Clay M. Greene
Born	(1850-03-12)March 12, 1850 San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died	May 9, 1933(1933-05-09) (aged 83) San Francisco, California
Occupation	Playwright
Spouse	Alice Randolph Wheeler (First) Laura Hewett Robinson (Second) [1]
Parent(s)	William Greene (1812–1871) Anne Fisk (1830–1901)
Relatives	Harry Ashland Greene (brother)

Clay Meredith Greene (March 12, 1850 – September 5, 1933) was an American playwright, lyricist, poet, screenwriter, film director, stage and screen actor, theatre critic, and journalist. He was chiefly known for his work as a prolific dramatist. He was often referred to as either the "first American"^[2][3] or "first white American child"^[4][5] born in San Francisco during his lifetime; a controversial claim which the author himself was responsible for spreading.^[4] A graduate of Santa Clara University (SCU), Greene was the author of the Passion Play Nazareth which was written for and staged as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the founding of SCU in 1901. That work was performed repeatedly every three years at SCU during Greene's lifetime.^[6]

Greene was the brother of American businessman and philanthropist Harry Ashland Greene, and he began his professional life as a stock broker and journalist. With his brother he co-founded the brokerage firm Greene & Company.^[7] While working in that field, he began writing plays with his first work being the 1874 play Struck Oil.^[8] By 1878 Greene had moved to New York City,^[9] and by 1879 he was actively employed in New York as both a playwright and journalist.^[10] He lived with his wife in a home in Bayside, Queens for approximately thirty years.^[11] He was the author of an estimated 80 stage works, encompassing both plays and musicals.^[3] Several of his works were staged on Broadway.^[2] His plays brought him wealth, success, and popular celebrity during his lifetime,^[12][13] but none of his works have endured after his death.^[13]

With playwright Steele Mackaye, Greene co-founded the American Dramatic Author's Society in 1878, the first organization in the United States that was created with the purpose of protecting the rights of dramatists.^[14] He served as the president of the New York City arts social club The Lambs (called "The Shepherd") from 1891 to 1898, and again from 1902 to 1906.^[15] Financial problems forced him to sell his estate on Long Island not long after he married his second wife in 1911. He moved back to San Francisco at this time.^[16] From 1913 to 1916 he worked as a screenwriter for the Lubin Manufacturing Company; also occasionally working as an actor on camera and as a film director. He remained in San Francisco until his death in 1933.^[4]

Clay Meredith Greene was born on March 12, 1850, in San Francisco, California,^[17] to William Harrison Greene (1812–1871) and Anne Elizabeth Fisk (1830–1901).^[7] Some sources claim he was the "first American born in San Francsico";^[3][2][5] although his obituary in The New York Times was careful to point out that he was born six months before the California Statehood Act.^[2] This assertion originated with Clay M. Greene who controversially claimed he was "the first white child born in San Francisco".^[4] While it is possible that he may have been the first white child born in San Francisco when it was a mining supply camp in 1850;^[5] the overall historicity of this claim was drawn into question by reporters who pointed out that white children were likely born at the Mission San Francisco de Asís much earlier during the Spanish colonial period.^[4]

Greene was the grandson of Squire Fiske, a soldier who served as a first lieutenant in the 1st Rhode Island Regiment during the American Revolution. As his descendent, Greene was an active member of the Sons of the American Revolution as an adult.^[18] Clay grew up in a house his father built on San Francisco's Telegraph Hill.^[5] In his growing up years he was enthralled with the theatre business that blossomed in San Francisco during the age of the California gold rush. As a teenager he became involved with the San Francisco theatre scene as an actor and writer of amateur burlesques and plays in addition to regularly attending the theatre as an audience member.^[19]

Greene's parents wanted Clay to pursue a career as a physician or lawyer.^[19] He was educated at the College of California (now University of California) when it was located in Oakland, California on 12th st.^[8] At that time the school was a college preparatory school,^[20] and Greene did not earn a university diploma from that institution.^[8] He did however attend City College of San Francisco and Santa Clara University (SCU);^[17] earning a degree from the latter institution.^[4] His parents hoped Clay's experience at SCU in the years 1867-1870 would solidify his career in a path other than theatre, but the opposite proved to be true as his university education only increased his interest in drama.^[19]

Clay worked as a journalist^[19] and as a stock broker in San Francisco prior to his career as a playwright.^[17] He initially worked as a stock broker on his own but eventually partnered in that venture with his younger brother, the American businessman and philanthropist Harry Ashland Greene.^[7][17] Together the brothers co-founded the stock brokerage firm, Greene & Company.^[7] In the midst of his work as a stock broker and journalist, he continued to devote his energies part time to play writing and acting; including performing the role of Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore at San Francisco's Standard Theater.^[21]

Greene was active as a dramatist between the years 1874 and 1925.^[22] He was the author of approximately eighty stage works which encompassed plays, opera libretti, and lyrics and books for musical theatre.^[3] He was part of a group of American playwrights who emerged during the 1870s that provided a new surge of popular melodramas and comedies to the American theatre. Others in this group included Augustin Daly, Bronson Howard, James J. McCloskey Jr., and Thomas Blades de Walden.^[23] In 1878 Greene and playwright Steele Mackaye co-founded the American Dramatic Author's Society, the first organization in the United States that was created with the purpose of protecting the rights of dramatists.^[14] It was short lived, and was later supplanted by a series of other short lived organizations until the Dramatists Guild of America was formed in 1919.^[14]

Many of Greene's plays, particularly his early and late ones, were first staged in his native San Francisco.^[22] Three of his successful plays were set during the California Gold Rush: M'liss (1877,^[9] based on a story by Bret Harte;^[3] co-authored with A. Slason Thompson),^[22] Chispa (1882, co-authored with A. Slason Thompson),^[22] and The Golden Giant (1886^[24]).^[22] However, most of his career as a dramatist was spent living and working in New York City.^[12] His plays were performed widely throughout the United States during his lifetime,^[23] and he achieved wealth through his work as a playwright.^[12] However, like most of his contemporary dramatists, none of Greene's works have remained in the Western canon of theatre literature.^[13]

Greene began his writing career as a journalist in San Francisco, joining the staff of The Golden Era in 1870. In addition to writing for that paper in the 1870s, he also worked for its competing paper, The Argonaut.^[19] His earliest success as a dramatist was the play Struck Oil which he created for the actor J. C. Williamson. Premiered in 1874, this work was adapted from Sam Smith's one-act play called The Dead, or Five Years Away. It became a hit for Williamson who toured in the work in both the United States and Australia.^[25] That same year he wrote the four act play The Cut Glove for the comic duo P. F. Baker and T. J. Farron; a work the duo toured in the southern United States.^[26][27]

With A.G. Thompson, Greene co-wrote the play Freaks of Fortune which had its premiere at the Grand Opera House in San Francisco in 1877. J. C. Williamson acquired the rights to the work after its original successful run, and brought the play to the Boston stage.^[28] Williamson and his company performed other plays by Greene at The Boston Theatre in 1878, including Struck Oil and The Chinese Question.^[29]

In April 1877 Greene began working on the play M'liss for the actress Kate Mayhew.^[9] Mayhew had obtained the rights to a play by Richard H. Cox based on the story "The Work on Red Mountain" by Bret Harte which featured a feisty miner's daughter, Melissa Smith, aka "M'liss", as it central figure. Harte's story had originally been published in four chapters in The Golden Era in 1860, and its popularity led to the addition of ten more chapters by Harte in 1863. Cox had adapted Harte's story into a play in 1873.^[30] Unhapppy with Cox's writing, Mayhew hired Greene to substantially rewrite the play.^[9] Greene's altered version was used for the play's premiere on July 5, 1877, at the New Market Theater in Old Town Historic District of Portland, Oregon,^[31] and a subsequent run that immediately followed at the California Theatre in San Francisco.^[9]

M'liss was well received in Portland but had a lukewarm reception in San Francisco.^[32] Mayhew was unsatisfied with Greene's version of the final act of the play, and he began working on a second revision in late 1877 while still living in San Francisco. However, according to Mayhew, he ultimately abandoned this project to A. Sisson Thompson to finish when he decided to leave San Francisco and relocate to New York City.^[9] Greene and Thompson copyrighted their dramatic version of Harte's story, M'liss, A Romance of Red Mountains in February 1878; a copyright which Mayhew disputed in court later that year claiming that she owned the copyright to the work.^[33]

In 1878 Greene had moved to New York City,^[19] and by 1879 he had thoroughly established himself as a journalist and playwright in New York.^[10] His most active years as a dramatist were during his years living in New York where he was well known among the literary establishment; including befriending Mark Twain.^[5] When his first wife died on Christmas Eve 1910, her obituary reported that she and Clay M. Greene had resided at a home in Bayside, Queens for thirty years.^[11]

With Slauson Thompson, Greene co-authored the four act farce Sharps and Flats as a staring vehicle for the comedy duo of Robson and Crane.^[34] A send-up of the speculative New York stock market and its buyers during the Gilded Age,^[35] it premiered at the Standard Theatre in Midtown Manhattan on November 8, 1880.^[34] Greene and Thompson collaborated on a second play, Chispa, which was produced by David Belasco for its premiere at the Baldwin Theater in San Francisco during the Christmas season in 1881.^[36]

In the Spring of 1883 Greene collaborated with the Hanlon Brothers acrobats to create for them a new play; ultimately writing for them Pico; or, The legend of Castle Molfi. This work was reworked and eventually became the fairy pantomime Fantasma which had a long stage life in the Hanlon Brothers repertoire.^[37] He also worked with the Hanlon Brothers that year on a revised version of their musical Le Voyage en Suisse.^[21] In late 1885 Greene was hired by the manager of the Grand Opera House in Toronto to create a play based on the life and death of Canadian politician and resistance movement leader Louis Riel who had just been executed by hanging on November 16 of that year. Greene rapidly produced the play, Louis Riel, or, The Northwest Rebellion, and it was premiered in Toronto with a cast of New York actors on New Year's Day 1886.^[38]

In 1886 Greene created his first original musical, Sybil, in collaboration with the composer John F. Mitchell.^[21] That same year his play The Golden Giant was produced by Charles Frohman at Broadway's Fifth Avenue Theatre in a production starring McKee Rankin and his wife Kitty Blanchard.^[24] While successful in New York, the play was a flop on the road and lost Frohman a considerable amount of money while on tour.^[39]

The year 1887 was a highly productive year for Greene, beginning with the musical play Hans the Boatman which he created on commission from the Theatre Royal, Sheffield in England. He crafted the work specifically for the talents of the Swiss-born English actor Charles Arnold (1854–1905) who portrayed the title character when it premiered in Sheffield on 7 March 1887.^[40] The most successful musical of Greene's career,^[21] the work was a tremendous hit for Arnold, who performed the role in a three-year long international tour across Australia, Asia, and the United States.^[41] Greene was also the author of the libretto to the 1887 musical Our Jennie starring Jennie Yeamans which was staged on Broadway at the People's Theatre.^[42] That same year he co-authored the play Pawn Ticket 210 with David Belasco for the actress Lotta Crabtree; a work which premiered at McVicker's Theater in Chicago.^[43]

In 1888 Greene's play adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was given its premiere at the Hollis Street Theatre in Boston.^[44] The following year he served as the lyricist to the musical Blue Beard, Jr. which he created with composers Fred J. Eustis, Richard Maddern, and John Joseph Braham Sr.^[45] It premiered at the Grand Opera House, Chicago on June 11, 1889;^[46] and then toured nationally,^[47] including a stop on Broadway at Niblo's Garden in 1890.^[48]

Greene wrote the libretto to the musical Peti, the Vagabond which starred Hubert Wilke in the title role and premiered at the California Theatre on Bush Street in San Francisco on August 25, 1890.^[49] He co-authored the 1892 play The New South with the actor Joseph R. Grismer; a work which centered on racial animus in the Southern United States after the American Civil War. The story followed a white United States Army captain who is sent by the federal government of the United States to arrest individuals illegally making and selling moonshine. The captain's support of African Americans in that community puts him at odds with the white southerners and his life is threatened. While the authors intended to critique racial prejudice, the work propagated racial stereotypes and theatre scholars James Fisher and Felicia Hardison Londré described both it and a 1916 silent film adaptation of the play as "exploitive".^[50]

Greene collaborated with J. Cheever Goodwin on the libretto to the musical Africa which premiered in San Francisco in June 1893 prior to its Broadway run later that year at the Star Theatre.^[51] This followed soon after by the comic opera The Maid of Plymouth;^[52] to which Greene based his libretto on the story of Plymouth Colony historical figures Priscilla Alden and Myles Standish.^[53] Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's narrative poem The Courtship of Miles Standish was a clear inspiration for the musical.^[21] This work was premiered by The Bostonians in Chicago in November 1893.^[52] It later opened at the Broadway Theatre on January 15, 1894, and starred Margaret Reid as Priscilla and Eugene Cowles as Myles.^[53]

With composer William Furst, Greeene adapted Victor Roger's 1892 operetta Les 28 jours de Clairette for the Broadway stage. He greatly modified the original French language libretto by Hippolyte Raymond and Antony Mars, and his English language version, entitled The Little Trooper (also known as Little Miss Trooper), was crafted as a starring vehicle for the actress Della Fox.^[53] It opened at Broadway's Casino Theatre on August 30, 1894.^[54] Greene's 1894 play Under the Polar Star was a murder mystery investigating the death of the leader of an expedition in the Arctic. It was adapted by David Belasco for an 1896 production on Broadway at the Academy of Music.^[55]

In 1896 Greene partnered with the playwright Ben Teal to craft the melodrama On Broadway for the actress Maggie Cline. While not a musical in the true sense of the word, it did utilize the gifts of composer and conductor David Braham and his orchestra within the play, and featured Cline singing songs like John W. Kelly's "Throw Him Down, McCloskey".^[56] He wrote the book to Ludwig Englander's musical In Gay Paree which ran at the Casino Theatre on Broadway in March–April 1899.^[57]

With the composer A. Baldwin Sloane Greene was the lyricist for the musical Aunt Hannah which premiered on Broadway at the Bijou Theatre where it opened on February 22, 1900.^[58] This musical featured Greene's most significant contribution as a lyricist, the 1900 hit song "My Tiger Lily" (also given as "Ma Tiger Lily").^[59] The following month a second Broadway musical with a book by Greene, The Regatta Girl, was staged at Koster & Bial's Music Hall.^[60]

When Broadway producer John C. Fisher decided to bring English composer Leslie Stuart's 1901 musical The Silver Slipper to the United States for the first time, he turned to Greene re-write the musical's book. The original book by Owen Hall was deemed too English by Fisher to have appeal to an American audience, and he had Greene rework the material to better suit the talents of its American cast.^[61] Other plays he was known for included Forgiven (1886) and A Man from the West (1900).^[3]

For the Golden Jubilee celebration of the founding of Santa Clara University (SCU), Greene penned a Passion Play that was staged at that university in 1901.^[62] Entitled Nazareth, Greene modeled the work after the Oberammergau Passion Play.^[63] It was subsequently repeated at SCU every three years.^[6] It was also staged by The Lambs in 1902.^[15] SCU later awarded Greene an honorary doctorate.^[16]

Greene was an prominent member of The Lambs, a New York City social club that nurtures those active in the arts. Greene served as the president of The Lambs (called "The Shepherd") from 1891 to 1898, and again from 1902 to 1906.^[64] With Augustus Thomas serving as his boy (The Lamb's term for vice-president), Greene played an important role in The Lambs history. Together, Greene and Thomas successfully led the organization out of financial troubles; with Greene notably using his own money to prevent the club from defaulting on its bills and closing by personally paying off the club's debts with his own money in 1894.^[65] Greene and Thomas also acquired the organization's first permanent building, initiated The Lambs annual "gambols" (a public variety show), and almost doubled the size of the organization's membership.^[66]

Greene was also responsible for re-instituting The Lamb's "annual wash"; an elaborate costumed event with a different theme each year. Beginning in 1895, he personally hosted the annual event at Los Olmos, his estate in Bayside, Queens.^[67] He also utilized his gift as a writer for The Lambs; penning more than 100 dramatic and comedic sketches for various entertainments and events put on by the club during his time with the organization.^[68] Fellow Lamb member and impressionist painter Robert Reid, painted a portrait of Greene which hangs in the Lambs club.^[15] In 1933, the year of his death, Greene was the first person to be awarded the title "Immortal Lamb" in the history of the club. The title is given only to a Lamb whose contributions led to the survival of the institution.^[69]

Greene returned to California after the death of his first wife in 1910, and his subsequent marriage six months later to his second wife, the playwright Laura H. Robinson, in 1911.^[16] Greene had previously collaborated on several plays with Robinson and was 60 years old when he remarried.^[6] Financial problems prompted Greene to sell his Long Island estate. He returned to San Francisco following its sale.^[16]

In his later career, Greene's writing shifted towards writing for vaudeville, and he produced a large number of dramatic sketches for the medium in the 1910s and 1920s.^[21] He also became a screenwriter for silent films for the Lubin Manufacturing Company from 1913 to 1916;^[21] also occasionally acting in and directing their films.^[71]

Upon his return to San Francisco, Greene resumed an active member in San Francisco's Bohemian Club (BC). His membership with the club extended back to the 1870s, and he maintained a connection to the organization during his years in New York City; attending and writing on the club's summer High Jinx entertainments at Bohemian Grove.^[72] He was a featured performer in the High Jinx entertainments in the summers of 1881^[73] and 1886.^[74] He also frequently worked as playwright for the organizations entertainments;^[75] penning most of the "Christmas Low Jinx" entertainments performed by the club in the 1890s.^[76] He wrote the poem "False Gods" for the High Jinx of 1891.^[77] With composer Genaro Saldierna he wrote a musical parody of fellow BC member Joseph Redding's The Land of Happiness in 1917 that was entitled The Land of Flabbiness.^[78] He also penned one of the Grove musical plays, writing the 1921 musical John of Nepomuk: Patron Saint of Bohemia in collaboration with composer Humphrey J. Stewart.^[79]

Greene befriended fellow Bohemian Club member Adolph B. Spreckels of the Spreckels Sugar Company. Spreckles and his wife, Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, used their philanthropy to build the Legion of Honor art museum in San Francisco. Greene was so moved by the ground breaking ceremony of the museum in 1921 that he composed a poem, "The Groundbreaking", dedicated to the couple.^[80]

Greene also worked as a theatre critic for the San Francisco Journal.^[81]

While visiting Los Angeles, Greene suffered from a vitreous hemorrhage in 1918 that caused him to lose sight suddenly in one of his eyes.^[6] He remained active in public life in San Francisco into his 80s. His last public appearance was at a performance of his Passion Play at Santa Clara University in the spring of 1933.^[82] In May 1933 he broke his hip and was unable to walk for the remainder of his life.^[4]

Clay M. Greene died on September 5, 1933, in San Francisco, California.^[2] His daughter from his first marriage, the actress Helen Greene (1896-1947),^[83] and his second wife were with him at the time of his death.^[2]

• The Dispensation And Other Plays (1914)^[84]
• Venetia, Avenger of the Lusitania (1919)^[85]
• Verses of Love, Sentiment and Friendship (1921)^[86]
• In Memoriam: A Pageant of Friendship (1923)^[87]

• Struck Oil (1874)^[25]
• M'liss (1877,^[9] based on a story by Bret Harte;^[3] co-authored with A. Slason Thompson)^[22]
• Sharps and Flats (1880)^[118]
• Chispa (1882, co-authored with A. Slason Thompson)^[22]
• Louis Riel, or, The Northwest Rebellion (1886)^[38]
• The Golden Giant (1886)^[24]
• Uncle Tom's Cabin (1888, adapted from the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe)^[44]
• Carl's Folly (1891)^[21]
• A High Roller (1891)^[21]
• For Money (1891, co-written with Augustus Thomas)
• The New South (1892)^[118]
• Under the Polar Star (1894)^[55]
• A Man from the West (1900)^[21]
• The Gentle Mr Bellew of France (1902)^[21]
• The Little Minister and His Mash, or A Very Hot Scotch (1902)^[21]
• Over a Welsh Rarebit (1903)^[21]
• For Love's Sweet Sake (1906)^[21]

• Pico; or, The legend of Castle Molfi, a fairy pantomime (1883, later retitled Fantasma)^[37]
• Le Voyage en Suisse (1883, Greene crafted the revised libretto of this work)^[21]
• Sybil (1886, libretto by Greene; music by John F. Mitchell)^[21]
• Hans the Boatman, musical (1887, book and lyrics by Greene, music by various composers)^[40]
• Our Jennie, musical (1887; music by Barney Fagan; libretto by Greene)^[21]
• Blue Beard, Jr., a musical in four acts^[46] (1889, libretto by Greene; music by Fred J. Eustis, Richard Maddern, and John Joseph Braham Sr.)^[45]
• Peti, the Vagabond, musical (1890, libretto by Greene)^[49]
• The Maid of Plymouth, comic opera in two acts (1893, libretto by Greene; music by Thomas Pearsall Thorne)^[52]
• Africa, musical (1893; music by Randolph Cruger; libretto co-authored by Greene and J. Cheever Goodwin)^[21]
• The Little Trooper, operetta (1894, also known as Little Miss Trooper; Greene wrote a new English language libretto to Victor Roger's 1892 operetta Les 28 jours de Clairette; new music by William Furst)^[53]
• On Broadway, play with music (1896)^[57]
• April Fool, pasticcio (1897; libretto by Greene)^[21]
• A Musical Discord, pasticcio (1897; libretto by Greene)^[21]
• In Gay Paree, musical (1899, book by Greene; music by Ludwig Englander; lyrics by Grant Stewart)^[119]
• Sharp Becky, burlesque (1899, adapted into a portion of the burlesque musical Around New York in 80 Minutes)^[21]
• The Conspirators, comic opera (1899, libretto by Greene; music by Humphrey John Stewart)^[21]
• The Remarkable Pipe Dream of Sherlock Holmes (1900, originally Lamb's Gambol; adapted into a portion of the burlesque musical Around New York in 80 Minutes)^[21]
• Aunt Hannah, musical (1900, lyrics by Greene; music by A. Baldwin Sloane; book by Matthew J. Royal)^[120]
• The Regatta Girl, musical (1900; libretto by Greene; music by Harry McLellan)^[121]
• The Silver Slipper, musical (1902 revised libretto by Greene; music by Leslie Stuart)^[122]
• John of Nepomuk: Patron Saint of Bohemia (1921, book and lyrics by Greene; music by composer Humphrey J. Stewart)^[79]

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• Clay M. Greene at the Internet Broadway Database
• Clay M. Greene at IMDb
• Works by or about Clay M. Greene at the Internet Archive