OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (DALY.) 



593 



Courier, of New York. He was allowed to write 

 dramatic criticisms occasionally. These attracted 

 the attention of other editors, and he was suc- 

 cessively employed by the Express, the Sun, and 

 the Times to furnish them with dramatic criti- 

 cisms. His first success as a dramatist was an 

 adaptation from the German of Mosenthal's Debo- 

 rah, which he 

 i named Leah the 

 Forsaken. This 

 play was pro- 

 duced at the Bos- 

 ton Museum, with 

 Miss Kate Bate- 

 man in the title 

 role, Dec. 8, 1862, 

 and its success 

 there was repeat- 

 ed when Miss 

 Bateman pro- 



duced it at the 

 Winter Garden 

 Theater, New 



York. It ran 

 nine weeks, a very 

 unusual run at 

 that time. An 

 adaptation from 



La Papillonne by Mr. Daly and Frank Wood, 

 called Taming a Butterfly (since renamed Del- 

 monico's), had a run 'of a month in 1864 at Laura 

 Keene's Theater. In the same year Mr. Daly 

 adapted a play which he called Leslie's Wedding, 

 successfully produced by Mme. Methua-Scheller, 

 who also produced another from his pen from 

 Frau Borch-PfefFer's Dorf und Stadt, called Lorle. 

 Miss Avonia Jones produced two more of his 

 plays at the Winter Garden Judith and The 

 Sorcerer. Mr. Daly's first original play to reach 

 the public ear was Under the Gaslight. This 

 play, which by its great popularity laid the 

 foundation of his. fame and fortune, was pro- 

 duced in 1867 at the New York Theater. It ran 

 thirteen weeks, and presented the sensation of a 

 very realistic locomotive and train of cars rush- 

 ing at express speed diagonally across the stage. 

 rntto " effect," as it is called, was patented by 



This 



Mr. Daly, and has afforded much opportunity for 

 litigation. It may have been the success of this 

 effect which suggested the title of his next play, 

 A Flash of Lightning, adapted from Victorien 

 Sardou's La Perle Noire. The wild Indian of the 

 .plains appealed to Mr. Daly at this time as a 

 fine dramatic figure, and was introduced with 

 full justification of the thought in a new play 

 called Horizon. Meantime Mr. Daly had engaged 

 in management in a tentative way. The debut 

 of Mme. Methua-Scheller at the Winter Garden 

 Theater, New York, in 1864, was under his di- 

 rection. In 1868 he became interested in the 

 Olympic Theater, and managed the engagement 

 of Mrs. Scott-Siddons. John Duff, a well-known 

 manager, was lessee of the Olympic Theater in 

 1869, and a strong and earnest friendship existed 

 between him and Mr. Daly, who on Jan. 7, 1869, 

 married Mr. Duff's daughter Mary. James Fisk, 

 Jr., owned a theater on Twenty-fourth Street, in 

 New York, on the site of the present Madison 

 Square Theater. This house, called the Fifth 

 Avenue Theater, was offered to Augustin Daly, 

 and with that began the latter's remarkable 

 career as a manager. The theater was opened on 

 Aug. 16, 1869, with Tom Robertson's Play. 

 Dreams, by Boucicault and Robertson, followed 

 on Sept. 6, and Old Heads and Young Hearts 

 on Sept. 27. Fanny Davenport, who had been 

 a soubrette at Mrs." Drew's Theater in Philadel- 

 VOL. xxxix. 38 A 



phia, made her first appearance under Mr. Daly's 

 management as Lady Gay Spanker in Boucicault's 

 London Assurance on Sept. 20. Then came Mrs. 

 Scott-Siddons with a Shakespearean repertory', 

 after which came a swift succession of standard 

 plays by members of the company. On .Jan. 12, 

 1870, a new play by Olive Logan, called Surfj 

 entered upon a run of one month. By this time 

 the public had realized that a new force was 

 at work in the theater of New York, and IMly's 

 company began to be a name to conjure with. 

 It comprised Agnes Ethel, Fanny Davenport, 

 Fanny Morant, Amy Ames, Clara Jennings, Edwin 

 L. Davenport, George Clarke, D. H. Ilarkins, 

 James Lewis, Owen Fawcett, J. B. Polk, Mrs. G. 

 H. Gilbert, George Holland, George Parkes, George 

 F. De Vere, and William Davidge. Man and Wife 

 was the first play of the season of 1870-71, in 

 which Mr. Daly introduced Clara Morris to her 

 New York triumphs. Fernande was produced, 

 with Miss Ethel in the title rOle, Nov. 23, and 

 Dec. 21 Bronson Howard's Saratoga was produced 

 and ran one hundred nights. Mr. Daly produced 

 Divorce on Sept. 5, 1871, and made no change 

 until March 18, 1872. On April 2 Clara Morris, 

 in Article 47, took New York by storm for the 

 remainder of the season. The last season of 

 this house began Sept. 3, 1873, with Bronson How- 

 ard's Diamonds, in which Sara Jewett made her 

 first appearance. False Shame was produced on 

 Dec. 31, 1873, and the next day the theater was 

 destroyed by fire. The old New York Theater, 

 728 Broadway, was immediately leased by Mr. 

 Daly and renamed the New Fifth Avenue. He 

 opened this house on Jan. 21, 1873. On Dec. 3, 

 1874, he removed to Daly's Fifth Avenue Theater, 

 Twenty-eighth Street. Here the success of his 

 company continued, and on Feb. 17, 1875, he pro- 

 duced the first of his adaptations of German 

 farces, The Big Bonanza. On Dec. 14 his Pique 

 was produced, with very great success. A visit 

 was made to San Francisco in the summer of 

 1876, where he rented Platt's Hall, a large con- 

 cert room on Montgomery Street, and brought 

 his scenery and company into that unaccus- 

 tomed place, but the result was not satisfactory. 

 On Sept. 15, 1877, Mr. Daly gave up the Fifth 

 Avenue Theater, and for a short time directed 

 Booth's Theater. He retired from management 

 in 1878, and spent a year in Europe. The house 

 now known as Daly's Theater was opened by 

 him on Sept. 17, 1879. Charles Leclercq, Helen 

 Blythe, Ada Rehan, Catherine Lewis, Digby Bell, 

 Laura Joyce, and Estelle Clayton were members 

 of the company, and the repertory offered no 

 new plays of any importance. In 1881-'82 The 

 Passing Regiment and Odette were very success- 

 ful. The season of 1882-'83 brought Miss Ada 

 Rehan into favor in The Squire, 7 20 8, and 

 She Would and She Wouldn't. In 1883-'84 suc- 

 cessful productions were made of Dollars and 

 Sense, The Country Girl, and Red-letter Nights. 

 From this time Daly's Theater and Daly's com- 

 pany were institutions again. During the fol- 

 lowing seasons, with Miss Rehan, Miss Cheatham, 

 John Drew, Otis Skinner, James Lewis, Charles 

 Leclercq, and Mrs. Gilbert, and such plays as 

 Love on Crutches, A Night Off, The Country Girl, 

 Nancy & Co., Love in Harness, and the magnifi- 

 cent 'revivals of Taming of the Shrew, Merry 

 Wives of Windsor, and Midsummer Night's 

 Dream, this theater was in its golden age. In 

 the summer of 1884 Mr. Daly began a series 

 of European engagements with his company. 

 London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna were visited 

 with a certain amount of success, and the ven- 

 tures were repeated every year until a solid and 



