Broadway Babylon by Boze Hadleigh Read Free Book Online Page B

second-rate. In 1869 Booth opened the $1 million Booth Theatre in New York City, which showcased him in Shakespearean roles. Its failure bankrupted the actor in 1873 and he had to tour extensively in the United States and United Kingdom, specializing in Shakespeare.
    Edwin’s Gramercy Park home became headquarters for The Players, the club he founded that was a combination social haven (gossip was officiallydiscouraged) and museum of theatrical heirlooms. It later produced theatricals featuring professional actors, and helped separate Edwin’s reputation and Shakespearean legacy from his brother’s murderous rage. (Booth was biographed in the 1954 film
Prince of Players
, starring Richard Burton.) One of Edwin’s closest friends was the scion of an equally long-lived major acting dynasty: comedian Joseph Jefferson III, famous for his portrayal of Rip Van Winkle.
    Q : Isn’t nepotism much less common on Broadway than in Hollywood?
    A : Less, anyway, and more often behind the scenes. For instance, take the 1964 28-show-a-week musical spectacular
Wonderworld
, which played the New York World’s Fair for 250 performances. It costarred Chita Rivera and Gretchen Wyler, with music by Jule Styne. The lyrics were by his older son, Stanley—the son also musicalizes.
    Oscar Hammerstein II had a producer brother named Reginald, likewise Angela Lansbury, whose brother Edgar produced
Godspell
and her turn as Mama Rose in
Gypsy
(music by Jule Styne, lyrics by the unrelated Stephen Sondheim).
    Q : Who was America’s first star actress?
    A : Charlotte Cushman (1816–1876) was an assertive eldest child who hated housework and had no desire to wed. At eighteen she went into opera, acting as well as singing her roles, unlike more stationary divas. Then she lost her singing voice. She took to the dramatic stage—due to her plain looks, romantic parts were out—and broke through, with cheering audiences and glowing reviews, as Lady Macbeth in 1835. In 1837 she joined the Park Theatre, then New York’s most prestigious company, bowing as Patrick in
The Poor Soldier
. But four years later she was stuck mostly in secondary roles.
    She quit and moved to London, where she became a star on her debut, which one reviewer claimed surpassed anything seen there since the talent of Edmund Kean thirty years before. Besides Lady Macbeth, Cushman essayed Cardinal Wolsey in Shakespeare’s
Henry VIII
and Hamlet in Edwin Booth’s borrowed tights. When she returned to the United States after five years, her British stardom made her a welcomed celebrity, and she went from triumph to triumph. Cushmania peaked in 1852 when she gave her farewell performances and moved to Rome.
    Though rich, she continued acting in Europe. At her final performance, shortly before she died from cancer in 1876, a tribute was bestowed upon America’s greatest actress, with William Cullen Bryant presenting her with a laurel wreath. Cushman’s passing garnered headlines around the world. Half a century later, she was the first member of her profession to be inducted into the Theatrical Hall of Fame. She was the first American actor to be as highlyregarded as an English actor. She eschewed the usual histrionics and ad-libbing of the era for
felt
and disciplined acting. Cushman was initially thought eccentric because she insisted upon play rehearsals. She may also have been the first to institutionalize curtain calls.
    P.S. Like some twentieth-century actresses, Charlotte Cushman wore men’s clothes offstage. In the 1800s this caused tremendous comment. Yet she didn’t camouflage her nature by presenting men to the public as “beaux.” The press played down her relationships, various of which Elizabeth Barrett Browning termed “female marriages.” Yes, Virginia, America’s first star was a lesbian.
    Q : Was Agnes de Mille’s dream ballet in
Oklahoma! (
1943) the first?
    A : From its Freudian influence and how much has been written about it, one would think so, but it