WANT MABEL HITE
AND MIKE DONLIN
KANSAS CITY ACTRESS AND HUS-
BAND IN GREAT DEMAND.
"Legitimate" Managers Are Offering
All Sorts of Inducements to Get
Them to Forsake the Vau-
deville Footlights.
Offers for the services of Mabel Hite, Kansas City's "own soubrette," in the legitimate are flowing in upon M. S. Bentham, the agent for Miss Hite and her husband, Mike Donlin, who are appearing for the first time together in New York city at Hammerstein's this week.
Flo Ziegfeld, Jr., has offered Miss Hite a two-years' contract at a large salary. Other legitimate managers would like to ascertain the amount of Ziegfeld's figure in order that it might be raised.
At present Miss Hite and Mr. Donlin have their minds only upon vaudeville. The Hammerstein engagement, taken for a "try out," is at $1,000 weekly. Owing to the success there, the act now asks $1,500 for local engagements and $2,000 weekly outside New York. Mr. Bentham has booked the pair for several weeks ahead, but at what figure is not known.
The success of Mabel Hite and Mike Donlin in vaudeville probably surprised no one more than Mike Donlin himself. When the vaudeville appearance was broached to him late in the summer, he literally "threw up his hands." Donlin declared he would not listen to it; that he would be a "frost," "lemon," and applied all known eptihets to himself he could in an attempt to dissuade his wife and Bentham from proceeding with the scheme of their double appearance.
Donlin was perfectly assured of Miss Hite's complete success but feared for himself. At last, when he did agree to the plan he confidentially informed Bentham: "I am doing this to please Mabel, and I look to you to kill it off." Even when the Hammerstein contract was placed before him, Donlin insisted he had said nothing but $2,500 would take him on a stage. This was in furtherance of his plan to escape vaudeville, but Miss Hite persisted, winning the day. Now it is reported Mr. Donlin, who is surprising his best wishers this week, has no regrets.
Following the Hammerstein engagement Hite and Donlin will travel over the Percy G. Williams circuit.
Among the telegrams received Monday afternoon by the couple were the following: "Go to it, Mikey. Heard of you this afternoon. Wish you could play ball as good as you act, but don't do any of our stuff. Good luck to you and Mabel. -- Montgomery and Stone."
