ESCAPE FROM HATRY

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 November 1930, Page 8

ESCAPE FROM HATRY

SEYMOUR HICKS’ STORY. It will be news to most of the countless admirers of Seymour Hicks, the actor, to hear that only a few years ago he nearly became a city magnate with a vast income, and in association with Clarence Hatry. Seymour Hicks makes this interesting revelation in his book, “Between Ourselves,” published a few weeks ago. It was 12 years ago, just before Hatry’s Commercial Bank and Glass Industries crash, that he was nearly persuaded to leave the stage and join Hatry in the city. “My guaranteed minimum income was to have been

£30,000 a year,” he says, “and £40,000 was to have been deposited in my bank by Hatry as security.” Before accepting the offer, Seymour Hicks sought the advice of the late Mr H. V. Higgins, the solicitor, whose comment when informed of Hatry’s elaborate establishment, was: "That seems to me to prove beyond a doubt that he has taken a single ticket for Carey Street.” “However,” says the actor, “the solicitor met Hatry, and after much discussion as to what my duties were to ‘be —it being specially stipulated that I was to have nothing to do with share transactions of any kind —even the objections of the doubting solicitor were overcome by one of the most persuasive men I have ever met and he advised me to accept the offer.

“I had four months to wait before joining the Hatry group,” adds Seymour Hicks laconically, “and during that time Hatry went smash, so I did not.”

This book is crammed with good stories told in Seymour Hicks' inimitable way. Ho first went on the stage—the fact is difficult to believe—in 1887, and since that time he seems to have met everybody of interest. He tells stories of eminent stage folk, of royalty, of Bohemians, of legal lights—even of criminals. Many great wits figure in these

pages. Wilde is one ( of them and Seymour Hicks writes' of that unfortunate genius with compassion. Who can' forget, he writes, his answer to the gushinug bore of a lady, who, after five minutes’ continual talk with Wilde, staring rather blankly at her, said, “but Mr Wilde, I don’t think you remember me. lam Mrs Smith.” “Of course you are,” said Wilde. “How delightful it must be for you to be Mrs Smith. How stupid of me. I always remember your name, but I can never think of your face.” There is a good story about that brilliant and wayward poet and journalist, T. W. H. Crosland. Mar-

garet Cooper once asked him to lunch to persuade him to write some lyrics for her. “What ebout terms?” said Crosland, who, was really, hard up at the time. “Well,” said Miss Cooper, “for the first lyric I thought five guineas—you see, Mr Crosland, : though you are a great poet I am not certain that my public might not find 1 your w’ork above them —and then a J larger sum if the songs are a, hit.” 1 “Five guineas?” said Crosland. 5 “Why, I can borrow that!” £