Body and Soul (United Artists) (1947)

lives of the stars John Garfield Is Morally Afraid of Too Much Money Not so very many years ago a rough, tough punk was leading a bunch of youthful candidates for Murder, Inc. on forays around the lower East Side of New York. His old man, a poor tailor who couldn’t always meet his rent, was widowed when the boy was seven and had no time to train his son. Eventually young John Garfield was nailed by the law on some juvenile charge and sent to Angelo Patri’s school for problem children. The eminent educator taught the boy how to box so he became a semi-finalist in a Golden Gloves tournament, gave him an interest in oratory so that he was runner-up in a national speaking contest, arranged for him to borrow money so he could attend Eva La Gallienne’s dramatic school and train under Ouspenskaya and sent him out into the world with a disdain for mere wealth and an ambition to be a fine actor. Garfield achieved his ambition the hard way. There were years of dishwashing jobs, summer camp jobs, nine months of hoboing all over the United States, working in the Nebraska wheat fields, doing six days for vagrancy in Austin, Texas, work¬ ing as a fruit-picker in the San Joaquin Valley. Then there was a return to New York City and a bout with typhoid fever. “I walked out of the hospital feeling like a wraith,” Garfield says, “and that first day I got my first real acting job—a bit in ‘Lost Boy’ at $25 a week. That led to the part of the office boy in the road company of ‘Counsellor at Law’ and then the same part in the Broadway production with Paul Muni.” While he was in “Counsellor at Law,” Garfield became interested in the Group Theatre which gave the theatrical world Clifford Odets and his “Wait¬ ing for Lefty” and “Golden Boy.” “It seemed to me that in the Group lay the future of the American theatre,” Garfield says. “Sometimes we didn’t have enough to eat, especially between shows. We lived a communal life and often there were only potatoes for dinner. But we believed in what we were doing. We put on such plays as ‘Waiting for Lefty,’ ‘Johnny Johnson,’ ‘Awake and Sing’ and ‘Peace on Earth’.” When “Golden Boy” was in preparation, Garfield asked for a part in it but before Odets could put it on, he was offered the lead in “Having Won¬ derful Time.” In the middle of the play’s run, Odets started to cast “Golden Boy” and Garfield quit his job with the hit to play a small role. Meanwhile he had had several motion picture offers which he resolutely turned down. “I was afraid of Hollywood,” he explains, “morally afraid—and still am—of big money. I don’t think you can take it without losing some¬ thing. I didn’t want to star in a lot of inane pic¬ tures. The story is the thing—not the star. Then I saw two fine pictures—‘The Story of Louis Pasteur’ and ‘The Life of Emile Zola’—and realized that in Hollywood the story could be the thing, too.” But in coming to the film capital, Garfield left open an avenue of escape. He insisted on a clause in his contract giving him the right to do one play a year. He believes that by shaking the Hollywood dust from his shoes once a year and going back to his old haunts where he went hungry for the sake of an ideal, he will retain the perspective he thinks all actors should have. Garfield has long been active in all sorts of liberal and relief groups. Recently some one said to him, “If you weren’t so interested in becoming known as a professional liberal and devoted more time to acting, you might win an Academy Award.” Garfield replied, “Maybe so, but I don’t think the hungry kids of Europe and Asia can survive on a diet of ‘Oscars’.’ 1 The latest of his almost two dozen films is Enter¬ prise Studios’ “Body and Soul,” co-starring Lilli Palmer and introducing the dynamic Hazel Brooks. It was filmed in many of the New York spots where Garfield supervised the activities of his hoodlum playmates and includes in its cast some of his former Group Theatre friends. “Body and Soul” opens . at the Theatre through United Artists release. Anne Revere Plays Her Third Mother Part Ex-jockey 9 Ex-pug Canada Lee Is An Actor by Accident Still No. BS-P-20 Anne Revere, Academy Award winner, plays John Garfield’s mother in the Garfield-Lilli Palmer starrer, “Body and Soul” which United Artists is releasing. Mat (1G) .15 Anne Revere, currently playing her third “mother” part, was so dis¬ tressed by her first glimpse of her¬ self on the screen that it took her six years to work up enough cour¬ age to make another picture. That first movie was “Double Door,” a film version of the Broadway hit in which Miss Revere had also played, and the part, a “50-year old ingenue—a shy, romantic little lady who had a love-life vica¬ riously.” Back on Broadway, Anne landed a part in “The Children’s Hour” which ran for three years and dur¬ ing that time married writer-direc¬ tor Samuel Rosen. They became interested in a cooperative summer theatre in Surrey, Maine and from 1936 to 1939 spent their summers there. Anne not only played a dif¬ ferent role each week but business- managed the company as well. In 1937 the Surrey Theatre in¬ vaded Broadway with “As You Like It” and two years later tried again with “Three Sisters.” Both ventures were artistic successes and box- office failures. Anne then took a shot at television acting and finally, in 1940, dared to face Hollywood again. And there she has stayed. Her first picture on her return visit was “The Howards of Vir¬ ginia.” Since then she has appeared in “H. M. Pulham, Esq.,” “Old Acquaintance,” “The Song of Ber¬ nadette” in which she played Ber¬ nadette’s mother, “National Velvet” (another “mother” part which won her an “Oscar”), “Keys of the King¬ dom” and “Dragonwyck” among dozens of others. Her current part, as John Gar¬ field’s mother in “Body and Soul.” finds her free-lancing at Enterprise Studios in a picture, co-starring Lilli Palmer opposite Garfield and introducing Hazel Brooks, which opens at the . Theatre through United Artists release. Anne is a “remote” descendant of Paul Revere. She was born in New York City hut moved with her family to Westfield, N. J. at the aee of three. In grammar and high school, she nurtured a vague ambi¬ tion of becomine a doctor and also showed potentialities as both a teacher and a business woman. At the age of 12, she undertook to teach dancing to neighborhood children at 10^ a lesson. Then, when she entered Welles¬ ley College she switched her active interest to something that had been Iving dormant all those years— dramatics. She tried out for play after play with no success until, in her senior year, one of the ac¬ tresses in the forthcoming dramatic club show got sick and Anne was drafted to take over. That clinched her career. Before making Broadway, Anne taught dramatics at Horace Mann School in New York and studied at the American Laboratory The¬ atre. After two years of that she tossed teaching aside and landed a snot in a mob scene in a Broadway play. Next she joined a road com¬ pany presenting “tab” shows, abbre¬ viated versions of well-tested plays and wound up with the Stuart Walker Stock Company in Cincin¬ nati, Ohio where she played a variety of roles for two more years. Fifteen years ago an ex-jockey turned fighter entered the ring against a welterweight named Johnny Indrisano and lost by a decision. Indrisano advised him to forget about fighting which he did promptly. The brand new ex-fighter, born Lionel Canegaya of Puerto Rican parents, but re-christened Canada Lee by a stuttering ring announcer, went hungry for a while before deciding there should be loot in the entertainment field. He started out with a Harlem band and presently found himself half¬ owner of a joint called “Jitterbug” which turned out to be a Haven for cockroaches and non-paying customers. On the trail of something more lucrative, Lee happened in on a little theatre group rehearsal and fell into the part of the romantic lead in “Brother Mose,” a Negro theatre project, at $23.86 a week. Canada, who considered acting more fun than work, con¬ tinued to appear in project and road show companies until 1937 when he got his break—in Orson Welles’ all-colored production of “Macbeth.” And, finally, in 1941, as Bigger in “Native Son,” he won the Drama Critics Award. Then, in 1943, Lee came to Hollywood to appear in Alfred Hitch¬ cock’s “Lifeboat.” Since then the actor has appeared in “Anna Lucasta,” Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” as Caliban, “On Whitman Avenue” which he also co-produced, and “The Duchess of Malfi” in which he created a sensation by appearing in white-face. Now he is back in Hollywood again, prominently cast as a fighter in “Body and Soul” which co-stars John Garfield and Lilli Palmer. And, illustrating the long arm of coincidence, he was trained in the gentle art of fighting before the cameras by his erstwhile opponent, Johnny Indrisano. “Body and Soul,” an Enterprise Studios’ film which United Artists is releasing, opens at the Theatre. Still No. BS-P -100 Canada Lee, veteran of the New York stage, plays the part of a pugilist in United Artists’ “Body and Soul” at the . Theatre. The picture stars John Garfield and Lilli Palmer and in¬ troduces Hazel Brooks. Mat (1H) .15 ’’Must” for Film Kisses: Brief and Hot For 18 years Robert Rossen has been knock¬ ing around show business, first as a writer, then a director, and it has taken him just that long to find the answer to what the public wants in screen kisses. His formula: Brief and torrid. “The days of long languorous kisses are gone,” Rossen decided. “If a director permitted players to indulge in some of the osculatory exercises popular in Valentino’s day, the audience would grow restless and start thinking about taxes or something, and there’s nothing more discourag¬ ing than that. “Anything that retards a story lessens the hold the plot has on the audience,” Rossen con¬ tinued. “Long kisses may evoke Sinatra-like sighs from young romantics, but most patrons are either hard-boiled enough to take their kisses where they find them or have been mar¬ ried so long that a peck on the cheek is synony¬ mous with romance. “There are all kinds of kisses,” he went on. “There’s the farewell hit-and-miss affair at the railroad station; the sisterly brush on the cheek; the lipstick affair planted on one woman’s cheek by another, and there’s the type that really means business. “That is the kind audiences will see when they go to ‘Body and Soul.’ There won’t be many of them, but we hope they’ll be more than memorable.” “Body and Soul,” opening at the Theatre through United Artists re¬ lease, co-stars John Garfield and Lilli Palmer with tempestuous Hazel Brooks playing the part of the “other woman.” Page Fourteen