e occasion Nat C. Goodwin invited him to the Goodwin residence in
West End Avenue, New York. The comedian wanted to place himself under
the management of his guest. Goodwin stated the case, and Frohman then
asked how remunerative his last season had been. The host produced his
books. After a careful examination Frohman remarked, with a smile:

"My dear boy, you don't require a manager. What you need is a lawyer."

XVIII

THE MAN FROHMAN

Great as producer, star-maker, and conqueror of two stage-worlds,
Charles Frohman was greater as a human being. Like Roosevelt, whom he
greatly admired, he was more than a man--he was an institution. His
quiet courage, his unaffected simplicity, his rare understanding, his
ripe philosophy, his uncanny penetration--above all, his abundant
humor--made him a figure of fascinating and incessant interest.

No trait of Charles Frohman was more highly developed than his shyness.
He was known as "The Great Unphotographed." The only time during the
last twenty-five years of his life that he sat for a photograph was when
he had to get a picture for his passport, and this picture went to a
watery grave with him. Behind his prejudice against being photographed
was a perfectly definite reason, which he once explained as follows:

"I once knew a theatrical manager whose prospects were very bright. He
became a victim of the camera. Fine pictures of him were made and stuck
up on the walls everywhere. He used to spend more time looking at these
pictures of himself than he did attending to his business. He made a
miserable failure. I was quite a young man when I heard of this, but it
made a great impression on me. I resolved then never to have my
photograph taken if I could help it."

Once when Frohman and A. L. Erlanger were in London he received the
usual request to be photographed by a newspaper camera man. The two
magnates looked something alike in that they had a more or less
Napoleonic cast of face. Frohman, who always saw a joke in everything,
hatched a scheme by which Erlanger was to be photographed for him. The
plan worked admirably, and pictures of Erlanger suddenly began to appear
all over London labeled "Charles Frohman."

He could be gracious, however, in his refusal to be photographed. One
bright afternoon he was watching the races at Henley when he was
approached by R. W. MacFarlane, of New York, who had been on the Frohman
staff. MacFarlane asked if he could take a photogr