BELASCO'S CAREER

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 151, 29 June 1931, Page 8

BELASCO'S CAREER

( ■__;—,—^ , WIZARI) OF THEATRE

"EGRN IN THE BLOOD"

(Fron "Tho Post's" Representative.) NEW YORK, 27th May. With the main incidents of tho Hi f the late David Bolasco, "the wisiai f the American thoatro" —his writin f 200 plays, many of them great bui esses, and his management of a ion ne of theatrical stars, from Mrs. Lesl larter to Lenoro Ulric —most lovers < he theatre are familiar. In his privnl ife were many little incidents thi how tho. capacity of the man most ri pousible for the transformation i tmorican drama from the molodrani f tho '80' ato a flowering in moi übtlo form. Like Sir Arthur Pinero, Bolasco wt f X'ortugucao origin. His ancestoi .-ere forcod to quit their homelan .•hen tho Moors swarmed1 into" it, The ought a haven in England, whence tl immediate forebear's of David set oi or Vancouver. Hero tho father of U uturo dean of the American thoati , ras a harlequin. Some aScounts of tl athor, Humphrey Abraham Belasc avo it that he was once elected May< f Vancouver. This impression is erro" ous. Reverses eamo, and the harl uin moved southward to San Francisc h 1552. In tho height of the goldrus over, tho glittering, sprawling, live' 'an Francisco of those days, tho pr ,ucor was born in a cellar on 251 uly, 1854. ■ BENT FOB. THE THEATRE. Very early in life David Belasuo sho-s d a fondnes for tho theatre. When h ather moved to Victoria, 8.C., Day: ilayed juvenile parts in the Victor theatre. When Charles Kean produce 'Richard III.?' there, 11-year-o' )avid filled the role of the little Dul f York. He even wrote a play, "Ji Slack, or the Regulator's Revenge, tot long after the family had aga: ■tovod to San Francisco. Before h amily left Canada for the second tim )?vvid spent several years in a Roms! Jstholia monastery on' Vancouver I and. He is said to have loft tho mo atory when a circus played noar b; nd it was a reported boast of Belsseo hat ha was the first boy ever to jira hrough a hoop of fire on horseback. In San Francisco, in his adolescenc o sold papers, scrubbed floors, roame he streets at-night, recited molodr latio verses and "shockers" of his cfw omposition in low waterfront dive nd "investigated tho worst and mo onsational quarters and happenings < ian Francisco" during eight years i omaOJe Roheminnism. By oontrast, when he becamo famou c had in his studio a enrved oak tab rhich stood in the sixteenth century': he Palaee-of the Colonnas at Rome. I urfa.ee boro tho marks of the meat ax 'ho chair in which he sat was fashio: d'from aipew of tho church in whi< !hake,speare was buried at Stratfori n^Avofl.. His waste-paper baskqt wj iart of .a drum to whose boats Pru ian troops marched to the siege < 'aria in ISVO, More than a hundred r ios of Napoloon were strewed aboi he seven rooms Belasco ocenpied aboi is theatre, Uis library was said i aye been one of the most comply ramatie libraries in the world. THE ACTUAL IN STAGING. Belasco rode many hobbies. Ho was tickler for actuality in his "props, f an actor were to appear as com.ii: n the stage from a stairway, Belas< uilt the stairway complete, rcgardlo: f whether the audionee could see i le believed a complete stairway hel; d the actor get the spirit of his c] ranee. In "The Return of Pet< rriuim." there, was supposedly a hart uUnral garden off-stago, Belasco, place undreds of real fruit trees and bull v the marked, spot. 'Although no qi ut in .the front could read them, he ha ags on ea,cb plant and tree, with tl awes written in Dutch to please an o! >utch pvqfessor whom he called -in 1 Sentify each.'plant. In his "Concert he letters that were used were genuii opies of Mozart and other famous coji icaera, although no. one in the audieni rould have known if tliey had bee hose of a piano tuner.