STALLS GOSSIP.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 September 1915, Page 11

STALLS GOSSIP.

MUSIC, MIMES AND MOVIES. Greater New York now has .200 theatres, 961 moving picture houses, with a combined seating capacity of 712,584, and 791 dance halls, with total accoimraodation for 164,058 persons.

"The Birth of a Nation," a wonderful Griffiths film, has run five months at top theatrical prices in New York and is still going strong. * * * *

Charles Frohman's personal estate has been proved at £70,000, but this docs uot include the value of the real estate he owned. Justus Miles Forman, who was also drowned in the Lusitania disaster, left £2400.

iMlfis Muriel Starr finishes her engagement with J. C. Williamson, Ltd., on November 12, after a season in Adelaide. She returns to America, but next year goes to South Africa for a further spell under J.O.W.

Sir Jathes Barrie, Miss Edna May and Miss PauMnge Chase are planning a mein. orial to Chariest Frohnian in the shap» of a drinking fountain in the railage of Marlowe-on-tlie-'l'hames, which ; was & favorite place of Frohman's.

Miss Geraldine Farrar, an American opera artist, has been captured by the motion pictures and is being paid £7OOO for eight Weeks' work. It has been estimated that in actual working time she is paid 8s 4d per minute! 'No wonder these 'people drift into the moving pictures now and again. .** * * .

, Harry Lauder has several new Bongs which will be heard in America shortly, the most popular of which are "Bonny Maggy Tamson," "I Love My Jean," and "My Bonnie, Bonnie Jean." Mr. Laudet expects to make his eighth Americau tour, landing in New York on November IS, under his Old manager, William Morris.

"I have no desire to be a lady Charlie Oliaplin." This was the reply of Billie Burke recently, when approached -with an offer of a lucrative position With a motion picture concern. 'I have bigger things in view," said Mfss Burke, "than to appear in 'canned drama,' and I have no intention to cuter either the picture field or musical comedy." * * # *

The big film of "The Spoilers'' is POOOft long. When it is shown in the Dominion it will take nearly two and a half hours to unwind. Rex Beach, the author, personally assisted in the filming, and it is partly to his Suggestions that many parts that might have been deleted owing to extreme length were allowed to remain in. The picture will he seen here shortly.

Company have been busy ou some very.Wg screen plays, amongst which are "The Eagles' Nest," in six parts. Edwin Arden and Romain Fielding are big factors in the success of the play, and the scenic effects are said to be out of the ordinary. Another big production of the Lnbin Company which will be released in America shortly is "The Sporting Duchess.'' This is the same play that Mr. Bland Halt plaved through New Zealand soine years ago Under the title of "The Derby Winner.''

Singers' salaries, wlien they attain stellar rank, are colossal. Patti received as much as £IOOO a performance, and made a fortune estimated at close «* £1,000,000 sterling; Melba has received as much as £BOO a night, and made no leas than £32,000 in four months; Mary Garden makes as much as £20,000 in one season; and: Mine. Schumann-Heink recently placed her season's earning capacity at £40,000.

A serio-comic in an Australian vaudeville show has earned the enthusiastic disapproval of her audiences by virtue of a voice like the tearing of tin, a portfolio of mouldy jests, a,nd an appearance so thin that it was almost a disappearance. The other night a penny was thrown at her from the gallery. She picked up the coin and continued her turn. Then came a disgusted voice from aloft: "Will you go if I make it tubpence f" r

Maine Dressier, rated as the funniest comedienne alive, is suing the Keystone Company to get an accounting, and Incidentally £4OOO in cash, which it is claimed « one-half of the net 'profits of Tilhes Punctured Romance." Miss dressier claims that iher contract was to the effect that her -Husband was to „^n. t , he £ andllD S ° f all the releases of Tillies Punctured Romance," and his salai-y, combined with her percentage of profits on the film, which was set out in a contract, when she consented to appeal m photo-plays, amounts to 50 per cent of the net profits. The case is set down tor trial this month.

Mr. Carlyle Smythe, writing from the Lecture .Agency, Outer Temple, London, under date July 2, to the Sydney Morning Herald, makes the interesting announcement that he has engaged' Fred Villiers "to go to Australia direct from the front next April to tell and illustrate wnat this appalling war is like." The famous correspondent above-named was introduced to Australia by R. g. Smvthe at he Sydney Criterion Theatre in 1395 in 'War on a White Sheet." He described Ins personal experiences in the RusKO-lurkKsb. war, in the bombardment of Alexandria, and in the journev up the Nile with General Lord Wolseiey, and exhibited enlarged reproductions of some of hi ß many vivid drawings for the London Graphic

Ohar es Ohaplm, the star film man, is o parentage. He i stlie son of Imrles Chaphn, a singer of descriptive -ballads, and of Miss Lillie Tlarley, who .'-fang chapter songs." u o fh were in vaudev.Je, but as the youKiful Chaplin car, remember poverty as the principal ingredient of those days, it would seem that ),-« parents were not drawing particularly l„ g -h s , a i arieq . lle WM b £ r » , France on April 16, ISB3, and commenced his stage career at Hie age of six when he had to take his mother's place and sing a coster song rolled "Jack Jones. About this time Charles Chaplin the elder died, and both of the son. Charles and ,Syd, went to a poorhouse. His mother was a highly-educated woman, and the future filni-eomcdian obtained most of his scho'astiv. knowledge from her. Charles Chaplin gravitated to the stage, and eventually made a great hit in vaudeviUe i„ America, He wis drawing £lg per week when the Keystone Company offered him £35 per .week, For. a, long time he hesitated, but