Blaney, Charles E.

(1866-1944)

   Actor, producer, and playwright Charles Blaney was born in Columbus, Ohio. With Joseph M. Gaites, Blaney produced and acted in his own first play, A Railroad Ticket, in his hometown when he was 20. He then went to New York and became a producer for Stair and Havelin, the popular-price legitimate circuit. He became a major stockholder in Stair and Havelin, and sometimes had a dozen or so shows on their loop. As producer of around 200 melodramas, half of which he wrote himself, Blaney was known by 1900 as "King of the Melodramas." Among his titles were More to Be Pitied than Scorned, King of the Opium Ring, Across the Pacific (starring his brother Harry Clay Blaney), For His Brother's Crime, and The Millionaire's Revenge (inspired by the Harry Thaw-Evelyn Nesbit-Stanford White news story). Blaney developed stars by putting promising actors in stock companies in the two theatres he built in New York. He also ran a chain of east coast theatres. By his shrewd investments in theatres and real estate, Blaney became wealthy.