Motion picture acting (1947)

Adela Rogers St. Johns Dear Lillian: It doesn't always follow that those who can do a thing magnificently can also tell the other fellow how to do it. After sitting up half the night, doggone it, to read Motion Picture Acting, I find you one of the rare ones and the book exciting as well as instructive. When your name in lights on Broadway always brought me into a theater, I thought you one of our finest actresses — as, of course, who didn't? And you gave me many warm and beautiful hours with only the footlights between us to add to your art and spontaneity. Now you've put it down on paper. This book will prove a testing ground for youngsters who think they can act, or want to act. That's a work of importance. It is vital to find talent when it is there, wherever it may be, on a farm, in the dramatic department of high school or college or in little theaters or just in the heart of someone young or old who loves acting. It's also important to save from heartbreak those who have aspiration without ability. Your book can test for these things and accomplish both. Beyond that it's a definite textbook on real acting, full of episodes, stories, anecdotes and activity. It is my own opinion that it would help a great many who aren't going into the theater nor into acting as an art, but who would like to gain the ease and poise and ability to put over a story or convey an idea which the actor or actress has. I got a lot out of it from that standpoint and think it should be stressed. I can remember watching Ethel Barrymore in drawing room conversation and thinking, "It's hardly fair. She can make everything she says so vital, so wonderful, so true. She knows how. That's her genius and her training." As I read your book I thought that a lot of people could gain some of that in its value just for home use and social gain. Bless you for it. As always, the heart shines through. Xlll