Maguire’s control of the Baldwin Theatre and Belasco’s career in San Francisco were now drawing toward an end. The Geistinger Opera Company came to the Baldwin for a few days, when “The Curse of Cain” was withdrawn: “The Great Divorce Case” was acted there March 30: then came Haase, in “Hamlet,” “The Gamester,” and other old plays, which were performed by him “to a beggarly array of empty benches”: and, on April 11, the Italian tragedian Ernesto Rossi (1829-1896)

emerged in his supremely repulsive perversion of Shakespeare’s Othello: Rossi acted in association with Louise Muldener and he played at the Baldwin for one week,—closing with “Edmund Kean.” Attendance throughout his engagement was paltry—the treasury was empty—neither Baldwin nor anybody else would advance more money to Maguire—and the end had come. To Belasco it came as a relief. “The last year or so at the Baldwin,” he has declared to me, “was a good deal of a nightmare. Although Maguire and I had our differences, I liked him, I pitied him, and I stuck to him till the end. But my salary and my royalties were often unpaid: we had much trouble with our actors, so that sometimes I had to bring in amateurs who wanted experience and would play for nothing, or, sometimes, even pay for an opportunity to go on! I not only was stage manager, but I painted scenery, played parts when we were left in the lurch, helped in the front of the house, attended to the advertising, and even borrowed money for Maguire, whenever I could. But the Rossi engagement was the last straw. Baldwin’s lawyer notified Maguire that the theatre was up for lease—and I was glad when it was all over.”