At about the time of the first San Francisco production of “The Gilded Age” Belasco appears to have been employed by William Horace Lingard, and it is practically certain that he was a member of Lingard’s company,--though I have not ascertained in what capacity,--on the occasion of “the grand opening of Maguire’s New Theatre” (which was the old Alhambra Theatre, rebuilt and altered), on May 4, when “Creatures of Impulse,” “Mr. and Mrs. Peter White,” and a miscellaneous entertainment were presented there.
During the summer of 1874 Belasco worked as a secretary and copyist for Barton Hill, at the California Theatre, and also he performed, in a minor position, as an actor, at Maguire’s New Theatre. He was thus associated with, among others, Sallie Hinckley, in a revival of “The New Magdalen”; Charles Fechter and Lizzie V. Price in a repertory which comprehended “Ruy Blas,” “Don Cæsar de Bazan,” “The Lady of Lyons,” “Hamlet,” and “Love’s Penance”; Miss Jeffreys-Lewis and Charles Edwards in “School,” Boucicault’s “The Willow Copse” and “The Unequal Match”; William J. Coggswell in “Nick o’ the Woods”; Samuel W. Piercy in “Hamlet,” and Charles Wheatleigh in a dramatization of “Notre Dame” and in other plays. For Piercy Belasco has ever cherished extreme admiration and a pitiful memory of his untimely death, which,--caused by smallpox,--befell, in Boston, in 1882. During the summer of 1874 Belasco also made various brief and unimportant “barnstorming” ventures in small towns and camps of California, Oregon, and Washington; likewise, he was associated, as stage director, with several groups of amateur actors in San Francisco. On August 31 a revival of Augustin Daly’s play of “Divorce” was effected at Maguire’s,--James A. Herne (his name billed without the “A.”) and Miss Jeffreys-Lewis playing the principal parts in it. Whether or not Belasco was then in the company at Maguire’s is uncertain, but I believe that he was. At any rate, when Mlle. Marie Zoe,--designated as “The Cuban Sylph,”--began an engagement there, September 14, in the course of which she appeared in “The French Spy,” “The Pretty Housebreaker,” “Nita; or, Woman’s Constancy” (and “Mazeppa”?), Belasco was employed to co-operate with her in sword combats on the stage: he also served Mlle. Zoe, during her stay in San Francisco, as a sort of secretary.