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24
The Filmgoers' Annual.
HE was born in Toronto, he began life on a Canadian farm, he drifted to amateur plays, he became a professional singer and dancer in variety and now he is acknowledged, without exception,the greatest character actor in talking pictures. Walter Huston is utterly devoid of affectation. He does not take anything seriously, himself included, but he claims to have played everything on the stage, with the solitary exception of the ice-cake in " Uncle Tom's Cabin.''
Success did not come to him readily or easily. He played in variety for fifteen years before he got an opportunity to appear on the legitimate stage. Only eight years ago, he played for the first time in New York, when he was forty years of age. Then, four years ago, Paramount thought he might make a good talking picture actor and gave him a start in " Gentlemen of the Press."
This picture was what is called a riot. There followed " The Lady Lies," ' The Bad Man," ' The General," and " The Virginian," and then came " Abraham Lincoln," in which he gave the most magnificent individual performance we have seen and heard since talking pictures began. Anyone who doubts the genius of Walter
Huston has only to compare two such characters as Abraham Lincoln and Warden Brady to realise that Walter Huston has no rival. The spiritual beauty of the portrait of Abraham Lincoln and the terrific realism of the warden
WALTER HUSTON
of " The Criminal Code " are characterisations as far apart as the opposite ends of the earth.
And, at one time, in the midst of his variety career, Walter Huston so despaired of ever being an actor tha' he gave up the stage as a bad job and worked for four years as an engineer.
Walter Huston claims that there is no such thing as acting, unless you do not know what the part you have to represent is all about. Then, he declares, you must " act all over the place." But when you know and understand the part you have to represent, then, he says, you do not act but live your part. From which any filmgoer will claim that Walter Huston has yet to appear in any talking picture characterisation he has not known and understood in every minute detail.
The outstanding success achieved by this great actor, who does not mind admitting that he is forty-seven years of age and has a son who is a novelist, is one of the happiest events in the talking picture world. The cry of the enemies of the film is that filmgoers can appreciate nothing but " flaming youth." Walter Huston is a livine answer to that libel. Without any of the qualities which are said to be essential to film heroes, he has won admiration throughout the entire film world. He is one of those great stage players who have recently come into the film world and who have raised talking picture drama to new heights oi dignity He greatly merits your applause.