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THE AMIABLELADY CHARMS THE IRON CITY Adah Isaacs Menken in Pittsburgh John F. Krich the end of the summer of 1968 a small but devoted group of Byadmirers, historians, biographers, and other captivated individu- als willhave celebrated the centennial of the death of one of the world's most startling and astonishing actresses. Her death at thirty- three years of age on 10 August 1868 willhave been mourned by those who could not have known her, but who celebrate her memory as passionately and vociferously as those of her contemporaries who deprecated her inher lifetime and forgot her in death. Inthe hundred years since her death, the ebullient, sensational, and astounding life of Adah Isaacs Menken has been resurrected by those whose curiosities have led them to pursue the mysterious lifetime and career of "The Naked Lady" (as she was dubbed by her audiences and admirers) and to have become ultimately fascinated and bewitched by her charm and insatiable thirst for living. Pittsburgh is one of several cities that played an early but not insignificant role in the unfolding of her theatrical career. However, before pursuing her visits to the "Iron City," let us take a brief look at this eclectic woman who was at once a paradox and truly a breath of fresh air in a rather turgid Victorian age. There is considerable mystery and controversy over much of her life:her birth date which is said to have been in 1835 ;the place of her birth which is thought to have been New Orleans; her real name which she herself insisted was Dolores Adios Los Fuertes ; and whether or not she was a Jewess (Bernard Falk, one of her biographers, suggests, rather naively, that she was indeed a Jewess. His evidence is an early ambro- type of her at the age of eighteen which, he says, shows her "to be unmistakably a Jewess." 1). Itis more than likely that such issues willnever be resolved. Mr. Krich is a member of the staff in the Department of Speech and the Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh.— Editor 1 Bernard Falk, The Naked Lady (London, 1952), facing 21. 260 JOHN F. KRICH JULY Itis known, however, that in her brief lifetime she married four times and bore two sons who did not survive for very long. Her first husband, Alexander Isaac Menken, was a musician from Cincinnati who provided Adah with the surname she was to retain throughout her life. The marriage was short-lived and after some small success on the New York stage she fellinlove withand married the American contender to the world's heavyweight boxing title, John Carmel Heenan. It was a stormy union and Menken and Heenan soon parted company, but not before he had fought England's title contender, Tom Sayers, to a draw in a championship bout and she had risen to a successful place as an actress in New York. A son was born in the summer of 1860, but did not survive early infancy. Menken's next marriage was to Robert H. Newell, critic and satirist, who had fol- lowed inAdah's wake like a puppy after its master. He was thorough- ly bewitched and enamoured of her both before and after their mar- riage. Newell mourned his beloved Adah until his own death in Brooklyn many years later. Her fourth and last marriage was to James Paul Barkley, another of her ardent followers, who found himself the Menken's husband only after it was discovered that she was carrying his child. Once again the marriage and child were ill-fated;the infant died shortly after birth. Adah Isaacs Menken rose to fame in her portrayal of the title character in H.M.Milner's play, Mazeppa. After numerous successes across America in that vehicle, she went abroad, first to old Astley's Theatre inLondon's Westminster-bridge Road and then to the Euro- pean continent and most notably Paris where success was even more resounding than in her homeland. Ambitious managers, producers, and actresses made many attempts to imitate her, but none could ap- proach the charm, beauty, and drawing-power of this cigar-smoking, accused Confederate spy whose own scantily-clad legs effected a weak- ening in the knees of nearly every man who saw her or whose path she crossed. There is a list of men whose lives were wound about that of Adah Isaacs Menken that defies comparison even today. She appeared on the stage with some of the greatest American actors of the day : Edwin Booth, James Hackett, and James Murdoch. Included in the list of her American admirers are Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller,and Walt Whitman. In England she drew about her Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Swinburne, Charles Dickens, and the artist James A. McNeill Whistler. She knew Jacques Offenbach, Theophile Gautier, and her love affair with Alexandre Dumas, pere, 1968 THE AMIABLELADY CHARMS THE IRON CITY 261 was the sensation of Paris and all of France. Swinburne and Rossetti immortalized her in verse and she herself wrote a fascinating and lovely volume of poetry, Injelicia, that in spite of an obvious influence by Walt Whitman, is sufficient to attest to her ability as a fine poet. Pittsburgh audiences of the pre-Civil War years were in a unique position to be witness to Menken's rise from the ranks of second-rate touring companies to a full-fledged star whose fame and notoriety swept across America, England, and the European continent. At best, theatrical operations in Pittsburgh enjoyed only sporadic success. Touring companies visited Foster's New National Theatre (later called the Apollo Theatre) and various kinds of entertainments were produced at two variety theatres, the Gaieties and Trimble's Varieties, as well as at the Masonic Hall. The burden of theatrical fare, however, fell upon the Pittsburgh Theatre or, as it was more familiarly referred to, the "Old Drury." This structure, which occupied a place in the three-hundred block of Fifth Avenue until its demolition in 1870, was the first brick theatre built in Pittsburgh. It was erected in 1833 under the auspices of a joint stock company presided over by a Mr. G. A. Cooke. Itopened its doors to the public on 2 September 1833 with a production of The Busy Body, an eighteenth century stock comedy by the English actress and dramatist, Susannah Freeman Centlivre. The production was staged by the theatre's first manager, Francis C. Wemyss. 2 During the first season the "Old Drury" boasted performances by several of America's greatest actors: Edwin Forrest, Tyrone Power, and Junius Brutus Booth. The building itself was a stuccoed, two-story structure with a false third story facade. There were five entrances in the front and an iron balcony hung over the center three. There were six or eight iron lamps flanking the doorways. The architect, John Haviland, had designed a building that was said to have been one of the safest of its kind in America. The front of the building measured fifty-seven feet and its depth ran to one hundred and thirty feet. The interior was apparently quite elegant with two tiers of boxes painted a rose color and decorated with gold ornamentation. Each box bore the arms of the United States. The seats were upholstered in crimson fabric, edged with velvet, and studded with brass nails. Eighteen chandeliers illuminated the auditorium. The proscenium arch supported the arms of the state of Pennsylvania. The two left-hand sections of the gallery 2 Francis Courtney Wemyss, Wemyss' Chronology of the American Stage from 1752 to 1852 (New York, 1852), 13. 262 JOHN F. KRICH JULY were reserved for colored people and there were three bars in the house. 3 Undoubtedly Adah Isaacs Menken found the Pittsburgh Theatre a comfortable house in which to perform. She very likely adapted herself readily to the elegance of the auditorium and the dressing rooms which were carpeted and furnished in a suitably lavish style. The green room was furnished as a drawing-room of the period with piano, ottomans, side chairs, and looking-glasses. 4 The "Old Drury" enjoyed only faltering success under the management of several men throughout its first twenty-five years of operation. It was periodically closed due to a lack of audience support and itwas following one such lean and slack time in 1858 that William Henderson, actor and manager, took over control of the theatre. His first attempts at resurrecting the former glory and fame of the theatre were less than successful. His first season was downright disappoint- ing. Then early in March of 1859 he announced the engagement of a young actress, whose antics rather than talent had been attracting attention in the Midwest. Perhaps he had hoped to capitalize on Adah Isaacs Menken's notoriety when her impending arrival was made known in the Pittsburgh Post. Itis doubtful, however, that Hender- son knew her or had ever seen her perform and the advance notice of her engagement did indeed read like a typical press agent's release : Adah Isaac Menken, a daughter ofIsrael, and a charming actress, willbe amongst us next week. She is quite eccentric and very beautiful. She is said to unite dramatic power with inexhaustible versatility, being perfectly at home in every "line," tragedy, high or low comedy, farce, singing and dancing. She willdoubt- less be greeted by a discriminating public, as her merits deserve. 5 In the summer of 1858, on her first tour as an actress, Adah had played Dayton, Ohio, where she appeared for the first time in male attire in a play entitled Sixteen-String Jack (later called Jack Shep- pard) .6 Following the performance a group of young men from a corps of volunteer militia called the Dayton Light Guards met her at the stage door and persuaded her to dine as guest of honor with them at a local hotel.

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