh, the American_, in the drama of that name, which he is now impersonating throughout the country. In connection with both his best known parts Mr. Raymond may be said to have "made" the plays they are framed in. Without them those plays would be flat, and in any other hands than his the characters which relieve them of that odium would be insipid. It is the actor's art and personal magnetism alone which make them what they are--successes. A good story, whether it be true or not, is told about Raymond and John McCullough. The latter was asked to appear as _Ingomar_, with Miss Anderson as _Parthenia_, at a benefit performance for a friend. As an additional inducement the beneficiary asked Raymond to play _Polydor_. "Certainly, with great pleasure," said Sellers; "I will travel one thousand miles any time to play _Polydor_ to McCullough's _Ingomar_." The happy man ran off to tell his good fortune to McCullough; but the tragedian, in his deepest _Virginius_ voice, answered him: "No, sir, never, never again! Once and out." The explanation of Mac's refusal to have Raymond in the cast is given as follows:--