Somewhere in Time Read Online Free PDF

a photograph of her playing Juliet with William Faversham. I bet she was good.
    � � �
    The Little Minister again. Since it opened in New York City in September 1896, it must have been a tryout here.
    My God, what a torrent of hair! It looks light in color, not blonde but not auburn either. She has a robe across her shoulders and she's looking at the camera; at me.
    Those eyes.
    � � �
    Third book: Paul O'Neil: Broadway.
    It speaks about her manager, William Fawcett Robinson.
    She fit his standards perfectly, it says; his conception (and the era's) of what an actress should, ideally, be. Preceding the adulation of movie stars by decades, she "was the first actress to create a mystique in the public's eye-never seen in public, never quoted by the press, apparently without an offstage life, the absolute quintessence of seclusion.
    Robinson approved of that, says O'Neil. They'd had friction up till 1897, but, from that year on, she was devoted to her work, sublimating every aspect of her life to stagecraft. O'Neil says she had a magic quality as an actress. Even in her late thirties, she could play a girl or elfin boy. Her charm, said the critics, was "ethereal, lambent, lucent." O'Neil adds, "These qualities do not always reveal themselves in her photographs." Amen to that.
    "Beneath this ingenuous surface, however, was a disciplined performer, especially after 1897 when she first began to dedicate herself exclusively to her work."
    She had no natural genius for the stage, however, O'Neil notes. In her early years, her performing was something of a failure. After Robinson became her manager, she worked at it, becoming quite successful; the public coming to adore her, though the critics regarded her as "admittedly charming but lacking in depth."
    Then came 1897 and the critics as well as the public enveloping her in what O'Neil describes as "an endless embrace."
    Barrie adapted his novel The Little Minister for her. Later, he wrote Quality Street for her, then Peter Pan, then What Every Woman Knows, then A Kiss for Cinderella. Peter Pan was her greatest triumph (though not her favorite; that was The Little Minister). "I never witnessed such emotional adulation in the theatre," one critic wrote. "It was hysterical. Her devotees pelted the stage with flowers." In response to which, O'Neil adds, she made the same brief, breathless curtain speech she was always known to speak. "I thank you. I thank you-for us all. Goodnight."
    Despite her great success, her private life remained a mystery. Her few intimate friends were people outside the profession. One of her fellow actresses is quoted as saying, "For many years, she was perfectly charming and gay. Then, in 1897, she began to be the original 'I want to be alone' woman."
    I wonder why.
    Another quote; the actor Nat Goodwin. "Elise McKenna is a household word. She stands for all that represents true and virtuous womanhood. At the zenith of her fame, she has woven her own mantle and placed it above the pedestal on which she stands alone. And yet, as I looked into those fawnlike eyes, I wondered. I noted little furrows in that piquant face and sharp vertical lines between her brows. Her skin, to me, seemed dry, her gestures tense, her speech jerky. I felt like taking one of those artistic hands in mine and saying, 'Little woman, I fear you are unconsciously missing the greatest thing in life-romance.' "
    � � �
    What do I know about her so far? Beyond the fact that I'm in love with her, I mean.
    That, up until 1897, she was outgoing, successful, proficient at acting, and fought with her manager.
    That, after 1897, she became: one, a recluse; two, a total star; and, three, her manager's conception of a total star.
    The transition play, if it can be called that, was The Little Minister, the one she tried out in this hotel approximately a year before it opened in New York.
    What happened during that year?
    � � �
    A brief selection from the final book: volume two of The