GREENROOM GOSSIP.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1486, 17 October 1918, Page 27

GREENROOM GOSSIP.

“The Thirteenth Chair” is an O. Henry story dealing with magical spells, and the less knowledge one has concerning what is about to happen the more will one appreciate what does happen. * * W * ' Every song that Miss Daisy Harcourt (a Fuller favourite in Australia) sings is her own exclusive property, paid for with her own money, and not published till she has worn the note off it, so to speak. She has an abundance of new material, a great deal of if specially written by Frank King, himself an Australian, who, with headquarters in New York, has become one of the most sought popular song writers of the day. — -r- * The play that grips you from start to finish, the play that makes even the hard-headed business man stay awake all night after witnessing it — is “The Thirteenth Chair.” Aided by the wonderful acting of Margaret Wycherly, splendidly supported by Brinsley Shaw, lan MacLaren, Gaston Mervale, Sydney Stirling, Lizotte Parkes, Ethel Morrison, Nancye Stewart, Eileen Robinson, Tien Hogue and the other members, the play is such a success that no one is likely to miss it. * * * * Francis X. Bushman, who was divorced last week by Mrs. Josephine H. Bushman, was married on Monday to Beverly Bayne, who played Juliet to his Romeo in the moving picture production of that play (says a Baltimore message of July 31). They are now spending their honeymoon at Bushman Manor, at Riderwood, in the Green Spring Valley, Maryland, which was vacated by the first Mrs. Bushman three weeks ago. The first wife is living in Mt. Washington, where she is likely to meet the Romeo and Juliet of the moving picture world at any time as they motor over the roads of Baltimore County. The ceremony by which the moving picture stars revised the climax of “Romeo and Juliet” as Shakespeare wrote it, is said to have taken place in New York. The first Mrs. Bushman was called on the ’phone. “Yes, I have heard that they are married and that they are at Bushman Manor,” she said. “Is there any comment you care to make?” she was asked. “The incident is too small for comment, but I do think they should have waited until the pen was dry,” she answered. Mr. Bushman’s second wife is 23 years old and 10 years his junior. The divorce decree granted the first Mrs. Bushman £BOOO alimony. *** ' * I am old enough to recall Sir George Alexander in the hey-day of his triumph, when he gave us in piece after piece at the St. James’ the finished impersonation of the courtly and gallant type that he made his own, says a writer in the “Daily Mail.” He was the ideal hero of the matinee girl. But to me Sir George Alexander, in spite of his brilliant success as a player, always seemed as a man who had missed his vocation. He hungered not after stage honours, but after political life, and one found him in his hours of leisure working away at affairs of county councils or of Imperial politics. I have sat next to him during big Foreign Office Conferences, and have found him one of the most intent and alert of all the group. He hoped to get to Parliament and to make his mark there, and had he been able, younger in life, to break away from the stage, he doubtless would have done so. He will be long remembered as a gentle, cultured, courteous and charming personality. It can hardly be claimed for him that he stood in the rank of the Irvings and the Marceadys, but he was a sound and eminently successful actor-manager. He will be remembered, too, for his enterprise, successful enterprise, be it added, in encouraging and producing British .drama. He paid close attention to the stage on the Continent — when I was a lad he once advised me about various French plays which I should study —but he was never afraid to venture his fortune on the British playwright, and he brought many of our most brilliant writers to the front by his enterprise.