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52
Just What is Acting, Anyhow?
Photo by Autrey
Acting can be acquired gradually, when a personality as positive as Nick Stuart's has been accepted by the fans.
member her, and come back in order to feel her personality again. Do you get what I mean?"
It was easy to see what he meant, for Jack had apparently figured out the logical answer. Himself the keynote of everything that is positive on the screen and off, Gilbert was about the only person I met who could tell me much about acting — or screen personality, if you prefer.
In supplementing what he said, I remembered a conversation with Clarence Brown, a director. "A positive, interesting personality is practically the whole thing in acting for the screen," said he, "for it is almost certain that the player with a definite, pleasing personality, will speedily learn to act.
"A positive personality means an Phct0 h? Bowiey
alert brain, and so before the public Nancy Carroll is doubly forhas had time to get over its enthusiasm for a new and arresting player, and can settle down to be coldly critical, that person has had time to absorb technique, and learn how to act.
"Greta Garbo is an excellent example of this. She couldn't act at all when she first came to America. Everything she did was wrong — she was ignorant of the first rudiments of the art. But her personality hit the public between the eyes, and while they were exclaiming over her magnetic appeal, Greta learned how to act.
"That seems to me the reason why the fans talk so carelessly about the marvelous ability of this star or that player. They can't analyze the moment when a personality ceases to be just that, and becomes a real actor or actress. They get the effect — that's all — and to them personality means acting."
tunate in having personality and acting ability.
Given a vital, interesting personality — plus a break in pictures — and the result seems to be immediate. It is the positive personality which counts. The names which recur most often in the fan mail are a proof of this. Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Janet Gaynor, Vilma Banky, Dolores del Rio, John Gilbert, Ramon Novarro, Charles Farrell, Bill Haines, Richard Dix, Richard Barthelmess — and apparently above, about, and between all the others, at this writing, Buddy Rogers !
Buddy seems now in the formative stage, between being merely an interesting personality and an interesting actor. In "Wings" he was immensely popular — partly because of the picture, but a great deal because of Buddy. After
"Wings" came "My Best Girl," with Mary Pickford, and then "Abie's Irish Rose." With three splendid breaks like these, and a personality like his, Buddy's resultant stardom was to be expected. The fans wanted it, and their shouts brought it about.
Buddy thinks it is too soon to star, but that means he is going to dig in just a little harder, so that the world won't echo with his fall — so that he won't hear, read, and feel that "Buddy Rogers was just a flash in the pan, a personality, but not an actor." The result will be worth watching, for he is vital to the ends of his devilishly tempting, curly hair.
With him, in "Wings," was Richard Arlen, an entirely different type. Dick is vital, too, but seems destined to Continued on page 112