Excerpt from The Popular Theatre Thus, the fame of Mary Anderson sprang less from her considerable ability as an actress than from her reputation for being a virtuous woman; the fame of Mrs. James Brown Potter less from her talent than from her spectacular matrimonial alliance with an aflluent and tony New Yorker; the fame of Rich ard Mansfield less from his fine performances upon the stage than from his private Pullman and the tales of his temperamental didoes in the wings; and the fame of William Gillette less from his unmistakable dexterity in the fashioning of adroit farce and melo drama than from the report that he had consumption and took long walks at two A. M. In the solitude of Central Park. And what was true yesterday is even more true today. Idiosyncrasy and talent are as often confounded as monetary success and talent. Hang the stage with strips of tar-paper and hang the strips of tar-paper with small slices of Salami and you are hailed a great innovator in the matter of scenic embellishment. Illuminate brightly With nu merous baby spotlights the faces of the actors in a scene calling for a pitch dark dungeon and you are celebrated as a master producer. Take a trifle longer over your make-up box and cuckoo the per formance of Irving in Waterloo and you are chaired as a magnificent actor. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.