Theater stars of yore had roots at the Jersey Shore
'Stars of the New Jersey Shore' about locals who are part of theater history
BY KATHY HALL Correspondent
Local historian Karen L. Schnitzspahn's interest in theatrical history may be genetic. The daughter of a magician and his assistant discovered the appeal of the past by browsing through her grandmother's copy of Daniel Blum's "Great Stars of the American Stage, A Pictorial Record."

Edwin Booth as Iago

"As a grammar school kid … Elvis, the Mouseketeers and Sandra Dee were high on my list of favorite stars, but something about those performers of earlier times in the book intrigued me," she explains in the introduction to her latest book, "Stars of the New Jersey Shore, A Theatrical History."

Schnitzspahn inherited the Blum book and kept it in her personal library. In the early 1980s, Schnitzspahn, now a published historian herself, was rereading her grandmother's copy of Blum and noticed that the "great tragedian" Robert B. Mantell had a farm in Atlantic Highlands.

"I began to wonder how many other stars of yesteryear once lived in my area of the New Jersey shore," she writes.

For years, the author of several books on local history kept finding references to actors who summered at the Jersey Shore. Then in the late 1980s she attended an auction at Barron's Auction House in Asbury Park. One of the items up for bid was a cardboard beer box full of several hundred 19th century theatrical cabinet photos including pictures of a number of stars who had vacationed at the Jersey Shore.

Lillie Langtry

Schnitzspahn's successful bid was the beginning of an obsession. Soon she was attending photo and postcard shows to add to her collection, which currently totals 600 photos that are organized into albums and protected by archival-quality plastic sleeves.

Cabinet photos, cigarette cards and newspaper photographs were an important component of 19th-century celebrity journalism. The staged images were the only ones available to adoring fans.

"People used to follow the old-time stars around to get a look at them," Schnitzspahn explained. "You didn't have the paparazzi chasing after them, because the cameras were too heavy."

"Stars of the New Jersey Shore" combines Schnitzspahn's interests in local and theatrical history and took a while to come to fruition.

"I started writing it a long time ago," she explained. "I saved everything I found on these actors for 20 years in files and notebooks."

Schnitzspahn began sharing her research in programs at local libraries about seven years ago and was inevitably asked by her audience if she had a book. Eventually a publisher approached her with a request to write a conventional history book illustrated by postcards.

"I told them about the 'stars' idea and they liked it," she said. "It's a little different version of local history. They were great. They were willing to let me cover who I wanted and never said anyone was too obscure."

In deciding which stars to include, Schnitzspahn gave preference to those who were involved with the community.

"Most of the people were very important to this area and involved in its development," she said. "They owned land; several were called "summer mayors." I didn't include people who just stayed in a hotel … This was a time when actors weren't well respected, but these were people who gained a lot of respect."

"Stars of the New Jersey Shore" is organized by geographic area and includes stories about still-famous stars such as Lillie Langtry, Count Basie and the Barrymores as well as those who were famous in their time but are now forgotten, like William A. Mestayer and Theresa Vaughn, a theatrical couple who lived in Red Bank during the 1880s and 1890s. In addition to touring in popular comedies of the time, Mestayer also designed and patented a set that simulated a speeding sleeping car's interior by creating moving backdrops painted with trees and mountains that were seen through the train window.

The oldest of 13 children from a wellknown (at the time) theatrical family named Ott, Theresa Vaughn was only 15 when she became Mestayer's second wife and 16 when she began acting with her husband. The couple's riverside house on Rector Place can be seen on late 19th-century maps of Red Bank under the name Theresa Haupt. (Mestayer's birth name was William Ayres Haupt).

The comedic couple's lives ended tragically, with Mestayer succumbing to kidney disease at the age of 50 and Theresa dying in an "insane asylum" in her 30s.

"I enjoyed digging out everything about these forgotten stars, and making them known again," Schnitzspahn explained. "I think they deserve it."

Theatrical historians face some challenges not faced by those who can use more "objective" sources.

"Stories about the stars were exaggerated in those days too," Schnitzspahn explained, "and it's sometimes hard to find the truth even in the 1860s."

She cited the work of Victorian theatrical star and chronicler Olive Logan, whose contemporary articles about the stars who lived in Long Branch often contained errors.

"It's hard to sort out what was true - you just have to find as many sources as possible," she added.

Schnitzspahn did research at the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, the Hampton- Booth Theatre Library and in the Columbia and New York University special collections as well as local libraries, historical societies and the Dorn collection.

She also made judicious use of the Internet, which was helpful in finding information about the theaters in Asbury Park but also contained lots of errors, including stories attributed to one person that her research showed were really about other people.

Among the sources Schnitzspahn developed are the granddaughter and greatgranddaughter of Robert Mantell. The great-uncle of actress Angela Lansbury, Mantell was an accomplished Shakespearean actor with a tumultuous personal life.

Mantell and his third wife spent summers at Brucewood, their country estate in Atlantic Highlands. The couple offered summer acting classes for local girls, and their acting company gave a benefit performance to raise money for Atlantic Highlands' first motorized firetruck. The Main House at Brucewood is now the St. Agnes Parish thrift shop.

Schnitzspahn is currently seeking a publisher for her biography of Mantell's fourth wife, Genevieve Harper, a farm girl from Michigan who got her start waiting in line for a job as an extra in a Detroit musical and whose classic beauty and sensational singing earned her a minor role in the Mantell Company.

She describes it as "a kind of Cinderella story, [but] "its hard to get biographies of obscure people published."

Schnitzspahn was recently awarded the Jane G. Clayton Award "for her outstanding efforts to preserve Monmouth County History." The award is named for former Monmouth County Freeholder and County Clerk Jane G. Clayton, who established the county archives.

Schnitzspahn will be reading from "Stars of the New Jersey Shore" at the Long Branch Public Library Nov. 14 and will be doing a book signing at River Road Books Dec 1.

"Stars of the New Jersey Shore" is available at River Road Books in Fair Haven and Atlantic Books in Pier Village, Long Branch.