WOLFIE, THE HUSBAND OF HIS COUNTRY

— Profiling that larger-than-life American actor, singer, comedian, and theatrical producer, DeWolf Hopper (1858 - 1935). His insatiable appetite for young actresses may have been the reason for his nickname "Wolfie," while his many marriages earned him the title "Husband of His Country."

William DeWolf Hopper was born in New York City to John Hopper, a wealthy Quaker lawyer, and Rosalie DeWolf, granddaughter of U. S. Senator James DeWolf, scion of a notable Colonial family. Young Hopper was expected to follow his father into the legal profession, but he was of an entirely different bent. In 1878, he used his inheritance to experiment with what had long been his dream: he formed his own theatrical company (albeit short-lived), then studied voice, all in hopes of becoming a classical actor and/or an opera singer.

Hopper's dream was to play Shakespearean roles. He was handsome and self-confident, and carried his 230 pounds effortlessly on an unusually tall (6' 4" or 6' 5") frame. But to his chagrin, he was considered too large for most dramatic roles. However, the young actor's big bass-baritone voice and his quick wit moved producer John A. McCaull (often called "The Father of American Comic Opera") to cast him as a singing comedian in Désirée in 1884. Hopper was thrilled with his success in the role, and recognized immediately that he had found his life's work.

His newly found success may have gone to his head, however, because in 1885, he and his wife of 5 years, Ella Gardiner, were divorced. He was 27 at the time, and already the leading man in The Black Hussar, a musical which was packing them in at Wallack's Theatre. He followed that with The Beggar Student (also in 1885), then in 1886, he married Ida Mosher, whom he had met when she was in the chorus of Désirée. Within a year or so, the couple had a son, and by all reports, were a happy little family

It was often noticed and commented on by theater friends just how well Wolfie and Ida got along. They were described as "an ideal pair of married lovers." It was said that Mr. Hopper lived only for his wife and little boy. Frequently, both wife and son would accompany him to the theater, where he performed in The Begum (1887) and The Lady or the Tiger (1888), and where the little boy was quite popular among cast and crew members.

But when Hopper went into rehearsals for Castles in the Air, his first starring vehicle (1890), he couldn't deny the attraction he felt for his diminutive leading lady, Della Fox. It didn't take long for their cast mates and friends to recognize that those kisses on stage were real, and that off stage, the couple displayed all the signs of a love affair. Also noticed: Ida and the little boy no longer visited Hopper at the theater.

Adding insult to injury (from Ida's p.o.v.), Wolfie and Della teamed up for two more musicals: Wang (1891) and Panjandrum (1893). Wolfie's friends had all decided that Della was a shoo-in to become the next Mrs. Hopper, as soon as he was free to marry again. But here's the kicker: On June 28, 1893 — only a few hours after a quiet divorce was obtained by Ida — Wolfie married actress/singer/comedienne Edna Wallace, then a member of Charles Frohman's stock company.

The new Mrs. Hopper was a surprise to one and all — most especially, I suspect, to Della Fox. Conjecture, certainly, but it's not a stretch to think it could have triggered Della's slide into alcohol and drug abuse. It wasn't long before she became ill and had to leave the cast of Panjandrum. I wonder how Della felt when she learned that her successor on stage was the same woman who took her place in her lover's heart. Edna Wallace Hopper made a successful debut in comic opera when she assumed Della's role in Panjandrum. Together, the Hoppers costarred in Dr. Syntax (1894), a revival of Wang (1895) and John Philip Sousa's comic opera, El Capitan (1896). By 1898, they had separated and filed for divorce.

In 1899, Wolfie married Nella (Reardon) Bergen in London. It was her second marriage (she was divorced from actor James Bergen), and Hopper's fourth marriage (in case you haven't been keeping score). Nella, her sister, and two brothers, were born and reared in Brooklyn, where their father, John Edward Reardon, was a Police Captain. Nella was a singer/actress in comic opera and it is believed that she was on tour in England in John Philip Sousa's comic opera,The Bride Elect, when she became Mrs. Hopper.

Following the development of a postcard promotion in 1905, Wolfie appeared in Happyland in 1905, and had a big hit with A Matinee Idol in 1910.

It appeared that Wolfie and Nella had succeeded in finding the secrets of a happy and lasting marriage. Wolfie did, indeed, set a new record for himself: not quite 14 years of wedlock. They were divorced in 1913, the very year Wolfie met and married Elda Furey. Some of you may remember her as the acerbic-tongued Hedda Hopper. (She took the name "Hedda" in 1919, reportedly chosen for her by a numerologist.)

They moved to Hollywood in 1915, the year their son* (see sidebar) was born, and established motion picture careers. It was also the year Wolfie made the film Don Quixote. Wolfie was a star of silent films, whereas Hedda played occasional supporting roles, and eventually became a character actress. It's interesting to note that, in 1921, Wolfie finally played a Shakespearean role: Sir John Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

The Hoppers were divorced in 1922; Hedda began her career as a gossip columnist, and Wolfie started writing his autobiography, "Once A Clown, Always A Clown."

Wolfie was slowing down some, still working in the occasional revival of one of his musical-comedies, still making a picture now & then — but it was three years before he married again. His sixth wife was Lillian "Lulu" Glaser, with whom he tied the knot in 1925. He was Lulu's third husband. She had been a popular Broadway performer, and a vaudeville star for many years. She was highly regarded as a versatile actress and singer. After retiring in 1917, she divided her time between New York and a quiet farm in Connecticut.

This was a comfortable time for Wolfie. He finished his autobiography, which was published in 1927. He made a Broadway appearance in White Lilacs in 1928, and in 1932 he performed, amid an array of Broadway's oldsters, in the Radio City Music Hall Inaugural. He died of a heart attack in 1935 in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was making a radio appearance. He was 77. His ashes are inurned at Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn.

Wolfie's life was written indelibly on the memories of everyone with whom he came in contact — his sweethearts, his longtime friends, his ardent fans, his baseball team. 'Tis true, he was a bit of a bounder, but as much as he loved women, I believe he loved baseball, if not more, at least as much! He was a lifelong baseball enthusiast (his friends called him a "baseball crank") and he was an ardent New York Giants fan, known to travel from the theater to the Polo Grounds after a matinée, just to see the last two innings of a home game; then travel back to the theater in time to prepare for the evening performance. Wolfie founded the Actors' Amateur Athletic Association of America (AAAAA), organizing actors' benefits, and all-actor baseball tournaments (in which he was a talented player). He could have made a career of reciting "Casey at the Bat" in his big, booming voice, which he did about 10,000 times — during stage performances, in curtain calls, and on radio — and eventually on record. Just thought you'd like to know about that side of him.

*SIDEBAR:

Wolfie's & Hedda's son, William DeWolf Hopper, Jr., eventually established his own career as William Hopper in movies and television. He started acting in summer stock at Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine, and had roles in 25 or 30 movies over the years. A navy frogman during WW2, he returned from service in 1945 with a bronze star for bravery and heroic action, but didn't restart his career until the mid-1950s. In 1957 he was cast as private investigator Paul Drake in the CBS-TV series Perry Mason. He remained in that role until the series ended in 1966, at which time he retired from the acting profession. He died in 1970, the result of a stroke complicated by pneumonia. He was only 55.

Stage Whispers is published by carlacushman.blogspot.com/

THE LITTLE GIRL WITH THE LITTLE CURL

— Profiling Della May Fox (1870 - 1913), actress and singer whose talent, diminutive stature, and childlike persona earned her great popularity on the American stage in the 19th century. And when she set that spit curl on her forehead, it became the mode of fashionable young women from coast to coast.

For half of her short life, Della was a principal attraction in America's musical theater. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a successful photographer and his wife, Andrew & Harriett Fox, and from the time she could walk and talk, Della was a performer. She made her first stage appearance at the age of 7 as a midshipmate in a youthful cast of H.M.S. Pinafore, and followed that with other children's roles. (In the 1870s & '80s, it was a popular trend to cast Pinafore and other Gilbert & Sullivan operettas with children and send them on tour through the midwest where they were popular with audiences.)

In 1880, Della appeared as Adrienne in Adolphe Dennery's comedy, A Celebrated Cause, which attracted the attention of the not-yet-famous Augustus Thomas and his theatrical cronies. Known collectively as the Dickson Sketch Club, they were preparing to produce a touring show built around Thomas's adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's story, Editha's Burglar, and Thomas engaged Della as the lead. Burglar was a short story, hence a short play; even with a 10-minute intermission, it ran under an hour. The sketch-clubbers filled another two hours with comic sketches and barbershop quartets. Not only was the tour a great success, but the names of Della Fox and Augustus Thomas became familiar to audiences throughout the midwest and Canada. Thomas wasted no time expanding Editha's Burglar to four acts, renamed it The Burglar, and secured the great Maurice Barrymore to play the title role. Success ensured, the play continued to tour for another two years.

Della forged on, determined to become a Broadway star. In the late 1880s, she appeared with Comley Barton and the Bennett & Moulton Opera Company, where she played soprano roles in the operettas Fra Diavolo, The Bohemian Girl, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado, among others. In February 1889 she appeared for the first time at Niblo's Garden in New York, her light opera roles having brought her to the attention of Henrich Conried, who engaged her to play the soubrette role of Yvonne in The King's Fool.

When DeWolf Hopper formed his light opera company the following year, and began actively seeking a company of supporting players, Della's was one of the first names mentioned. In May 1890, Hopper (or Wolfie, as he was known to Broadway denizens) opened in Gustave Kerker's Castles in the Air, with Della in the supporting role of Blanche.

They received good notices, but Della's first big success came the following year when she played the trouser role of Prince Mataya, singing "Another Fellow," in Hopper's production of Wang. The show was so popular that the lean & lanky Hopper, a foot taller than the diminutive & dainty Della, continued to play it through 1892, then re-teamed in Panjandrum in 1893, and The Lady or the Tiger in 1894.

Continuing to play in comic opera and operetta, Della starred as Clairette in William Furst's The Little Trooper in 1894, following that in 1895 with the starring role in Furst's Fleur-de-Lis. In 1897, she appeared with Lillian Russell and Jefferson De Angelis in The Wedding Day.

In 1898, Della put together her own company to produce and star in an original musical comedy, The Little Host, credited as the work of two librettists (Edgar Smith and Louis DeLange) and two composers (Thomas Chilvers and William T. Francis). Host opened the day after Christmas 1898, and ran for a month at New York's Herald Square Theatre, garnering rave reviews before embarking on an equally successful 3-month tour. According to one critic, her performance in Host "brought her to the pinnacle of success." She was said to have been for a time the highest-paid performer on the American variety stage.

The 19th and 20th centuries collided, and the dust didn't settle for nearly a decade. Della's life seemed to parallel the time. Due largely to abuse of alcohol and drugs, she began turning up fairly frequently in private hospitals and sanitariums (or "retreats" as they were called then). After she married Jacob D. Levy, a jeweler, in 1900, she performed in only three productions: The Rogers Brothers in Central Park in 1900-1901 (which earned the first critique of her failing voice); The West Point Cadet in September 1904; and in a revival of Rosedale in April and May 1913. She died of acute indigestion at a private sanitarium in New York City on June 15, 1913, and is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery, Saint Louis, Missouri.

Stage Whispers is published by carlacushman.blogspot.com/

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE UBIQUITOUS GEORGE SPELVIN

One cannot be an avid theater-goer for long before encountering the name George Spelvin in a cast list. Sometimes there's even an accompanying photo of the actor, in makeup and costume, of course. From one production to another, this master makeup magician can be tall, short, skinny, fat, clean-shaven or full-bearded, playing more characters in a day than some actors do in a year. Just six weeks before his 30th birthday, an article in the October 1, 1916 issue of The New York Times described George Spelvin as "a Broadway myth so generally accepted as to have become a Broadway institution."

Stories of how he was born are as varied as the raconteurs who tell them, but his date of birth is generally agreed to be November 15, 1886, when he opened on Broadway in Karl the Peddler by Charles A. Gardiner. I have read several articles proclaiming November 15th as George Spelvin Day — one even alluded to all of November as George Spelvin Month — yet I've spent my entire adult life in and around "the theatah," and never once did anyone remind me about George Spelvin Day. Be that as it may, following are the most popular spins on the origination of this American theater icon.

Spin No. 1 — A cast of 13 characters caught the superstitious eye of its producer, who refused to hire 13 actors. Instead, he hired 12 actors, one of whom was required to play two roles. Just who was that superstitious producer? According to a scribe for The Masquers Club, it could only have been David Belasco, whom he called "that super-superstitious late, great showman."

Spin No. 2 — At a play rehearsal one day, an actor said to the producer, "I can't play the cop in the first act and the bellboy in the third act and use the same name." With a flash of insight, the producer said, "I never thought of that." So the bellboy was played by George Spelvin and an American theater tradition was born.

Spin No. 3 — A favorite version of Spelvin's beginnings alleges that, in December 1906, the late Edward Abeles, about to open in Brewster's Millions, discovered, in conversation, that the producer was leaning heavily toward scrapping the whole show. Abeles, a great barroom debater, was never above making up "authorities" to support a claim, so during a break in the conversation, he casually mentioned that "Everything would be all right if only George Spelvin were here. HE would know what to do!"

The producer bit! He asked Abeles to get this Spelvin fellow. Abeles dashed to the barroom next door, went up to the first man he saw, and told him to "just say your name is George Spelvin and tell'em it's the greatest play you ever saw, just as it is. Tell'em they're crazy if they don't put it on right now." As the story goes, the producer wrote out another check and Brewster's Millions opened December 31, 1906 and ran for 163 performances, with George Spelvin listed in the credits. Did Abeles really drag a stranger out of the barroom? Did that same stranger actually play a small role in Brewster's Millions? Who knows? But somebody went on stage as George Spelvin for the run of the play.

George Spelvin is linked with some famous theatrical names: Two popular actors, William Gillette and Maude Adams, and the great Jacob Adler of the Yiddish Theatre, all used the pseudonym.

Proving the theory that "there are no small parts, only small actors," George has occasionally played a corpse. Once he even played a character who was only spoken of, never seen. What a trooper!

Throughout the years, there have been many variations on the theme: The Moscow Art Theatre once listed a Gregor Spelvanovich on one of their programs. Mrs.Frank Craven invented Georgette Spelvin as George's daughter. George also had a son, George Spelvin, Jr., who appeared in Salt Water and Gentlemen of the Press. Harry Selby is another name that is sometimes used for a "double" when George Spelvin has already been cast in a role.

George's children have trod the boards only occasionally, but his sisters Georgina and Georgia have appeared more frequently. Unfortunately, however, Georgina is now considered the black sheep of the family — ever since she started appearing regularly in porn films in the late 20th century. But if you're looking for a substitute for Georgina Spelvin in your cast list, I recommend you think about Georgeanna Spelvin or Georgie Spelvin (yes, exactly like Georgeanna "Georgie" Drew, who married Maurice Barrymore and spawned generations of performers!) By George! You couldn't ask for a better role model than that!

Across the pond, George's British cousin is the popular actor, Walter Plinge. There are two pretenders to his throne — Mr. F. Anney and Mr. Bart — but Walter's the icon. I know because, like George, Walter has his own day, December 2. So, fans of the theater, mark your calendars:

BTW, George Spelvin made a seamless transition to film, appearing in D. W. Griffith's The Birth of A Nation in 1915. A man of many talents, he next appeared as a dancer in Way Down East in 1920. He also had a small role in the Academy Award-winner, From Here to Eternity in 1953. His list of television credits goes back to the The Fugitive series, and even extends to the daytime soaps.

SIDEBAR:

Back in the spring of 1949, in the tavern of The Masquers Club, three great minds belonging to three fun-loving (and possibly inebriated) members discussed the idea of an annual award to honor the acting art, to be given to actors by their Masquers Club peers. They were putting the finishing touches on their proposal when someone at the table (they say it was Alan Mowbray!) suggested it be called the George Spelvin Award. The vote was unanimous. Wiping away their tears of laughter, they ordered another round, made a long-winded toast to George Spelvin, and the meeting was adjourned.

There have been many recipients of The Spelvin. The first award was given to Milton Berle in 1949. In the early days, other recipients included Harold Lloyd, Jack Benny, Sir Laurence Olivier, Fred Astaire, Dean Jagger, Broderick Crawford, Ronald Colman, John Huston, Herbert Marshall and Edmund Gwenn, among others. Here are a few photos in honor of those wonderful performers.

Stage Whispers is published by carlacushman.blogspot.com/