OCR Text |
Show ' THE SELWYNS HAVE HAD GOOD CAREER AS PRODUCERS That a destine higher than our human defining shapes our ends has been admirably demonstrated by tho Selwyn brothers who head tho firm of Selwyn and company producers, pro-ducers, for neither Edgar Selwyn, president of Jhe company nor Archibald, Archi-bald, Its secretary had the slightest Idea In the world of cntorlng tho field of play production, when somo eight j cars n'go they were associtaed as play brokers. At that tlmo Edgar's Ed-gar's chief concern was with his success as an actor and Archlo had set out to become tho family millionaire, mil-lionaire, although such a culmination of his ambition seemed ten a long way off. It was at this period that destiny tool a hand In tho matter In the form fo tho receipt of tho manu-' script of "Within the Law.'1 Tho Sel-wyiiH Sel-wyiiH thought It was a cracker-Jack melodrama and Immediately offered It to Willam A. Brady, who bought tho play and produced it In Chicago. Tho premier was followed by business busi-ness which spelled failure and Mr. Brady was ready to close performances. perform-ances. All this In no way dampened the fnlth of tho Selwyns however. They still believed that "Within the Law" was a grat play with every chance of success so they asked Brady what ho would take for It. "Ten thousand,'' answered Mr. Brady, Bra-dy, eager to bo rid of It. Now between be-tween them Edgar and Arch Selwyn didn't havo ten thousand dollars, but so great was their confldenco In tho success of tho play In question If rightly cast and rightly produced, that they bororwed tho necessary "nazunia" to purchase It back from Mr. Brady. This dono they offered It to New York with tho lovely Jano Cowl In tho leading part that of Mary Turner and before the end ot tho run ho Selwyns had cleared $1,800,000 from It. They had produced pro-duced the play In self defense butlt proved tho turning point In the lives oft ho brothtrn and started them on .a career of play producing which has cen exceptionally lucrattvo because of tho gheat number ot sue- cesses achieved. Among the most Interesting and successful plays produced by tho Selwyns Sel-wyns sinco their mcmorablo presentation presen-tation of "Within the" Law," "Bud-Mca" "Bud-Mca" which will bo presented hero at the Lyric theatre on Thursday, October 1 1, Is among tho most successful. suc-cessful. . |