Actorviews (1923)

Mr. Arliss Speaks of Mr. Archer HE George Arliss who thrills and chills you with his murderous Rajah of Ruhk in “The Green Goddess,” is, 1 need hardly tell the children, a some what different gentleman in his sunny, windowed chamber at the Edgewatei .becum nuiei. Here, without straining the imagination you might take him for an English schoolmaster with a dozen capital letters after his name. Here, without giving the organ of speech too large an order, you might address him as Professor Arliss. Anyway, you can't imagine yourself bouncing into the room and slapping him on the back and crying, “Hello, George!” And as for, “Hello, Georgie!” — 1 don’t think George Arliss’ own father would dare. Not that I wanted to! Bless you, I’ve known him only twenty years. And he was ever thus — an angular man of great deliberation and great dignity and burnished address, who is saved from pomposity by a gentleman’s modesty and a sense of humor which is all the finer for being somewhat shy. But speaking of his deliberation — and we were speaking of it, he and I — I remember he told me he took positively no chances with the unprepared on a first night; which declaration I interpreted to include his curtain speeches, which are the smoothest and roundest and most literate I have ever heard over the fire of the footlights. And, I hasten to assure the