A Spectacle of Suffering: Clara Morris on the American Stage

Notes

271 Notes Abbreviations Frequently cited collections are indicated by the following abbreviations. BRTC Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center Diaries Clara Morris Harriott’s diaries, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University HTC Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library LSC Laurence Senelick Collection RLC Robinson Locke Collection, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center Preface: A Tale of Two Cemeteries 1. The grave contains the remains of Clara Morris Harriott and her mother, Sarah Jane Proctor Morrison. Introduction: A Strange Human Cryptogram 1. Variety, 15 November 1925. 2. New York Times, 21 November 1925. 3. New York World (no date), Clipping Files, Clara Morris, HTC. Nym Crinkle is one of the pseudonyms of Andrew Carpenter Wheeler (1835–1903), who also wrote as J. P. Mowbray, J. P. M., and Trinculo. Albert E. Johnson and W. H. Crain Jr., “A Dictionary of American Drama Critics, 1850–1910,” Theatre Annual 13 (1955): 87. 4. Linda Wagner-Martin, Telling Women’s Lives: The New Biography (New Brunswick , NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 5. 5. Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Writing a Woman’s Life (New York: Ballantine, 1988), 82. 6. George T. MacAdam, a New York Times reporter for ten years, purchased Morris’s diaries and assorted papers after her death. His own came four years later on 28 November 1929 at age fifty-three. His widow, Virginia Root MacAdam, donated the diaries to Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library in October 1969. In 1997, my colleague, Professor Laurence Senelick, acquired MacAdam’s research notes and some of the Morris material, all now part of the Laurence Senelick Collection (LSC). 7. Mildred Langford Howard, “The Acting of Clara Morris” (PhD diss., University of Illinois, 1956). 8. Diaries, vol. 3 (1867–68). Volumes 1 and 2 include Spanish phrases, instructions for various card games, recipes, and lists of plays and books but no daily entries. 9. Albert M. Palmer, “Far from the Madding Crowd,” History of the Union Square Theatre, MSThr173 (no publisher, no date), HTC, 105. 10. Clara Morris, The Life of a Star (New York: McClure, Phillips, 1906), 329–42. 11. Mary O’Connor Newell, “The Clara Morris of Yesterday,” unidentified Chicago newspaper, 5 June 1910, vol. 3, Clara Morris Scrapbooks, vol. 353, RLC. 1. That Fair Peak of Triumph 1. In Life on the Stage: My Personal Experiences and Recollections (New York: McClure , Phillips, 1901), Morris refers to the play as L’Article 47. Most reviewers, however, drop the article and call it either Article 47 or Article Forty-seven. 2. New York Herald, 14 September 1870, quoted in Howard, “Acting of Clara Morris ,” 53. 3. Joseph F. Daly, The Life of Augustin Daly (New York: Macmillan, 1917), 110. 4. Morris, Life on the Stage, 334–40. 5. New York Times, 4 April 1872. 6. Spirit of the Times, 13 April 1872, quoted in Howard, “Acting of Clara Morris,” 63. 7. Morris, Life on the Stage, 342–43; New York Times, 4 April 1872. 8. Brander Matthews, Rip Van Winkle Goes to the Play (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1926), 186–87; George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage, 15 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1927–49), 9:152; Clinton Stuart, quoted in Brander Matthews and Laurence Hutton, eds., Edwin Booth and His Contemporaries (Boston: Page, 1900), 217–18. 9. Diaries, vol. 5 (1872), 15 May, 15 June 1872. 10. Odell, Annals, 9:261. 11. Morris, Life on the Stage, 349–51. 12. Diaries, vol. 6 (1873), 1 January 1873. 13. Edward A. Dithmar, Memories of Daly’s Theatres (New York: privately printed for Augustin Daly, 1897), 69. 14. J. F. Daly, Life of Augustin Daly, 117; New York Times, 22 January 1873. 15. Morris, Life on the Stage, 357. 16. Ibid., 358. 17. Ibid., 363; Stuart, quoted in Matthews and Hutton, Edwin Booth, 219. 18. Diaries, vol. 6 (1873), 21, 22 January 1873. 19. New York Times, 22 January 1873; New York Tribune, quoted in Matthews and Hutton, Edwin Booth, 227–28; Spirit of the Times, 25 January 1873 and New York Herald, 22 January 1873, quoted in Howard, “Acting of Clara Morris,” 67. 20. Morris, Life on the Stage, 344. 21. Palmer, History, 47 (see intro., n, 9). 2. The Making of an Emotional Actress 1. Diaries, vol. 32 (1900), 17 March 1900. Even obituaries give conflicting accounts. Some cite 1846, others 1847 or 1848 as her birth year. Morris compounded...