The Telephone Booth Indian - Abbott Joseph Liebling [71]
Mr. Lee's insistence upon running all the Shubert theaters himself, even down to the smallest detail, is a carryover from a period when theater treasurers and house managers consistently robbed their employers. Larceny was considered a perquisite of their jobs. The house manager would issue “complimentaries,” and the treasurer would sell them. It was the Shuberts who devised the present method of accounting for tickets. Under this system, there are separate racks for unsold tickets, for the stubs of tickets that have been paid for—known in the trade as “the hardwood”—and for stubs of complimentaries, or “deadwood.” Every seat in the house must be accounted for in one or another of the racks; by deducting unsold seats and deadwood from the house capacity, the theater owner knows exactly what should be in the cash drawer. The only subordinate who can issue complimentaries in the whole Shubert organization here is the publicity chief, Greneker, and he is exceedingly frugal with them. Most passes to Shubert shows are signed by Mr. Lee himself. Many Shubert employees have been with the elderly Syracuse boys for a long time. Mr. Lee has faith in them but can't get over his distrustful nature. Some years ago, he recalls, he was standing in Shubert Alley when a Negro walked up carrying a pair of shoes. The Negro asked him for a wardrobe woman who worked for the Shuberts. The Negro complained that the woman had sold him the shoes, which he was returning because they were misfits. They were Shubert shoes. The incident proved to Mr. Lee that a man of property must be on the alert all the time.
Just as the Shubert empire has two chiefs, so it has two heirs apparent. One is Mr. J.J.'s son, John, who, the father likes to remind Lee, is “the only directline Shubert of his generation.” On Mr. Lee's side of the firm, the young hope is Milton Shubert. Milton, however, is not “direct line.” He is a nephew who adopted the avuncular name for business reasons, and he is the only member of the family who has shown any interest in moving pictures. He used to be head of the Shubert dramatic department in New York, but now spends most of his time in Hollywood, where he is helpful in directing Shubert affairs on the West Coast. Milton's mother was a sister of Mr. Lee's and Mr. J.J.'s; his father was named Isaacs. John, who is very tall for a Shubert—five feet ten inches—is thirtyone and lives at the Hotel Astor in a suite overlooking Shubert Alley. Milton, short and small, is fortytwo; he stays at hotels when he is in New York. John is supposed to take charge of Shubert interests in New York when both Mr. Lee and Mr. J.J. are out of town, but this has happened only once since John left the University of Pennsylvania twelve years ago. His regency lasted for two weeks. At least twenty other Shubert relatives, of various degrees of consanguinity, are employed in lesser jobs in the organization.
Because of their fear of assuming responsibility, Shubert employees in general are the most literalminded attaches of the American theater. Their attitude has given rise to some famous yarns of niggardliness. When the cast of You Can't Take It with You was rehearsing in the Booth Theatre, the supply of drinking cups at the house's water cooler gave out, and Sam Harris, producer of the play, called for more. He got them, with a bill for $1.15. A representative of the Shubert auditing department pointed out that the contract of rental did not