The details in the career of David Belasco are easily accessible.  It is most unfortunate that the stupendous record of his life’s accomplishment thus far, which, in two voluminous books, constituted the final labour of the late William Winter, is not more truly reflective of the man and his work.  It fails to reproduce the flavour of the dramatic periods through which Belasco passed, in his association with Dion Boucicault as private secretary, in his work with James A. Herne at Baldwin’s Theatre, in San Francisco, in his pioneer realism at the old New York Madison Square Theatre, when the Mallory Brothers were managers, Steele Mackaye was one of the stock dramatists, Henry DeMille was getting ready for collaboration with Belasco, Daniel Frohman was house-manager and Charles Frohman was out on the road, trying his abilities as advance-man for Wallack and Madison Square successes.  Winter’s life is orderly and matter-of-fact; Belasco’s real life has always been melodramatic and colourful.

His early struggles in San Francisco, his initial attempts at playwriting, his intercourse with all the big actors of the golden period of the ’60’s—­Mr. Belasco has written about them in a series of magazine reminiscences, which, if they are lacking in exact sequence, are measure of his type of mind, of his vivid memory, of his personal opinions.

Belasco has reached his position through independence which, in the ’90’s, brought down upon him the relentless antagonism of the Theatrical Trust—­a combine of managers that feared the advent of so individualistic a playwright and manager.  They feared his ability to do so many things well, and they disliked the way the public supported him.  This struggle, tempestuous and prolonged, is in the records.

A man who has any supreme, absorbing interest at all is one who thrives on vagaries.  Whatever Belasco has touched since his days of apprenticeship in San Francisco, he has succeeded in imposing upon it what is popularly called “the Belasco atmosphere.”  Though he had done a staggering amount of work before coming to New York, and though, when he went to the Lyceum Theatre, he and Henry DeMille won reputation by collaborating in “The Wife,” “Lord Chumley,” “The Charity Ball,” and “Men and Women,” he was probably first individualized in the minds of present-day theatregoers when Mrs. Leslie Carter made a sensational swing across stage, holding on to the clapper of a bell in “The Heart of Maryland.”  Even thus early, he was displaying characteristics for which, in later days, he remained unexcelled.  He was helping Bronson Howard to touch up “Baron Rudolph,” “The Banker’s Daughter” and “The Young Mrs. Winthrop;” he was succeeding with a dramatization of H. Rider Haggard’s “She,” where William Gillette had failed in the attempt.