The Bishop of Broadway: The Life and Work of David Belasco

By Craig Timberlake

First published in 1954, THE BISHOP OF BROADWAY chronicles the life of David Belasco (1853-1931), an American theatrical producer, impresario, director and playwright who became the first writer to adapt the short story Madame Butterfly for the stage, thereby launching the theatrical career of many actors, including Mary Pickford, Lenore Ulric and Barbara Stanwyck. David Belasco also pioneered many innovative new forms of stage lighting and special effects in order to create realism and naturalism. Owing to his austere, clericlike dress and personal manner, David Belasco came to be known as the “bishop of Broadway.”

Born in San Francisco, California, the son of Sephardic Jewish parents who had moved from London, England during the California Gold Rush, Belasco began his illustrious theatre career with a wide variety of jobs in in a San Francisco theatre, and gaining first experience as a stage manager while on the road. This eventually led to a role as stage manager, and he learned the business inside out. A gifted playwright, David Belasco went to New York City in 1882 to work as stage manager for the Madison Square Theatre, and the old Lyceum Theatre while writing plays. By 1895, the “bishop of Broadway” was so successful that he set himself up as an independent producer.

During his long creative career, stretching between 1884 and 1930, David Belasco either wrote, directed, or produced more than 100 Broadway plays including Hearts of Oak, The Heart of Maryland, and Du Barry—making him the most powerful personality on the New York city theater scene.

Written by fellow Broadway actor, Craig Timberlake, THE BISHOP OF BROADWAY provides an in-depth glimpse into the life and times of this remarkable Broadway figure of the early twentieth century.

Beautifully illustrated throughout with black & white photographs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Release date: Sep 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789122046

Craig Timberlake

Craig Timberlake (October 30, 1920 - December 31, 2006) was an American stage actor, singer, author, and educator. A talented bass, he performed in operas and musicals in theatres throughout North America in addition to acting in plays from the 1940s through the 1980s. Born in Oil City, Pennsylvania, Timberlake earned a BA from Southern Methodist University and an MA and EdD from Columbia University. He served as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. He began his performance career after the end of the war, making his Broadway debut as Go-To in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado in October 1949. In the early 1950s, Timberlake joined Fred Waring’s “Pennsylvanians”, performing and recording with the group for many years. He later joined the roster of singers at the New York City Opera, making his debut with the company in the world premiere of Nevit Kodalli’s Van Gogh. Timberlake continued to perform in plays, operas, concerts, and musicals throughout North America up into the 1980s. He also taught for many years at Teachers College, Columbia University where he was chairman of the department of music and music education. He also served as Chairman of the American Academy of Teachers of Singing and served for a time as the President of the New York Singing Teachers’ Association. Timberlake was also a writer. His book The Bishop of Broadway: The Life and Work of David Belasco was published in 1954. He also contributed articles to Music Educators Journal, The Review of Education, the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, and Teachers College Record. He retired from teaching in 1991, relocating to Ogunquit, Maine where he lived for the rest of his life. In his later years he worked as a producer and music consultant for the Community of Jesus’s touring choir, Gloriae Dei Cantores, for a total of 13 recordings. Timberlake died in 2006 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, aged 86.

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Text originally published in 1957 under the same title.

© Papamoa Press 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE LIFE & WORK OF DAVID BELASCO

THE BISHOP OF BROADWAY

by

CRAIG TIMBERLAKE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

DEDICATION 4

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 6

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 8

CHAPTER 1 — ALL THAT GLITTERS... 12

CHAPTER 2 — ...IS NOT GOLD 15

CHAPTER 3 — A GOLD MEDAL FOR TRAGEDY 22

CHAPTER 4 — DAVID AND THE EMPEROR 26

CHAPTER 5 — A THEATRICAL VAGABOND 33

CHAPTER 6 — NAPOLEON OF THE THEATER 41

CHAPTER 7 — BELASCO AT THE BALDWIN 47

CHAPTER 8 — THE PASSION ACCORDING TO SALMI MORSE 55

CHAPTER 9 — HERNE—THE FIRST COLLABORATION 67

CHAPTER 10 — NAPOLEON MAGUIRE AT WATERLOO 75

CHAPTER 11 — THE MINISTRY OF MADISON SQUARE 85

CHAPTER 12 — DE MILLE—THE SECOND COLLABORATION 94

CHAPTER 13 — I AM A HORSEWOMAN... 105

CHAPTER 14 — TWO PLAYS FOR PATRIOTS 113

CHAPTER 15 — BELASCO vs. FAIRBANK 123

CHAPTER 16 — MADEMOISELLE ΖAΖA AND MADAME BUTTERFLY 138

CHAPTER 17 — A TRIO OF STARS AND A THEATER 145

CHAPTER 18 — LONG-THE THIRD COLLABORATION 156

CHAPTER 19 — DAVID AND GOLIATH 168

CHAPTER 20 — BELASCO vs KLAW AND ERLANGER 173

CHAPTER 21 — SHOW BUSINESS IS NO BUSINESS 195

CHAPTER 22 — NEW STARS FOR OLD 201

CHAPTER 23 — BELASCOISM AND THE BELASCO MYTH 222

CHAPTER 24 — FORTY YEARS A THEATRICAL PRODUCER 251

CHAPTER 25 — THE LAST DECADE 265

CHAPTER 26 — A KIND OF GENIUS 293

APPENDICES 303

APPENDIX A: LETTERS OF MRS. LESLIE CARTER TO DAVID BELASCO 303

APPENDIX B: CHRONOLOGY OF NEW YORK PRODUCTIONS 323

APPENDIX C: SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 331

PERIODICALS 332

NEWSPAPERS 333

MISCELLANEOUS 333

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 338

DEDICATION

TO

Berba and Dannie

Fortunate the producer who is first on the ground with what the public will be clamoring for next.—DAVID BELASCO

The fact is, there is nothing the public despises so much as an attempt to please it....The artist’s rule must be Cromwell’s. "Not what they want but what is good for them." That rule, carried out in a kindly and sociable way, is the secret to success in the long run at the theatre as elsewhere.—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

He whose honor depends on the opinion of the mob must day by day strive with the greatest anxiety, act and scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the mob is varied and inconstant, and therefore if a reputation is not carefully preserved it dies quickly.—SPINOZA

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it we must direct our lives in such a way as to please the fancy of men, avoiding what they dislike and seeking what is pleasing to them.—SPINOZA

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the preparation of this book I have become deeply indebted to a number of persons in and of the theater, friends and strangers alike, who have contributed of their time, knowledge and experience either out of love for the subject and the era or out of sympathy, and, in some cases, friendship for the author, weltering in a sea of misinformation such as inevitably engulfs a controversial figure in the commercial theater. Among these, to whom I now express my gratitude, I would remember especially:

DORIS RICH and the late RALPH STUART, dear friends, whose achievements in the theater and related fields have long been recognized by sounder heads than mine and whose wide circle of friendship evoked many valuable reminiscences—

VERA MURRAY COVERT, who made available her vast experience and presided over the evolution of this book with affection and lively interest—

STARK YOUNG, noted author and critic, whose distinguished and unique contribution to the literature of dramatic criticism has been widely heralded—

MRS. THOMAS A. CURRY, SR. and MR. AND MRS. THOMAS A. CURRY, JR., who offered the hospitality of their home and unlimited access to an imposing collection of Belascoana—

WHITFORD KANE, who, as actor and playwright, knew The Governor—

MAY DAVENPORT SEYMOUR of the Museum of the City of New York, without whose generous contribution no book on the New York stage can be said to be complete—

CECIL B. DE MILLE, who was kind enough to read and comment on those portions of the manuscript pertaining to his father, his brother and himself—

KATHARINE HEPBURN, who gave me my first role in a Shakespearean production and who, thanks to her trouping spirit, made it possible for me to examine at first hand the locale of Chapter 2—

FRED WARING, who in this venture has proven something of a silent partner, providing pleasant and gainful employment during the extended period of research—

PERCY MACKAYE, poet and playwright, whose distinguished father was intimately associated with Belasco during the latter’s apprenticeship in the New York theater—

ALFRED HARRIS HEAD, for several years Belasco’s general press representative and a delightful raconteur who is justly regarded as the Belasco authority by his colleagues at the Players Club—

ALFRED HARDING, able historian and editor of the Actors’ Equity Association and author of The Revolt of the Actors.

The rough road of research was smoothed incalculably through the generous efforts of Mr. Willard E. Ireland, Provincial Librarian and Archivist of British Columbia; Miss Eleanor H. Morgan of the California State Library at Sacramento; Mrs. Elizabeth P. Barrett, Messrs. Paul Myers, William H. Matthews and their associates in the Theater Collection of the New York Public Library; and Mr. Karl Kup, curator of prints in the New York Public Library. My thanks are also due Mr. and Mrs. Walter Drew, Mr. Milton Steifel and Kay Strozzi.

It would be impossible to enumerate all the professional courtesies extended me, but I must acknowledge my indebtedness to The New York Times, The New York World-Telegram and The Sun, The New York Sun, Inc., and the following:

THE ESTATE OF GEORGE ARLISS for permission to quote from Up the Years from Bloomsbury—

APPLETON-CENTURY-CROFTS for permission to quote from Arthur Hobson Quinn’s A History of the American Drama from the Civil War to the Present Day—

PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY for permission to quote from Joseph T. Shipley’s Dictionary of World Literature—

ALFRED A. KNOPF for the quotation from The Theatre, The Drama. The Girls, by George Jean Nathan—

THE VIKING PRESS for the excerpt from The Letters of Alexander Woollcott—

HARPER & BROTHERS for the quotations from The Theatre Through Its Stage Door, by David Belasco—

RANDOM HOUSE for the quotation from Lillian Russell: The Era of Plush, by Parker Morell—

SIMON AND SCHUSTER for permission to quote from Puccini, by George Marek—

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS for the quotation from Stark Young’s Immortal Shadows—

THE PUBLIC TRUSTEE and THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS, London, for the extensive quotations from George Bernard Shaw’s Our Theatre in the Nineties—

Lastly, my thanks to my Publisher’s Editor-in-Chief, Martin L. Wolf, who has extended numerous courtesies, proffered sound advice and generally performed above and beyond even a publisher’s call of duty.

CRAIG TIMBERLAKE

Shawnee-on-Delaware March, 1954.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

David Belasco, 1853-1931—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

David Belasco: As an infant—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

David Belasco: At twenty—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

David Belasco: At thirty—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Norton I, Emperor of the United States—M. H. de Young Memorial Museum

The Emperor tries out the new velocipede—M. H. de Young Memorial Museum

Belasco as Armand in Camille—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Belasco as Uncle Tom in Uncle Tom’s Cabin—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

An early photograph of Tom Maguire—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

The Baldwin—Print Collection, New York Public Library

Belasco as Fagin in Oliver Twist—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Salmi Mors—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

James O’Neill, c. 1877—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

James A. Herne—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

Napoleon Maguire—Bancroft Library, University of California

A contemporary caricature of the Mallory brothers—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

Henry C. De Mille—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

E. H. Sothern—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

Mrs. Leslie Carter—(Photograph by Sarony) Theater Collection, New York Public Library

Maurice Barrymore and Mrs. Leslie Carter in The Heart of Maryland—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

Under Two Flags, 1901—Museum of the City of New York

David Warfield and Marie Bates in The Auctioneer, 1901—Museum of the City of New York

Mrs. Leslie Carter in Du Barry, 1901—Museum of the City of New York

John Luther Long—Culver Service

R. D. McLean and Mrs. Leslie Carter in Adrea, 1905—Museum of the City of New York

Caricature of Belasco by C. de Fornaro, c. 1905—Museum of the City of New York

Marc Klaw and Abe Erlanger—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

Lee, Sam and J. J. Shubert—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

Blanche Bates and Robert Hilliard in The Girl of the Golden West, 1905—Museum of the City of New York

A fateful card game—Museum of the City of New York

Frank Keenan, Blanche Bates and Robert Hilliard in The Girl of the Golden West—Museum of the City of New York

Caruso as Dick Johnson—Culver Service

Puccini dedicates a score of The Girl to his collaborator and friend, December 10, 1910—Collection of Charles Albert Matz, Jr.

Presentation Album to Belasco from the Directors of the Metropolitan Opera Company—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Mrs. Leslie Carter in Miss Helyett—(Photograph by Sarony) Theater Collection, New York Public Library

Mrs. Leslie Carter in Adrea—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

Mrs. Leslie Carter in Du Barry—(Photograph by Sarony) Theater Collection, New York Public Library

Mrs. Leslie Carter in The Heart of Maryland—(Photograph by Sarony) Theater Collection, New York Public Library

Blanche Bates in The Darling of the Gods—Museum of the City of New York

Blanche Bates in Under Two Flags—Museum of the City of New York

Blanche Bates in The Girl of the Golden West—Museum of the City of New York

Blanche Bates in Madame Butterfly—Museum of the City of New York

Caricature of Belasco by Everett Shinn, 1907—Museum of the City of New York

Belasco in his study—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Childs’ Restaurant in The Governor’s Lady, 1912—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Mary Pickford and Ernest Truex in A Good Little Devil, 1913—Museum of the City of New York

Belasco and crew examine a model set of Marie-Odile—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

The Governor and his star, Lenore Ulric, in The Son-Daughter, 1919—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Charles Frohman and Belasco in Boston, 1915—Collection of Thomas A. Curry, Jr.

Motion picture still of Belasco and Mary Pickford, 1913—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

A tenor’s revenge—Caruso views Belasco, 1914—Marziale Sisca, Caruso Book of Caricatures

A Caruso caricature of himself as Dick Johnson—Marziale Sisca, Caruso Book of Caricatures

Carroll McComas, Frank Craven and Otto Kruger in Seven Chances, 1916—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Belasco and Frances Starr, Marie-Odile, 1915—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Belasco and staff with Gilbert Miller and Morris Gest, London, 1920—Collection of Thomas A. Curry, Jr.

William Winter—Theater Collection, New York Public Library

A greeting from the Divine Sarah: ...my only regret is not to have played under your direction. —Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Lionel Atwill in Deburau, 1920—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Frances Starr in The Easiest Way—Museum of the City of New York

Frances Starr in The Case of Becky—Museum of the City of New York

Frances Starr in Marie-Odile—Museum of the City of New York

Frances Starr in Rose of the Rancho—Museum of the City of New York

David Warfield in The Return of Peter Grimm—Museum of the City of New York

David Warfield in The Auctioneer—Museum of the City of New York

David Warfield in The Merchant of Venice—Museum of the City of New York

David Warfield in The Music Master—Museum of the City of New York

Belasco, Stanislavsky and Reinhardt, 1923—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

The Chevalier Belasco with Morris Gest, André Brouzet and Firmin Gémier—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Beth Merrill in Ladies of the Evening, 1924—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Lenore Ulric in Kiki—Museum of the City of New York

Lenore Ulric in The Heart of Wetona—Museum of the City of New York

Lenore Ulric in The Harem—Museum of the City of New York

Lenore Ulric in The Son-Daughter—Museum of the City of New York

Lulu Belle, 1926—Museum of the City of New York

Belasco’s letter of election as Honorary Member of the Moscow Art Theater—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

The psycho-corrupter in Mima, 1928—Museum of the City of New York

Chaliapin, Gest, Reinhardt, Ulric, Belasco at Mima—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

A meeting of the Catholic Actors’ Guild—Collection of Thomas A. Curry, Jr.

Belasco, an admirer of Napoleon, strikes a pose—Museum of the City of New York

Belasco with China’s great actor Mei Lan-Fang, 1930—Belasco Collection, New York Public Library

Facsimile of a letter from Mrs. Leslie Carter to Belasco, May 15, 1928—Collection of Thomas A. Curry, Jr.

THE BISHOP OF BROADWAY

David Belasco

CHAPTER 1 — ALL THAT GLITTERS...

THERE WAS A TRADITION in the Belasco family that Reina Martin Belasco was the first woman to cross the Isthmus of Panama in the mid-nineteenth century migration to California. Like so many other traditions adjunctive to the Belasco myth, this legend had no basis in fact. Records show that courageous women, both English and American, had made the arduous trek before her as early as 1849. But travel had not improved perceptibly in the intervening years, and the fact of her crossing the Isthmus at all, under the difficult conditions encountered in 1852-53, is tribute to her hardihood, faith in her husband and confidence in their future. According to the legend, Humphrey Abraham Belasco was the leading harlequin of the London stage, artistically successful in his craft but little rewarded financially. Recently married to Reina Martin, he longed to strike out for new territory in the hope of bettering a meager existence. With the enthusiastic approval of his spirited wife, the young harlequin turned from the perils of theatrical London to contemplate the uncertainties of life in a strange land.

The world was running a high temperature at the time and had been for four years in the throes of gold fever. Since the discovery of that much sought after metal near Sacramento in January 1848, California had been subjected to mass invasion by land and sea. The variety of abandoned shipping in the port of San Francisco attested the universal appeal of gold. Passengers were often left to fend for themselves, as captain and crew made off in the small boats, eager to be the first of the newcomers in the gold fields. San Francisco, which not long ago had been the reasonably innocent, sleepy village of Yerba Buena, had become the busiest port-of-call on the Pacific coast and the wickedest of cities since Sodom and Gomorrah. The polyglot population of this ever-growing den of iniquity comprised pig-tailed Chinese, Negroes, Malayans, Fiji Islanders, Hindus, Russians, Europeans, Americans and Chilenos, the pejorative term for all Spanish-American immigrants, particularly the dispossessed Mexicans. In this chaotic atmosphere the free-spending miner in his dirty, red shirt sought and obtained violent release from the drudgery of digging. With the firmest will in the world he would have had difficulty resisting the games of chance, liquor and women that greeted him upon his arrival, hot, thirsty and momentarily wealthy, from the mining camps of the interior. There were over five hundred saloons in the city, half a hundred gaming houses and an equal number of houses of prostitution. It was the boast of the lustier citizens that there was a harlot from every nation in the world available to these King Midases when they came to town. Other vultures, criminals and parasites had come along for the fun and it had been necessary in 1851 to form a Committee of Vigilance to restore a semblance of the law and order that the elected city officialdom had seemed so reluctant to maintain.

Into this appalling atmosphere Humphrey Belasco led his bride. The voyage from England to California could hardly be called uneventful in those days and, although no detailed record of their journey exists, it undoubtedly assumed the familiar pattern of others taken by the myriad, eager travelers to El Dorado. Their ship dropped anchor at Aspinwall (now Colon), and they rode the uncompleted Panama Railroad to Bujio Soldado, or perhaps as far as Barbacoas (twenty-three miles), where the engineering of a bridge over the Chagres River was holding up construction of the line. For this convenience Humphrey Belasco paid out of his meager hoardings about fifty cents per mile for himself and the same for his wife. This was the fare originally demanded in 1851, when the company succumbed to the pleas of the emigrant horde and trans-ported its first passengers in working cars, there being no other rolling stock available. When the line was completed in 1855 the fare from ocean to ocean was twenty-five dollars, thus making it the most expensive forty-seven miles of travel in the history of railroading.

At the height of the Gold Rush the fare was willingly paid by the impatient Americans, many of whom had chosen the Isthmus route to the gold fields rather than face the menace of Indians in the perilous, Western overland crossing. Together with their English companions they were to discover that the route of their choice was not without its hazards. The new-made graves, visible in every native settlement and railroad encampment, bore silent witness to the dangers of this unhealthy climate. In after years it was a legend of the Panama line that the life of a worker was laid down with every rail-road tie. The Isthmus was an insect-ridden pesthole of yellow fever, malaria, cholera and typhus. Humphrey Belasco was probably as anxious to have it behind him as were the "vamos, go ahead" Americans who poured across the Isthmus in a never-ending stream. Los Yankees, always in a hurry, proved the bane of existence to the slow-moving, cheerfully indolent native boys, who retaliated by performing ludicrous imitations behind the backs of their impetuous patrons.

When the railroad came to an abrupt halt, it was necessary to proceed by boat up the Chagres to Gorgona or, in the rainy season, to Cruces, the lesser of two wet evils. The native boys, who made up the Chagres River Transit, stood ready to offer their boats and services to the highest bidders. After three years of heavy traffic they were experienced hagglers and pre-served an admirable sang-froid in the face of dire threat, imprecation or entreaty. Eventually, having come to terms, travelers were ensconced with their luggage in native bongoes, light dugouts roofed over with a skimpy thatch of palmetto leaves to hold off the fierce sun or tropical rain. In the freshness of the start the faster boats would fairly shoot upstream to the wild cries of the paddle-wielders, but as the day grew longer and the current stronger, the awkward pole and the grunts and groans of the weary crew would replace the rhythmic paddle and the exultant yawps of the morning.

The travelers took little interest in the self-eulogizing songs of the boatmen or the lush vegetation of the river and its reaches. Fear of the dreaded fever, preoccupation with finances and concern for the women folk diverted their minds from the novelties of an exotic environment. A sleepless night or two spent fighting insects in a native encampment was not calculated to arouse their aesthetic appreciation. Moreover the worst part of the journey lay ahead.

The trail from Gorgona to the port of Panama, thirteen miles in length, was accomplished on foot or by mule train. This difficult and tortuous path led through ravines and gullies, over fordable streams and in and out of dense forests before it finally opened out on the broad causeway leading to Panama. Eagerly the travelers scanned the Pacific for sight of the steamer or clipper that might take them without delay out of the Gulf of Panama and into the Pacific. But delay seemed an inevitable aspect of this undertaking that called so urgently for speed, lest all the gold be dug before they arrived in California. They waited for boats on the Chagres, mules at Gorgona and ships at Panama, but eventually they were on the high seas again and the day came when they sighted the Farallones and sailed through the Golden Gate into San Francisco Bay. Atop Telegraph Hill the semaphore signaled the city below that another ship was about to discharge its human cargo into that turbulent, hectic atmosphere.

Humphrey Belasco arrived in San Francisco almost penniless. He was no doubt disturbed to find that no one was mining gold in the streets, that, in fact, the gold fields lay in the interior a considerable distance away and that, to get there and stay there, one needed a sizable grubstake and some experience. He probably discovered too that a wife enceinte requires more care and attention than one who is not. A place to sleep and something to eat were the essentials. He found lodgings in the basement of a house on Howard Street and there his wife gave birth, July 25, 1853, to their first child, David, who was destined to find, in his own way and time, some of the gold that eluded his father’s grasp in these trying, early days. Meantime the father, keenly aware of his increased responsibilities, chose a less glamorous vocation than prospecting for gold. He opened a little shop with his remaining capital and managed a modest existence for himself and family.

***

The influence of the Vigilantes had left San Francisco a vastly improved, if not model community. Gambling houses were still wide open, but strictly licensed, and the now prolific press noted with approval their waning clientele. All in all, 1853 could be regarded as a reasonably sane year, if one discounted the activities of William Walker, publisher of the Herald, who embarked on the first of several filibustering expeditions that were to lead him to the presidency of Nicaragua and then to his death before a firing squad in Honduras. His recruiting station at Kearney and Sacramento Streets flew the newly designed flag of a mythical Republic of Lower California, and he gathered unto himself some three hundred thugs, adventurers, alcoholics and bankrupts, all intent on making the republic a reality, while getting in a little rape and pillage on the side. Without consulting Washington as to the legality of his enterprise, Wee Willie Walker embarked with his troops, sailed south to Baja California and established a beachhead at La Paz, which was poorly defended by some Mexican women and chickens. He declared the republic and designated himself president. He then proclaimed the annexation of Sonora, but was forced out of Mexico and surrendered to American troops at the border. Returned to San Francisco, he was tried in May, 1854, for violation of existing neutrality laws and, in a typical miscarriage of justice, was acquitted.

Early in 1854 there were unmistakable signs that the big boom was about over. In increasing numbers, tired, discouraged miners were returning to the city to take up the prosaic pursuits that they had disdainfully cast aside when the rush was on. A steady stream of poor but wiser travelers trekked eastward and the gloom of depression settled over the city. In October the fraudulent enterprises of an assistant alderman named Meiggs became known with that gentleman’s flight to South America. His forgeries of city warrants cost investors approximately $800,000. Bank failures early in 1855 and unbelievable political corruption drove the city to the verge of bankruptcy and paralyzed all commercial activity.

David C. Broderick, a New York saloon-keeper and a graduate of Tammany with his eyes on the United States Senate, was the political boss of early San Francisco. Under the protection of his corrupt and efficient machine, the underworld thrived again and soon rivaled the evils of the early days of the gold rush. Broderick’s implacable enemy was the founder and editor of the Evening Bulletin, James King of William, who, while a young man working in Washington, had added a preposition and his father’s first name to his own to differentiate him from the other James Kings of that city. This courageous editor called for an exposé of the city officialdom. When Charles Cora, a gambler, murdered General W. H. Richardson, United States Marshall for the Northern District of California, King immediately demanded the death penalty and urged what amounted to lynch law rather than allow another murderer to escape. He assembled statistics to show that four hundred eighty-nine murders had been committed in California in 1855, two-thirds of them in San Francisco, and not a single homicide punished in that city where justice seemed not only blind, but deaf and dumb as well.

Appropriately enough it was King’s own murder at the hands of politician and rival editor, James P. Casey, that expedited the organization of a second Vigilance Committee. Once again justice was speedy in San Francisco, and a crowd of several thousand people returned from King’s funeral service at Lone Mountain to find the bodies of Cora and Casey dancing on air in front of Vigilante Headquarters. For two months no one was disposed to commit murder in San Francisco. On July 29, 1856 the Committee completed their service to the community by dispatching two more murderers. They had hanged four men, exiled twenty-six, struck terror into the hearts of the politicians and frightened away several hundred malefactors.

It is surprising that the decent citizenry were not frightened away too by these prodigious events. Whatever Humphrey Belasco thought of his adopted city and its inhabitants, he weathered the several storms of commercial catastrophe and civil strife until July, 1858, when the exciting reports of gold in British Columbia prompted him to pull up stakes and join the northward migration to Vancouver Island.

CHAPTER 2 — ...IS NOT GOLD

JULY, 1858, was the month of the great migration to Victoria, British Columbia, and additional steamers were assigned to accommodate the increased traffic between San Francisco and Vancouver Island. The fare was thirty dollars a head, and the migrants included, in addition to the inevitable hangers-on, veterans from the California mines and early settlers along the Yuba and American Rivers who were now determined to try their luck in the north on the Fraser and its tributaries. In its issue of June 5, 1858, the popular San Francisco newspaper Alta California had viewed with alarm the impending events:

There is no disguising the fact that the excitement throughout the State in regard to the newly discovered gold region on Fraser’s river and its tributaries, has increased to such an extent within the past few weeks, as to almost give room for the belief that the state is about to become heavily lessened of its working population during the next few months.

...At the present time, the boats from the interior come down every night, loaded down with miners and others all bound for Fraser’s river. The hotels in this city are fairly crammed with people, waiting for an opportunity to leave; while reports reach us from various points of the interior, that parties are setting out overland for the same locality. Throughout the entire length and breadth of the State the Fraser river fever seems to have seized hold of the people, and threatens to break up, or at least seriously disarrange for the time being the entire mining business of the State.

The Belasco family of three, burdened with their worldly possessions and herded aboard an overcrowded steamer, must have breathed sighs of relief when the vessel eventually dropped anchor at Esquimalt, four miles from Victoria. The advantages of this beautiful, natural harbor were implicit in its Indian name, Is-whoy-malth—a place gradually shoaling. For years it sheltered a squadron of Her Majesty’s far-flung fleet, and Jack Tar was on hand to greet passengers as they debarked to be ferried around to Hudson’s Bay Company’s wharf in Victoria harbor or transported overland by stage.

Victoria’s first directory, published in 1860, revealed the fact that thirty-five thousand Californians had migrated to Vancouver Island and British Columbia during the Fraser river fever. The summer of 1858 found some of the hapless newcomers viewing disconsolately the state of their affairs. Supplies were scarce; the Fraser and its tributaries were swollen by melting snows; valuable diggings were under water; and the Cascades presented a formidable barrier to mining operations. Taking stock, the inexperienced and faint-hearted decided that any gold here would be hard won, and they rushed southward, as speedily as they had come, spreading false and damaging rumors which retarded immigration and delayed the development of the region. More malcontents followed during the discouragements of a winter which was severer than usual, but Humphrey Belasco was not among them. Perhaps he relished the idea of living once again under the British flag. In any event he made his home in Victoria for about seven years, during which time he dabbled in real estate, prospected for gold, kept a tobacco shop, frequented the theater and enlarged his family by three, all boys.

Fort Victoria had been founded in 1843 by Hudson’s Bay Company as one of its many trading posts from Lake Superior to Alaska. As such it acquired no special fame and enjoyed no appreciable development until the gold rush with its boom days reminiscent of California in ‘49. The tent cities of the miners sprang up on the fringes of the fort and a cosmopolitan crowd swarmed over the wharves and through the streets. New to San Franciscans however was the efficiency of a civic administration which met boomtown problems with honesty and dispatch. Presiding over the growth of the community was Sir James Douglas, governor of the Island and chief factor of Hudson’s Bay Company. Despite the precipitant departure of a good many pessimists, an extensive building pro-gram was continued (the Gazette of September 14, 1858, announced that three hundred forty-four houses had been erected), and the government hired four hundred of its idle citizens to build sidewalks and macadamize several of the principal streets. Prices were held at a reasonable level and there was a blissful freedom from taxation, a liquor license for wholesale and retail dealers being the only levy recorded.

With its Indians, sailors, ship-launchings, volunteer fire brigades, parades and theatrical performances, Victoria proved an enchanting place to the boy, David Belasco. He never quite outgrew the colorful, often lurid and melodramatic implications of his youthful environment in Victoria and San Francisco. The Indians in particular fascinated him; they were unlike any he had seen in the Bay City. Another transplanted San Franciscan, one James Bell, writing to his brother in Scotland, February 1859, gave this interesting description of the natives of Belasco’s Victoria:

The Indians, subsisting almost entirely on Fish, are rarely to be found any distance inland; Their villages are always located close to the coast, or else, on the banks of a River, apparently caring little about the products of the soil, they seem to feel most at home on the water; with the whole family in the light though graceful canoe; they are to be met paddeling among the Islands, in all weathers; Devided into small tribes, they are numerous on all sides of the Island, in every respect they are much superior to the Indians of California, though little has been done to ameliorate their miser-able, savage, condition; In appearance many of them differ little from Europeans, being equally white in the skin, with fair, and frequently even red, hair; At Victoria, two months ago, hundreds of them were to be seen wading through the snow with their bare feet; Among the Females there is a painful and provoking scarcity of petticoats, whilst among the males there is a disgusting lack of continuations; They depend on the Blanket almost entirely for covering; The Blanket is also their circulating medium, everything is valued by the numbers of Blankets.{1}

The Indians supplied an abundance of good foods cheaply, and, for a shilling, young David could purchase a great sack of potatoes, a fine salmon or a basketful of oysters. Game was plentiful and there were venison and fowl in abundance to grace the table of the growing Belasco family. Victorians called the Songhee Indians flatheads because, in accordance with tribal custom, the heads of infants were pressed flat by a board strapped to the forehead. The women, inveterate gum-chewers, carried their infants on their backs by means of a strap passing across the forehead. The dignity of the Songhees’ chief was enhanced by a cast-off naval uniform and officer’s cap, in which he regularly appeared. A familiar figure in Victoria, he prefaced every conversation with the unabashedly can-did observation that he was King Freezey and a very great man.{2}

A smattering of Indian words and phrases was an inevitable adjunct of the informal training of David Belasco and the other youths of Victoria. The record of his formal schooling is obscured somewhat by a wealth of misinformation, for which he, in later life, was largely responsible. His autobiographical Life’s Story," published in Hearst’s Magazine, March 1914 through December 1915, contains a highly romanticized, florid account of his childhood—an account which is filled with inaccuracies and reveals a flagrant disregard of the facts. He recalled going to school to a severe man named Bird. This was undoubtedly W. H. Burr, a schoolmaster of early Victoria, who officiated at the Colonial School. A quick-tempered Irishman, he believed firmly in the efficacy of the cane as an educational expedient. If the boy David escaped his wrath, it was because he was a reticent child and an industrious pupil. For all others Burr appears to have practiced a theory of education by intimidation. Later David attended the Collegiate School, an institution of the Anglican Church, supervised by Reverend C. Ί. Woods. Although Belasco made no mention of this school, his presence there in 1862 is recorded in the published reminiscences of a fellow student and later prominent resident of Victoria.{3}

"It is a matter of sentiment that I have a touch of the priest in my dress, wrote Belasco in 1914. This sentiment reputedly had its origin in his education and training for five years by a venerable Catholic priest of Victoria, one Father McGuire. As Belasco fulsomely recounts this phase of his childhood, the old priest, described as a feeble man of eighty-six years, was charmed by the boy’s proclivity for spinning adventure yarns and spellbinding his youthful companions:

On my way home from school, I would stop with the boys to play marbles or other games which come at special seasons of the year. Sometimes, standing upon a stone, I would recite to a group or tell them of some play I had seen. For even thus early, little David had turned theatrical manager. The inclination on my part to create something began even in these days. I did not merely tell the stories that had been told to me by others, but I built adventure after adventure....I could spout by the hour, and my thrills must have been cumulative, for I seem to see even now the group of spell-bound youngsters listening to me. I am quite sure that this creative impulse in me was the thing that later developed into the dramatist.{4}

It was presumably the thing too that led Father McGuire to ask Belasco père for permission to supervise the education of his talented son. Humphrey Belasco, an orthodox Jew, is reported to have taken very unkindly to the suggestion that his child be tutored by a Roman Catholic priest. Presumably he yielded only after strenuous importunity on the part of his wife and son David, who at the age of eight was apparently eager to leave the bosom of his family and enter upon a monastic existence. Both Belasco and his contemporary biographer, William Winter, attached much importance to this period, although they differed by two and one-half years as to its duration. There’s much of the Catholic in you, Father McGuire is reputed to have said. You are tense and dramatic, sentimental and emotional, like all Catholic believers. David, hearing a nuptial mass intoned in the cathedral, where moments before were voiced the mournful accents of requiem for the dead, was impressed with the drastic contrasts of life. He slept, he said, in a cell, as did the members of the brotherhood, and spent many hours alone in the