FRANK MURDOCH & FRANK MAYO. DAVY CROCKETT ON STAGE

Manuscript prompt book for Murdoch's Davy Crockett. An Original Domestic Drama, in Five Acts, 1872, approximately 170 pages (12 1/8 x 7 1/2 in.; 312 x 190 mm) written mostly rectos only in a ruled ledger book, with dialogue, stage directions, lists of props, and simple sketches of the stage set; dampstained, sewing secure but largely shaken free of the very worn and stained contemporary half calf binding. Half brown morocco folding-case. — 2 chromolithographed advertising posters for this production by the Strobridge Lithograph Company, Cincinnati: “Not a Word, Not a Look” and “Howl Away, You’ll Have to Scatter Before Dawn” (each 18 x 2734/ in.; 462 x 708 mm, sight); some marginal stains and tape repair. Matted, framed, and glazed with Plexiglas. — 2 carte-de-visite size and 2 cabinet-card size publicity portraits and photos of Frank Mayo, the most famous stage Davy Crockett, one cabinet card inscribed on the verso: "'That light is in the window for you still'—Davy Crockett. Frank Mayo Nov 26/95."

Murdoch recast Crockett's life as a frontier melodrama, and the play— also known as Davy Crockett, or, Be Sure You're Right, Then Go Ahead—successfully toured the country for decades, most often with the comic actor Frank Mayo playing the title character. Mayo, like James O'Neill as Edmond Dantès in The Count of Monte Cristo, found his career defined by a lucrative but limiting role; he claimed that a theatergoer once asked him, "I don't suppose you'll ever play anything else but Mayo, Mr. Crockett?"