Revised Nov. 2, 2002

Table of Contents:

1. A convict family
2. Gold!
3. A bad time and place to be Irish
4. Children on the stage
5. 'Festive little Maggie Moore'
6. 'They were an era'
7. End of a marriage
8. Phantom cable cars?
9. J.C. Williamson
10. Harry Roberts
11. Voices of the period
12. Playbills
13. Music

'Festive little Maggie Moore'

Maggie, as mentioned earlier, was an actress, probably the first native-born Californian actress to achieve world-wide fame on the stage. Ironically, she achieved her greatest fame in Australia, and spent most of her life there.

She was born on July 10, 1851. She attended Rincon Hill Primary school up to the age of eight. It seems like precious little book learning, but it's more schooling than either one of her parents got -- both were illiterate, apparently. After leaving school, she made her debut at the Olympic Theatre in San Francisco, earning $50 a week.

Unlike her sisters, Maggie continued acting, and eventually joined in the California Theatre Company. Alfred Doten, future editor of the "Gold Hill Daily News" -- the same one who was so down on the Irish before -- records her performances in Virginia City as follows:

Her career really took off when she married J.C. Williamson, a comedian who had joined the cast of the California Theatre Company in place of John Raymond, an extremely popular and respected actor. Jimmie, as he was called by those who knew him well, was born in Mercer, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 26, 1845, the son of an Irish Presbyterian surgeon, James Hezlep Williamson and his wife, Selina Campbell. He was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Viola Tait says his mother died when Jimmie was 10 years old, and his father, who had apparently become well-known in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, died two years later and that Jimmie went to live with an uncle; Dickers says, however, that his father died when he was 11 or 12, and his mother didn't die until June 1878.

J.C. Williamson was beyond doubt ambitious. Hal Porter, in his book "Stars of Australian Stage and Screen," writes that Williamson "was not a tall man, and was driven by the need to have that sense of increased inches given by power and money." However, Viola Tait gives another explanation of his ambition: His uncle, who told him that "to be a failure or a mediocrity on the stage is as bad a fate as a man can have." Not that this uncle was in favor of his nephew going on the stage -- Jimmie ran away to join a theater company, but was sent back home. But the dream persisted, and finally his uncle gave in, letting him take a job as a ticket seller and usher in a Milwaukee theater. He was to hold virtually every job possible in the theatre, from actor to scene painter, from carpenter to playwright, and from ticket seller to impresario.

Williamson had achieved no small popularity himself in the Old Broadway Theatre in New York as principal comedian. Eventually he was hired as principal comedian at the California Theatre, where he met three people who would play key roles in his success: Dion Boucicault, the Irish actor and playwright; Sam Smith, a miner; and Maggie.

Boucicault's works were an important a part of Williamson's repertoire later on. Boucicault and Williamson's association began when they played together in a sketch called "Boucicault in California." The play consists of Boucicault being interviewed by a series of reporters, and he says everything he expects the critics to say about him, because, according to Tait, he has heard they intend to give him a grilling, so he decided to pull the rug out from under them by saying it all first. Tait seems to indicate that Williamson performed this in 1868, but Dickers says it was performed in 1874, after his marriage to Maggie.

Created 20 Feb 1999 by Reunion, from Leister Productions, Inc. Revised January 10, 2003