George Crouse Tyler (April 13, 1867 – March 13, 1946) was an American theatrical producer and talent manager. As co-founder of Liebler & Company he was instrumental in producing over 100 Broadway productions from 1897 through 1914. Later, as an independent he produced fifty more original shows and revivals from 1915 through 1935. He promoted and managed talents such as James O'Neill, Viola Allen, Eleanor Robson, William C. Hodge, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, and Helen Hayes. A good friend of Booth Tarkington, he produced and financed some of his works that might not have otherwise been staged, and in return was inserted into Tarkington's Presenting Lily Mars. He produced one of Eugene O'Neill's early plays, and gave George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly their first playwriting assignment and sponsored their early comedies. He also produced the first play by John Van Druten after it had been banned in the UK. His 1934 memoirs proved so popular, he was given a syndicated newspaper column.
Early years
George Crouse Tyler was born in Circleville, Ohio,U.S. Passport Applications, 1792-1925 for George C. Tyler, retrieved from Ancestry.com the oldest of three children for George H. Tyler and Harriet Parkhurst Tyler. He had a younger brother, Albert, who died before 1900, and a much younger sister Edith.1880 United States Federal Census for George Tyler, Ohio > Ross > Chillicothe > 0140, retrieved from Ancestry.com1900 United States Federal Census for George C. Tyler, New York > New York > Manhattan > District 0525, retrieved from Ancestry.com
Tyler's family moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, where his father, an American Civil War veteran and carpenter, became owner-editor of the Scioto Gazette.It was named for the nearby Scioto River. In the 1890s it became The Daily Gazette, and later the Chillicothe Gazette. Along with the newspaper, Tyler's father owned the print shop that produced it. At age 12, young Tyler persuaded his father to let him leave school and start work in the print shop at a dollar a week.Tyler and Furnas, p.28. Tyler and his father shared a passion for the theater; they often journeyed to nearby cities for stage performances too grand to stop at little Chillicothe. Tyler recalled that his first experience of the stage was seeing Jerry and Helen Cohan in Haworth's Hibernica.Tyler and Furnas, p.25.
Tyler grew up in comfortable circumstances, but was beset with wanderlust. He left home as a teenager, riding the rails and working as an itinerant compositor, roaming as far as Tucson, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.Tyler and Furnas, pp.44-48. He could easily get jobs in print shops and with local newspapers, having learned early that margins were the key to successful compositing. After a few weeks or months he would drift on to the next western town. While riding illicitly on a passenger train from San Francisco to Truckee, California, in November 1884, Tyler and his buddy Frank Forbes made the newspapers after the latter was injured riding the roof of the train. Instead of being arrested, they were given jobs on a startup newspaper in Truckee, the Tri-Weekly News.Tyler and Furnas, pp.50-53. Tyler also claimed to have disguised himself as a Native American, for at that time the western railroads allowed tribal members free passage.Tyler and Furnas, p.54.
Stage management start Tyler returned to Chillicothe, where in March 1888 his father leased Clough's Opera House and let him manage it, trying to keep his son in town. Tyler's tenure lasted only four months, marked by his susceptibility to famous names. He wired booking offers without negotiating terms, bringing Thomas W. Keene, Nat Goodwin, Clara Morris, May Irwin, and Julia Marlowe to little Chillicothe, and nearly bankrupted his father.Tyler and Furnas, pp.56-58.
After this debacle, Tyler's father sought a position in the Patent Office for him, securing recommendations from James G. Blaine and Senator John Sherman. These did not impress Theodore Roosevelt, who sat on the board of the United States Civil Service Commission. Roosevelt told Tyler he would have to pass the Civil Service exam. Though he was a voracious reader, Tyler knew his haphazard formal education was not up to this challenge, so he accepted a job in the Government Printing Office instead.Tyler and Furnas, pp.59-61.
Reporter Tyler spent a year in Washington, D.C., then went to Manhattan and took a job as a compositor on the New York World.Tyler and Furnas, pp.63-65. Leander Richardson then hired him as a reporter on the Dramatic News for ten dollars a week.Tyler and Furnas, p.70. After getting into a fight in the newspaper's office with actor Frederick McCloy over actress Clara Louise Thompson, Tyler was fired, but convinced Harrison Grey Fiske to hire him for the New York Dramatic Mirror. Fiske sent Tyler to interview actor-playwright Dion Boucicault, who had announced a new stage production, even as he lay in bed dying. Tyler spent several days with him, and later said: "The way Boucicault faced death was the finest piece of drama he ever concocted."Tyler and Furnas, pp.74-75.
Advance agent
Abe Erlanger put Tyler onto a job as an advance agent. According to Tyler, an advance agent "went ahead of a road company and made all the arrangements for publicity and advertising". The "road" at that time (1890) encompassed the live theaters that every little town had, along with a train station. By the time Tyler wrote his memoirs in 1934, he considered the road dead and gone, killed by the movies. Tyler picked up with Willard Spenser's The Little Tycoon tour after being stranded in Toronto by an earlier advance job.Tyler and Furnas, pp.81-83. Tyler stayed with Spenser's tour through summer 1891, going on to other advance work for the next five years. Though he had resigned his salaried position with the Dramatic Mirror upon becoming an advance man, Tyler still maintained connections with it.
Tyler's favorite employer was actor James O'Neill, who was doing endless revivals of his signature role, Charles Fechter's adapatation of The Count of Monte Cristo. They became close friends, Tyler serving as general factotum for Mrs. O'Neill and her youngest son Eugene on tour, finding a doctor in a winter storm when the toddler had a choking fit.Tyler and Furnas, pp.88-92. While in Denver doing advance work for O'Neill, Australian boxer Jim Hall introduced Tyler to "Mr. Masterson from Dodge City", who had "the deadest face I ever saw, carved out of ironwood".Tyler and Furnas, p.93.
Tyler took on representing Billy Hanlon's spectacle Superba in February 1893. The Chillicothe Gazette reported in October 1893 that he would be on the road for that show for the next six months. However, the show's properties were lost in the fire that destroyed Boston's Globe Theatre on January 1, 1894. Willard Spenser then hired him to promote his comic opera, The Princess Bonnie, in Philadelphia, where Tyler would spend another season building up his reputation and credit as a publicity man.Tyler and Furnas, pp.97-100.
First productions Miss Philadelphia
After four years as an advance man, Tyler tried production with his friend Harry Askin. The two barely-solvent young men shared a room at a hotel on Walnut Street, and it was said whichever one got out of bed first was the better-dressed that day.Grau, p.130. They decided on mounting a revue, at that time a new type of entertainment, calling it Miss Philadelphia to capitalize on civic pride. Askin persuaded Edgar Smith to do the book and find a composer, while Tyler signed Nancy McIntosh for the lead at $150 a week. Through an extraordinary amount of check-kiting,, and a last minute supply of heelless pumps for the men's chorus from an undertaker, Miss Philadelphia came off successfully. Realizing their kiting meant no profits could be expected, Askin gave his ownership half to Tyler and departed town. Tyler sold their interest in the show, using the sale price to pay their hotel bill, and left for New York.Tyler and Furnas, pp.107-108.
Nancy Lee Tyler purchased an operetta called Nancy Lee, with the idea of again using civic pride to boost a show, this time in Baltimore. He secured a contract with Ned Hanlon, manager of the Baltimore Orioles, to stage benefits for that club using Nancy Lee. On the strength of that contract he borrowed $3000 to mount the performances. He signed Digby Bell to front the opera company, and made sure ballpark fans knew about the upcoming benefits. The scheme worked well in Baltimore, but when Tyler took the show to other cities, Nancy Lee on its own was a weak draw. Stranded in Washington, D.C., the company needed to get to Atlanta where a big exposition meant a ready-made audience awaited. Tyler was able to tap Marc Klaw for the travelling funds, and Nancy Lee cleaned up in Atlanta. Instead of closing the show, Tyler's unquenchable optimism drove him to take Nancy Lee on the road through the South and the Midwest.Tyler and Furnas, pp.109-115. Somehow it stumbled along, never making more money than to enable a train ride to the next town, until December 1895, when Digby Bell abandoned the show and Tyler had to close it down.
The Forest of Arden
On August 2, 1896, Tyler produced an outdoor version of As You Like It. This was a one-time performance at Deal Lake, near Asbury Park, New Jersey. The area still had rustic woods at that time, according to Tyler.Tyler and Furnas, p.127. He engaged Mrs. Emily Fernandez to recruit some performers, including her daughter Bijou Fernandez as Phebe, and William Muldoon as Charles the Wrestler. Tyler himself signed Marie Wainwright as Rosalind, and Camille D'Arville in a trouser role as Amiens. By threatening to take the production to nearby Long Branch, Tyler coerced Founder Bradley, owner of the Coleman House resort on Deal Lake, into paying for building an outdoor stage.
However, the lead actors refused to go on until they received at least part of their salary. Tyler handed out his remaining cash in $100 allotments, but had nothing left by the time he got to Camille D'Arville. She balked, and so As You Like It was performed without Amiens and the songs. Newspaper accounts said the performance otherwise came off well, but that during Act II, Tyler and Mrs. Fernandez tussled over the box office cash, which amounted to no more than $900. Realizing he was in a hole for $2000, Tyler literally took to the woods at 10pm and kept going, leaving behind cast, crew, and creditors to sort out the situation themselves. Arriving back at Manhattan, Tyler hid out in a friend's house for several weeks, until Charles Frohman came to his rescue, giving him a job as manager for Albert Chevalier's American tour.
Liebler & Company
Tyler joined up with investor Theodore A. Liebler (1852-1941) to found Liebler & Company in 1898. They signed actress Viola Allen, who urged them to back a play by British author Hall Caine, titled The Christian.Tyler and Furnas, pp.141-143. The Christian proved a huge success, enabling Liebler & Company to take a chance on Children of the Ghetto by Israel Zangwill. A ground-breaking stage work on Jewish life, it lost money, but Zangwill's next play for them more than made up for it. Tyler discovery Eleanor Robson starred in Merely Mary Ann, a huge hit on Broadway. Less well-received in Manhattan, but wildly popular elsewhere, was the Liebler production of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. With Sag Harbor by James A. Herne, and Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman starring Kyrle Bellew, they propelled Liebler & Company to financial success by 1905.