MRS LANGTRY’S SALARY.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1076, 20 May 1882, Page 4

MRS LANGTRY’S SALARY.

The special correspondent of an American paper discussing Mrs Langtry’s extraodinary success in “Ours” says: “Apropos, you may not have heard of La Lantrtry’s terms to provincial managers— sixty per cent on the gross, she to furnish nothing but self and company, and expecting new scenery, expensive building and advertising, the theatre, gas, etc., from the management. Many provincial managers are hastily declining with thanks If the Lily asks these stupendous rates at home, what on earth will she try to exact from the American managers, it being a well grounded impression among London theatricals that to secure a profit on an American engagement, just three times the London rate of payment should be demanded ? But I fancy there is truth in what I hear of Mrs Langtry’s own estimate of her own histrionic abilities. Those who claim to be in her confidence say that the lady is perfectly well aware of the ephemeral nature of her hold upon the public, and that she means to make all she can out of her first send-off, convinced that her repeat engagements, if any, will be but a shadow of what has gone before. In other words, she knows that actresses as good as herself are playing for 10 dollars a week, as walking ladies, all over the civilised world, in various languages, and the only thing which makes her of more value in the money market than they is the record of her social successes. Therefore it behoves her, as a prudent woman, to make her harvest while the sun es her sensation shines through the artificial brilliancy of the footlights.