MAUDE ADAMS, A SHINING LIGHT

By T.M. Bradshaw

The Catskill Mountain Foundation’s theater program, the “Maude Adams Theater Hub” piqued my curiosity to learn more about Maude Adams. Because of the connection to the Catskills I had assumed Maude was a local sensation, but learned instead that her reputation was worldwide.

Born in Salt Lake City in 1872 when Utah was still a territory, Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden made her theatrical debut at two months at the Salt Lake City Brigham Young Theater in The Lost Baby. Obviously, that appearance and another in her mother’s arms at nine months were not choices she made for herself, but she continued her involvement in theater—acting, set and lighting design, and teaching drama—throughout her lifetime. She made her Broadway debut at sixteen in The Paymaster

Ten more Broadway plays quickly followed, most under contract to producer Charles Frohman. Frohman had been try- ing to convince author J. M. Barrie to adapt his book The Little Minister into a play, but Barrie was reluctant, unsure there was an actress suited to playing the female lead. Then, in 1896, Barrie saw Adams in Rosemary, That’s for Remembrance, the last of that initial series of Adams’s early Broadway work. He decided she was exactly right to play Lady Babbie. The Broadway production of The Little Minister set box office records, with most performances standing room only.

Adams starred in other Barrie plays, including Quality Street, The Pretty Sister of Jose, Peter Pan; or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, What Every Woman Knows, The Legend of Leonora, and A Kiss for Cinderella. Sarah Bernhardt sent flowers for the opening of Cinderella. The critic for the Evening World called Cinderella “a rather poor play” in his December 26, 1916, review, but said, “Miss Adams was as quaintly endearing as ever. Her wistful smile https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27546734 worked its old spell.” And apparently the general public felt much the same. An item in the April 22, 1917, Albany Argus noted that her performance had inspired numerous poems, quoting one by Thomas S. Jones, Jr. that had originally appeared in the New York Times.

To Maude Adams

There is one debt that I can never pay. Though all my words would speak their praise of you. Yet they can only fail in what they say— For you have made such perfect dreams come true.

You are like music, and the thoughts you bring Are of glad things that never can grow old. Joy and brave laughter, and the skies of Spring— And these still leave your loveliness untold.

For you are youth, and all that youth may be!

So shall I ever find you through the years. And always will you have these gifts for me— The joy and laughter that are won from tears. And as the Spring, your name shall testify Of winds and sunlight and the April sky!

Adams played the role of Napoleon’s son, the Duke of Reichstadt in L’Aiglon (The Eaglet), a play by Edmond Rostand, author of Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand had written it for Sarah Bernhardt to perform at a Paris Exposition. Louis N. Parker then translated it into English and that version debuted at the Knickerbocker Theater. The October 23, 1900 New York Times review of the show stated:

Unless an inspired boy could have been found for the character of the young Duke of Reichstadt, (and inspired boys are rare in every epoch,) certainly no more fit selection could have been made.

… Miss Adams has many and rare artistic traits that have lately put her fairly in the front rank of the younger English-speaking actresses.

She looks the scion of the Bonaparte-Hapsburg union to the life. One never thinks of her as a woman from the beginning of the play to its last sad scene. In every pictorial and superficial attribute her portrayal is flawless. Not a gesture or a pose is out of place or awkward.

May Blayney and Maude Adams in “Chantecler” Bain News Service, Publisher. [No Date Recorded on Caption Card] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .

Adams played the lead in another play by Rostand, another male role, the eponymous Chantecler, the rooster who believed his crowing caused the sun to rise.

It was through L’Aiglon that another long term friendship and professional collaboration developed. The American artist John White Alexander painted a full length portrait of Adams in the title role of the Duke. He would go on to paint her as Peter Pan and as herself. Alexander’s wife, Elizabeth Alexander, created costumes for Adams, including Peter Pan’s, based on design ideas sketched by her husband. The round collar from that costume graced women’s blouses for decades, the Peter Pan collar. A February 26, 1911 New York Times article described in depth a new way to create stage sets devised by John Alexander, Adams, and J. Munroe Hewlett that used layers of painted gauze, black velvet, and special lighting. It was light, portable, and easy to change during a performance. The scenery for Chantecler utilized the new methods. Adams and the Alexanders were Catskills neighbors.

Adams worked on innovative lighting throughout her career. After receiving an honorary degree from Union College, she moved to Schenectady in 1921 to work with General Electric conducting lighting experiments. She developed a bulb used in color photography, but didn’t patent it. She is listed as the inventor, along with several other people, on three lighting patents from 1931.

Adams donated the oil paintings, “Miss Maude Adams as ‘L’Aiglon,’” (1900) “Miss Maude Adams as ‘Peter Pan,’” (1905) and “Portrait of Miss Maude Adams” (1911–12) to the Salt Lake Art Center in 1933. “L’Aiglon” is now in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City.

Theatrical producer Charles Frohman distributed to his patrons a 1902 calendar showing multiple images of Maude, including a reproduction of Alexander’s full-length portrait, “L’Aiglon.”

Frohman had a number of stars under contract. A March 9, 1904, item in the Delaware Gazette illustrates Maude’s rank within that firmament:

Salaries in Stageland.

Annie Russell has a salary of $500 a week and a small share in the profits.

Ethel Barrymore, who during her first years as a star acted for Mr. Frohman for only $80 a week, now has a salary of $300 and a small percentage.

Maude Adams has probably never cleared less than $50,000 a year since her first season in “The Little Minister.” By her contract with Charles Frohman she gets a fixed salary of $500 a week and about 50 percent of the profits. And any other manager would be glad to take the contract off Mr. Frohman’s hands.

Adams wrote an autobiographical essay in the third person, “The One I Knew Least of All,” that appeared as a multi-part series in 1926 and 1927 in the Ladies’ Home Journal detailing events in her career and her collaboration with the Alexanders. The title reflected her contention that she herself was the one she knew least, having lost herself among the many parts she played. Another of her articles appeared in the Ladies Home Journal in 1927, “‘Thumbs Up’ for Joy and Adventure.”

In 1937, she began teaching drama at Stephens College in Missouri. She taught using her own unpublished textbooks, The First Steps in Speaking Verse, The Spoken Word, and A Pamphlet on English Speech and English Verse. Copies of those and her other writings are in the Maude Adams Collection at the Library of Congress.

She had spent time secluded in a convent in France in 1901 and later found a similar refuge in New York City, the Cenacle Convent. Starting in 1915, she’d often spend time there, away from public clamor. She gifted the convent with her Ronkonkoma, Long Island estate in 1922 and her Catskills estate in 1949. She had purchased both in 1900 and had divided her time between them. When she died in 1953 she was buried on her former Long Island estate next to Louise Boynton, who had been her companion from 1905 until Boynton’s death in 1951.

One test of celebrity is if a person’s name alone triggers recognition outside of the context for which they are famous. The Delaware County Dairyman of January 12, 1906, ran a fairly lengthy front page article encouraging farmers to plant trees on land not suited for other crops. The intent was to keep up with the needs of the railroads without having to resort to clear-cutting forests. One paragraph in it starts “Maude Adams is credited by the daily press with a deeper insight into the needs of the future than the railroad presidents, for she is stated to have planted upon her Long Island property a hundred thousand locust trees which will make the very best and most lasting telegraph poles and railroad ties.” They expected their readers to know who she was without having to say, “the actress, Maude Adams.” That’s fame.

T. M. Bradshaw shares other thoughts on history at tmbradshawbooks.com.