  “Laura Don was a painter whose landscapes and portraits had won her distinction in the art world. Indeed, she was quite a spoilt child of the Muses, for the gods had dowered her with many gifts. Nature had been kind to her in every way, mentally and physically, for she had a face and figure of great attractiveness; her every movement was serpentine and voluptuous. This was further heightened by an excitable temperament, keyed to the highest pitch, and I never saw anyone who had a more insatiable thirst for fame; so much so, indeed, that her health was Laura Don’s true name was Anna Laura Fish. She was the first wife of the theatrical agent and manager Thomas B. McDonough. She afterward married a photographer, resident in Troy, New York, whose name I have forgotten. She lived for DAVID BELASCO AS KING LOUIS THE ELEVENTH Photograph by Houseworth, San Francisco. about six years after Belasco met her. On September 6, 1882, at the Standard Theatre, New York, she produced a play called “A Daughter of the Nile,” written by herself, and appeared in it as a star. The principal person in it, a female named Egypt, is supposed to be of Egyptian origin: the subject, however, is American and modern. Miss Don never acted Cleopatra. She died, suddenly, at Greenwich, New York, February 10, 1886. Sheridan’s engagement at the Baldwin terminated December 28, and the next night the well-known English melodrama of “The World,” by Paul Merritt, Henry Pettitt, and Augustus Harris, was performed there, for the first time in America. (Several years later, after Belasco had become established in New York, he was employed by Charles Frohman to make a revival of this play, which had been introduced to our Stage under his direction, in New Orleans.) On January 10, 1881, a drama called “The Eviction,” depicting some aspects of the landlord and tenant disturbances then rife in Ireland, was brought out and filled one week. On January 17 it was succeeded by a play called “Wedded by Fate,” the joint work of Edward Captain Field and Henry B. McDowell, son of General Irvin McDowell. The younger McDowell, possessed of wealth, proposed, through Belasco, to subsidize a “An instance of the casual devotee of the Theatre was young McDowell, son of the famous Union general. Our first interview was most amusing. I remember how he stutterred: ’I s-s-should l-l-like to b-be an a-a-a-actor,’ he said, with difficulty. He also, in common with many others, believed that he could write a successful play and agreed that if I produced something of his very own he would finance it and would guarantee a certain bonus. His first effort—I forget the name of it—cost him a trifle of a fortune, but inasmuch as it was a local play by a local author people flocked to see it. When I met him years afterwards in New York he was still obsessed by the theatrical bee, from which he never recovered. With Franklin Sargent he opened The Theatre of Arts and Letters and lost a fortune. If I had not been, at the time, under contract to the Lyceum Theatre I should have joined McDowell in that undertaking.” The period from January to July, 1881, exhibits nothing of particular moment concerning Belasco, though, as usual, he was hard at work throughout it. “Wedded by Fate” gave place to a revival, February 1, of Daly’s version of “Leah the Forsaken,” made to introduce to the Stage a novice, Miss Clara Stuart, who paid for the privilege of appearing and whose |
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