DAVID BELASCO
(1854-1931)
Regisseur, Actor, Playwright

Son of a Jewish clown who emigrated from London, David Belasco was born and in San Francisco at a time when that city had a growing theatre community following the gold rush of 1849. Facing hard times as the Gold Fever subsided, the family moved to Victoria, British Columbia where David's mother, a devout Roman Catholic, placed him in a monastery school. He received an excellent education at the monastery under the tutelage of one Father Maguire, but young David literally ran away to join a traveling circus where he learned bareback riding and clowning. He wrote his first plays by the time he was twelve: Jim Black, or The Regulator's Revenge, and The Roll of the Drum. He wrote this latter shortly after Lincon's assassination, and it was acted a number of times outside San Francisco. William Winter reports that even as a boy, Belasco kept writing materials by his bed so he could write down ideas that might be useful to him in the theatre that would occur to him at night. He goes on, "I have not encountered a person more downright daft, more completely saturated in every fibre of his being, with passion for the Stage and things dramatical than was young David Belasco."

As David grew into manhood, he took on more and more responsibilities for various productions in and around San Francisco. He acted, rewrote plays, wrote plays, and worked as "stage manager," which we would now call a producing director. He took roles of all sizes from Uncle Tom and Fagin to Armand Duval; Mercutio to Hamlet. He acted in support of a whole laundry list of traveling stars including John McCullough, Edwin Booth, E. A. Sothern, Laura Keene, Mme. Modjeska, James O'Neill and many others.

One of the most important influences of this period was Belasco's association with the indefatigable jack-of-all-theatrical-trades Dion Boucicault.

In the following few years he joined companies barnstorming through the mining camps. In Virginia City, Nev., he served as secretary to Dion Boucicault, who inspired Belasco to try playwriting again. From 1873 to 1881 he was associated with several San Francisco theaters. His first play to attract attention was a collaborative effort with James A. Herne, Hearts of Oak. At 29 Belasco left for New York City, having acted more than 170 roles and written or adapted more than 100 plays.

His first position in New York was as a stage manager of the Madison Square Theater. In 1886 he became dissatisfied and joined the Frohmans as stage manager and house playwright. In 1890 he became an independent producer; his first real success was his own The Heart of Maryland, a melodrama inspired by the poem "Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight." Belasco took unknowns and turned them into stars. The first of these, Leslie Carter, had suffered through a sensational divorce. Penniless and a social outcast, she came to Belasco, who trained her and then starred her in Maryland. It played for three seasons and was then taken to London.

During the 1890s the Theatrical Syndicate gained control of the theatrical world and individuals who refused to join found themselves with no theaters.

In Washington, D.C., Belasco was forced to rent the barnlike Convention Hall, leaky roof and all, for his production of Andrea with Carter. During the fourth act there was a violent rainstorm, and the audience observed the play from under their umbrellas. In 1902 Belasco gained control of the Republic Theater in New York. In 1906 he began work on a new building on West 44th Street, which eventually became the Belasco Theater. It was here that he made some of the most lasting technical contributions to the theatrical art. Committed to the aesthetic of naturalism, he spared no effort to make his settings and effects as true to life and nature as possible. On one occasion, he even bought an entire restaurant and transported it onto his stage. He developed in his workshops new lighting techniques and hardware that were themselves enough to draw people to his theatre.

In addition to Carter, Belasco elevated David Warfield (a vaudeville entertainer), Lenore Ulric, Frances Starr, and Blanche Bates to stardom. Most of these stars had natural ability, but Belasco was also a master at handling publicity campaigns. Certainly Carter's past was in part responsible for her success. Belasco also preferred to work with unknown playwrights. He collaborated with John Luther Long to write Andrea, Madam Butterfly, and Darling of the Gods; and with Henry C. DeMille on Lord Chumley and The Wife, among others. Madam Butterfly and Belasco's own The Girl of the Golden West were later adapted as the librettos for the Puccini operas.

Belasco claimed to have been associated with the production of nearly 400 plays, most of them written or adapted by himself; but his writing, in a time when lbsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov were introducing realism, remained filled with sensational melodrama or maudlin sentiment. His plays have virtually no lasting value. His advances in realism were in technical aspects of theater; his settings were accurate to minute detail, for rather than recreate a specific setting he preferred to buy it and then move it on stage. He particularly excelled in spectacular effect and in amazing mechanical contrivances. In lighting, he pioneered the use of color silks and gelatin slides, loving to create "real" sunsets. Also, in a day when productions were hurriedly put together, Belasco took time to perfect his work; even his most severe critics admit a "tidiness" not often found on the American stage. He excelled in creating a mood and tension in his crowd and mob scenes. Moreover, whatever was seen on stage was Belasco and the other artists were the instruments of his will.

He died in New York on May 14, 1931.