Actorviews (1923)

30 A ctorviews produced a couple of fifty-cent cigars that have advanced to sixty to pay the expenses of the War. He led the way through a long bedroom to a longer living-room that was littered with the manuscripts of plays. “My traveling companions,” he said of them. “I once went to Europe with one collar. I had it on. But I always travel with a gripful of plays, sometimes a trunkful. You can buy fresh linen on shipboard easier than you can buy fresh ’scripts.” “How do you mean fresh ’scripts?” said I. “I mean,” he said, “that I’d always rather produce the play of an unknown author than of a guy that’s had four or five successes. The successful playwright is always due for a failure. The unknown playwright — if his stuff is good enough to ‘get’ you in the reading — is always due for a success. With a new author there’s a chance for a new idea.” “What’s the first quality you look for in a manuscript?” “Heart interest.” “In an actor?” “Heart interest. If he hasn’t got it here” — he touched his pocket handkerchief — “I’m off him for life.” “I just left a man who said, ‘So you’re going to see A1 Woods! He’s the greatest dice-shaking producer we’ve got.’ Are you?” And Mr. Woods, who talks and thinks, and no doubt dreams, in slang, said he didn’t know what a “dice-shaking producer” meant. “Are you a gambler?” “Of course — I’m a business man.” “Do you believe in luck?”