The Complicated Divorce of John Cort
A local variety theater manager finds his personal life—and marriage—dragged through the courts again.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Marie Louise White yesterday secured a divorce by default against John Lindsley White, better known as John Cort. The latter made no defense and the divorce was granted upon the simple grounds of nonsupport. John Cort at one time gained considerable notoriety in this city as a variety manager. He was ambitious and aimed at controlling the variety amusement business of the Northwest. He probably overreached himself and lost so much money that he left Seattle and is now running a theater at Victoria. For a long time he and his wife had had much trouble. He sued her for divorce upon the grounds of adultery and lost his case, the court decreeing that they had never been legally married. At that time they had a desperate fight for the custody of the children. The court put these temporarily in the charge of John Cort's mother. Then for the sake of the children the parties were married and now the divorce is granted through the default of the defendant. Mrs. Cort gets the custody of the children.
“He probably overreached himself and lost so much money that he left Seattle.”
John Cort went on to become a major theatrical impresario in New York, but his early Seattle years were defined by the messy, public litigation that was common for the era's entertainment class. His attempt to build a theater empire mirrors the high-stakes, volatile nature of Seattle's early growth years.
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