Radio stars (Oct 1935-Sept 1936)

SO MANY OBSTACLES 1 BEGAN by asking Lionel Barrymore : "How do you feel when you do drama on the air?" "Dead," said Lionel, in that Barrymore voice which has all of the theatre, the throbbing pulse of drama, the distillation of drama in its timbre, "dead, dire and disastrous— as always !" 1 laughed. And then 1 saw that it was no laughing matter and restrained my mirth. It is no laughing matter, either, by the way, to get an interview with Lionel Barrymore. Constantly in pain as he is, he needs all of his energy for his work and avoids, as he would a pestilence, such commitments as interviews and photographic sittings. But we wanted especially to have Lionel tell the readers of Radio Stars what he thinks of drama on the air. For it anyone should know about drama — in the theatre, in pictures, on the air. anywhere, everywhere — that oneshould be Lionel Barrymore. For they are the heirs of drama, the Barrymores. There is drama in the very tone and timbre of the Barryniore voice. There is drama in every line of the Barrymore face. There is drama in every unconscious gesture of the Barrymore hand. Everything they do. everything they say, every anecdote told about them is of the stuff of which drama is made John Barrymore once held audiences spellbound and silent for five mortal minutes, lying with his back to the audience, moving only his mobile hand. That was in The Jest. Ethel's drama-drenched voice intoning : "That's all there is . . . There isn't any more . . /' has become folk -lore The Barrymore voice cannot be disguised. "And that," said Lionel "is the main difficulty. The radio problem. For the voice of the radio artist should be, like Joseph's coat, of many colors. You should not know," smiled Lionel, with that somehow patient smile of his, "whether it is your Aunt Susie or Lionel Barrymore speaking to you on the air. But you always know, don't you? "I admire," said Lionel, bending over in his chair, his inevitable cigarette limp between his fingers. "1 admire and I always listen to Amos and Andy on the air. I admire their versatility. I admire their ability to throw their voices into other characters. That is as it should be, that ability is what should constitute the true virtuosos of the air. Ventr^oquism . . . that's what radio artists should possess ! "But the character of the Barrymore voice seems to be an inherited thing, an inherited characteristic not to be got away from. It cannot be changed into another voice, not successfully. It isn't a question of dialect, it isn't a question of talking with a brogue nor with a Jewish accent— it is in the timbre of the voice itself. 1 am told that one has only to happen on a Sigmund Romberg hour and. without knowing, perhaps, what program had been tuned in, one knows, immediately following the turn of the dial, the sound of the Barrymore voice. "On the air," said Lionel, with a short laugh, "on the air the Barrymore voice is a curse.'" We were sitting, Lionel and 1. on the set of his current picture. The Witch of Timbucktu in the MGM studio. Lionel had been in his dressing-room when I arrived, phoning to his wife, (Continued on page 58) Broadcasting that drama of nostalgic charm, Ah Wilderness! Cecilia Parker, Helen Flint, Barrymore and Spring Byington. The romance between Barrymore and his wife, Irene Fenwick, former stage star, is enduringly lovely and serene. 2<J