Variety (January 1953)

^Tuesday, January 7, 1953 Forty-seventh PfifelElfY Anniversary PICTURES 63 Likens Theatre to Gospel Continued from page 3 n Presidents. Lincoln went so often fhat his assassin found him there. t have seen Woodrow Wilson rise in his box next to^the stage and congratulate an actor who intro- duced him. And Franklin D. Roose- velt guffawed with laughter when reorge M. Cohan impersonated him and called to his stenographer to say: <*Take a law!” There is something about the actor’s art and profession for which I have a profound reverence. The actor practices a kind of miestcraft. Who else does more to-teach mankind brotherly love, sympathy and mutual understand- ing? The actor’s motto is, “Put your- self in his place!” And that is the whole secret of understanding, sympathizing with, and loving, or at least forgiving, our fellow- beings. The theatre and religion have always had intensely warm rela- tions, though the warmth has some- times been that of fierce hostility on the part of religion. The • Hindus preached, indeed, that the great god Brahma in- vented the theatre and ordained the building of a '.playhouse for the dramas of the inspired drama- tist Bharata. The drama in India dates' back at least to 1500 B.C. ] E gyptians and the Greeks f But the Egyptians claim to have had a theatre before 3100 B.C. And the Chinese, of course, point back still farther. The profession of the actor is therefore nearly 5,000 years old. The Greek tragedies and come- dies are, many of them, well known to us and the Greek theatre was also 'divinely invented—by the vivacious god Dionysus, whom we more familiarly call Bacchus. Similarly the Christian religions have had intimate, though varied, relations with the theatre. Part of the time the church produced plays as “Mysteries and Morali- ties/’ Part of the time^ the re- ligions have denounced the theatre as the “very vestibule of hell” and actors and actresses as very devils.. Shortly after Shakespeare’s death, the Puritans closed all the theatres in England and they stayed shut until Charles II came back from exile and reopened them with a bang. The Italians of the Renaissance period treated actors with the usual inconsistency, an alternation of homage and hostility. The great poet Tasso tells of a banquet given to the actress Vit- toria called the “divine.” Seven cardinals joined in sponsoring that banquet in Rome. Yet when the equally honored actress, Isabella, died she was re- fused burial in consecrated ground. And that was what most embitr tered Voltaire against the Church. When the great actress Adrienne Lecouvreur died, she was buried under a crossroads. Voltaire adored her and never forgave the church. So in America, not only in Puri- tanical Boston, but in other cities at various times the giving of plays has been stpnily forbidden. Yet at times astute managers were able to present dramas under the thin disguise of ‘‘Moral Lectures.” Thus the tragedy of “Othello” was Played straight through as a “ser- mon” on the evils of Jealousy. The story of the theatre in America is one of violent ups and do\vns. In the early days the whole country was a mixture of small towns and wilderness; but adven- turous theatrical travelers dared a U the dangers and reaped the small rewards. Western mining camps were rarely so remote or towdy that roving actors and ac- tresses did not visit them. . And quite recently theatrical loupes have ventured to the very tvar-fronts and put on plays so emse to the firing line that the jumble of artillery furnished the thn 7 ro \ ,n d music. Now and then audience and the actors and uh\ 0sso * liad to disperse in haste nvmi 1 enem y bomber passed oterhead. rahi* 1 '- * '/? nc ’is told of such an air- co !n m ;Vorl d War II. When the fearless men and a ohv 1 wlth 1 . whom she was giving said later* dlspersed » she ran » and l fonni 11 * i um Ped into a foxhole 1 ™«nd a wolf there.” unously, during the Revolu tionary War, when the British were occupying Boston, the English officers put on a play ridiculing the Yankee Doodles outside. At a high spot in the satire, Washing- ton’s siege-guns began a bombard- ment of the town and emptied the theatre in a panic. , The first plays ever produced in America were necessarily late in arriving on account of the slow settlement of the wilderness. Yet in 1665 in Virginia three young men were accused of having acted a play. But they were acquitted. And it probably was not real act- ing. In Boston in 1697 the Rev. Cot- ton Mather warned that there was talk of certain persons “conspiring” to commit play-acting. They were evidently scared off, as there is no record of their performance. First Theatre in America The first actual professional pro- duction seems to have been about 1699, when a man named Richard Hunter asked the Governor of the province of New York for a license to present plays in the city of New York, He alleged that he had been “to great Charge and Expense in providing Persons and Necessarys.” We know only that the petition was granted, but there is no record of performances. - In 1703 Anthony Aston came to Charles-Towne, later Charleston, South Carolina, which was for many years the most active town on the continent in its hospitality to the theatre. After producing plays there, Aston went to New York, where he seems to have been active. But in 1709 the Governor’s Council passed a law forbidding play-acting and prize-fighting. In Boston in 1714 there was an official ban against the same two evils'. One can imagine the hardships confronting the travelling com- panies in those crude days. Aston described himself as crossing the ocean and arriving, in Charles- Towne “full of Lice, Poverty, Nakedness and Hunger.” Even in this maFyrdom there was a certain religious enthusiasm and the strolling players shared the conditions of wandering friars and holy mendicants. They, too, were spreaders of the gospel of human brotherhood and charity. There is a kinship between the spirits of those who have the call to the pulpit and those who have the unquenchable thirst to appear on the stage. Both are on fire with a passion to express themselves and their ideals and to interpret Other souls. But in Virginia in 1716 at Wil- liamsburg, permission was granted to William Levingston to build a theatre. From then on, though at great intervals, plays were pro- duced in Virginia. In fact the stu- dents of William and Mary College gave plays, as did a number of “ladies and gentlemen.” In 1732, the very year of George Washing- ton’s birth, New York opened “the New Theatre,” V which seems to have been on Broadway, already becoming a synonym for the thea- tre 220 years ago. * About the same time in South Carolina, the city of Charles-Towne began to encourage the playhouse. In that city, as early as 1735, there seems to have occurred the first presentation of a musical piece —an opera called “Flora, or Hole in the Well.” It is a quaint fact that in Eng- land before the Restoration, when the Catholic faith was proscribed, both masses and plays were given secretly in homes. And the pen- alty for both was death! Always Under a Cloud The history of the theatre is packed with the sufferings and in- domitable determination of men and women who were so devoted to the theatre that no disgrace, privation or imprisonment, could drive them into other careers. There may not be entire truth in the legend that the young Shake- speare ran away from Stratford vil- lage and held horses in front of the theatre to earn pennies enough to keep him alive until he could get inside as an actor. But countless others went through equal or worse humiliations to the same end. And, speaking of Shakespeare, not everybody realizes that during his lifetime women were forbidden to appear on the English stage, though they were active in the Con- tinental theatres. It gives you the heartache to realize that ^ Shake- speare never saw his Juliet, his Rosalind; his- Viola, Desdemona or | Portia or any of his other wonder- ‘ ful girls and women played by a woman. Pretty boys or burly men impersonated all of those ravishing creatures. In his Epilogue to “As You Like It” Shakespeare has his Rosalind say; “If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me.” And sometimes the Juliets and Violas gave evi- dence that they needed a-shave. It was not until the time of Charles II that women appeared on the English stage and the first of them were pelted with oranges, or worse piissiles, by the female im- personators whose jobs they were taking away. By a curious coincidence I claim a relationship to the theatre from the fact that Peg Hughes, who was perhaps the very first English ac- tress, was the sweetheart of Prince Rupert. The prejudice against women on the stage was suffered also by the male actors in a thousand ways and is still not entirely unknown. Though certain actors and ac- tresses have always been social fa- vorites since the most ancient time, as a class the people of the theatre have had to endure a cer- tain suspicion or condescension. Queen Elizabeth could invite Shakespeare and Iris players to the court and command him to write another play celebrating the char- acter of Falstaff, which delighted her. But actors were still, legally vagabonds and could play only when sponsored by some noble- man as more dr le^ ’servants of his. In fact . they balled them- selves “servants,” and were fined for unlicensed performances. It was nearly 300 years after Shakespeare’s time before Henry Irving broke down the prejudice and was knighted in 1895. Since that time Sir Johnston Forbes- Roberston, Sir Cedric .Hardwicke, Sir Laurence Olivier,'Sir Charles B. Cochran, Sir Louis Sterling, Sir Michael Balcon and other actors and showmen have been knighted. Actresses, too, have been royally honored. And in our day the actor and the actress have come into the fullest social recognition. Yet even now in certain circles there is a curse upon the theatre and its folk./ - -But so in certain circles there is a curse on the rival priests, the most ardent religious sects and their followers. In Boston of the puritan days when the theatre was looked upon with such horror, Catholics were regarded with equal horror and Quaker women were stripped and actually flogged to death. But that is part of human nature. The more intensely people feel their beliefs, the more fiercely they hate and persecute the followers of slightly different creeds. The religious preach, that we are all the children of God, suffering the temptations of the devil. They try to teach us to understand one another, to love one another, even our enemies, and to forgive those who trespass against us. The Priesthood of Acting 7 Majors’ $25,000,000 Continued from page 5 and salary ceilings were also ‘im- posed. Likewise, at 20th-Fox a number of top execs have had their compensation trimmed but are permitted to recover the cuts if company earnings so warrant. Careful planning before the script goes before the camera is stressed by Paramount as another means of whittling the overhead. At the suggestion of production chief Don Hartman, the studio surveyed all aspects of filmmak- ing with a view to economy and came up with a report which rec- ommended pre-rehearsals and conciser screenplays, among other things. It was no trick at all for the ma- jors to reap grosses in excess of the billion dollar mark in the fat ’46-’47 postwar stretch. But with the advent of television’s compe- tition and loss of some company- owned theatre chains, due to di- vorcement under the government consent decree, the majors’ aggre- gate gross in 1951 eased off to $717,176,000. Bouncing Back I But what else is the mission of the theatre? Is it not to portray for us . the souls of other human beings who are following their na- tures, conflicting with one another and with their environments? What else is the actor or actress doing but putting himself or her- self inside the skin—and inside the soul—of somebody else, then making that person’s motives and suffering real to us? In that way they are teaching and preaching human understanding. People who cannot or will not read can attend the theatre. There they are gripped by some exciting plot. They learn to weep for Juliet or some modern victim of misfor- tune; they laugh' at ancient char- acters or people^ like^iheir own neighbors. They grow\ excited about the woes and welfare of strangers of all nations. To weep for other people’s woes is the very sublimity of hu- man sympathy and understand- ing. The further and equally glorious achievement of the actors and actresses is tjiat they make people forget their own troubles for a while. By making the public laugh or thrill at some hdmor or beauty, they give release and relief to millions. They are benefactors of the race. There has always been, there will always be, a place for them, no matter what changes take place in conditions. The theatre may be a hillside, a hut, an arena. Every new invention enlarges and re- news the need of a man, a woman or a child to impersonate some- (Continued on page* 65) Apparently the take has leveled off and is even bounding back to some extent. For grosses during tile first nine months of 1952 added up to a stout $551,121,000 compared to the $525,876,000 gleaned over the equivalent 1951J period. It’s also interesting to* note that the business peaks and valleys take place in the same months of both years as the table herewith attests. ment and few pictures of its own in production in 1952, it’s been so busy worrying about the present that the future has hardly been scanned. Past year was notable for the fact that 20th-Fox divested itself of its theatre owning subsidiaries ,as of Sept. 27 under terms of the consent decree. Warners, which is required to dispose of its theatre holdings by next April, last month sold controlling interest in the 300- house loop to a syndicate headed by Si Fabian. RKO and Para- mount complied with the theatre divesting provisions, of the decree in 1950 and 1949, respectively. At that, production and distribu- tion may turn out to be the more lucrative end of the industry. For theatre circuit- earnings in 1952 dipped sharply from the 1951 take. Wesco Theatres Corp. and Roxy Theatre, Inc. only last week re- ported net income of $1,503,443 for the 39-week period ended Sept, 27, 1952. Figure compares with the $1,821,881 net for the comparable 1951 stretch, Wesco is wholly owned by National Theatres, for- merly 20th’s theatre subsid. The field of exhibition tended to be a spotty one over the past year. Nine-month net of United Paramount Theatres slid to $5,435,- 000 from the thumping $9,537,000 culled in the equivalent 1951 period. On the other hand, busi- ness of the small Trans-Lux loop improved to the extent where a 15c dividend was paid on the common as of Dec. 18. An Actor Started Continued from page 3 1st Qtr. 2d Qtr. 3d Qtr. 4th Qtr. 1952 . . $176,121,000 $193,600,000 $181,400,000 1951.. 164,500,000 182,376,000 179,000,000 191,300,000 Realistic attitude adopted by. 20th-Fox and Paramount to im- prove their profit picture obvi- ously has paid off according to the two majors’ recent nine-month earnings reports. From a low point of only a $34,001 net for the first quarter, 20th-Fox improved smart- ly in the second quarter with $928,492 and snared a rousing nine-month net of $2,768,191 against the $2,147,628 for 1951. Moreover, a change in the com- pany’s overseas accounting meth- ods resulted in a. special credit of $1,077,755 to boost the total net to $3,845,966. Paramount started off the year with a first quarter net of $1,- 355.000. Picking up momentum, it registered a fancy consolidated nine-month profit of $4,663,000. Figure was well above the $4,205,- 000 for the equivalent x951 period. Company’s strong foreign coin was a decided factor in its favorable showing as were some pictures such as “Greatest Show on Earth.” Total $551,121,000 717,176,000 Badrutt built his world famous Palace Hotel, wlfich is the commu- nity’s social pivot. Badrutt asked Wyndham to say a few words to the gilded throng, and he responded; “All of us come to St. Moritz for a change and a rest.” He paused to let it sink in, then continued: “The waiters get the change, Bad- rutt the rest.” What was true of the time of Sir Charles, when he blazed the trail for other theatrical person- ages to follow, is still true today, but St. Moritz provides facilities in the lower price brackets. From the extreme of the Palace’s Holly- wood Room, which can be had for $50 a day, there are other hastel- ries which go for $5, all-inclusive. 40% From Foreign Foreign market, which has been estimated to furnish about 40% of Hollywood’s total income, came through in 1952 with about $170,- 000,000. Fat tally eclipsed the 1951 record of $160,000,000 and sub- stantially augmented the majors’ coffers. Without this revenue the companies undeniably would be in a bad way. Hence, most of the majors haven’t been idle insofar as their domestic future is concerned. Minus their theatre subsidiaries, some have invaded television not only as a fiscal cushion but as a means of protection. Paramount has long held a 29% interest in Allen B. DuMont Laboratories, has a 50% interest in Telemeter, a subscription TV system; and owns half of the Lawrence chro- matic tube. This device gives the firm a foothold in color TV. Columbia, of course, turns out vidpix via Screen Gems and has indicated that it may spend up to $3,000,000 for purchases of TV stations or allied acquisitions in the field. 20th-Fox has rights to Eidophor, the Swiss color theatre TV system, and has been editing product on hand for sale to video. Universal has : also been active in TV via its 16m subsid, United World Films. Majors-and TV Only majors which hata failed to step into TV as yet are Warners, Loew’s and RKO. Although both the WB and Loew management have professed no intentions of entering TV at all, industry ob servers feel that it’s only a ques- tion of time before these two firms make the jump, RKO’s Is a special case. Sad died with an uncertain manage Important Guest Rise of the power of celluloid since the turn of the century is in- dicated in the local vote on this season’s most important guest, nei- ther prince nor potentate, but film- dom’s Gregory Peck. His move- ments attracted much more inter- est than such old St. Moritz hands at the munitions manipulator, Frita Mandl (ex-husband of Hedy La- marr), and the Marquise de la Fa- laise (ex-husband of Gloria Swan- son). When Charles Chaplin and Doug- las Fairbanks, Sr. were here to- gether in 1928, the former unwit- tingly contributed a museum piece to St. Moritz. He didn’t want to lug his skis back to Hollywood with him, so he parked them in the Palace cellar, where they still are awaiting his return to retrieve them. They have almost come to equal the novelty 6f the B. C. (Be- fore Conflagration) Shepheard’s Hotel, Cairo, which kept in storage the heavy baggage of Britain’s brave Light Brigade which charged to decimation at Balaclava. Hotels in many countries skip room No. 13, and floor No. 13, knowing the intense prevalence of superstition, but St. Moritz proba- bly has more trouble with the bad- luck digits than any place in the world. They even have trouble get- ting some people into rooms with numbers like 76, 85, 94, or even 157, because they add up to 13. One of the hotels has a number changer, who goes around turning 76 into 77-a, 85 into 86-a, etc., when the complaining guest’s back is turned. For St. Moritz, it is said, the Norwegians developed the ski in 1859, the British the bobsleigh in 1890, the Americans gave the sal- mon trout in 1910 for the Inn river, and, most important of all, the whole world brought moneyl