The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 53

Plays and Players at Pillot's Opera House 53
belief to the fact that the Brutus of the afternoon was the Iago of the
night. In Mr. Booth's Iago may be seen all the cold-blooded villainy,
all the sardonic deviltry, all the abominable hypocrasy and all the
unrelenting malice that ever dramatist conceived. Then again there
is the inimitable grace of it all--playing in a kind of lurid light
through the malignity which steeps the soul.
Booth enthusiasts from Huntsville, Columbus, Richmond,
Cypress and other towns joined Houston playgoers to view the
two performances. Seats sold at prices ranging from $3 in the
orchestra and orchestra circle to $1.50 for the gallery.
The two actors left with their company the morning following
their performance of Othello in the sumptuous private car, the
"Junius Brutus Booth." Manager Ed Bergman was aboard the
car to accompany them to Dallas.a
Lillie Langtry's visit on April 19, 1888, was impressive largely
because of the celebrated English woman's renown as a beauty. In
Galveston the day before she had told a News representative that
she was amazed at what she saw in Texas-and agreeably sur-
prised. She had left her jewels in New Orleans for fear of being
held up by cowboys.10 She said she had formed her impressions of
the state from reading Eastern newspapers and was ashamed to
think that she had believed them. The actress traveled in her pri-
vate car, named "Lalee,"'1 a seventy-five foot "palace on wheels,"
which was much more luxuriously appointed than Booth and
Barrett's "Junius Brutus Booth." The "Lalee's" exterior was of
light blue, except the roof, which was white, with the name on
each side, done in gold, and encircled by wreaths of golden lilies.
9Booth had played at Galveston on February 21 and 22, 1887; he appeared at Dal-
las on the 24th; at Austin on the 25th; and at San Antonio on the 26th. In the
season of 1887-1888, while touring with Barrett, he was seen at Galveston on
February 13 and 14; at Houston on the 15th; at Dallas on the 16th and 17th; at
Fort Worth on the 18th; at Waco on the noth; at Austin on the 21st; and at San
Antonio on the 22nd and 23rd. William Winter, Life and Art of Edwin Booth
(New York, 1893), 288-289.
loOn a subsequent visit to the state, Lillie Langtry, at the time of a train
accident, was very pleasantly entertained by cowboys. Lillie Langtry, The Days I
Knew (New York, 1925), 189.
ixMiss Langtry told how she acquired the car:
When I met Colonel Mann, inventor of the Mann boudoir railway-carriage-
at that time a rival of the Pullman coach-and he proposed to design and build
a luxurious car "for my very own," I fell an easy victim to the pleasing suggestion.
Ibid., 185.