Articles on the net worths of various theater managers and performers

“Income Returns make some curious revelations, and show us that many of our leading stars and managers whose ‘immense success’ should have made them millionaires long ago, are in reality in rather poor circumstances, Edwin Booth seeming to be the only man in the dramatic profession in this city who has really made much money. Of prominent managers and stars residing here, we find in a publish list of revenue returns for 1868, that the following are their incomes [some numbers are difficult to read and several last digits here are best guesses]:

Edwin Booth…$35,736

J. Lester Wallack…7,500

G. L. Fox…4,400

Clara Louise Kellogg…5,050

Barney Williams…3,196

W. J. Florence…2,026

Frank S. Chanfrau…2,175

Maggie Mitchell…1,933

“From these statements it will be seen that there are very few men or women of means in the profession in this city, and that the public have always labored under a delusion in supposing that managers and stars get rich in a very few years. From the above figures, which give the profits from the business and investments of the parties for the year 1868, and which are sworn to as being correct, aspirants for managerial or dramatic honors may learn a useful lesson, and divine that all is not gold that glitters, and just though a star may live in a brown stone house, and have the reputation of being rich, his or her means are quite limited in reality, and barely sufficient to keep them in viotuals [sic] and clothes, such as their position in society demands. We confess to a feeling of surprise on reading the list of income returns, for we have always been under the impression that the profession paid much better than is indicated by the receipts for 1868. Mr. Booth’s business exhibits a solitary exception, and goes far to show that while genteel comedy, Irish comedy, and eccentric business languishes, according to the above table, the legitimate and Shakespearean line, as embodied in Mr. Booth, thrives with extraordinary vigor.”

Brief. “The following theatrical managers are each of them reputed to be worth not less than $200,000:—J. Lester Wallack, Ben De Bar, J. H. McVicker (Edwin Booth’s father-in-law), John T. Ford, and Moses Kimball.”