Nat Goodwin's Book

Men who have judgment and talent should be protected. If they draw the money, what matter to the booking agent what amount of money has been invested?

Three or four of these Mushroom Managers have gone into bankruptcy this season and they can be found every evening at present, tangoing on the various roof gardens, where they belong.

There is no denying the fact that as a nation we prate about patriotism that does not exist. Every foreign artist who visits our shores finds us ready to bow down and pay homage, be it the Mistress of a dethroned king, a bare-legged Countess or an anemic tragedian. I have no desire to be personal; but the adulation, attention and grovelling at the feet of Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson is to me, as an American actor, simply disgusting; not that Sir John is not a good actor, or even a great actor, but I have memories of a departed actor named Edwin Booth, who lost a million dollars in an honest endeavor to perpetuate his art by erecting a playhouse which bore his name. Now, this foreigner who has done absolutely nothing to advance the art of acting, advertises his farewell to a public who are as fickle as they are undiscriminating and packs the theatres, giving his last performance in New York to receipts that dear Edwin Booth never dreamed of playing to; conspicuous citizens pay him tribute, and go forth proclaiming his performance of Hamlet superior to that of Booth. How we Americans forget and fawn. One of our best known and oldest comedians at present appearing before the public, had the extreme bad taste after witnessing the performance of Robertson's Hamlet, to enter the Players Club, which Edwin Booth presented to the profession, and pronounce Robertson's Hamlet superior to Booth's. As a boy I had the pleasure of witnessing Booth play Hamlet; I saw a prince to his finger tips looking the character of a philosopher of thirty, and playing it to perfection. Now an anemic old gentleman past sixty, with a supporting company of which Corse Payton would be ashamed, is packing the playhouses of America, bidding farewell to a public that has long since forgotten Edwin Booth and his supporting company, which included such actors as Edwin Adams, John McCullough, Milnes Levick and divers others of equal talents. One never heard of E. L. Davenport's farewell nor Edwin Forrest's, another actor who left a home for actors incapacitated for work; they are in the grave, forgotten. Actors are walking Broadway seeking employment, others are travelling seeking to earn a livelihood, while an anemic old gentleman is calmly gathering in the American dollars to build his English palace.

How unfortunate to grow up with one's Country! Far better to burst suddenly upon it – unknown – but heralded!

One failure in America will blot out the memory of a score of successes. Here art is sold by the yard.

To realize the unimportance of art, read the average critical review of it.

Acting is now a matter of geography.

America is the English actor's Mecca; England is our cemetery.

Chapter LXXXIV

"KEEP OFF THE GRASS"

I wonder if the average American citizen, particularly that type of long-haired reformer whom the middle west sends to Southern California, ever stops to seek the reason for the annual exodus abroad of so many of us. In these annual trips to Europe we leave millions of dollars earned in this country to add to the coffers of those who understand the broad principles and liberal ideas of government.

It is for freedom! Free thought! Free inclinations! Free expenditures! Masters of themselves, they go where they please, eat and drink what they desire at any hour, time and place. There they are not subservient to the prying eyes of long-haired men and short-haired women. There they find a patch of green for rest and recreation without a sign reading "Keep off the Grass."

The majority of the law-makers of our supposedly free country are not legislators. They are either school-teachers or policemen or hypocritical saints who eat cold food on Sunday and prate from their platform of platitudes their plenary inspirations with a desire that all mankind do likewise. If you fail to live up to their doctrines you are a heretic. If you desire to live among them with free instincts you write yourself down an anchorite. Personally, I would rather be a Hyperborean and subsist on icicles than be compelled to live subject to the insular municipal laws of this boasted free country. Were I personally denied the opportunity of visiting the various capitals of Europe at intervals and watching and enjoying results of modern civilization and really free government, I might be converted and agree with some of the ignorant and incompetent law-makers of our so-called free country.

Come, oh, come with me, some of you moralists who consider it a crime to take a cocktail on the Sabbath, and visit Berlin, the best governed city in the world, where life begins at midnight and continues for twenty-four hours. Then let us on to Paris and Vienna and St. Petersburg, with a stop at Rome. Gaze upon the many happy faces, a large per cent truant, free American citizens enjoying themselves like school children at recess, finding a respite from the puritanical laws of their own country. No arbitrary ordinances forbid their ordering wine, visiting the race courses, playing at baccarat, spending an evening at the opera, and there are no policemen to tell them "Keep off the grass."

And all this enjoyment on the Lord's Day! Fancy! How horrible! What blasphemy! Truly shocking! It is enough to make John Calvin ask his neighbor to turn over.

Does it ever occur to these psalm singers that people do this of their own volition? There are as many Cathedrals as there are restaurants, but there is no law that compels you to patronize either.

We are denied the sport of Kings – horse racing. In England racing is upheld by royalty and the House of Lords. Here it is decried by disloyalty and a house of cards.

It would be amusing to the native American who has travelled throughout the world and watched the growth of really free and sensible governments, were it not so humiliating, to regard this wave of morality that is sweeping the country like a forest fire.

That bewhiskered gentleman in New York, who wielded his scepter of cant from the governor's chair, confessed he had never attended a theatre or seen a horse race. I can well believe it. I presume when he was at college the pantry attracted him more than the foot ball field. He chooses to disfigure his face with a square cut beard. Therefore from his point of view barbers are unnecessary! Why didn't he shut up all the barber shops and revoke the Gillette Safety Razor patent? He has just as much authority, morally, to shut up all the restaurants and bars because he never tasted wine. A good tonsorial spree and a cocktail would benefit this disciple of John Knox, I am sure.

Fancy an ordinance in this free country forbidding wine at restaurants on Sundays unless a meal is ordered and that hot! Can you imagine anything more ludicrous than these psalm singers making arbitrary laws about the temperature of our food? No prize fights are allowed nor even pictures of the manly art of self-defense to be shown. What a rebuke to American manhood! What a future for our sons to contemplate!

Boys in time to come will settle their disputes crocheting and knitting instead of in a good stand up fight as in the days of old.

You won't take your son to witness the pictures of the Jeffries-Johnson fight, but you will accompany your daughter to view an amorous picture.

Gambling of every description is debarred and all the public parks feature "Keep off the Grass!" No wonder we are known as a nation of travellers. How different it is abroad. Frenchmen never leave France, Germans, Germany and the average Londoner seldom gets beyond the sound of Bow Bells. Yet true born Americans will go anywhere to escape the thraldom of the insular laws of this supposedly free country, only returning to gather enough shekels to enable them to buy more freedom.

I learn from a banker of Los Angeles that more than $700,000 was drawn from the city banks one summer in cheques and letters of credit on European houses. Imagine anyone leaving the gorgeous city of Los Angeles. And yet there is a reason – less climate, more freedom.

I predict ere long if the present conditions continue everyone who can afford it and who has red corpuscles flowing through his veins will spend his holidays abroad. Ten times $700,000 will be drawn from the banks of Los Angeles annually unless some live one is put at the helm of that grand ship – Los Angeles.

Contrast the seaside resorts of Ostend, Aix-les-Bains, Trouville and Dieppe with our Coney Island, Atlantic City and Ocean Park, California. At Ocean Park we have the same sunshine and sea as the Mediterranean, with a few mountains thrown in. God gave us the best of it – man the worst.

At the seashore in foreign countries are beautiful hotels, delightful promenades and a Casino where one is allowed to gamble. Fancy gambling by the sea and the government permitting it! And why not? Part of the revenue goes toward maintaining its charities and churches. The government realizes it is the duty of every municipality to enhance its treasury for the benefit of its institutions and the poor. Ten per cent of the revenues of the race tracks in France the government confiscates – and quite right. I would rather contribute to the church from my winnings, racing, than pay a like amount into the poor box listening to a stupid sermon in a poorly ventilated church.

One can be ten times more devout paying admission into Heaven with another fellow's money!

These far sighted foreigners have taken advantage of our insular laws with the result that they have attracted the rich of the universe who desire to spend their money as they wish. They prefer Casinos to shacks – people to peanuts.

Here are we in beautiful Los Angeles with laws as arbitrary as Salem a hundred years ago. No wines are served on the Sabbath; a race course is going to decay; wantons and women of the street are compelled to move on. In all the European cities the poor wanderers are protected by the laws and placed within the jurisdiction of the medical fraternity and housed instead of hounded. Necessary evils must be protected for the sake of humanity.

If we would only open the flood-gates of progress, batter down the doors of dogmatism, take off the lid that suffocates the rich and strangle the cant and hypocrisy of these modern reformers – the Magdalenes would have shelter; race tracks would be permitted to give enjoyment to those who appreciate the sport of Kings; prohibition would cease to make drunkards; freedom would run amuck; turnpikes would be established from coast to coast; the incense of orange blossoms would permeate to the Atlantic – and California become the rendezvous of the world.

A hypocrite is one who emerges from his own shadow and apologizes to the sun for asking it to shine.

Idle gossip is a busy bee.

The astronomers who almost opened the gate of heaven crucified the souls of those who held tickets of admission.

Chapter LXXXV

CALIFORNIA

What a royal country is California!

I am the happy possessor of an alfalfa and orange ranch in San Jacinto county. How beautiful it is! As I stand under the trees at sunset I contemplate a scene not equaled even in the beautiful Austrian Tyrol!

Down from the mountain top, furrowed with many natural terraces from the base to the crest, trimmed by gradually receding rows of full grown orange trees to the infant ones, just planted, I look with reverence upon the valley. I see the bovine and the hog bow as the Angelus is heard. The lilac and the rose hold converse and whisper to the sun to shed less light that they may embrace and sink into the night. The chug of the practical water pump gives demonstration that it must nourish the alfalfa's life, only to destroy it, to give added life to the tenants of the velvety carpet.

All is hushed, the fowls bidden hence by the watchman, Chanticleer, to their respective homes, Mistress Hen to quench the fires and prepare for dawn. The stately Eucalyptus nods his head signifying that time is done. The sun apologetically starts away to make his daily run. The vegetables prepare themselves for the noonday meal, the barley and the oats keep tune to the zephyr's lullaby as they sink gracefully into slumberland.

From the East the gentleman called Moon appears and smilingly bids all good cheer, for, when he's on the watch, care vanishes.

All is hushed.

The twinkling of the stars seems to make a melody as they hit and strike each other down the heavens. Something moves, as if to destroy the harmony of thought. An Indian glides by with just a sign of recognition as he passes on to the adjacent mountain, which the government is pleased to call a reservation.

A limpid, casual stream flows slyly down as if fearful of discovery. The shrill, demoniac bark of the coyote gives the chickens and the goats warning that the scavenger of the desert is near, seeking to destroy. Then all is hushed again and a luminous silence known only to the few imparts to us the fact that a day has died. But another and another will yet be born – and thus they'll come and go until eternity.

Life is a bridge of sighs over which memory glides into a torrent of tears.

There is nothing so serious as fun.

I have never known a true comedian who was not a master of sentiment.

All the tragedians whom I have ever known were never more tragic than when they tried to be comic.

Chapter LXXXVI

I BECOME A BARNSTORMER!

While I was at work on my ranch, disgusted with the methods of New York managers, I received a proposition from Oliver Morosco to appear in New York under his management in a new play which I was first to try out with one of his stock companies in Los Angeles. If that play proved a failure Morosco agreed to submit others to me until we finally succeeded in finding a success. Evidently my short season with the opposition stock company had given Morosco pause!

It looked like an advantageous offer and I accepted, consenting to appear in "Oliver Twist" in one of his stock houses – among other plays. We had just begun rehearsals of "Oliver Twist" when an accident laid me low.

Morosco, who was in New York at the time, sent two of his employees to my house within an hour after I had been carried in and from them and from him, by telegrams, I received repeated assurances that I need not worry, that the contract would continue in force indefinitely. As soon as I should be able to appear on the stage Morosco promised to carry out his part of the agreement to the letter.

I was sufficiently recovered in February, 1913, to appear as Fagin. The play ran three weeks at the stock house in Los Angeles and then I found myself wondering what was to become of me! The great Morosco was "back East" somewhere. No one seemed to be able to locate him or to get word to him. So I waited about four or five weeks on the pleasure of this magnate! Finally came word that we were to organize a company on the spot and make a tour of the Coast in "Oliver Twist," extending it to Canada and continuing in it for the remainder of the season.

I had heard of but had never known what "barnstorming" meant before.

I know now!

The production which Morosco sent out with me was the thrown-together junk which had been used in the stock production. It was never intended to last more than a few weeks or to be moved! It was quite the worst collection of moth-eaten scenery and "properties" I ever saw. The company, with a very few exceptions, was recruited from the members of the Morosco stock companies who chanced to be idle at the moment. Some of the men, driven desperate by the nature of the backwoods country through which our route lay, were thoroughly intoxicated (and not infrequently blind drunk!) most of the time – and I for one had no heart to reprove them!

Some of the towns we played are not on any map – the map could never survive it! From pillar to post we were yanked along over single-track railroads – with bits of our scenery falling out through open baggage doors all along the line! How that scenery ever managed to hang together as long as it did has always puzzled me. Finally we had to eliminate the London bridge scene. The platforms were so insecure it was positively dangerous for the actors to stand on them. This was one of the greatest and most effective scenes in the New York production and gave my leading woman, Miss Moreland, as Nancy, one of her biggest moments.

The night before we took it off, in one of the smaller Coast towns, some of the gallery boys, noticing the stone (!) steps and huge pillars of granite (God save the mark!) wabbling to and fro, began to whistle "London Bridge is falling down" – and in a moment the whole house had taken it up!

That was enough for me. After five weeks of miserable business we closed in Victoria and I returned to my beach home outside Los Angeles to the far more congenial task of completing this book. I sincerely hope you, dear reader, will find as much pleasure in reading what I've written as I have found in its composition. I have striven to be kind to everyone in these pages and if any of my criticisms appear harsh or my views on various subjects be considered arrogant, pray accept my apologies. I have written as I think and whatever the verdict I stand by my guns.

What will the verdict be?

I wonder.

I say I returned to my home to complete this book. I did – and I thank the gods that Fate stepped in and for once was kindly enough disposed to permit me to write the most appropriate and happy finis any book of mine could have!

Fact and unconsecrated fields oppose faith and architecture.

Chapter LXXXVII

NUMBER FIVE

The day (a beautiful day in May, 1913, such a day as only Southern California at its happiest moment knows), I made Margaret Moreland my wife I once again set the buzzards and the gossips to wagging their ears and tongues and lashing their tails (I have always been sure both HAVE tails!).

My first (wife) was an angel;

My second a silly woman;

My third a Roman Senator;

My fourth a pretty little thing;

My fifth – all woman!

My whole (desire) was by repetition to prove that hope can conquer experience!

Chapter LXXXVIII

L'ENVOI

I am sorry for the poor American who deserts this sun-kissed California country for worn-out Europe. I am enjoying the breezes and ozone wafted from the great Pacific while poor deluded Eastern folk are festering in heat and humidity, varied only by an occasional murky thunderstorm.

I face the sea and at my back are roses! On either side the blue-brown mountains hold converse with the sun and stars and dip their august heads in silent acquiescence to the others' whispers. At night massive Mars, always on duty, ever luminous, sternly bids them silence and the world to "go to" while he blinks a patronizing approval upon those "beneath" him. He has much of cynicism in his blinking as he contemplates this tiny carbon, Earth, for all his constant attendance.

Mars is my companion, ever peering through my casement. Only our sex and distance prevent a silent flirtation! I am sometimes tempted to address him anyhow, but his majesty always awes me. Still, I find consolation communing with the waves that lull me to sleep as they embrace the sandy shore. The consolation is all too brief, the sleep intermittent, and I awake to fly back to the companionship of Mars.

He is such a splendid officer! Always on guard – at sea and over the desert. He seldom shows himself resplendent in crowded cities. He dislikes company and turmoil. He is always alone, now and then racing with the moon and always leaving that gentleman to the left as he smilingly beckons the wary miner of the desert and the patient mariner of the sea to the right. Mars knows the road – a magnificent, reticent soldier – and I pray ere long my friend Tesla will make him better known.

The drab morning is approaching o'er the mountain tops. A sea gull of corresponding color is on the sand, seeking what it may devour. The color of the bird and atmosphere are not to my fancy.

I am going to beg a favor of sleep and awake when the colors are more radiant, when the sunbeams glisten and dance from sky to wave, when the white clouds meet and kiss the shadow that lets fall diamond drops of crystal that quench the thirst of the flowers and give them life.

My home is by the sea. My lot is one hundred feet wide. Its height is interminable. It is a thousand fathoms deep! My front yard extends to the Antipodes.

Am I not to be envied?

I wonder?