Volume 1 — MORE FAILURE, AND A LAWSUIT.

During this tour, though Mrs. Carter revealed fine talent and won some commendation, the business was uniformly bad until she appeared in Chicago; there, for the first time, the receipts exceeded the expenses, and it began to seem as though the tide had turned toward prosperity. But the venture had already cost more than $40,000, and Fairbank, becoming dissatisfied, suddenly withdrew his support. “On the strength of Mr. Fairbank’s promise,” Belasco declared, “I had given mine, to many creditors, and now, when they pressed for payment (as they did very quickly when it became known Fairbank had withdrawn), I was unable to keep it. I had no recourse but to bring suit against him to make good his promise and, most unwillingly, I prepared to do so.” Mrs. Carter’s first tour under Belasco’s direction and the life of “The Ugly Duckling” were both peremptorily brought to an end by Fairbank, acting through one of his attorneys, R. W. Morrison, in Kansas City, on March 14, 1891; the theatrical company which had been acting in association with Mrs. Carter was disbanded, and the perplexed manager and his dejected pupil returned to New York, where arrangements were presently made by Belasco to institute a lawsuit against Fairbank. Writing on this subject he has said:

“The Fairbank lawyers came to New York to see what compromise I would accept. I said: ’Here are all the bills. If you pay them, the incident will be closed.’ But they refused. Mr. Fairbank had hoped the tour would be a financial success, the lawyers said, and he would never have entered into such a speculation if he had known how much it involved. ’Certainly,’ I answered, ’he did not expect a theatrical venture of this nature to cost nothing! I am sure of Mrs. Carter’s ultimate success,’ I declared, ’and I am willing to bind myself by a promise to pay everything back’; but the lawyers refused. So I put my affairs in the hands of my friend, Judge Dittenhoefer, and the suit began. The trial lasted for three weeks.”

Belasco’s suit against Fairbank,—which was to recover $65,000, as reimbursement of losses incurred in presenting “The Ugly Duckling,” payment for professional services as Mrs. Carter’s dramatic instructor (for which services Fairbank had agreed to pay), and other items,—remained in abeyance for several years. It was, however, finally brought to trial on June 3, 1896, before Justice Leonard Giegerich and a jury, in Part V. of the Supreme Court of New York. Belasco’s action was met by denial and a counter suit for $53,000 by Fairbank. The issues were acrimoniously contested at every point, but on June 23 the jury returned a compromise verdict (as one juryman described it) in favor of Belasco, awarding him $16,000 and 5 per cent. interest,—$20,000 in all. During that trial certain newspapers, manifesting singular partisan bias, went to scandalous extremes of exaggeration and ridicule in their reports of the testimony in effort to disparage Belasco and make him appear contemptible. One fiction then originated has persisted,—the fiction, namely, that Belasco instructed Mrs. Carter by “pounding and bumping” her and dragging her about a room by the hair. That tale was based on an allusion to rehearsal of the shocking Murder Scene in the revolting play of “Oliver Twist.”

Mrs. Carter’s acknowledgment of her debt to Belasco and her appreciation of his assistance and his forbearance toward her are significantly denoted in a letter written by her, June 3, 1890, to Charles L. Allen, one of Fairbank’s principal Chicago lawyers, from which the following words are quoted:

“He [Belasco] feels he cannot go on with me unless he is able to make things creditable. He has stuck by me in my struggle against prejudice; he has stood up for me, and given his personal written assurance on every contract I have that things will be creditably and properly done. It is owing to him and his personal influence among theatrical managers that I have succeeded in getting the best route and the best theatres—he has committed himself and will not have failure meet him.

“He has helped me without asking pay—he has given my play—his name—his instruction—he has given up other things—to put me through: he will produce my play—he will answer for my success—he stands sponsor for my first night, and before the entire public—and he does it all without asking pay—ready to wait until I am started for his remuneration—and he did all this on Mr. Fairbank’s promise to see me through....”

In his “Story” Belasco makes this kindly allusion to Fairbank, which indicates that the clash between them resulted from meddlesome interference of persons inimical to him and to his star:

“I never regretted anything more than being forced to bring suit against Fairbank. He was courteous, kind-hearted, mellow, and human. I am sure that when he and his wife started to aid Mrs. Carter it was their intention to see her through. I met him in after years, and in the course of conversation he admitted that all I had done for Mrs. Carter was done wisely. ’It’s too horrible,’ he said. ’I was badly advised by my friends. You should never have been obliged to carry, the matter into the courts.’”