of the enterprise. Charles Frohman afterward admitted that his prejudice
against Burgess and his machine had cost his office at least one hundred
thousand dollars.

* * *

Frohman and Randall now launched an important venture. McKee Rankin, who
was one of the best-known players of the time, induced them to become
his managers in a piece called "The Golden Giant," by Clay M. Greene.
Charles, however, agreed to the proposition on the condition that Rankin
would put his wife, Kitty Blanchard, in the cast. They had been
estranged, and Frohman, with his natural shrewdness, believed that the
stage reunion of Mr. and Mrs. McKee Rankin would be a great drawing-card
for the play. Rankin made the arrangements, and the Fifth Avenue Theater
was booked for two weeks, commencing Easter Monday, 1886.

The theater was then under the management of John Stetson, of Boston,
and both Frohman and Rankin looked forward to doing a great business. In
this cast Robert Hilliard, who had been a clever amateur actor in
Brooklyn, made his first professional appearance. Charles supervised the
rehearsals and had rosy visions of a big success. At four o'clock,
however, on the afternoon of the opening night, Charles went to the
box-office and discovered the advance sale had been only one hundred
dollars.

"I tell you what to do, Randall," quickly thought out Frohman, "if
Stetson will stand for it we will paper the house to the doors. We must
open to a capacity audience."

When Frohman put the matter before Stetson he said he did not believe in
"second-hand reconciliations," but assented to the plan. Frohman gave
Randall six hundred seats, and the latter put them into good hands. The
_premiere_ of "The Golden Giant," to all intents and purposes, took
place before a crowded and paying house. In reality there was exactly
two hundred and eighty-eight dollars in the box-office. Business picked
up, however, and the two weeks' engagement proved prosperous. The play
failed on the road, however, and the Frohman offices lost over five
thousand dollars on the venture. Rankin had agreed to pay Frohman forty
per cent. of the losses. That agreement remained in force all his life,
for it was never paid.

In Charles's next venture he launched his first star. Curiously enough,
the star was Tony Hart, a member of the famous Irish team of Harrigan
and Hart, who had delighted the boyhood of Frohman when he used to slip
away on Saturday nights and revel in a show.