Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1879 — An Actor’s Prayer. [ARTICLE]

An Actor’s Prayer.

A correspondent of the Weekly Baptist writes: A recent number of the Weekly Baptist speaks of a French actor praying for success in a new piece. I am reminded of another ease resembling this, which has never been in print, and was told in confidence by the actor himself a few weeks before he died. “Billy” Otis was, to use Keene’s own expression, the best Lord Dundreary she ever had, and he repaid her good opinion by a profound regard which seemed after her death to pass into reverence for her memory. It was he who, when hardly more than a mere boy, carried the invitation to President Lincoln to attend the theater on the fatal night of the assassination. Before his death, which occurred not far from four years ago, he left the stage and gave recitations, repeating whole plays and carrying all the parts along, as well as giving shorter impersonations, reproducing even the manner of Laura Keene and other actresses, without unnatural affectation and with wonderful power. I once heard him render “Our American Cousin,” and when he arrived at this point he paused and told the story of the assassination as it was behind the scenes. When the shot was fired he was in the act of buttoning Miss Keene’s glove as she was preparing*to go on the stage in bridal costume. At first, mistaking the shot, she sent a request that the carpenters should not fire pistols during the acts, and then, when the truth became known, rushed to the washstand, and saturated the whole front breadth of her magnificent bridal dress with water, which she wrung out in a vain attempt to resuscitate the unconscious victim. On the stage Miss Keene’s influence was on the side of good morals, if not religion, and profanity was' rigidly excluded, even where, in the “School for Scandal,” the whole point seems to lie in the word “damnably,” as uttered by the deceived and undeceived husband. It was remorselessly stricken out. “They will think badly enough of us; Jet ns give them no occasion.” It was a secret known only to her that Otis was in the habit of offering a short prayer just before going on the stage, such as “Oh Lord, help me through this act.” Sometimes he would find himself upon the stage and his prayer forgotten, when he wpuld step behind the scenes a moment and return, upon which she, understanding where he had been, would say (aside), “God bless you, my boy 1” Not long after he confided this secret of his life to me a fatal sickness seized him, and he soon went where he knew whether his prayer had b.een a real utterance of Christian faith or not.