Newspapers / The Pinehurst Outlook (Pinehurst, … / March 7, 1908, edition 1 / Page 4
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page xmgJBBM PINEHURST OUTLOOK I.The Ideal Resort for Health or Pleasure Seekers ABOUT DENMAN THOMPSON The riecklenburg Hineral Springs and Hotel CHASE CITY, VIRGINIA. On the Southern Railway-ninety miles south of Richmond. Hotel thoroughly modern. Rooms single and en suite, private baths, steam heat, electric lights, elevator. Winter climate ideal, location and sur roundings superb; cuisine and service the best. All popular diver sions; orchestra. Game preserves of thirty thousand acres; quail, deer, turkey and small game abundant. .Fox hunting. Fine livery. Baruch and Xauheim system of baths. The famous Mecklenburg Springs water Lithia and Chloride Calcium served to guests. Tour- ' ists rates from all points. Stop over privileges on all tourist tickets. I "Weekly rates, $15.00 and up. For booklets address I THE MECKLENBURG, I Chase City, Virginia. THE BALMY BREEZES OF THE SUNNY SOUTH Are laden with Health and Happiness for the "Worn-out "Wrestler with the Strenuous Life. But you cannot repair wasted tissue or restore strength to jangled nerves with air and sunshine alone. The stomach calls for a food that supplies body-building material in its most digestible form. Such a food is Shredded Whole Wheat. It is made of the whole wheat, cleaned, cooked and drawn into fine porous shreds and baked. These delicate . shreds contain all the nutri tive elements of the whole wheat grain and are taken up and assimilated when the stomach rejects all other foods. Shredded Wheat is made in two formi-BISCVIT and TIUSCHT. The BISCUIT i delicious for breakfast with hot or cold milk or cream, or for any meal in com bination with fresh or preserved fruit. TltfSCUJLT is the Shredded Whole Wheat wafer, crisp, nourishing and appetizing-. Delicious as a toast with beverag-es or with butter, cheese or marmalade. IBoth the BISCUIT and THIS CHIT should be thor oughlj heated in the oven just before serving 3 "There's Health and Strength in Ererr Shred' , THE MOST.DELIGHTFUL SUMMER RESORT IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS a modern village 1600 feet above sea level, is Bethlehem, n. H. ouK to resorts Is THE ARLINGTON SrSK F- C. ABBE, Prop. PROPOS to the recent visit of Mr. Denman Thompson is an inter view covering his life and work which appears in a recent issue of Human Life; a fitting tribute to "The Man and the Play that have Lasted,'' as the story aptly puts it. Mr. Thompson came for only a few days' stay here, but he was so delighted with the Village that lie remained nearly two weeks, or the very limit of his time ; leaving regretfully and planning to come again. "THE MAN AND THE PLAY THAT HAVE LASTED.'' Just fifty-five years ago a nineteen-year-old lad who would an actor be, threw up his job in his uncle's dry-goods store at Lowell, Mass., and joined a show called "The French Spy," at a salary of nothing a week. This was Denman Thompson's first ap pearance on any stage, and the fact that after three generations he is still de lighting the theatre-going public, at more a week than most of us see in a year, proves it was a pretty good thing that the call of the footlights was stronger than dry goods. For so long a time (thirty years in fact) has Denman Thompson been asso ciated with the role of "Joshua Whit comb'' in "The Old Homestead'' that it was all I could do, when this white haired, ruddy-faced old gentleman re ceived me in his dressing-room, to keep from saying, "Why, how de do, Uncle Josh." "Well, it does seem like 'Josh Whit comb' is my second self," laughed Mr. Thompson, easing his rheumatism in a big arm chair, "I've played the part more times than I can remember. I was about forty-two when I first created it, I'm seventy-four now, and I hope I can go on being 'Uncle Josh' until I am ninety-four. NOT PLAYING FAREWELLS YET. "It does beat me how the newspapers know more about what you are going to do than you do yourself. Just because this is my twenty-third season in 'The Old Homestead' they have it that it's my farewell tour. No such thing. I don't believe in 'em. As long as the rheuma tism don't get me I'm good for twenty three1 more seasons. You see it sticks with me all right, though," and Mr. Thompson held up a knotted finger rue fully, "but after all I shouldn't grumble about it much, for it's my rheumatism that's responsible for 'Uncle Josh.'" "You see it was in 1875 that I was just getting over a bad attack, and was so crippled that I couldn't get around good. Of course there weren't many parts 1 could play in that condition and, as I had to earn my living, the idea came to me of creating an old New England farmer that I could play and have some excuse for hobbling around on a cane. I say I created the character but I really pat terned it after a real Josh Whitcomb, who lived up in my neighborhood, and most all of the old characters were taken from the real folks up my way too. At first I simply embodied the idea in a sketch called 'Josh Whitcomb' and ap peared in it with great success in variety theatres. Later I elaborated it into a play with the same name and afterwards came 'The Old Homestead' with the same characters. A SIMPLE, HOMELY OLD PLAY. "There are no new fangled 'problems' in 'The Old Homestead.' It's just a sim ple, homely old play. That's why it's lived all these years and why not only blase old theatre-goers llock to see it to be refreshed, but whj' people who ordi narily don't go to the theatre at all never miss a chance to see it. It teaches a good moral lesson and appeals to man's better nature, but at the same time it is humorous, human, and not too preachy. That's why the grandfather, whose daddy took him to see it when he was a little lad takes his son's son today and enjoys it all over again. Why, at the Academy of Music, where in 1SSS we ran for three years continuously, we have done a bigger business this season than ever before." "It is hard to think of you ever play ing any other part, but I suppose, of course, you did, Mr. Thompson," I ven tured. "Oh, yes, for the first twenty years I was on the stage I played so many parts in stock, comedy yesterday, tragedy to day, and drama tomorrow, that they quite make up for all the long years I've just been Joshua Whitcomb.' DESERTED YARDSTICK FOR STAGE. "Vou see I was born in 1S33 in a little village in Erie County, Pa., but when I was just a small boy my father moved to New Hampshire. Ever since I was old enough to know anything I knew that I wanted to be an actor, and so when I was seventeen years old I went away with a circus as an acrobat. This only lasted one year, and it was such hard work that I was glad to take a job in my uncle's dry-goods store in Lowell, Mass. I still cherished my ambitious of bemo an actor, however, and many were the lucky customers who carried away an extra length of turkey calico that I had overmeasured in my abstracted dreams about the footlights. Naturally, when I got the chance to have a real speaking part in 'The French Spy' at the Lowell Museum, I threw down my yardstick and took up the spear. I stayed there a year for nothing more lucrative than ex perience, and then joined a stock com pany in Worcester, with more of a salary and the position of utility man. After that I became a member of the old-fashioned resident stock company at the Royal Lyceum in Toronto, where I stayed fourteen years and learned all the rudiments of the acting business." PAID $3,000 WORTH OF OIJLIGATIONS. It was while Mr. Thompson was in Toronto that an incident occurred which shows more clearly than anything else
The Pinehurst Outlook (Pinehurst, N.C.)
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March 7, 1908, edition 1
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