 Welcome everyone, and thank you for joining us here at the Mechanics Institute. I'm Laura Shepard, Director of the ENSE. We're very pleased to welcome you to our program, The Man Who Licked Lady Liberty, The Extraordinary Rise and Fall of Actor M.B. Curtis with Author Richard Schwartz. And tonight we're very proud to co-sponsor our program with the San Francisco Historical Society. And for those of you who are new to the Mechanics Institute, how many people have never been here before? Welcome, welcome. We just want to mention that we do have a free tour of the Institute on Wednesday at noon, so please join us if you'd like to have a tour of our library, chess room, and learn about our history. But I will give you a little brief introduction. We were founded in 1854, and we're one of San Francisco's most vital literary and cultural centers in the heart of the city. As I mentioned, we feature our General Interest Library on the 2nd and 3rd floors. We have our International Chess Club down the hallway. And we have ongoing author and literary programs and our Cinema Lit Film Series on Friday night. So please visit our website and come join us for any one of our wonderful programs. After our presentation, we'll open up to you our audience for a Q&A. And Richard has many books to sell, so I hope that you will enjoy this program and consider picking up a book at the back. And also you can see we have some beautiful visuals, graphics of Envy Curtis. So a little background. If you thought that Ember Norton was quite the character of San Francisco, you are in for a treat. This book is a picturesque biography of immigrant and entrepreneur, Envy Curtis of San Francisco, whose claim to fame was on stage and in silent films but also includes many extraordinary ventures. As an actor, producer, real estate developer, promoter, portellier, benefactor, and Ember Norton suspect, which you will hear about very shortly. Richard Schwartz is a historian and the author of Centrics, Heroes and Cutthroats of Old Berkeley, Earthquake Exodus 1906, Berkeley 1900, and The Circle of Stones. Originally from Philadelphia, he graduated from Tel Aviv University with a bachelor's degree in English Literature. An outdoor enthusiast and animal lover Schwartz worked on a piece of their Dutch farm for two years before heading west to higher mountains. He now lives in Berkeley, where he works as a building contractor and documents early Native American sites in the Bay Area. The man who lived, Lady Liberty, is his fifth book and was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Margaret Harris Library to be included in their collection. The book was also recently awarded the Bronze Medal in the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards. So please welcome Richard Schwartz to the Canvas Institute. I feel like I'm in a nightclub. Maritz Bertram Strellinger was born on July 20th, 1849 in a small town in Hungary. His family emigrated to America in 1856 when Maritz was six years old. This is where they first arrived in America. Does anybody know what this is? It's a building called Castle Clinton. It was the first immigration station in the United States. It had just opened a year prior and it was the immigration station until Ellis Island opened in 1891. It was much easier to enter the United States through old Castle Clinton. He was said to be the most energetic kid in his neighborhood. His father had a tavern. He was a distiller. And on literary night, Maritz would go on top of barrels and spout Shakespeare and everybody knew he was bound for the stage. When the Civil War erupted, the 11-year-old Maritz tried to join the 15th Michigan Infantry as a drummer boy, but they rejected him due to his extreme youth. He ran away a lot. He dropped out of school at 14 years old. He finally leaves down goes to Chicago where he works as a callboy at Big Vickers Center to be close to the theater. He stayed there until 1869 when he got his first acting role at 20 years old. He began to travel the United States and Canada for work. In about 1871, he changed his name from Moritz Bertram Strellinger to Maurice Bertram Curtis, MB Curtis. This is a young MB Curtis in probably about 20, 25 years old. San Francisco in the 1870s was struggling mightily economically. There was a national economic depression in 1873 from the bank financing the Second Transcontinental Railroad, the Second Transcontinental Railroad, called the Northern Pacific Failed, and that brought down all kinds of other banks and institutions. California lurched into this economic depression in the summer of 1875 when William C. Ralston's Bank of California failed. By 1877, most everything in San Francisco was economically lifeless. Then the consolidated mine stopped paying its dividend monthly, signaling a silver crash. Already vulnerable times grew even worse in the theatrical industry in San Francisco from this latest financial catastrophe. The Bush Street Theater closed for a couple of months. The Baldwin, the Alhambra, and others followed suit. This is the California Theater. It was located at what is now 440 Bush Street and you can go see the plaque on the wall. This was built by William C. Ralston from the Bank of California. Curtis came here for work and he worked with a manager named David Belosco. It was said that this company was probably never equaled by another American theater. Most every person in this troupe went on to national fame and an amazing career and a number of them wound up working with Curtis when Curtis formed his own troupe. He's really getting a hell of an education. He had about 120 different roles in Shakespeare to tragedy to low comedy. So he was very well rounded. In 1876, he got a role in a very significant play called The Mighty Dollar where Curtis played a black servant. It was a comic role. It mirrored a similar issue that Curtis had in his own life that a number of ethnic groups were not allowed to portray themselves on stage and they were just inserted to be mocked. Many immigrant groups. By August of that year, I'm going to quote what the main theatrical newspaper said about San Francisco. The theatrical life of San Francisco had been dull, flat, unprofitable and they possessed the appearance of continuing so for some time to come. The riotous amusements of a lawless maw the depressed state of the times and the poverty of attraction at the different theaters have been potent reasons for the mighty, beggarly army array of empty benches. The Grand Opera House and Baldwin's remain closed. Anybody want to guess what this lawless maw, the amusements of a lawless maw, this was August 1877. On July 23rd to 25th, there was a riot in Chinatown by mostly other immigrants. They burned. Four people were killed. A lot of property destroyed. That's what that has to refer to. As fall settled on the Bay Area, Curtis somehow continued to find work at the California Theater in the Grand Opera House. Now this is the Bush Street Theater. It was between Kearney and Montgomery. Oh no, I'm sorry. This is the California Theater in better times. You can see the activity, the dress. This is the Bush Street Theater. It could hold 2,000 people. In the winter of 1877, the renowned actor Joseph Klein Emmett played four weeks at the theater in a play called Our Cousin Fritz. Now here he is in a trade car. Trade cards were very big back then as Fritz. And this was a very important play, a significant play. And here you see the playbill. And if you look down, you'll see MB Curtis portraying Julius Snow, who was the African-American servant. Kind of an odd name. The local newspaper said, and this was about a German immigrant. Fritz was a German immigrant. All supported as the following names bear witness. And MB Curtis' name business very good. This play's success was believed to have started a whole spond, many German immigrant character studies that followed it. Here is a poster of a German immigrant comic. How do you know he's an immigrant? Without any other information. You know he's an immigrant. If you look to the right of the poster, there it is again, Castle Clinton, the immigration station. So they would put that in there as a clue. Guys, this is about an immigrant. That's all you need to know. And you can date this, not having any other information, because on the left there's the Statue of Liberty. October 28th, 1886. So it's probably someone after that. This is the old Grand Opera House. It's the one on the north side of Mission between 3rd and 4th Streets. By early 1878, a new season opened, and they used a production of a reconstructed version of Uncle Tom's Cabin. And Curtis took the part of Mark's The Lawyer. And the newspaper said his efforts were repeatedly affected. Back at the Bush Street there, during the Christmas of that year, Curtis gave a special benefit, a special performance to 800 children at a matinee where he played Julian Krantz, a Dutchman with difficulties. And the newspaper said he was especially meritorious. Curtis was always doing benefits. If he came to a city and a fireman and just died fighting the fire, he would stop his performances, do a benefit for the family. And he was always doing this. Now, anybody know who this is? This man is an actor, and he was a pretty well-known actor. He made a grand living at portraying a Chinese male on stage. His name is Charles Paslow. Why did he make a grand living? Because a Chinese male was not allowed on the American stage. And that's what he specialized in. Here he is in that same year, 1879, portraying Wing Lee in a play called My Partner. Now, the Chinese community had their own theater which had its own culture and structure in Chinatown. And some non-Chinese people went, and it was a very exotic, dangerous thing for them to go. This is David Belosco, who was the manager at the California and the Baldwin. And he was Jewish. For Jewish actors, they were barely able to penetrate even a minor level of success, and they never could play some portray someone of their own ethnic background. Due to a lack of opportunity, many of them, instead of trying to butt their heads against this acting barrier, they went on to different sections of the theatrical trade, like stage hands, like writers, like producers. And David Belosco and Oscar Hammerstein are two examples. The theatrical role of the stage Jew had changed little in the second half of the 19th century from the material originally imported from Europe, which is where everything began in the United States theater. They didn't have their own tradition yet, so they took things from Europe. This was one of them. The Jews inserted to be laughed at. They were always codified by names like Moses, Levy, Mordecai, Solomon, and seldom anything else. They were limited to a repertoire of yelling things like Suffering Moses, or all Rebecca, lots of bots and vans, and that was it. They weren't portrayed as human beings. They were portrayed as a pile of stereotypes, often very negative. This was the Baldwin Hotel which contained the Baldwin Theater, where David Belosco was the manager. If you look to the left of it, that's where the cable car turnaround is now, and where the Baldwin Hotel stood is where the flood building stands. Pretty amazing, huh? So now we come to 1880. And this is the big year. The year M.B. Curtis introduced his character, Samuel Opposen, for the first time. And no producer in New York City would touch it. So he contacted his brother, they formed a troupe, and in one tour of the country, it changed everything. By the time he got back, he was one of the top three actors in the country, and he was a very wealthy man in one tour. And this went on every year, year after year. He was interviewed about this. Of course, when you have a successful play, there's going to be a million stories of how the play was thought out or spawned. And in one of the interviews, Curtis said, the germination of the play was in San Francisco, and I'll read you some from that interview with his own words. And I have to tell you first that a drummer is another word for a traveling salesman. And if you're as old as I am, you remember as a kid, even on TV, there were those guys with the briefcases with the strap around their neck, and they would open it up and show you their wares. That's a drummer. And they could be individuals who just got some wares and were selling them, or they could represent a manufacturer, and they could go around with samples. There was a very funny drummer here at the time, a man called Wolf. He was perhaps one of the most comical men I have ever met. And for the life of me, I could never refrain from giving imitations of them. I'm a member of the Bohemian Club. He was, I checked. And whenever I wanted to create a laugh, I would just give them Wolf. So he did one of their hijinks, and he saw that both this role reached something deep inside him, and that the people in the audience were mesmerized. He could feel them in his hand, and he realized, this is my one chance. I'm either going to live in this flop house for the rest of my life, even though he was a very good actor, he was a supporting actor, and he could barely eat. So he bought the play for more money than he had, and began that tour. And that was the beginning of Samuel Posen. And from the get-go, critics were stunned. And everybody was talking about it. It was a play you had to see. Little faders in small towns were getting operatic rates. They would empty the orchestra pit so they could fit more people in. Every place was packed every night. Some people saw the play over 10 times over the years. And Curtis always kept it up to date. If plaids were the fad in, you know, 1884, he would be wearing plaids. If diamonds-studded color picks were the fad, he would make sure he had them. He was always changing the lines. But the mastery that he had was not as much that. I've read the play. You won't get anything from reading it. It's a standard Victorian melodrama comedy. And the critics of his day said this as well. It was his at-lives. It was his timing. It was his pretend struggle with the English language as a Greenhorn immigrant who was trying his best. And people couldn't love this character more. So I'll read you a couple of quotes. Samuel Posen is like nothing which is in the heavens nor the earth beneath. Even this of his monotone is irresistible and the characters of accent may have been the original. Furthermore, the exacting realism of the day has come to demand that a Jew play a Jew's part. Samuel Posen is throughout an adapted play rather than a written one which is basically what we were just talking about. His timing was magical and he did mesmerize audiences and they would not stop laughing. But there were serious messages in the comedy, like most comedy, not what was in the script. His struggle with the English language, if he wanted to say, here's my good, that's half a dollar, he would say, well that's a hell of a dollar. And people would just keep, long after the play was over, they'd repeat that. And I don't get to later on, when Mark Twain was saying it, Curtis told the mirror that he spent three quarters of an hour every night putting on an exaggerated waxed nose. Why? Because prior to him, a Jewish character was not allowed to be played unless they had that exaggerated nose and a bunch of other things. So his character, although it made a tremendous leap, did not get rid of all the stereotypes and the negative things. It just broke. And he was so, you know, in the old days you had to have the nose, the beard, the long coat, the hat, and you would be emotionally clothed in scurrilous attributes from wholly important from the European stage. Many critics called Curtis's portrayal the first portrayal of the modern Jew, or the first portrayal of the American Jew. For the first time, it wasn't just a pile of negative attributes not amounting to a human character. He was a human character. And for the first time in American stage history, the audience left with the Jewish character, not at the Jewish character, and it was a seismic change. Do you want some stockings, you insinuates? They're very fine to pair for a cube author of a hell of a dollar. You know, and it was a guy who was somewhat foolish, but always himself, and he was trying. And I think that's what made it such a personal performance, because who doesn't relate to that? You know, everybody's hiding behind the human mask, and they're standing opposing with no mask. And he couldn't have a mask because he had nothing to hide behind. So, one local paper said he's very quiet, natural, and unassuming, this character. He made no attempt to caricature or burlesque his part. His dialect is easy and unforced, and it's better dialect than the usual broken German of the stage. The audience understood all his points. He was making all these inside jokes that working people would understand, but the critics and the Victorian power brokers, oh, my, suspenders and socks fought for a hell of a dollar. The audience was kept in a continual roar of laughter, literally. Now, drummers were considered to be a very dangerous group of people. Why? They were on the road. They were away from their wives. They were away from their religious leaders. They were away from their bosses. They could do anything they wanted. That's dangerous to late 19th century America. So, the other thing was they were outsiders. The railroad changed everything, both for the theater and for small town America and for commerce. So now the drummer would get on the railroad and it would go to this tiny little town which he used to be so isolated they would have no news of the city and many of them didn't want it. Now all of a sudden the drummer comes in. It was good and bad. They had all these amazing goods that they would have never had access to. But they also felt like the city was coming to them where they wanted their own culture, their country culture. And there was another fear which we'll get into more with Mark Twain. It was the fear that if you're selling something you're losing yourself to sell it. That scared the hell out of Americans. But they dealt with it really quickly. So here's Curtis with also being very awkward selling buttons and scarves and socks and suspenders and he's got that smile and that goofy look. Another trade card along the whole place in a couple of years. So this was, you can see, he's the young innocent Samuel Opposite. And you could collect all six and you turn them over and it says Samuel Opposite at the Grand Opera. So these were things to attract people. Now here's another shot of Curtis and you'll notice the Ulster, which is a long overcoat, is pretty thin. All the successful people or the proper people wore Ulsters back in this period. So Samuel has an Ulster but it's not a very good one. He's kind of got an awkward tie and not quite the right hat. Now here you can see the change. Now he's a real American. He's got the spat shoes, he's got the right briefcase, the right hat and he's even showing you the lining of his plaid coat. And I can't tell you how many critics talked about even if there wasn't a wasted movement with Curtis. Everything he did communicated something and it was usually funny or awkward and even showing the lining, somehow, who knows how he did it cause people to break out laughing. Curtis had a sumptuous wardrobe prepared. He once, once vests were the fat of the year and he was in San Francisco and he went to Wilkes-Bashford because they were open back then and he bought like 12 vests all at once and he was going to use them and it became, well, that's a Curtis all right. He was known for these eccentricities and theatrical nature. Sumptuous wardrobe prepared for Samuel Opposin to wear in the new comedy. The plaids are the largest and the silks the gaudiest ever manufactured. He was trying to make it gaudy because Samuel Opposin didn't know the ball game yet. In 1894, it was said, the drummer of today is always stylish and a well-dressed gentleman and Mr. Curtis relegated his old plaids and stripes to the past. That was 1884. And in their place, we'll show all the latest fats and dress. Not forgetting, of course, jeweled studs in his collar. We'd seem to be the latest craze. So he was constantly changing the play to make it up-to-date. This is a fascinating poster. There's four characters. Who are they? They're all Samuel Opposin. On the left is the Greenhorn immigrant. He doesn't have anything right except he's out there trying. The next guy, his Ulster, well, he's got an Ulster, but it's thin, wrong tie, wrong hat and kind of looks still kind of a little awkward at Samuel Opposin. And the guy to his right, well, that's Samuel Opposin, the drummer in the proper shoes, the proper pants, the proper hat, the proper Ulster, and he really knows the ropes now. And the guy on the far right, well, he's at the top of this game. He probably doesn't even leave. He probably got a store and doesn't need to leave. So this is an Americanization of Samuel Opposin all in one poster. Anybody want to tell me why we know he's an immigrant? It's because if you look behind them, there's Castle Clinton. That's the signal he's an immigrant. This is a beautiful Marie Curtis and his wife, her born name was Marie Alfoncine Floronget. She was schooled in the nunnery in Montreal. She, in Samuel Opposin, she played a very difficult role, a fiery French adventurous and murderer, you know, with strong dashes of high color, quite turner-esque in their suggestions of the emotional. Not easy role to play. People said, Mrs. C's delicious accent and Marie Laugh were not something they could capture on paper. She would come out in a gray gown that was actually her grandmother's. Next she wore a 100-year-old hat. In another, a cherry and blue velvet brocade her bodice and shoulder pieces radiated with lace. The costume changed every act. Her jewelry, much of it was antique, were as notable as her gowns and they were always noted in the paper. Her dresses with great taste and plays her difficult part carefully. Now there's a, this story over the years as I researched it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So here I'm researching this and I'm researching Marie. And it turns out, who's connected? Marie Antoinette. How is Marie Antoinette connected? Marie Antoinette was given a huge topaz ring surrounded by diamonds by the Duke of Soiree in 1783 in Marie Antoinette's country home in Chantilly. Years went by and a few weeks before she was executed she gave this ring as a token of friendship to her wine merchant's wife. The wine merchant's wife was Marie Curtis's great-grandmother. So she got that ring. She got that ring and she was said she would wear it for good luck but only on the stage. One other thing connected with Marie, with Albina. Albina de Mer was her stage name. It was a revival of an old tradition that was started by manager Lester Wallace a famous manager in the United States. And that was, he understood like a good contractor, you take care of your guys in the house. So after the play was over he would put out this amazing banquet of food for his actors and actresses. And they loved it and they appreciated it. God knows they were hungry. Well, when times got bad or if you had a frugal manager they would put out teas colored to look like wine and fake meats on the table. Now I would love to know what Beyond Meat product they came up with. And I know it would be better than ours because they didn't have processed foods. So Albina brought that tradition back and in 1883 she laid out this incredible table she did matinee performances of Camille and after it was done she put out oysters, fried and raw roast turkey, chicken salad and real wines and they never forgot her. They talked about that for years. She was no slouch when it came to acting although she didn't intend to be an actress. She only did it because Moritz asked her to fill in for something that was missing. She performed with a young Humphrey Bogart in a production called Durs and she performed in early movies. So she in her own right was quite something and quite something to look at in her gowns. Now here's a pamphlet that was a giveaway for the play Samuel Opposen. Here's what the dramatic mirror of the authority on American stage said in 1889. The American plays were so important to our nation and culture yet the critics are most hard on them. What series of imported plays can be set up alongside that remarkable series of American character sketches which begins with Rip Van Winkle and which includes Kit, the Gilded Age, the All Mighty Dollar, Davey Crockett, the Dainties, Samuel Opposen, my partner. Curtis had taken his place in the top eight plays in our nation's culture and nobody ever heard of it. And I just find this amazing. In reference to his coat it flutters like a hummingbird between plaids and stripes, between blue and green. It flutters like a hummingbird. No motion he did was regular. It was all like a theatrical tai chi and it just sucked people in never to return. Samuel had a regular name, the character Samuel. He wasn't, you know, Mordecai. He had no beard. He didn't behave in a dishonest or harsh way. He was happy. He had friends. He treated people well. He had a love interest. He wanted the same footing and opportunities as those around him with whom he wanted to interact and relate to. This was a totally new thing. It's hard for us to comprehend what a change that was. Shylock. One critic said, Shylock is one thing. Samuel opposing another. From Samuel opposing the commercial drummer angels and ministers of grace defend us. It's very vile in the sense of offense to any person who claims even an approach to refined feelings. A brawler's laughter on the part of the audience created his uncouth movements and mean setups in his drummer camp. The reviewer also resented that there was a big portion of the audience both Christian and Jewish that was getting the humor and he didn't. Because the jokes were not understandable to a refined American. What he's really saying is, and he clearly doesn't know it yet, it's coming out as discussed but it's really feared. He's watching his whole world which he's safely in the bosom of the Victorian culture being eroded rather quickly. In the theater it used to be that only the elites could choose what plays would be run by putting out a lot of money to have them produced. Now, there were a lot of working people and a lot of people who were immigrants that had been here for a little while and they were getting established. They could buy a ticket to the theater for themselves, their wives and often their families and now they have a vote of what's going to be successful by buying those tickets. Never had that before. And the critic was like trying to hold on to something that was already gone, America had already changed, never to go back to that old way. So, and the critic said what's wrong with Shylock? If it was performed right any Jewish person would be proud. Proud to be a pile of negative stereotypes. It was incredible to read this. But I also have sympathy for the guy because he could feel this whole world was coming to an end and that's got to be threatening. His mistake and the reason it wasn't a right feeling was it's not his call to stand in the way that owned the culture and luckily he didn't. So there were a lot of studies on character portrayals in the late 19th century and what they came up with was it was better to be seen and even mocked than to be left out. But if you could be seen with no malice and if one could be laughed at without no malice one could put one's guard down and join in the humor. But if not, it was better to be included and get what little piece of positive feedback you could than to be left out entirely like many groups were. One theatrical manager said Samuel was the most truthful and artistic portrayal of the Taipian person that the stage had ever known. And this is things going well there's the critic. Now, here things are going well but it's like problems keep jumping up. This was a poster for the play and there's Hebrew letters up at the top and some critics said you know, this method of advertising a farcical play is likely to offend a number of sensitive and worthy people and the spirit of the times contributed to this and they said sensitive and worthy people are not offended when Bernhard is advertised in French or Gertzinger in German or Bocchio in Irish on Gallic in green poster paper. So why was this? You know, and they ended with Samuel Posen will probably keep the boards all summer so we shall have plenty of time to discuss the subject. Here's another handout the most strikingly most strikingly original purely national and successful characterization ever presented on the American stage and on the back of it you'll see the fourth paragraph it's supposed to be like what a drummer would have and they told that when drummers are on the trains they usually sit together. Well, I found this this is one of the best pennedonings I've ever seen here are two drummers telling, you know, they have to have good jokes to tell stories, they have so many stories to tell each other well, they're having a great time a little loud, a little not refined but look at the kid on the right they're doing what they want nobody's telling them what to do and you see behind him his mom's keeping a close eye on him he's looking up to these guys and the woman in between the two drummers, the sneer on her face was worth the 20 years of research to find this it says more than words could here's a drummer, a refined drummer coming into a small town obviously by the railroad and what this pennedoning shows you is he's of a different world he's of a different culture he's from the city and little towns, they would have taxes on these guys to keep them out or make it impossible for them to come in if they had a special license that was so expensive that would keep them out so drummers were having a hard time there were even lady drummers here's a play about a lady drummer but god knows these were only in urban areas during the daylight being a drummer was a dangerous profession especially when you got out in the boonies they got robbed and sometimes they got killed and it happened enough that they had to band together to protect themselves and they formed an insurance company that if they got killed this insurance would get their bodies back to their families and that made them feel better now it turns out and I didn't know this that insurance company still exists and as it coined the coincidence my home is insured to this insurance company anybody want to guess what it is? travelers once you get it it's go, of course so here's a poster of an Irish caricature the newspapers of the day said they were the most vehement applauders of songs and sketches in the variety shows where the Irishman was represented as drunk and unfaithful as well as earthy and merry the point was all the laughing didn't take away from the good feelings of the character and the character almost exclusively was portrayed by an Irish actor so you can make fun of yourself it doesn't take away from the wonderful person you are and you can laugh at your faults that was a huge thing and they had to portray their own this is an amazing document I've stared at this for a long long time many times this was from the periodical puck this is three years after the plague was introduced and in it are all everybody who's anybody in Washington is in this and they're all dressed up like Samuel Post and they all have their waxed notes on and they're coming to Columbia there on the left meeting the government with what they want to sell their programs and you'll notice on the balcony some of the sand will be down and Columbia is saying not today, maybe some other day you can see that's Ulysses S. Grant that's General Sherman this is Blaine who was a speaker of the house and was for African American suffrage Chester Arthur would become president you know everybody was in this poster he was nominated Duke of Posen at Mardi Gras he was the first man to do a benefit performance for the actor's fund to form when an actor got sick or injured they could be on the street and die because they didn't have any money so the tradition was that was very difficult so they formed the actor's fund he was the first to do a benefit he collected more than anybody and at the end of his life who do you think he was taken care of by the actor's fund Samuel Paul is in 5 Cent Cigars he was like the first it's like a Disney movie where they're all the dolls and there's no cigars I never thought I'd see one but this year they said just as Samuel Paul says all we want is a chance give us that so everybody was using Samuel Paul did anybody recognize this guy good he's a pickpocket from 1904 rested in Boston and look at his alias Samuel Paul so that's the low and now everybody knows who this is and this is the hero Roosevelt 1905 25 years after the play was introduced was said to be the only Samuel opposing in Washington so you could see the penetration of the culture of this play Charlie Chaplin you thought those big oversized shoes were his invention they weren't, they were courtesans someone imitated Chaplin Chaplin's suitum they went to court all these features he put together weren't yours originally those shoes were done by N.B. Curtis long before you and I called a clown museum to make sure it wasn't clowns and they said no we didn't use them way back then so it sounds like it is true that what he used in the tramp was from N.B. Curtis everybody knows who this is here's I'm going to give a quote from a review of Curtis his elbow and wrist are eloquent no one had portrayed that before on stage one critic described the attention getting way Curtis curled his hand placed his place his chin on it and it brought to mind Jack Benny so many years later these things were just passed down and they lost to invented them it was N.B. Curtis so he comes back to San Francisco he opens a new play it's not successful it starts driving him nuts here's a poster spot cash at any time he was in trouble he went back to San Diego Poser the street theater here's spot cash he also tried to play called the Sachin which was a marriage broker and in all these failures the critic said his acting is still amazing but the writers failed him in this one the culmination of a serious theme and Curtis's comedy were never able to be combined well enough there's where it was placed he goes to New York in 1886 the Statue of Liberty had been dedicated three days earlier he's opening a new play he's an immigrant he wants to see it lighting up the harbor for the world he gets there it's clothed in darkness he goes up to a government guy he says what's going on this is supposed to light up the harbor for the world goes oh go on you little immigrant congress paid to light it up through the dedication that's all they want to do they're not paying for it anymore and he points to the guy he says if you don't light it I will yeah sure go on get out of here he goes he finds the guys who are making the electricity for the lights takes $800 out of his pocket which is like $30,000 now slams it on the table points to the Statue of Liberty and he did and he did and for the two and a half weeks that Curtis performed in New York City he lit the Statue of Liberty nobody knows this I even flew to New York and met the Statue of Liberty historians they knew he offered they didn't know it happened it did it's so embarrassed congress they changed their minds and funded lighting the Statue of Liberty so if it's forgotten immigrant the Statue of Liberty wouldn't be lit today I guess I'm just about out of time Mark Twain approached Curtis to do a theatrical version of Connecticut Young in King Martha's Court Curtis said I'll do it I'd love to do it but my requirement would be it would be Samuel Opposite in King Martha's Court and he has to be portrayed Hank has to be an American too like Samuel Opposite and Twain said you know that's a brilliant idea the two characters are very similar and he accepted those terms and it was just a matter of coming to terms Curtis was on the road he was supposed to come back and they were going to sign a contract Twain got desperate because he had desperate needs for money and he told his agent just take anything I need the money and they signed up a couple of producers in New York but they never happened and that was it there's no time to tell you about the night Curtis took his wife to see Sarah Bernard and Camille and was walking back he got mugged he was accused of murdering a very popular good San Francisco police officer he endured three trials I won't tell you what happened I don't want to spoil it and this is just the beginning of this man's story he gave away land he gave away lots into the county to come see his play when it wasn't doing well there was like 10,000 people that utilized it Hearst copied him he built this hotel in Berkeley tallest hotel in the Bay Area Peralta Park Hotel you can see it in the background how out of scale it is and you can see what an incredible place it was because everything he did I'm going to stop here to enable everyone to ask questions and I thank you for listening just so you know I could do another 10 of these and now I'm going to say a little closing let this be the first of 10 thank you Richard we're going to open for questions if you have a question raise your hand I'll bring you the microphone I just wondered you had said did you notice himself Jewish? it wasn't that they weren't allowed it was that they weren't allowed to portray a Jewish character just like no African American until after the turn of the century was allowed to portray an African American and Chinese weren't allowed in the theater but he was Jewish so he was the first one to portray a Jew right and do it with humanity that's what you know and I think it's like what we talked about with the Irish portrayals you can laugh at yourself everybody's got traits that are foolhardy but it didn't ruin the confusions and that's what Curtis wrote in which was monumental anybody else? so I lived in Berkeley near Posen and Curtis streets are they named after this guy? no and yes Curtis street was named after the Irish immigrant farmer Michael Curtis Posen was named after Sammy Wood Posen because it was part of that hotel development at Albina street was Albina de Mer there was Carlotta street Wilkes Bashford's manager came to Curtis and said I want to buy a couple of lots in your development but I only want to do it if you name a street after my wife he said sure what's your wife's name? Carlotta but back in the day there was a street named Curtis by his development that was named after him and now it's Monterey so you were essentially right but now you know a lot more than most people yes was he influenced by the Yiddish theater in the Bay? I've never seen anything written about them his father was more religious the thing part of this answer is interesting in that they were from Hungary now most of the other European nations kept all the Jews in a ghetto and if you weren't behind those locked doors at the end of the day you were killed so they could only have certain jobs so they turned to their religion is the only thing they had available to them so they were really tight with their religion Hungary was the exception in Europe in Hungary you could join the military you could own property you could do any job you wanted and there was mandatory public school so the Jewish immigrants from Hungary were much less tied to their religion than most of the other European nations Curtis grew up in that so he he could participate more in society so he wasn't so focused on his religion does that answer your question? yes thank you I'll just interject here that there was in San Francisco a Yiddish theater it can't give you all the detail but thank you John you have a question coming your way looking at the architecture there so obviously throwback to the Ottoman Empire maybe Alhambra or Taj Mahal but with all the characters throughout history how did you pick Curtis? okay before I get to that John is J.P. Electric one of the finest electrical contractors in the Bay Area I know I was a contractor this was finished in 1890 it had electricity it had gas heat the lighting fixtures were in the form of tulips this place was like mind-boggling we can't imagine what it was like the town would stand around the place and just gawk and if the lights went on at night they were blown away they had never seen electricity so it was really innovative now I forgot what you asked the Ottoman Empire was still expanding at the time the architecture is that style like Alhambra in Spain and I don't know I don't know what brought him to create this I'll tell you what I think it was what brought you to focus on him okay the Alkazar Center was Gothic architecture and I think a lot of that influenced him for his combined architecture of a so-called what got me was this I started reading every out of print Berkeley history I could find and they all had the same exact problem about a little bit about Envy Curtis no one had ever done any research on him so I started researching it and the story got bigger and bigger and bigger and then after 10, 15 years I've gone into the Statue of Liberty in March 20 I have to stay with this wherever it leads there are so many things about this guy it's like he lived 30 lives in one and the trials in San Francisco for the murder were unbelievable they were national news he was never the same after that when he was put on trial maybe 32, 34 he lived to be like 80 he lived to be 80 and once his trouble started he drank heavily so it's kind of amazing he lived as long as he did his wife they had this amazing relationship they traveled, they loved animals they had a deer park they had dogs birds and they even traveled with some of their favorite birds Albina did and I'll indulge you with this one quick story they were in Austin, Texas back then there was no air conditioning so they had transom windows open the doors and that was how you open the window and you open the transom the transom was open they had the parents in the room the governor of Texas was staying across the hall and he had a dinner to go to that night so he's coming back to his room and as he passes Curtis's room he hears somebody say hey baby why don't you come in for a kiss and the governor next military man very proper stops and he says excuse me hey baby why don't you come in for a kiss and he's like what is going on and then he hears this gruff male voice and be Curtis why don't you leave the poor bird alone how do I know this this was a conversation in the hallway how do I know this because this is the part that's even more amazing than me he goes to his banquet he was so tickled by the story he tells everyone at the banquet the newspaper reporter puts it in the paper and 140 years later I find it and I'm telling you come on that's what impresses me and you know the bird is smiling anybody else they did not they did not they had relatives who had children but they did not have children yes one is a pilot for I think United Airlines where is he buried he's buried in Los Angeles and the name of the place begins with a P but it's in the book it's in the book so you book you can get it in the library or just look it up and then you get it whatever question over here you said he was mugged did he actually kill the placement I can't tell you that because it would ruin the suspense the police I can't tell you that the policeman back then didn't wear uniforms most of the time and on the cold San Francisco nights they had heavy sweaters or coats and some of them put their badges on some didn't so this policeman who was a great guy from Nova Scotia comes upon to see this guy and puts what's called nippers which are handcuffs that tighten if you try to resist he puts nippers on them both and he's bringing them to the police station which is like half a block away and well I can't tell you anymore because it'd be three hours would go by and then you wouldn't spoil it it's amazing three trials by the book alright then so if there are any more questions we'll let you peruse these beautiful