[The various passages in the following “Summary” of the character and career of Belasco were written disjointedly. They are here gathered and arranged in what appears to be their natural sequence,—as nearly as I can judge in the order in which Mr. Winter would have placed them. In two or three instances an unfinished sentence has been completed and here and there an essential word or two has been inserted or added. Otherwise the matter stands unrevised: I have not attempted to write connecting passages.—J. W.]

The estimate that observation forms of a person still living cannot always be deemed conclusive: the person can invalidate it, in an instant, by some sudden action, some unexpected development, some surprising decadence; and, as a general rule, it should be remembered that no person is ever completely

comprehended by anybody. We have glimpses of each other; but, practically, each individual is alone. In the most favorable circumstances, accordingly, no life can be more than approximately summarized until the record is complete—perhaps not even then. It was perception of this fact that caused the old grave-digger of Drumtochty to declare that there is no real comfort in a marriage because nobody knows how it will turn out; whereas there is no room for solicitude about a funeral, because, at all events, the play is over. David Belasco, although he begins to see the shadow of the Psalmist’s threescore years and ten, is still in the full vigor of life; he is, indeed, the most powerful, vital influence now [1917] operant in the English-speaking Theatre,—Herbert Beerbohm-Tree, in London, being his only competitor,—and (as I hope and believe) is approaching the highest achievements of his long, varied, and brilliant career, which there is reason to expect will continue for many years....

Actors, it has been noted, who are actors only, often are remarkably long-lived. Men who attain eminence in theatrical management,—whether they be also actors or not,—seldom are so: Sir William Davenant died at sixty-two; Garrick at sixty-one; John Kemble at sixty-six; Thomas S. Hamblin at fifty-one; Charles Kean at fifty-seven; Benedict De Bar at sixty-three; John McCollough at fifty-three; Lester Wallack at sixty-eight; Lawrence Barrett at fifty-two; Edwin Booth at sixty; John T. Ford at sixty-five; Augustin Daly at sixty-one; A. M. Palmer at sixty-seven. Garrick had been three years in retirement when he died; Kemble, six; Kean, nearly one; Booth, more than two; Palmer, five. Belasco’s career has already extended over a period of forty-six years and, excepting Wallack, he is now older than any of those men were when their professional labors ended,[7]—yet there is in him none of the dejection of age; none of the despondency of fatigue; no abatement of his ambitious purpose, resolute enterprise, and amazing energy; no sign of that forlorn loneliness which often settles on the mind as friends die, things alter and long familiar environment drifts away, the old order changing and giving place to new. On the contrary, his health is excellent, his mind virile, his courage high, his spirit cheerful, and in every way he shows as indeed “strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” It is, therefore, a specially difficult and dubious task to attempt to make at this time a summary of his character, life, and labor. But if another of the abrupt and lamentable bereavements of the Stage which it has so often been my task to chronicle and estimate should befall at this time; if, suddenly, now, while all around seems bright and full of life and hope, mortality’s strong hand should close upon Belasco and I should be required to write of him as of one whose work was finished and who had “bid the world good-night,” I should write in these words:

From the beginning and until the end David Belasco was an embodiment of high ambition, zealous enterprise, resolute endeavor, and patient endurance. He did not drift into his career—he selected it. His natural proclivity for the Theatre was irresistible; in youth his aspiration was to reach a dominant place in that institution; all his early life was spent in arduous toil to equip himself for the eminence at which he aimed; through long years, in which he became well acquainted with bitter strife and grievous disappointment, he never lost hope or faltered in the purpose which at last he achieved,—supremacy in the American Theatre. He was a rare and vivid personality; an extraordinary and many-sided man; the natural successor of Lester Wallack, Edwin Booth, and Augustin Daly as the leading theatrical manager of America; and, in the English-speaking world, he was absolutely the last of the managers who, personally, were important and interesting. His place will not be filled. It has been said of David Belasco that he was a “posing and posturing charlatan.” That harsh censure is the tribute of envy to merit and it is as unjust as it is mean. His nature was impetuous, his temperament was intensely dramatic, his sensibility was extreme, the tone of his mind was at times exuberant and florid, and, consequently, his language and his conduct were sometimes extravagant. He, also, understood the uses of advertising; he was occasionally over-solicitous as to public opinion; he possessed a full share of very human, almost childlike, vanity, and certainly he managed the public as well as the Theatre. But his devotion to the dramatic calling was true, passionate, and entire and to it he gave his life: he never desired retirement and never thought of it. The secret of his success—if any secret there be—was his inveterate determination, indefatigable labor, and profound sincerity of purpose. If the public poured great wealth into his hands (as it did), he never spared wealth, labor, and time—toilsome days and sleepless, care-full nights—to give the public in return the very best there was in him and to make that best as good as it could be made. He was a master of every detail of his vocation and, alone among American theatrical managers of the past twenty years, he understood and practically recognized that Acting is a Fine Art and not merely a business. The main result at which he aimed was always good plays, correctly set and superbly acted. If that result was not always attained by him, neither has it always been attained by any other worker of the Stage,—not since “Roscius was an actor in Rome.” While judgment and taste must deplore his production of “Zaza” and “The Easiest Way” justice and candor must concede his right to be remembered by the best and most influential of his works, which comprehend an amazing variety of subjects and of merit, ranging, for example, from “May Blossom” to “Peter Grimm,” from “Men and Women” to “Sweet Kitty Bellairs,” from “The Heart of Maryland” to “The Music Master,” from “The Charity Ball” to “The Girl of the Golden West,” from “The Girl I Left Behind Me” to “Adrea,” from “Lord Chumley” to “Madame Butterfly,” from “The Darling of the Gods” to “A Grand Army Man,” and which, first and last, deal with most of the great elemental experiences of human life.

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The sentiment of patriotism is a sublime and lovely sentiment, but it cannot be nurtured by self-deception, by vainglorious boasting and sycophantic adulation. There is far too much talk about our superiority as a people and far too little thought about means of making that alleged superiority actual. We are hearing much, and we shall hear more, about the spiritual exaltation and the fine idealism which has recently carried us into the Great War,—but such talk is not honest. We had as much reason to enter the War in 1915 as we had in 1917. We have entered it, primarily, from self-interest, for self-defence,—to fight now, in Europe, in order that we need not fight, hereafter, in America. Let us be honest and outspoken about our course. It is idle to seek, as some of his “very articulate” political opponents and detractors do, to lay the blame of our unworthy delay on Woodrow Wilson (one of the great men of modern times) or on any other man or group of men. The blame rests squarely on the people of the United States as a nation. The spirit of our country is and long has been one of pagan Materialism, infecting all branches of thought, and of unscrupulous Commercialism, infecting all branches of action. Foreign elements, alien to our institutions and ideals as to our language and our thought,—seditious elements, ignorant, boisterous, treacherous, and dangerous,—have been introduced into our population in immense quantities, interpenetrating and contaminating it in many ways: in the face of self-evident peril and of iterated warnings and protests, immigration into the United States has been permitted during the last twenty years of about 15,000,000 persons—including vast numbers of the most undesirable order. We call ourselves a civilized nation—but civility is conspicuous in our country chiefly by its absence. Gentleness is despised. Good manners are practically extinct. Public decorum is almost unknown. We are notoriously a law-contemning people. The murder rate—the unpunished murder rate—in our country has long been a world scandal. Mob outrage is an incident of weekly occurrence among us. Our methods of business, approved and practised, are not only unscrupulous but predatory. Every public conveyance and place of resort bears witness to the general uncouthness by innumerable signs enjoining the most elemental decency—and by the almost universal disregard of the enjoinments! Slang and thieves’ argot is the prevalent language of the people and there is scarcely a periodical or a newspaper in the land which does not exhibit and promote the corruption of good manners diffused by that evil communication,—while the publicist who dares to record the facts and censure the faults is generally stigmatized as a fool or ridiculed as a pedant. The tone of the public mind is to a woful extent sordid, selfish, greedy. In our great cities life is largely a semi-delirious fever of vapid purpose and paltry strife, and in their public vehicles of transportation the populace—men, women, and young girls—are herded together without the remotest observance of common decency,—mauled and jammed and packed one upon another in a manner which would not be tolerated in shipment of the helpless steer or the long-suffering swine....

If true civilization is to develop and live in our country, such conditions, such a spirit, such ideals, manners, and customs as are widely prevalent among us to-day, must utterly pass and cease. The one rational hope that they will so disappear lies in disseminating Education,—not merely schooling, imperative as that is; but, far more, a truer and higher education imparted by the ministry of beauty; education which recognizes that material prosperity and marvellous discoveries of science are not ultimate goals of human pilgrimage but mere instruments to be used in spiritual advancement; the inspiration of noble ideals, gentleness, refinement, and the grace of manners; cheerful courage, resolute patience, and the calm of hope. For that education Society must look largely to the ministry of the arts and, in particular, to the rightly conducted Theatre,—an institution potentially of tremendous beneficence....

Few managers have been able to take or to understand that view of the Stage. David Belasco was one of them. It is because his administration of his “great office” has been, in the main, conducted in the spirit of a zealous public servant; because for many years he maintained as a public resort a beautiful theatre, diffusive of the atmosphere of a pleasant, well-ordered home, placing before the public many fine plays, superbly acted, and set upon the stage in a perfection of environment never surpassed anywhere and equalled only by a few of an earlier race of managers of which he was the last, that David Belasco has, directly and indirectly, exerted an immense influence for good and is entitled to appreciative recognition, enduring celebration, and ever grateful remembrance. And, though on the two occasions when I differed with him I vigorously opposed his course, it is a comfort to reflect that nothing ever chilled our friendship and that all that could be done to sustain and aid his great and worthy purpose and to cheer his mind was done while he could benefit by it....

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Among American theatrical managers David Belasco was long unique,—the sole survivor, exemplar, and transmitter of an earlier and better theory and practice of theatrical management than is anywhere visible now. When he came to New York, to the Madison Square Theatre, representative theatre managers of our country were Lester Wallack, Augustin Daly, John T. Ford, Samuel Colville, Dion Boucicault, J. H. McVicker, R. M. Hooley, Henry E. Abbey, Montgomery Field, and A. M. Palmer, and our Stage was dominated and swayed by the influence of those men and of such players as John Gilbert, Joseph Jefferson, William Warren, Charles W. Couldock, Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, W. J. Florence, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Janauschek, Helena Modjeska, Ada Rehan, Mary Anderson, Henry Irving, and Ellen Terry. When, in 1895, Belasco first successfully struck out for himself, great changes had taken place and greater ones were impending. When, in 1902, he at last succeeded in establishing himself independently, in a theatre of his own, it was in almost a new world that he did so! Colville, Wallack, Ford, Boucicault,

McVicker, Hooley, Abbey, Daly, Field, Gilbert, Barrett, Florence, Booth,—all were dead. Mansfield had made his ambitious venture in theatre management and had utterly failed in it: Irving had lost the Lyceum in London and was nearing the end of his life: Salvini and Mary Anderson had left the Stage: Jefferson retired within eighteen months and soon after died: Modjeska and Ada Rehan were in broken health, their careers practically closed. Fine actors were visible and, here and there, splendid things were being done: the histrionic fires have never yet been wholly extinguished. But actors and men truly comprehensive of, and sympathetic with, actors no longer controlled the Theatre: that institution had passed almost entirely into the hands of the so-called “business man,”—the speculative huckster and the rampant vulgarian,—and the prevalent ideal in its management was that of the soap chandler and the corner-grocery. The men who chiefly dominated the Theatre in the period of fifteen years since Belasco’s establishment in the metropolis,—with many of whom he was long righteously and bitterly at variance,—were Charles Frohman, Al. Hayman, A. L. Erlanger, Marc Klaw, Samuel Nirdlinger, J. F. Zimmermann, William Harris, George C. Tyler, William A. Brady, Henry B. Harris, Lee Shubert, J. J. Shubert, George M. Cohan, and Al. H. Woods.

There is not one of those men, his later contemporaries, with whom it is possible properly to compare Belasco. He was an artist, a dramatist, an authentic manager actuated by a high purpose and one who exerted a profound influence on the Theatre of his period. The others—though several of them have manifested various talents—all belong in the category of mere showmen,—speculators in theatrical business, and, save for the bad influence fluent from some of them, they are of no more interest or importance than so many “eminent brewers” or celebrated purveyors of tallow and pork.

One of the managers named, however, by reason of exceptional energy and shrewdness and by dint of incessant self-advertising, became and long continued to be the most conspicuous figure in the theatrical field. That manager was Charles Frohman, and because Belasco and he were personal friends and personal enemies, because they were professional associates and, in a business sense, professional rivals during many years, it is inevitable that the student of the theatrical period from 1885 to 1917 should attempt to make some comparison of them. That renders an estimate of Frohman desirable here....

Charles Frohman was born at Sandusky, Ohio, June 17, 1860, and he lost his life in the sinking of the Lusitania, May 7, 1915. He entered the theatrical business, as an “advance agent,” in January, 1877, and he remained in it until his death. He was honest in his dealings, amiable in his domestic and social relations, benevolent toward the poor, highly popular among his friends, able and energetic in business affairs, a gambler by temperament, and of a self-poised, resolute character. His management of the Theatre, however, was injurious, both to that institution and to society. He assisted to commercialize and thus to degrade the Stage. His policy was distinctly and unequivocally expressed by himself, in these words: “I keep a Department Store.” That is precisely what he did, and that is precisely what no manager has a right to do,—while claiming to exercise an intellectual power and foster a great art. The man to whom Oofty Gooft and Edwin Booth, “Shenandoah” and “Hamlet,” “Hattie” Williams and Helena Modjeska, “The Girl from Maxim’s” and “Alabama,” and so following, are all alike—mere theatrical commodities of commerce to be exploited as such—may be “a man of his word,” an honest tradesman, a genial companion, a dutiful son, an affectionate brother, a loyal friend, generous in prosperity, unperturbed in adversity and expeditious in transaction of business,—but he is not and he never can be a true theatrical manager.

In the “Life” of Charles Frohman—by his brother Daniel (a man of far higher ability) and another writer—some informative utterances by him are quoted,—utterances which reveal and establish the quality of his mind more unmistakably than whole chapters of analysis could do. This is one of them, imparting his view of the greatest poet and dramatist that ever lived and of the consummate tragedy of youthful love, “Romeo and Juliet”:

Charles Frohman was simply a wholesale dealer in theatrical produce. He “made” many “stars”—“stars” being a commodity requisite in his business and for the manufacture of which he expressed a strong liking. He never made an actor. There was nothing of importance accomplished in the Theatre through his activity that would not have been accomplished equally well if he had never been born. As far as the Art of the Theatre is concerned he stands in about the same relation to such men as Wallack, Daly, and Belasco as a maker of chromo-lithographs does to Corot or Inness.

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Belasco was a good fighter—resourceful, courageous, pertinacious. He never forgot a kindness nor an injury,—yet bitter and, to a certain point vindictive, as his resentment of injury unquestionably was, he could easily be placated and he was instantly amenable to any appeal to his kindness of heart. I well remember one occasion on which I chanced to be with him and other friends (it was the last night of the run of “The Darling of the Gods,” May 30, 1903) when he was called away by an urgent appeal. He presently returned and, speaking aside with me, informed me that the message had been from a person widely known among journalists and actors as one of the vilest creatures that ever scribbled slander about decent men and women for the blackguard section of the press and one who had done him great wrong and injury. “And now,” Belasco said, “he comes to me—appealing for help!” “What have you done?” I asked. “What could I do?” he answered: “The man is in the gutter—friendless—penniless—starving. I couldn’t refuse him—now, could I? I gave him what he asked for.” That incident is significantly characteristic....

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Upon David Belasco’s ability as an actor I can give no judgment, never having seen him act: he seldom appeared on the stage after 1880, and he did not come to New York until 1882. He played more than 170 parts between 1871 and 1880, and it is obvious that his early, continuous, and practical experience in acting and in observation of the dramatic methods and the stage business of many actors, of all kinds, as well as of the practice of some of the best stage managers ever known in America, must have largely contributed to the brilliant efficiency in direction for which he was remarkable. No more capable, resourceful mechanician has appeared in the modern Theatre....

Belasco was a great stage manager because he possessed a comprehensive knowledge of human nature and human experience and an equally comprehensive knowledge alike of scenery (including stage lighting) and of acting; a dramatic temperament; clear insight; almost inexhaustible patience; ability to impart knowledge, and the rare and precious faculty of eliciting and developing the best that was in the actors whom he directed. It was the latter attribute that made him unique among stage managers of the last twenty years or so: the general custom of that pestiferous animal “the stage producer” is to thrust upon actors an arbitrary ideal of character....

Belasco possessed, moreover, exceptional understanding of the traits of actors: he knew their vanity and sometimes almost intolerable conceit, their often paltry purposes and petty ways; likewise he knew and deeply sympathized with their fine and lovable qualities,—the noble ambitions by which sometimes they are actuated, their often forlorn hopefulness, their courage under disappointment, their restless impulse toward expression, their honest longing for opportunity and recognition, their peculiarities, foibles, and sensibility, and he possessed and exercised extraordinary judgment, consideration, and tact in the control of them....

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Being human, Belasco possessed faults and made mistakes: being successful, he never lacked for censurers to point out the one or, with gleeful malice, to celebrate the other. He was weak by reason of an inordinate craving for approbation and by reason of an excessive amiability: rather than inflict the pain of immediate disappointment he sometimes foolishly temporized in dealing with importunate persons, thus, at last, incurring their bitter resentment and enmity because of what they mistakenly though naturally deemed his insincerity. But, in every respect, his virtues far exceeded his faults, his strength his weakness, and his rectitude his errors: he was an extraordinary man, worthy of public esteem and honor, and, in private, most loved by those who knew him best. As the years speed away and the great place he filled in the Theatre of his time, and the great void which his passing must make, become rightly appreciated, those whose detraction followed David Belasco may admit their injustice:

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Much has been written, first and last, about Belasco’s utter absorption in artistic matters and his ignorance of business affairs. It is true that, first of all, he was an artist and that in his theory of theatrical business the keystone of the arch was the Art of Acting. But it cannot be too strongly emphasized that he was one of the few managers who united in himself a profound knowledge of the drama, all the methods and expedients of histrionic art, the history of the Theatre and entire familiarity with its contemporary conditions. He was, in short, one of the most shrewd, sagacious, far-sighted, hard-headed managers that ever lived. He early saw the futility of trying to attend, himself, to every detail of a great and complex organization and so he employed capable and vigorous men, able and willing to work under his direction and to carry out his orders. But anybody who supposes that David Belasco was not perfectly well and intimately aware of everything that was going on around him and was not at all times the master of his own destiny in the Theatre is cherishing a delusion!

Most conspicuous among the men associated with Belasco throughout his long career in management was Benjamin Franklin Roeder, his general business representative and close personal friend, whose name is here fittingly linked with commemoration of the chief whom he so long and faithfully served. Mr. Roeder, originally, aspired to be a dramatist, and during the early days of Belasco’s activity in New York, while connected with the Sargent School of Acting, he obtained an introduction to him from Franklin Sargent. Roeder had made a dramatization of the novel of “St. Elmo” (a subject which was successfully introduced on the stage many years later) and desired that Belasco should read his play with a view to its possible production. Belasco, pleased by the manner and address of the young writer, agreed to consider the matter and made an appointment to meet him and discuss it at the School office at one o’clock on the following Sunday afternoon. In the stress of business he forgot that appointment, but an urgent errand taking him to his office at eleven o’clock on the night of the specified day he found Roeder seated on the doorstep, asleep. He had been waiting there ten hours. “When I asked him why he had waited,” said Belasco, telling me of this incident, “he answered, ‘You said you might be late—and to wait.’ I made up my mind then that there was surely a place for a boy so tenacious and that he was just the fellow for me. I took him on, at first as my secretary, and he has been my business assistant, sometimes my bulwark, always ‘my friend, faithful and just to me,’ ever since.”

Members of the theatrical profession are almost without exception indiscreet and garrulous; secrecy, which often would be invaluable in that profession,—as in any calling in which success frequently depends on priority in exploitation of ideas which cannot be protected from imitation,—is almost unknown in it. Roeder unites in himself not only fidelity to his

employer, tenacity of purpose, familiarity with all the commercial details of theatrical affairs, but also excellent executive faculties, directness and celerity in the despatch of business and, on all subjects, the restful reticence of the reclusive clam. His services were often invaluable to Belasco.

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In person David Belasco was singular. His height was only five feet, six inches, and in later years he became rather stout, but in youth he was slender and graceful. His raiment was, almost invariably, black and in appearance much resembled that worn by Roman Catholic priests of the present day. His hair, originally black (not, as most hair so designated is, dark brown, but jet black), became first gray, then silver-white. His eyebrows were remarkably heavy and black and so remained. His eyes were extraordinarily fine—dark brown, large, and luminous—and his gaze was attentive and direct. I have not observed a countenance more singular, mobile, and expressive. When he chose he could make of it an inscrutable mask. But when indifferent or unaware of observation the changes of expression—shadows of his thoughts—would flit over his face with astonishing variety and rapidity, so that I have watched him when he would appear at one moment commonplace and dull—the next, highly distinguished, then kind—gentle—thoughtful—dreamy—ruminant—pensive—mischievous—pugnacious—alert—hard—cold—at moments, even malignant—boyish—playful—tender. On the rare occasions when passion mastered him (or when he chose to have it seem to do so—occasions always difficult to distinguish), his aspect became positively Mephistophelian....

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One of the mental advantages possessed by Belasco,—a qualification as precious as it is rare,—was the faculty of absorbing knowledge without effort. He learned all things with amazing ease. When little more than thirteen years old he had imbibed from an uncle, a visionary scholar, sufficient knowledge of Hebrew to enable him to conduct a religious service in that language, which he did, “without the punctuation,”—an achievement the difficulty of which will be appreciated only by Hebrew scholars. That faculty persisted in him always....

Belasco early recognized the wisdom contained in the old poet Prior’s injunction as to the treatment of woman,

and he consistently obeyed it. He possessed, furthermore, an intuitive knowledge of the nature of women, a compassionate sympathy with them, and, whether professionally or personally, exceptional skill in pleasing and managing them: he was, in turn, readily subservient to female influence....

As a writer he manifested amazing vitality, persistent industry, lively fancy, considerable faculty of imagination, keen observation, quick perception of character but more of striking situation and effect, and great knowledge of human nature. He possessed more the sense of humor than the faculty of it....

Belasco all his life possessed the spirit of adventure. He was eagerly interested in the life of to-day. His sensibility was extreme. He had great goodness of heart. He was very generous, extremely kind.

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