MR. OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14835, 11 November 1911, Page 5 (Supplement)

MR. OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN.

ROMANTIC STORY OF HIS CAREER.

•Theatrical wiseacres shook their heads and. prophesied failure when Mr.' Oscar Hammer stein, probably the most famous impresario in the world, and director, ■among other things, of the Manhattan Opera House in New York, which he built unaided at the cost of £300,000, announced his intention, of providing - London with a new opera house. Mr. Hammerstein has carried out his intention. In Kingsway, on a site which almost overlooks the famous Lyceum Theatre, where Sir Henry Irving and Miss Ellen Terry achieved so many triumphs, he has erected a magnificent opera house at his own expense, and awaits the result with serenity. And that man is Mr. Hammerstein. He lost £800 a night at the opening ,of the Manhattan Opera House in New York, but conquered in the end; and he is quite determined that "in ispite of what the croakers say, he will make the London Opera House a popular and successful venture." Mr. Hammerstein has had an eventful career. " I made my first money," he told an interviewer recently," in a cigar > factory, after running away from home. It was like this.' ,: I was born and brought up in Berlin, and when I was fifteen, certain parental restrictions caused mo to sell my violin, with which it was a pang to part, for £7, and. say good-bye to the home of my childhood days. I proceeded to Liverpool, and there I went on board the old sailing ship Isaac Webb, and took passage for America. " The voyage lasted three months, and when I arrived I had only 10s in my pocket. Next day I started looking for work, found there was an opening for boys to learn the cigar-maker's trade, was taken on at a wage of 10s a week, and thought 1 was on my way to fortune.

My First Invention. " I was always of an inventive turn of mind, however, and set to work to invent a machine for making cigars, thus doing away with much of the hand labour. A shrewd Yankee' paid me £1000 for it, and it turned out/for him ££' perfect gold-mine. I went on ; inventir'T, and it was not long before I turned ou one of my best machines stripping machine. It has always been a problem how to strip the stems from touacco, on account of the fact' that knives soon' became dull against the grit in the' stems arid leaves. No happy solution of the problem was arrived at until I made a machine that- ii6ed saws instead of; knives for the stripping. .My machine would strip the -leaves, count them into bunches of fifty, and lay them aside, and the invention brought me in close upon. £50,1000."

—Theatre Building. These, however, are ' but two of many inventions for the cigar trade which Mr. Hammerstein has to his credit. In fact, ho has over eighty patents, and he made the interesting confession that, when he grows . weary of theatrical worries, he often shuts himself up in his workshop, and, as a relaxation, goes on inventing more things for the cigar trade. ''Many people have wondered, Mr. Hammerstein," remarked the interviewer, "why, having made so much money from your inventions, you should pursue such an expensive hobby as designing arid building theatres and running opera companies." t , • " Well, you see," he replied, with one of those witty remarks which are so characteristic of the man, the tobacco business is prose, running opera companies is poetry. I have always had a passion for the theatre. " As soon as I commenced to save money in the tobacco business I utilised it for some theatrical venture. Very risky ? Yes, I know it is. Some sixteen or seventeen years ago, for instance, I built a palatial opera house near Broadway, intended for opera and magnificent ballets. Although I spent huge sums upon it, it was not a success; so I next turned it into a home for drama, and Mrs. Bernard Beere was the ' star.' Still it was not a financial success, so the theatre was then turned into a music-hall, with the almost immediate result that the bookingoffice was besieged nightly."