OCR Text |
Show TALES OF ACTORS Prominent Men and Women of the Stage Reminiscent Over Thanksgivings. Not Usually a Day of Great Rejoicing fry Them, But They Tell of Past Experiences Which Havo Lingered in the Memory. TO THE actor Thanksgiving day usually means only a day of harder work than usual a day when there are special matinees mati-nees and when luncheon and dinner are hurried through so as to be at the theater in time to make up and play the part that the public, paying for especial amusement en this day, demands. Of course, a picturesque Thanksgiving Thanksgiv-ing story dealing with theatrical people peo-ple would tell of driving snowstorms, long cold walking of railroad ties, performances per-formances that were not prefaced by dinners, and with the hope of unearthing unearth-ing some such sad tales the interviewer interview-er hunted out a group of players and asked them for "experiences." Thanksgiving Tragedy. First, there was Miss Grace Buff, who was requested to tell her Thrks-giving Thrks-giving memories, grave or gay. The charming leading lady laughed. "Well," she said, "my funniest memory mem-ory was a tragedy at the time, for the first turkey I ever cooked was on a Thanksgiving day. I did not know that there was to be company, but my mother had invited Borne friends to dinner, and you may imagine my horror hor-ror when I realized that some one outside out-side of the family was coming to test my first attempt at cooking the national nation-al bird. I have had stage fright many times in my life, but I never, never had the stage fright equal to that I experienced ex-perienced when that turkey was brought to the table and I c"ln't know how it was going to be. "Another Thanksgiving that stands out vividly in my memory was one that I spent in a little town out West. On the veranda where I was sitting was a poor cripple boy playing with a ball, f was waiching him and reflecting that while I wasn'. in the -appiest surroundings, I had a lot for which to be thankful, because I didn't happen to he deformed, like the poor boy. "I felt very sorry for that boy and Very kindly toward him, so that when his ball rolled away and down a hill I started after it for him. Just imagine my surprise when, suddenly, he threw away his crutch and swore violently at me, telling me in no uncertain terms to 'keep away from his ball.' That knocked a great deal of the Thanksgiving Thanks-giving spirit out of me, I can assure you, for it was such a shock to find that the poor little cripple for whom I felt so very, very sorry was only a fake." Tale of Too Much Turkey. Miss Huff's narrative stopped amid a ripple of laughter, and some one suggested sug-gested that "Lowell" tell about his Thanksgiving. Mr. Sherman, the handsome leading man, looked gloomily gloom-ily into spaco and, of course, it was expected that he had some beautifully romantic experiences to relate something some-thing that would thrill the matinee girls. But alas and alack for ideals! "I remember one Thanksgiving." he announced after a bit, "that stands out In my memory as the saddest I have ever spent. I had been ill for two R eeks before under the doctor's care nd iad him -at my side all the time at home and in the theater. I hadn't eaten a mouthful of solid food for two weeks, when suddenly the day of Thanksgiving I felt myself again. "Naturally I wanted to celebrate my reoovery, 1 planned a Thanksgiving dinner that was really a dinner every thing from soup to nutsl How I did enjoy en-joy that dinner! "But it proved my undoing, for in half an hour I was again under the doctor's care, and while he diagnosed my illness as a "plain case of overeating," overeat-ing," I wasn't able to get oiit of bed again for over a week." After telling of this time when he smashed the ideal of the matinee girl, who never, never will believe that her hero could overeat, Mr. Sherman continued: con-tinued: "The actor doesn't usually have a very jolly time of it on holidays, you know. All he does is work, and he has to e in a hurry. Last Thanksgiving I ate my dinner alone in Rector's, New York, and I was so lonely that I had one of their table telephones brought to me and I called up nearly everyone I knew and talked to .them just to hear the sound of a friendly voice." When the West Was Woolly. Miss Georgie Woodthorpe went hack to her childhood days for her reminiscence, reminis-cence, to the time when the West was really wild and woolly. "I was very young," she explained, "and was playing what we called juveniles juve-niles then, but which are now known as ingenue roles. I remember I was on the boat that went up the Snake river to Dalles, Wash., and on that boat was the governor of Oregon, who was going up 10 see me great, muiaii chief, Homelli, about some treaty or other, the details of which I forget, excepting ex-cepting that it concerned two other chiefs that were being held prisoners for their friendship to the whites. "This Thanksgiving day always stands out in my memory and I shall never forget the interest I felt in seeing this big Indian invited intr the cabin where we had our Thanksgiving dinner, and sitting down to the table with his blankets wrapped around him. I scarcely ate any dinner, but just sat and watched Chief Homelli enjoy the turkey and wines that were served, and after the dinner he sat down in a corner of the cabin with the white men while they smoked the pipe of peace together. "It was on this trip that I heard the first phonograph and that was long before the day of Edison. I remember my amazement at hearing a voice come from this little box a box scarcely any larger than my make-up box here. At first we thought there was a ventriloquist in the room, but after a while we were convinced that we were listening to a real talking machine. ma-chine. I don't know who invented this all I remember about It Is that it contained con-tained a little cylinder that turned as the voice proceeded. "And that," concluded Miss Woodthorpe, Wood-thorpe, "is one of the most interesting Thanksgiving experiences I have ever had my first view of a talking machine, ma-chine, and a dinner with an Indian chief." |