Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 1917)
THE SUNDAY FICTION MAGAZINE, JANUARY 21, 1917 THE N ILE ORPHA OB N r .. i i HE show was work ing north through Illinois, hitting the high spots (or a night a spot; and anybody will tell you that Illinois is as flat as an Eng lish wheeze. " v - Off in th distance was two weeks in Chicago that is, nearly in Chicago, near ' - enough to "stop" in town while,m.k- - i ing the suburban theaters. And that was probably all that kept the troupe to - gether. The prospect of a sandwich with real butter on it has kept many a com pany from disbanding. And real butter can be had only In the city. It was a drama a bedraggled success f of hlnteryears. The big producer had abandoned it because it had ceased to pay. So the little one bought the rights ' - on royalty. That he bought that kind of shows probably accounts for his being little. ' Affairs were at the stage when the players were getting what they got at an in lump sums of one dollar at a time. Regular salaries hadn't been paid in so many" weeks that some of the hams had forgotten what they were supposed to be getting, and Just bung on, asking every day for - - - - large moneys, showing pressing let . 'ten from insurance companies and the folks at home, and then thank- - lng their lucky stars when they gouged a "one-spot" from the sides of the frantic manager was doing the best ha esvEC wMA . JT wasn't much. The scenery was going; . and the properties. disgruntled per By JacK ILait Illuttnted by Ben Cohen iiii.li JiXMiSLTBiAiiiii&M!;iiiriiC.liii!!!iilM ":ifiii'-:4"''' PJTR. LAIT knows the stage and pictures herewith w'.e " ambitions of a leading lady, the love of a press' agent, .and gives an entirely unexpected ending. . Yights, Julia Marlowe as Juliet, Fanny Davenport in her prime, lira Leslie Car ter In her declension, and Evelyn Nesbit Thaw in her Peter Thompson innocence, all labeled "Blise de Vaoille as Kitty Hall In "When the Angelus Is Ringing.' " Be had no cuU left of Elise, ner had he money to have any made. But he was "plugging" Elise because she was the darling of his heart. He rarely saw her he was ten days "ahead" of the show. But each night, inthe lumpy bed of the stuffy room in the smelly Main street ho is the last peg that one may cling to and yet remain in "the business." The under-canvas companies are the ones that travel in wagons, camp at crossroads and play at each stop several nights, switch ing the bill nightly, every artist doubling for the ballyhoo at the door and tb vaudeville between the acts. A GIRL who has gone through that, and who is still going through, is not soft, easily moved or highly enthusiastic. She has trampled on her optimism and worn out her faith and starved out her cheerfulness. Elise had won the fancy of Walter Cass, the press agent, when, he had first seen her play her part. With artificial curls and knee dresses she had appealed to him as glorious. Be bad aoet her be fore and after that in her worm-down "street" shoes, her flea bitti far boa, bar nonmatching sai tj sairt and walk ing Jacket and her m .sanddy-colorsd hair. But that chre o from his imagination tltm pic tare he seen behind the gaslight faetKchts you will grant me that a press agent to endowed with imagination If endowment at all. Cass, in his flights of ai aluwtii m. al ways conjured up a vision cf same day bringing out Elise in that i Broadway, as a star, surprising the bias lan ffJW WfI JlTiw n ft! u 11 n' II 111 M i' natives of insular Manhattan with ner beauty and her genius, proclaiming her to the world as making Billy Burke look like a mudhen and acting figure eights around Nazimova. Thus far he was starting her by get ting hyperbola ted "notices' about her In the Jay papers in advance of the "attrac tion." These were more or less neutral tsed by the roasts that the critics thun dered after her on her departure from each town. Cass couldn't write the re views; but he could and did writ tha "front stuff." It so hrppened that one of the big New York managers had been born in one of the little Illinois towns. Because he liked to keep cases on Tom, Zeke and Harry of his boyhood schooldays, he got the home paper every week. And, as he glanced through it one week, hunting "locals," he saw a cut of a beautiful girl, and under it the name of Elise de Vaoille. Hi perked up, got his head closer, and read : Mile, de Vaoille Is the daughter of a French nobleman, orphaned by the war now raging over the Mood soaked fields of sorrow-stricken Eu rope. Having studied at home for the drama as a pastime, and part of her curriculum in an ultra-fashionable Parisian- finishing-academy, she turned to that as a means of livelihood and a prospect of a ca reer when she casne to this country. In leas thaa three months she bad learned eaeugh English to enable her t play the part of Kitty Dugan brRtlantly and tellingly. What Mile, de Vaoille may lack ke tkt perfect accent she more than 9 by her exquisite and f ty. so appealing that the audience loves her on sight and is in the hollow of her hand before the curtain rings down on the first thrilling act of that terrific and spectacular drama masterpiece, "When the Angelus Is Ringing." The Forty-second street manager read It twice. He knew the ways of tanktown ' press agents. But you know how it la when one sees it in print it seems plausible. Why, I have known the very men who write the stuff (and invent tt) to-ead and believe It! So the wise New Yorker touched a but ton. The office boy was sent to summon one of the stage di rectors, who in turn was sent to Illinois to find that show, watch "My stars" she gasped. "fa come." And come it hnj. outfit and two others were "doubling" .their parts, which means they were each playing two roles at different times. The bfflposting "paper" announced It as the original New York cast." Most of the cast bad never even seen Pittsburgh. The press agent had picked up a mis "ceSaneons collection -of left-over cats at cms of the theaters and was Ang to the one-night-stand editors likenesses of 'Eva Tangnay, Annette Kenennaxm tm tel of the county seat where he tardss he dreamed of her. . He always dreamed of her as ELisei e Vaoille, though he knew that she waa Fannie McCann, daughter of Jt Cann. the character woman" of the show, and of a deceased "heavy." She a hardened, seasoned, weathered. grained, warping Ingenue who had done many -years In stock, "on the road" and "ander canvas In rep," of which the last Elise de Vaoille "work," in a report. Two nights later the stranger. bought a ticket at the box office fax a hayseed burg, sat down In an
