The meeting of the great author with my father in 1910 was briefly 
touched upon in our June, 1970 issue.  But at that time, my information 
was sketchy, and the date I put to the event was wrong, and it actually 
stayed "wrong" until this vear 1989! Such are the difficulties of true
research.
    Harry Hollingsworth formed his own stock company of actors about
the week of Apr. 11, 1909, at age 20. Of course, he had been a supporting 
player at the Los Angeles Burbank Theatre (near 6th and Main) beginning 
in 1904, at the tender age of 15! He had first worked there as an usher, 
finailly getting up on stage as an "extra," "supe," or "spear-carrier," 
the old theatrical terms.  His boss was lessee-manager, Oliver Morosco,	
who would later achieve national fame and succes as an entrepreneur, 
theater chain owner and play producer. But his great fortune quickly 
dissipated and, in abject poverty he was struck and instantly killed 
by one of the "Big Red" Streetcars of his city of success, Los Angeles.
    Harry Hollingsworth left L.A. and went 'on the road' with the 
Raymond Whittaker Company, to Bakersfield, Calif., and Phoenix, Arizona 
Territory, in the sweltering summer of 1908. After that, he made his 
way to Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco (a Hitchcockian town) to join 
the Ansel Hulbert Stock Company for another season of plays.
    In the Hulbert cast was J. Charles Bates who would be Dad's partner 
in his own company, a man I barely remember as a half-blind old friend 
of the family I called "Uncle Charley," in the late 1930s. Charley 
claimed to have known Boris Karloff before his great success as 
Frankenstein's fabulous monster. Also, the leading man of Hulbert, was 
Paul Harvey.  Not the man of radio fame, but a great character man of 
the talkies who died in 1955. I still have Paul's autographed photo 
"to my friend Harry, Sincerely, R. Paul Harvey, Santa Rosa '08" among 
identified photos left by Harry at his death 4 Nov 1947.
    Harry joined the Hulberts on Sunday, 22 Nov. 1908, in time to
go on stage at the Richter Theater as Simon Legree in "Uncle Tom's 
Cabin." A play a week was the pace. Then, early in l909, the Hulberts 
went to Petaluma for a short season. It was then that Harry and Char-
ley Bates pulled out and formed the Harry Hollingsworth Stock Company.
They opened in the little Unique Theatre on Sunday, April 18, 1909,
with The Man From the West. After this, the Ansel Hulbert company 
began a downward began a downward slide and soon disappeared from 
sight forever.
    A semi-weekly change of play was the format at the Unique. The
rest of the plays, all duly advertised and reviewed in the Argus,
were A Bitter Atonement, California, The Counterfeiters,The Gamblerts,
Wife, The Diamond Necklace Robbery, In the Heart of the Sierras,
Divorce, Passion's Slave, Dad's Girl, and, closing on Sunday, May 23rd, 
The Tenderfoot. It was a well supported season, and apparently quite 
a success.
    Dad must have flushed with pride as he and his company left Petaluma 
for San Francisco, where they boarded the steamer City of Topeka for a 
trip to Eureka, California, for another series of plays at the Margarita 
Theater in that seaside town. But it proved to be a very short, rather 
dismal run, less than two weeks! In fact, Dad received a two-week notice 
shortly after the end of the first night!

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