PERSECUTED ACTRESSES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 856, 23 June 1910, Page 3

PERSECUTED ACTRESSES.

Actresses seem to be having a bad time here, writes the Parisian correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. Two of them are being victimised by anonymous persecutors. Neither Madame Marguerite Carre, of the Opera Comique, nor Mdlle Yvonne de Bray, late of the Vaudeville, and now of the Renaissance, knew that she had any enemies. But some people, under the cover of a malignant incognito, have pursued these ladies with threatening letters, and a great deal worse. Madame Carre, having rehearsed a new opera in which she is soon to be heard, went up to her dressingroom and felt faint. She asked for a glass of port wine, which her dresser brought her. A fellowactor of hers was in her dressingroom, and she asked him if he would take a glass of port with her. The dresser was naturally invited also, according to the etiquette of the stage behind the scenes. The dresser drank and screamed. The fellow - actor drank, and put his glass down with an expletive. Madame Carre drank also, and dropped the drink, crying: “It is burning! What have they given me?” The port wine has since been sent to the Municipal laboratory for analysis. For days past Madame Carre has been receiving anonymous and threatening letters. Besides letters, she has also received a present from an unknown person of a pound of butter. The butter looked suspicious, and she did not taste it, but sent it to be analysed. On examination the butter turned out to contain oxide of zinc in dangerous quantities. The port wine made the actor and the dresser who drank it seriously ill. Madame Carre escaped only because she hardly touched her glass. The question which the police is now examining is whether there is not some connection between the nefarious port wine and the butter of oxide of zinc.

But Madame Carre is not the only actress exposed to these strange adventures. Mdlle. Yvonne de Bray, who is acting the heroine’s part in “ Mon Ami Teddy” at the Renaissance, has for days past been receiving anonymous letters of the most fearsome description. ‘ ‘Beware of the points you use for making up,” “ Beware of the steps down which you might fall.” “Beware of the wings where steel wire traps are laid,” are a few of the warnings which reached the actress ten minutes before the dress rehearsal last week. She was a brave girl, and went on disregarding the threats, though they might have alarmed a less plucky woman. She also applied to the police. The latter) are thus investigating at the same time wire traps, poisonous butter, and suspicious port wine. So far no trace has been found of the strange criminals who persecute actresses.