That's true. Traveling performers, from the time of the Middle Ages on, were always regarded as untrustworthy, fugitive, shiftless, criminal vagabonds. I mean, they were the dregs of society and not even on an equal status with peasants tied to their land or with townspeople with established, skilled trades. At the turn of the last century, so much of theatre life was glamorized and theatre people became much the sought after crowd...sort of like the celebrated and fawned-over royalty of previous times. Royalty fell out of fashion (in many ways) and actors took their place in the attention of the general public. The public created the monster and the actors forever carried the banner of a once marginalized and prosecuted minority who have now become 'empowered'. They will always champion the offbeat, criminal, the outrageous... They are now like spoiled children with no reverence for the cultural substructure of which they are the beneficiaries.
They still are and it will ever be so.
When I was a Lad, I worked on cattle ranches in a Western town that was known for its location of many "B" Western Movies. One evening, the rancher I worked for took us into town to eat and have ice cream. The Mt.------Cafe was actually a bar on one side a cafe on the other, with the bathroom facilities on the bar side. As I went down the hall towards the mens room, a famous "B" actress came stumbling out of the ladies (?) room, wiping puke from her chin, let me by, and began puking again in the hall. She was passed out on the hallway floor, in her own vomit, when I left the mens room.
Obviously, I have never forgotten that experience, or others similar. It was too much reallity for one too young and too innocent to be exposed. The behavior was tolerated. It was expected of the "Movie People", and it brought money to the town. However, my father always thought H'Wood people were scum; "They're all either commies, drunks or some other kind of strangeness, Buck, stay away from 'em!" I always have.