Lusitania (9 page)

No detail was too small to escape scrutiny. The shared lavatories and bathrooms were praised as “truly magnificent,” with their fittings “carried out in a manner not previously attempted on board ship.”
^(
16
)
Even the urinals in the shared Saloon Class bathrooms were separated with marble dividers.
^(
17
)
“Everything,” noted one press account, “has been designed to look as little like a ship as possible.”
^(
18
)

A more prescient observer might have likened
Lusitania
to a gigantic stage set, awaiting its revolving cast of actors to play out their own social comedies, dramas, and—on this voyage—tragedies across her decks. What might popular British playwright Charles Klein have made of the journey on which he now embarked? Having come to New York in 1883 from his native London, Klein had cast a sharply acerbic eye on American social life, with its inequities, scandals, and unrestrained celebration of money. He satirized John D. Rockefeller in
The Lion and the Mouse,
painting him as an unscrupulous millionaire; attacked the American legal system in
The Next of Kin
; and even composed the libretto for John Philip Sousa’s comic operetta
El Capitan
.
^(
19
)
The public enjoyed his plays; critics were sometimes less enthusiastic, with one dismissing him as “content usually with hack work,” while another thought that there was “something spurious about his plays,” which made it “hard to take them quite seriously.”
^(
20
)

Klein knew all about rejection. He had wanted to be an actor, but he was short, nervous, and tense, and had a clubfoot—qualities that had limited his dramatic possibilities.
^(
21
)
But at least he could write for the stage—a new play was in the works as he boarded
Lusitania
. A few peaceful days at sea and a visit to England would restore his nerves and refresh his creativity. In 1912, Klein had booked passage on
Titanic
’s maiden voyage, but a business engagement forced him to cancel at the last minute; now, he laughed off warnings of a possible submarine attack on
Lusitania
as “trifles.”
^(
22
)

Success on the London stage was also on the mind of fellow passenger Justus Miles Forman. After a career writing popular novels and articles for magazines, the thirty-nine-year-old Forman had just seen his first play produced, to disastrous results.
The Hyphen
addressed the wartime patriotism of German immigrants, certainly a topical subject but also one guaranteed to stir up emotions. Worried that a riot might erupt, policemen lined the aisles at its New York City premiere. There were a few hisses, “much unfavorable comment from citizens of German extraction,” but no violence—and almost no interest in the less than compelling play. A trial run in Boston was even more disastrous, forcing the play to close after a week.
^(
23
)

Yet one passenger aboard
Lusitania
believed in
The Hyphen,
impresario Charles Frohman. Frohman liked
The Hyphen,
and now wanted to take it to London, offering to introduce Forman to his friends and see what could be done with the play.
^(
24
)
And when it came to the theatrical world, no one’s opinion mattered more than that of Charles Frohman.

Born in 1856 in Sandusky, Ohio, Charles Frohman was one of three brothers; when he was eight his family moved to New York City, where young Charles worked as a night clerk for the
New York Daily Graphic
. Soon, he joined his brother Daniel, who had become business manager at the Madison Square Theatre. His beginnings were small, selling tickets, but he gradually assumed control over several companies and took them to Boston, Chicago, and to London. In 1888, through sheer boldness, he managed to secure production rights to an obscure play called
Shenandoah,
which he opened to tremendous success at New York City’s Star Theatre. In twelve months, the play had earned some $200,000: it was the start of his fortune. The impresario used the money to found the Charles Frohman Stock Company; in 1893, he built the Empire Theatre at the corner of Broadway and Fortieth Street. It was at the Empire in 1895 that Frohman introduced America to the work of Oscar Wilde, producing
The Importance of Being Earnest.
^(
25
)

In 1896, Frohman formed the Theatrical Syndicate, which soon standardized and monopolized bookings across the United States.
^(
26
)
Frohman cultivated stock actors into stars: among his favorites were Maude Adams, John and Ethel Barrymore, William Gillette, Constance Collier, Nat Goodwin, and Billie Burke. He insisted that American audiences, at least, cared less about the content of a play than about its stars.
^(
27
)

People thought that Frohman exercised an “almost hypnotic” influence over his company.
^(
28
)
He was obsessed with details, sitting through countless rehearsals, selecting costumes, prompting actors, and commenting on scenery from the orchestra pit. Actress Billie Burke called him “a martinet. He demanded long hours of rehearsal, work all day and every evening.”
^(
29
)
Frohman favored light comedies and romances over heavier melodramas. Sooner or later, he worried, the New York stage would be dominated by “crook plays, shop girl plays, slangy American farce,” and “nude women invading the auditorium, as in Paris.”
^(
30
)

In 1904, Frohman convinced British novelist J. M. Barrie to let him stage
Peter Pan
. After proving a hit in London, Frohman brought it to Broadway in January 1905. The production, which starred Maude Adams, proved to be an instant success and made Frohman even wealthier.
^(
31
)
He expanded his empire across the Atlantic, leasing and managing a number of theaters, and soon was staging successful plays in London.
^(
32
)

Frohman was fiercely protective of his private life. Rumors abounded over his relationship with Maude Adams. “He was in love with Maude Adams,” Billie Burke thought. He “spoke of her as if she were a princess in an ivory tower.” Burke heard the rumors that they had secretly married, but suspected—probably correctly—that Frohman preferred worshipping her from afar.
^(
33
)
“Had I possessed a wife and family,” Frohman once said, “I could never have taken the risks which, as a theatrical manager, I am constantly called upon to do.”
^(
34
)
His closest relationship seemed to be with bachelor playwright Charles Dillingham—“the favorite of his heart,” as one newspaper delicately phrased it.
^(
35
)
Friends called them “the two Charlies,” and they shared a country house in White Plains.
^(
36
)
It was there, in 1912, that Frohman fell off the porch and permanently injured his right knee. Though the bruise healed, rheumatism soon set in, and Frohman was forced to walk with a cane, which he jokingly referred to as his “wife.”
^(
37
)

Though a giant in the theatrical world, Frohman was short, pudgy, and unprepossessing in person; Billie Burke recalled that, when he sat in his leather chair behind his desk, his feet actually dangled a few inches above the floor. He spoke in short, staccato sentences, often jabbing his forefinger for emphasis, “leaving sentences trailing in his wake, but sometimes snapping them like a whip with pungent, sharp twists of the tongue.” Frohman took extreme care over his clothing, favoring beautiful and costly tailored suits, but despite his attire he gave the impression that he cared nothing about his appearance. He refused to carry a watch, insisting that if he needed to know the time he could ask someone; he almost never carried any money, relying on friends to pay bills on his behalf.
^(
38
)

Frohman rarely entertained, avoided dinners and parties, and evaded most social encounters, although he often played billiards with Mark Twain, letting the author win just to boost his ego.
^(
39
)
“All I want is a good meal, a good cigar, good clothes, a good bed to sleep in, and freedom to produce whatever plays I like,” Frohman once said.
^(
40
)
He had an inordinate passion for sweets, especially pies, and never traveled without a box of candy.
^(
41
)
His personality was contradictory: rival theatrical impresario David Belasco said that Frohman “had the warm, open heart of a child.”
^(
42
)
Yet he was irascible: when someone greeted him with “Good morning,” he would usually snarl, “Is it? I doubt it!” He hated to read anything but scripts: he once said his favorite book was a guide to Parisian restaurants, yet he could recite nearly all of
The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland,
which he adored.
^(
43
)
He preferred to secret himself in his office or in his apartment at the Knickerbocker Hotel, listening endlessly to his favorite gramophone recording of Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” to cheer himself up.
^(
44
)

By 1915, Frohman was recognized as the most powerful theatrical producer in the world. In addition to his Theatrical Syndicate, he operated five theaters in New York, one in London, and more than two hundred others scattered across the United States. Some ten thousand people worked in his employ for a total payroll of upwards of $35 million a year. Such was his status, someone joked, that railway employees gave his luxurious private Pullman carriage “the same precedence of schedule” as they did for President Woodrow Wilson himself.
^(
45
)

That spring, Frohman decided to visit London to investigate theatrical possibilities as well as to attend to some business litigation. With him, he took his valet, thirty-six-year-old William Stainton. Although he jokingly dismissed warnings from worried friends, Frohman did seem to have a sense of uncertainty about the future. Before leaving he dictated the next season’s theatrical program—something he had never before done.
^(
46
)
Aboard the liner, he quickly made his way to a cabin on B Deck, where a pile of potential scripts awaited reading, along with a basket of cooked chicken and some bottled coffee sent from the Knickerbocker Hotel.
^(
47
)
He was also delighted to find that a friend had sent a gift basket loaded with flowers, fruit, and a candy ship. Before
Lusitania
departed, he jotted her a note, writing, “This little ship you sent is more wonderful than the big one that takes me away from you.”
^(
48
)

Much of the attention directed by
Lusitania
’s passengers to Frohman’s coterie on the ship, though, centered on two beautiful women. Twenty-three-year-old Josephine Brandell was a rising opera star, who the previous year had enjoyed great acclaim in
Come Over Here,
produced at the London Opera House.
^(
49
)
But the real object of fascination for many men aboard
Lusitania
was exotically beautiful, twenty-five-year-old Rita Jolivet, a living example of that most acclaimed of twentieth-century celebrities, an actress.

Born as Marguerite Jolivet in 1890, she was brought up in France, where her wealthy father owned a number of vineyards. Even as a young girl, she had adored the stage, reciting in French and English and performing for increasingly appreciative audiences. Drama lessons in London followed dance lessons in Paris; soon, the young ingenue joined the Elizabethan Stage Society and appeared to great acclaim in increasingly prominent roles. A 1908 marriage proved disastrous and ended in divorce. Taking advantage of her charm, talent, and ambition, she changed her name to the more theatrical Rita and returned to the stage, where her dark-haired, expressive-eyed beauty made her a rising star. Her American stage debut came in 1911, when she appeared in
Kismet
at the Knickerbocker Theatre. She left the production after two highly successful years, taking a number of roles that won her critical praise as “one of the truly great artists and truly unique personalities of the present day.”
^(
50
)