To say the least, failure in a foreign country is distressing. Appearing each night before a cold and silent audience as they listened to our effusive, jovial English comedy was a grim affair. We entered and exited from the theatre like fugitives. For six weeks we endured this ignominy. The other performers quarantined us as if we had the plague. When we gathered in the wings to go on, crushed and humiliated, it was as though we were about to be lined up and shot.
Although I felt lonely and rejected, I was thankful to be living alone. At least I had not to share my humiliation with others. During the day I walked interminably through long avenues that seemed to lead to nowhere, interesting myself in visiting zoos, parks, aquariums and museums. Since our failure, New York now seemed too formidable, its buildings too high, its competitive atmosphere overpowering. Those magnificent houses on Fifth Avenue were not homes but monuments of success. Its opulent towering buildings and fashionable shops seemed a ruthless reminder of how inadequate I was.
I took long walks across the city towards the slum district, passing through the park in Madison Square, where derelict old gargoyles sat on benches in a despairing stupor, staring at theirfeet. Then I moved on to Third and Second Avenues. Here poverty was callous, bitter and cynical, a sprawling, yelling, laughing, crying poverty piling around doorways, on fire escapes and spewing about the streets. It was all very depressing and made me want to hurry back to Broadway.
The American is an optimist preoccupied with hustling dreams, an indefatigable tryer. He hopes to make a quick ‘killing’. Hit the jackpot! Get out from under! Sell out! Make the dough and run! Get into another racket! Yet this immoderate attitude began to brighten my spirit. Paradoxically enough, as a result of our failure I began to feel light and unhampered. There were many other opportunities in America. Why should I stick to show business? I was not dedicated to art. Get into another racket! I began to regain confidence. Whatever happened I was determined to stay in America.
As a distraction from failure I wanted to improve my mind and educate myself; so I began browsing around the second-hand bookshops. I bought several text-books – Kellogg’s Rhetoric, an English grammar and a Latin-English dictionary – with a determination to study them. But my resolutions went awry. No sooner had I looked at them than I packed them in the bottom of my trunk and forgot them – and not until our second visit to the States did I look at them again.
On the bill the first week in New York was an act called Gus Edwards’s School Days, composed of children. In this troupe was a rather attractive scallywag who looked small for his sophisticated manner. He had a mania for gambling with cigarette coupons, which could be exchanged at the United Cigar Stores for items from a nickel-plated coffee-pot up to a grand piano; he was ready to shoot dice for them with stage-hands or anyone. He was an extraordinarily fast talker, by the name of Walter Winchell and though he never lost his rapid-fire talk, in later years his accuracy in reporting the truth often misfired.
Although our show was a failure, I personally got very good notices. Sime Silverman of Variety said of me: ‘There was at least one funny Englishman in the troupe and he will do for America.’
By now we had resigned ourselves to pack up and return to England after six weeks. But the third week we played at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, to an audience composed largely of English butlers and valets. To my surprise on the opening Monday night we went over with a bang. They laughed at every joke. Everyone in the company was surprised including myself, for I had expected the usual indifferent reception. In giving a perfunctory performance, I suppose I was relaxed. Consequently I could do no wrong.
During the week an agent saw us and booked us for a twenty-week tour out West on the Sullivan and Considine circuit. It was cheap vaudeville and we had to give three shows a day.
Although on that Sullivan and Considine first tour we were not a roaring success, we passed muster by comparison with the other acts. In those days the Middle West had charm. The tempo was slower, and the atmosphere was romantic; every drug-store and saloon had a dice-throwing desk in the entrance where one gambled for whatever products they sold. On Sunday morning Main Street was a continual hollow sound of rattling dice, which was pleasant and friendly; and many a time I won a dollar’s worth of goods for ten cents.
Living was cheap. At a small hotel one could get a room and board for seven dollars a week, with three meals a day. Food was remarkably cheap. The saloon free-lunch counter was the mainstay of our troupe. For a nickel one could get a glass of beer and the pick of a whole delicatessen counter. There were pigs’ knuckles, sliced ham, potato salad, sardines, macaroni cheese, a variety of sliced sausages, liverwurst, salami and hot dogs. Some of our members took advantage of this and piled up their plates until the barman would intervene: ‘Hey! Where the hell are you tracking with that load – to the Klondike?’
There were fifteen or more in our troupe and yet every member saved at least half of his wages, even after paying his own sleeping berth on the train. My salary was seventy-five dollars a week and fifty of it went regularly and resolutely into the Bank of Manhattan.
The tour took us to the Coast. Travelling
