MATINEE IDOLS OF YESTERYEAR

Evening Star, Issue 19388, 23 October 1926, Page 15

MATINEE IDOLS OF YESTERYEAR

WIOE AGED STARS RECALL THEIR TRIUMPHS The Gaiety girls who frolicked before our grandfathers, the old tragedians of the Irving tradition—nobody hoars about them now. The curtain has rung down upon them for the last time, and the rest is silence. What queer quips lias Eate played upon old favorites behind the scenes of retirement? How many have’ left the stage only to play in real life a greater tragedy than ever they played on tho boards ? For a few hours this week (writes a ‘ Sunday Chronicle ’ representative) the curtain rang up for mo again, and old actors and actresses, favorites of long ago, took tho stage. Denvillo Hall, Northwood, the home for aged veterans of tho theatrical profession, which has just been opened by the Princess Royal, was tho scene of their “ come-back.” MIGHT HAVE BEEN A PEERESS. Twenty-0110 old “ stagers,” seven of them women, are already in residence there—-“real actors and actresses,” states the prospectus, “who before their needy age have been actual workers, not merely ‘ loafers,’ ‘ spongers,’ and ‘ car biters.’ ” Spending the autumn of her days crocheting and reading is a former beautiful Gaiety girl who once had half the youth of London at her feet. Gilded adorers with titles showered costly presents upon her, and one word would have raised her to the peerage. But tho word was never spoken, and she sits now in tho drawing room of tho Hall, a lonely old woman, fretting herself with memories. A bearded old man, half blind now, was ouco tho Owen Nares of his day. Another guest was one of _ tho most popular theatrical managers in the provinces. And a pale, rather wistful old lady who spends most of her time in tho garden was in tho workhouse at Chester until friends discovered her plight. STILL “DEAR LADDIE.”-

Though ono or two are over eighty, and it is a quarter of a century since the majority vanished from the_ footlights, tiie glamor of the stage still enfolds this peaceful paradise of fallen stars. , , They “ dear laddie ” each other exactly as they did in tho days when they used to slip round between the acts for the “ odd one.” _ And they act their lives rather than live them, each gesture an echo of the past. Ensconced behind a newspaper in the lounge, a skull cap on his head, and wearing smoke-tinted spectacles, I found the man who wrote theplay from which the famous sketch, ‘ Humanity was adapted—Mr Arthur Denville. Best known to the public as a burlesque comedian and dame in pantomime, bo was taken ill two years ago while playing at Manchester, Rest and quiet have restored his health, but he will never go back to tho boards agmin. “I miss the old days terribly,” he told me,. wistfully. “Many’s the time J. wish I could be before the footlights again. But it’s no use; I’m an old crock now ,and I’ve got to make the host of it. “ I started my stage career q£ the age of tine by playing boy parts with Charles Dillon. That was _ fifty-three years ago, so 1 can well claim to be a veteran. “ Few people are aware that I am the author of ‘Humanity.’ I wrote it as a play, and long before John Lawson starred in it I played the sketch myself. More than once the staircase came right down on top of me, and I’ve got a mark on my head to-day where I was struck by a chunk of wood,”

MAUD ANDREWS’S TRAGEDY. Enjoying tho sunshine streaming iu through the French windows of the draiying room,_ I found au eldelry woman with a jolly round face framed in a mass of auburn hair that oven now has not a single grey strand in it. Time has dealt gently with Mrs Maud Andrews, tho former Gaiety queen. Though it is over thirty years ago since sho thrilled London with her beauty and dancing, her smile is still dazzling, her lips full, and her eyes sparkling. Hers is a tragic story of a romance marred by death. “In the old Gaiety days,” she told mo, “ I was tho toast of the town. Earls, marquises—the very cream of the nobility, in fact, flocked to my dressing room night after'night. “ Bouquets and .presents were showered upon me, I could have had a coronet for tho asking, hut I turned down every offer to marry an officer in tho Black Watch. “ It was a case of love at first sight., and wo were wonderfully happy. But our dream days wero eonm to_ end. A few weeks later the South African \i ar broke out, and ray husband was ordered to the front. Soon afterwards ho was killed. ...” A tear coursed down tho face of the old actress. “It was a terrible blow,” sho added, brokenly. “It just crumpled mo up. I never recovered from it.’ The famous old, full-blooded melodrama, ‘The Grip of Iron,’ or ‘lho Stranglers of Paris/ has long passed into the limbo of forgotten years. And with it has faded the fame of the man whose acting in the star part as Simonot made him a national figure. ACTORS’ PARADISE. Mr Fred Powell—“. The Strangler is one of the picturesque figures of the home. Tall, with a powerful spread of chest and massive shoulders, ho looks fit enough to piny his old exacting part for another twenty years. “There was a tradition,” he told mo, “ that the role was so exacting and terrible that the original exponent went mad. I believe it was only a legend, but it speaks volumes for the sort of part Simonet was. “ I ployed it for eighteen years, and I don’t think I’m ripe for the madhouse yet ” “Do I miss tho stage now?” Mr Powell looked wistful. “I mourn it as much as a father mourns a lost child,” he sad sadly. “ If there is a paradise for old actors let us hope it takes the form of a theatre where they can live again the triumphs of their youth.” Even old Francis Melrose, another guest, who is eighty, and half-blind from playing for the movies, sighs for the days when he was a matinee idol and the adored of every impressionable flapper.