William Winter

An incident of Belasco’s career in management which can conveniently be recorded here is his alliance with the Messrs. Shubert. That alliance was arranged in 1904-’05, when Belasco was in active conflict with the Theatrical Syndicate, by the late S. S. Shubert, of whom and of their business association he writes: “I found him an earnest young man, with the power to make friends and possessed of an irrepressible enthusiasm.” Shubert, with two brothers, began theatre management (or, rather, correctly speaking, theatre control) in Syracuse, New York, where they leased the Bastable Theatre. They subsequently obtained control of the Herald Square Theatre in New York, and then, directly or indirectly, of many other theatres in various cities of the country, especially in the smaller places which are known as “the one-night stands.” “You have attractions and a reputation,” urged Shubert, addressing Belasco, “but no theatres out of New York: we have theatres but lack attractions and reputation. Join us, and all our out-of-town houses shall be at your disposal.” The arrangement

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THE OPERA OF “THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST”—

A Souvenir, to Belasco

thus proposed was made and it had mutual advantages, but it was more valuable to the Shubert Brothers than to Belasco. Possessed of contracts to “book” the latter’s “attractions” the Shuberts were strengthened in their relations with theatre managers not dominated by the Trust who desired to have those attractions presented in their houses,—and thus they were, in turn, strengthened in dealings with managers of other “attractions.” The Belasco-Shubert alliance lasted for about four years. The time came when Mr. Lee Shubert (who had become the head of the Shubert Company) condescendingly intimated in public that he did not believe that anything could be accomplished by the methods of opposition to theatrical despotism which were long employed by Belasco and by the shrewd, indefatigable, vindictive H. G. Fiske and his intrepid, brilliant, accomplished wife; nevertheless, if it had not been for their opposition, the subjugation of the American Theatre to injurious monopoly would, in all human probability, have been so complete that Mr. Lee Shubert and his associates would never have found an opening through which to break.

S. S. Shubert died, May 12, 1905, in consequence of injuries sustained in a train wreck on the Pennsylvania Railroad, near Lochiel, Pennsylvania, on the 11th. Belasco considers his death “a hard blow” and is “sure he would have occupied a great place in the history of the American Theatre. He had keen business instincts, a lovable nature, and was the soul of honor.” He would have required to possess a more extensive equipment to entitle him to the eminence Belasco believes he would have attained. I had no personal acquaintance with Mr. Shubert: he never did anything of notable importance as a theatrical manager, properly so called. His brother, Mr. Lee Shubert, through the shifts and chances of fortune, at one time almost held the destiny of our Theatre in his hand,—but he is merely a commercial exploiter of the Stage and consequently made nothing of his opportunity.

Belasco was to have accompanied S. S. Shubert on the journey which proved his last and, had he done so, might have perished with him. “I have had three such ‘close calls,’” he has said to me: “Once, when I was a lad, I gave up an excursion trip on the Sacramento River to please my mother,—and the excursion boat was blown up soon after she left the dock. The second was when, at the last minute, I cancelled a trip to Cincinnati, with Charles Frohman. He took a secretary with him, the train was wrecked, and the secretary, sitting beside him where I would have been, was killed. The third was the trip with ‘Sam’ Shubert. We were to have gone to Pittsburgh together, on business connected with the Duquesne Theatre there, which, with the Shuberts, I took over and which was renamed the Belasco. If I had gone I am sure that I should have been killed in the wreck.” It is probable that he would have been: the train on which Shubert travelled to his death “side-swiped” a freight train, loaded with dynamite: many lives were lost.