Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1923 - Feb 1924)

60 A Comedian — Not a Hero "Oh," he replied, his flexible voice sliding down the scale, his eyes, for the moment, engaged on buttered squash. Then I pressed the question aforementioned : Why did a plastic comedian choose to forget himself and be merely a big-boned hero ? That query, or one like it, aimed at a regular star of the studios, usually evokes a revelation of duplicity on the part of the "front office," the scenario writer or the director. In instances of deep wrongs, meaning especially 'bad pictures, it is sometimes termed a plot — a cabal' — involving all three in a united effort to force the star to act against his or her better judgment. For, in my experience, stars assume blame for nothing. "Did you know what you were doing?" I pursued. "Of course I did ! I thought I was a good actor. I thought I could play anything. Now I know I can't. This is a bitter moment," he finished in mock dismay. Cabbage seemed to alleviate his distress, however, for he went on. " "Really, you know there aren't any leading men in real life — I mean heroes, like this," he illustrated with lofty gesture and orotund tone. "It is a false, type exactly as the curly-haired movie girl is false to life. People have weaknesses and faults and peculiarities — inconsistencies, we'll say. These are the characters that interest and fascinate me. They're the ones I'm cast for in the theater. But being a hero pays better. I thought I could be one in pictures, but didn't quite make it. No one to blame but myself. 'Second Youth,' now, is wholly my style." Rarely, very rarely, is equal candor found among artists in any medium. It is nothing short of astonishing among workers in a studio, where the elements that enter into a film fable are many and varied and responsibility shifts with the breeze. "I think," said Alfred, "that in the movies a good actor can be more quickly spoiled than on the stage. No; this has nothing to do with myself — just an observation. I mean the methods of work are so different. In the theater we have time to build up a scene gradually, word by word ; before the camera time is lacking in the short space given us before we are asked to do another scene in a different mood. All this has been said before, I've no doubt, but it is what the actor of the stage finds when he begins photographic acting." He got up to pace around the room, to pick up a book or just to change his position. Always he is on the move, his conversation darting here and there, with graphic gestures galore. Alfred Lunt distinctly is a kinetic individual. What he said was dropped in bits and his digressions were no less entertaining. Something like this : "Albert Parker is a splendid director . . . Resourceful. . . . He invents details that make a scene live . . . great feeling for the comic, too. . . . They tell me his 'Sherlock Holmes' was a beautiful piece of work. . . . Don't hurry with your dinner ; we have plenty of time. That is, I think we have. . . . What time is it anyway? . . . My wife is glorious. . . . Often we ask if any other people are as happy as we are. ... It comes from liking the same things, the identical friends. . . . We've been married over a year. . . . She reminds me of my mother in one respect. . . . She doesn't bind herself or me to any routine. . . . Because it happened to be Monday my mother didn't insist that the washing be done then. . . . She was more likely to say it was a great day for a walk or a picnic, and send every one out for one. . . . Lynn is like that. . . . Did you see us with Laurette (Taylor) early in the engagement, or late? . . . If it was late you saw a better performance. . . . We all improved. . It surprises me to know that you remember 'Romance and Arabella.' . . . Ran only two weeks, years ago. ... A good play, I thought, but one loses his perspective when he is concerned in a production. . . . The critics didn't like it at all. . . . Good-by, dear (to Lynn Fontanne), have a good time and tell everybody at the party about your new job for next season. . I was talking about the screen ruining good actors, wasn't I ? ... It certainly can make poor ones seem good, too. . . . The very methods that confuse the experienced actor are a safeguard to the one who isn't an actor at all. . . . Short scenes, cut at the instant they tax the player's limitations. . . . Painstaking direction . . . discreet lighting . . . sympathetic situations in the scenario. . . . These can put over a negligible actor in pictures more than on the stage. . . . Am I talking too much? . Let's have coffee. . . . I've been working in every scene at the studio since nine this morning and I've a night of it ahead of me. ... I like it, though. . . . Here's the coffee. . . . There's the bell — and the taxi's come. . . . What time is it? . . You'll go with me, of course?" At this point Alfred did a little thing that revealed much. A trifle that I looked upon as a salient detail in building a comparison in the manners' — the ethics if you will — of the screen versus the stage. He left his coffee untouched. And he very much wanted it. The significance of this was its novelty. Stars, or even featured players, alive to their importance as controllers of a studio situation, are not, as a rule, so imbued with the idea of punctuality that a couple of minutes are allowed to stand between work and their pleasure — or whim. The more capricious of our favorites have been known to plunge into a complicated bath, and read the morning newspaper, while waiting motors chugged their insides out at the curb and directors tore their hair. In the theater the spirit is otherwise, because rehearsals and performances are governed by routine, schedule. When Alfred was reminded of this he agreed that it probably was true. "To show that I'm not weak-kneed, though, I'll take two gulps of my coffee." Which he did, but went no farther toward the bottom of the cup. At the department store I noted rigid, almost military, attention on his part, and silence. Though distant only a few yards he seemed suddenly to be on a far stage. His face changed, his expression altered, he slipped out of his own into the character of the silk salesman. And in the simple scene that followed he displayed his bolt of orange charmeuse to Mimi Palmeri, his customer, with no diminished zest as the episode was repeated more times than I remember. Each time the silk was meticulously rolled up, smoothed and replaced on the shelf by himself. He was an actor, personally responsible for the props used in the scene. Whereas in the studio the player undertakes no responsibility of this kind at all. A knickered assistant director does the rolling, smoothing and replacing, to spare the star ail strain^— and to have it done right. These points are perhaps unimportant, you say? It is true they do not sway your opinion of the finished picture but they indicate the part played by character, tradition and habit in the work of those you see on the screen and the interviewer sees away from it. Alfred Lunt is from Milwaukee, probably of Scandinavian descent, and might have gone on playing old men — they were getting older each week, he says — m the Castle Square Stock Company of Boston, had not a stage director brought his possibilities to the notice of Margaret Anglin who, when the need arose, offered Continued on page 99