WILLIAM CRANE ON THEN AND NOW.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1384, 9 March 1912, Page 6

WILLIAM CRANE ON THEN AND NOW.

"These days are bettor than those and they are growing bettor all the while," said William Crane, tho distinguished American actor in a recent intorview. "Cortainly.tho actorshouldn't complain, ho doesn't work so hard and ho receives much more money than in tho old days. I've played four characters in one evening, singing first basso role in an opera, doing a minstrel turn, a dance and eccentric comedy character in one evening. At that timo I was getting, probably, forty dollars aweek. And that was when I had ' been on the stage several years. When I began I worked for nothing, that is my board .was paid by tho management and my. costumes were found. I made niy debut in Utica, July 10, 1863. It was- .there 1 met lny wife. Wo just met. That is about all. Hut wo remembered each other well. I liked hej and 3he must have liked mo pretty_ well _ for ive met quite by accident in. New York three years later and wero married iu two wqeks. When I met her I was working for nothing a week, so didn't dare propose.; When we were married, in 1870, I. wns earning thirty-livo dollars a week. I lied.'to her guardian about it. made it fifty, though she knew tho truth. From tho timo we were married I was fortunate, and I owe seven-ei;;hths of my eucsess torriy wile. When her intuition says this or that I do it. Onco I didn't. I iiscd to argue. Now I don't. I'vo learned (ihe'g ahvnys right. She's the one human being I know who is infallible. Not many men can say that. "When. I went on tho stage," he said, "wo played by gas light. With no electric lights to search out our secrets, we didn't worry much about .'make-up.' At nnyrato, 'make-up/ is not tho complex art laymen think it. When I was playing "The Senator' I grew to expect the whisper as< I first came upon tho stage, 'What a make-up!' And that 'make-up' consisted of one article, a little tuft of beard that I stuck to my chin in a second. There was absolutely nothing else, except that licit like "J'no Senator' for a few minutes before going on the stage and that made me look like him. That's the real secrot of 'make-up.' "But we didn't do things eg well, dramatically,- then as now. Wo novor rohenrsed more than a week., Letter perfect was an almost unknown condition. Actor 9 perpetrated all tho gap they wished, liecauso they couldn't know the lines in the brief timo given for preparation. Plays, with the exception of tho classics, were not so good as to-d<iy."