Of Laura Don, with whom Belasco became acquainted at the time of Sheridan’s first San Francisco engagement, he gives this recollection:
“Laura Don was a painter whose landscapes and portraits had won her distinction in the art world. Indeed, she was quite a spoilt child of the Muses, for the gods had dowered her with many gifts. Nature had been kind to her in every way, mentally and physically, for she had a face and figure of great attractiveness; her every movement was serpentine and voluptuous. This was further heightened by an excitable temperament, keyed to the highest pitch, and I never saw anyone who had a more insatiable thirst for fame; so much so, indeed, that her health was on the verge of being undermined. I saw in this woman every possibility of making a wonderful _Cleopatra_, and when she had joined the Baldwin Theatre I spent many hours after performances training her in the rôle (_sic_). Then one Sunday afternoon, when we had reached the Death Scene, Laura Don fell in a faint, and I looked down to find drops of blood coming from her mouth. So this was the reason for the hectic flush, for the irresponsible moods and eccentricities! When she came to, we had removed every outward sign of her fatal malady. But Laura Don was not to be deceived. Many times when we had been working together she would exclaim, ’Why is it I am so weak? Why is it I do not gain strength?’ For two days she remained in her room, and then she sent for me and confessed that she had known all along of her consumptive tendencies. ’I shall never play _Cleopatra_,’ she said; ’you must find someone else to take my place. I suppose we cannot escape the fate imposed upon us. I was born a butterfly and I shall die one. I’ve fought the idea for years, and I have been conquered. So I shall go East and pass the time as well as I may until the end. If you are anywhere near when “it” occurs, send me a few violets in memory of those you have always kept on the rehearsal table.’ Soon after her arrival in the East came her tragic death, so that it was not very long before I had to send the flowers.”
Laura Don’s true name was Anna Laura Fish. She was the first wife of the theatrical agent and manager Thomas B. McDonough. She afterward married a photographer, resident in Troy, New York, whose name I have forgotten. She lived for