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A Plea for Privacy
51
kraut if he liked, without having his taste commented upon. That he might wear those comfortable, old shoes just a few times more, without having significant glances cast at his feet. That he might dash down to the corner drug store without shaving, and not feel that passers-by would nudge one another. You see, there is something to an actor's version of fame !
Clive Brook had this recognition especially in mind at the moment, because of an unpleasant experience the night before in a restaurant. A girl at the next table was what is known on Broadway as "blotto." She recognized Clive, but was too drunk to know who he was. She kept reaching over, half falling off her chair, and seizing his arm, addressing him in a loud voice. Naturally every one in the restaurant turned to see the cause of such commotion, and Clive, as any one would be, was embarrassed at being the center of a public scene.
Finally a man in the corner shouted, "Well, well, it's Clive Brook."
"Thass who 'tis," the drunken girl shouted, suddenly enlightened. "Clive Brook!" Every one turned with even more interest to look. Under those conditions, who wouldn't have felt like the living skeleton, or the tattooed lady, or perhaps the girl who demonstrates washtubs in the window?
"Is that Clive Brook ?" The drunken girl turned to Mrs. Brook, and she, greatly embarrassed, pretended that it wasn't. Whereupon the girl fell off her chair, rolled on the floor, and "passed out." Her distressed escort, who had been trying to stop her, apologized profusely to the actor and took the girl home.
You can imagine how much Mr. and Mrs. Brook enjoyed that dinner, and you see what fame can lead to.
Since the advent of the talkie, Clive is more in the limelight than ever. He's one of the lucky ones who isn't spending long nights worrying about what he's to do now. His voice is one of the best so far tried out on the screen, as one learns on seeing "Interference."
Of course he's most
Mr. Brook is embarrassed when a crowd makes a fuss over him.
Clive Brook, trained on the English stage, established himself firmly in the talkies with "Interference."
enthusiastic about talkies. "They've waked us up in Hollywood," he said. "It's so easy to sit back and get into a rut unless something comes along to prod you out of it. That's what talkies did for the film industry."
Naturally, I pointed out, the talkies were excellent for Clive Brook and Conrad Nagel and a few others ; they've had stage training.
"Oddly enough," said Mr. Brook, "stagetrained actors have to be more careful than any one else. Because in stage work we have to learn to 'throw' our voices, to make them carry through a large auditorium. On the screen it's just the opposite. You have to speak from farther forward in your throat, as if you were talking into the telephone. You've heard some of these short subjects, of course? How badly some of the loveliest singing voicescome over? That's because singers are so trained to throw their voices, that they are unable to gauge them to the microphone at the Studio." [Continued on page 107|