My Years On The Stage

a quot 1, A l.. MY YEARS ON THE STME BY JOHN DREW WITH A FOREWORD BY BOOTH TARKINGTON NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE If w quot i ... COPYRIGHT, 1921, 1922, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1932, BY E. P. DUTTON COMPANY All Rights Rcservtd First printing . . . October, Second quot October, Third quot, ., , in ie tTnltdft tt of Am. rio Ju 26 35 1 amp lt I r t amp gt FOREWORD How long ago is it, old schoolmate, since two quot middlers quot from Exeter rollicked down to New York for an Easter vacation, and on an imperishable evening glamoured their young memories permanently with Augustin Daly s company of players at Daly s Theatre and The Taming of the Shrew. What a good and merry town was brown-stone New York then, when one stood at the doors of the Fifth Avenue Hotel to see the pretty girls from all over the country parading by after the matinee when the Avenue was given over to proud horses and graceful women when there were no automobiles and only a few telephones when Ada Rehan was playing Katherine at Daly s and when those two Exeter school boys got the impression that the whole place belonged, in a general way, to the Petruchio who tamed her, John Drew The earth must have swung round the sun a few times since then, my schoolmate, for now comes that gay young Petruchio before us with his Memoirs He vi FOREWORD feels that he has memories to entertain and to enlighten us he has now lived long enough to have seen some thing of the stage and of the world, it appears. For one, I am willing to read him. I have listened to him so often since that ancient night at Daly s and though the words I ve heard him say were words suggested by some paltry fellow of aplaywright, yet I ve had such entertainment of the man, so much humor and delight, I am even eager to hear him, now that he will speak in his own words of himself and of his life, his art and his friends. As to this last, though, he will have to select with care he could never tell us much of all his friends, were Methuselah from birth to grave his diligent amanuensis. What he has played most congenially, and with the manliest humor of his time, have been the roles of gentlemen and there is a certain thing about his book of which we are already sure before we read it therein he cannot fail to add one more to the long, fine gallery of portraits of gentlemen he has shown us and this one must necessarily be the best t gentleman of them all. And it will be the one we have liked best, ever discern ing it behind the others for it was always there, and turned many a playwright s shoddy outline into a fine FOREWORD vii fellow. John Drew would play Simon Legree into a misunderstood gentleman, I believe. The reason is a simple one he was born with a taste for the better side of things and the cleaner surfaces of life. He has found them more interesting and more congenial than mire, and if he should ever deal with mire he would deal with it cleanly. Here was the nature of the man always present in his acting and I think it has been because of that and because of his humor his own distinctive humor that he has charmed the best American public throughout so many fortunate years. John Drew has been an actual feature of the best American life ever since his youth indeed, he is one of its institutions and there is a long grati tude due him. His Memoirs may prop erly be greeted, in fact, as we shouldgreet a birthday speech at the banquet we are too numerous to make for him that is, with cheers as he rises to address us. And then as we settle down to listen we may be sure we shall hear of many an old-time familiar figure besides himself, for John Drew has known quot pretty much everybody quot of his generation. His generation still continues, it is pleasant and reassuring to know for he admits us to the intimacy of this autographical mood of his long viii FOREWORD before the fireside years claim him...