s was cast for the lame
mill-girl, _Nell_.

This Henry C. De Mille, it may be remarked in passing, was the father of
the W.C. De Mille who wrote "Strongheart" for Robert Edeson, and who is an
instructor in the Empire School of Acting, sometimes known as the American
Academy of Dramatic Arts.

In the spring of 1892 John Drew left Daly's, whereupon Charles Frohman
decided to make him his first star, and he chose Maude Adams to be his
leading woman. It is now an old story--the hit she instantly made as the
wife who assumes intoxication in a crisis of the Clyde Fitch comedy from
the French, "The Masked Ball."

That it was the actress and not the part that triumphed was proved by the
falling down of the piece when it was tried some few years since, under
supposedly favorable auspices in London.

Miss Adams was at once established as a metropolitan favorite of the first
water. The play ran as long as time could be secured for it at Wallack's
(then known as Palmer's), and was removed to the Manhattan (then the
Standard), where it finished out the season.

She continued with Drew for five years, and became a star in "The Little
Minister" in the fall of 1897, with Robert Edeson for her first leading
man.

HACKETT'S EARLY DREAM.

It Came True When He Saw His
Name in Letters of Fire in Front
of a Broadway Theater.

The line now appearing on the programs at Fields's Theater, "Mr. Hackett,
Sole Lessee and Manager," practically inaugurates in New York the policy
that has so long been current in London--that of actor-managership. To be
sure, it is not James K. Hackett's present intention to appear himself on
the stage at Fields's, but it is not unlikely that before snow flies again
he may have another house nearer the Broadway line and which will bear his
name, as it is his plan to reserve Fields's for farces like "Mr.
Hopkinson" and light musical offerings.

Speaking of his name over a theater recalls a remark he made to me
something like half a score of years ago. We had been dining together at
the Players and were riding up-town on a Broadway car in the direction of
the Broadway Theater, where Hackett was then doing _De Neipperg_ with
Kathryn Kidder in "Madame Sans Gene." The electric sign had recently come
into existence, and as we were passing what is now the Princess's, but was
then known as "Herrman's," the car was flooded with a glow from the
brilliant lettering proclaiming that So-and-So (some star whose n