VETERAN ACTRESS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1372, 24 February 1912, Page 4

VETERAN ACTRESS.

A famous Victorian actress, Mrs. Billington, entered upon her 88th year recently. She once played at tho Londor. Adsli'dii, in "No Thoroughfare," a piece written by Charles Dickens, in conjunction with Wilkin Collins, and Dickens afterwards confessed to the manager I hat Mrs. Billington had made him shed tears by her performance of the part ho had written. ' ■ 'The stage was different in those days from what' it is now," said Mrs. Billington. "What a contrast there is in the salaries, which wero very poor in my earlier times. 1 was at the Adelphi for

sixteen years, and for tho first six I got thirty shilling a week. In those days tho leading actors, with tho exception of Mr. Toole and one or two others, never received more than .£l2 a week. Engagements, however, wero longer than they are to-day. Mr. Webster would never accept an engagement for less than three years. "There was little of _ what is called 'realism' in tho productions of that time. Tho whole eli'ect depended upon the acfcing. Apart from tho use of science in modern plays, no one could afford to put on plays with lavish sotting, because salaries w'ere so small. Tho type of play presented now is also different. If Mr. Bernard Shaw's plays had been written in my earlier acting days, thoy would never havo been listened to."

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