Pauline Frederick : on and off the stage (1940)

1 68 Pauline Frederick There is perhaps no more difficult character to portray than Elizabeth of England. Pauline discovered this as soon as the play went into rehearsal in Los Angeles. At first, she simply could not project herself into the character of the woman. She knew her lines perfectly but somehow they did not seem right when she said them. The matter nearly drove her frantic and so worried was she, the night before the dress rehearsal, that she could not sleep. She had always wanted to play this character and now it just would not come. After she had tossed for an hour or more in bed, she got up and dressed and, going outside, walked up and down for hours. At the end of that time Elizabeth " came through." She has said that it was as though the spirit of Elizabeth entered into her and took possession of her. Because of this, the cynics have sneered that Pauline Frederick had had " hallucinations " and could not play a historical character until the spirit of the departed entered into her. One New York critic even went so far as to say that Pauline Frederick imagined herself a reincarnation of royalty and that was why she liked playing queenly parts. Those who make such statements condemn themselves by their own ignorance. Perhaps to the sceptical, the idea that a past character can have any influence upon one who attempts to portray them may sound foolish. We all have our own ideas as to the influence of departed spirits. But Pauline Frederick was not by any means the only one who felt this peculiar influence of Elizabeth of England. Blanche Yurka, who portrayed the role of Elizabeth in a play called " Gloriana," stated: " Elizabeth is one of those great personalities that take hold of the actress and own her. What vitality there is in a woman who can rise up out of old records and stand before you with all her brusqueness, her