Screenland (Nov 1945-Oct 1946)

The Man of 1,000 Personalities Continued from page 40 impressed by his work that he wanted to contract him to make at least one picture a year under the Hecht banner. But Chekhov has an antipathy towards tying himself up with future commitments. He wants to take life in stride and will work on only a role-to-role basis. On another recent assignment, "Cross My Heart," at Paramount, Chekhov walked into a situation just opposite to the one he had experienced with Hecht. While Hecht had known him only by reputation, John Berry, the director on "Cross My Heart," had long s+ood in awe of the Chekhov talent from a matter of personal knowledge. While Chekhov was conducting a season of his own personal theater in New York in 1942, Berry had come to him and obtained permission to attend his lectures. The director was a bit disconcerted, to say the least, when he was confronted by the master on a Hollywood sound stage and in the position of having to tell him what to do before a camera. In this film, incidentally, the pendulum swings to the opposite extreme from the role Chekhov did in "Spellbound." In "Cross My Heart" he portrays an insane man who always wants to play "Hamlet," while in "Spellbound" it was his chore to treat mental derangements. The Chekhov talent, although it is unquestionably natural to the man, was by no means developed over-night. In other words, it's a long story; but as stories about vital human beings go, not without plenty of interesting highlights. Michael Chekhov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1891, the son of Alexander Chekhov, who by profession was a newspaperman and writer of historical novels. And although the world recognizes the actor's most famous kinsman as his uncle, Anton Chekhov, the actor was more impressed with his father. "My father could do anything and do it well," he told me. "He had the most magnetic personality I've ever known. Actually he was hypnotic. He could look at another person and make him fall asleep. Besides his newspaper work and his writing he was also a great linguist and philosopher. And he was always augmenting his knowledge with some new interest. He was a prodigious reader in philosophy, but was equally as keen about science. He started teaching me these two branches of learning when I was a very small boy, and as a result I selected the one I liked best and decided I wanted to be a doctor. To this day, in fact, I still want to be a doctor, but I would prefer to become a chiropractor. If I ever get enough leisure time I'm going to enroll in a chiropractic college and get a degree." But the boy, Michael, also gave evidence at a very early age of possessing a natural bent for acting. His gift for mimicing his father's friends so impressed the elder Chekhov and his wife that they decided his future was in the theater. "Fortunately or unfortunately," sighed the actor, "I prospered in my early acting career and so you see me today." At seventeen Michael was already familiar with the boards. He ran the gamut of roles in the state subsidized theater in St. Petersburg — now Leningrad— until he was twenty-one, and then his parents and teachers decided he would be ready for bigger things after he had served his required three years of military training. It was for the latter that he went to Moscow when he reached his majority; but luckily for the theater the young man was rejected for being underweight. "Shortly before I was to leave Moscow," he told me, "I met my actress aunt, Olga-Knipper, wife of my uncle Anton, the playwright. She was a famous actress at the Moscow Art Theater, and in view of my previous acting experience she invited me to join the group. Naturally I did this, and I remained in Moscow until 1928. My aunt, by the way, is still one of the finest actresses in Russia although she is now 80. People still rave about her spirit and charm. To me she was a great friend as well as a great actress, and together we appeared in most of her husband's plays." Michael remained in the Moscow Art Theater studying under NemirovichDanchenko and Stanislavsky until 1923, when he became the director of the Second Moscow Art Theater. Developing and exploring his individual approach to the problems of the theater, he trained and directed his new company to his own methods. Simultaneously he continued his career as an actor both in the Moscow Art Theater — where he played among other roles Khlestakov in "The Inspector General" — and in the Second Moscow Art Theater where he portrayed the roles of "Hamlet," "Eric the XIV," Malvolio in "Twelfth Night," and Caleb in "The Cricket on the Hearth." During this period he also lectured and taught at workers' clubs. Of all the roles he created in Russia the one of Hamlet was the most important to him personally, because it brought love into Michael's young life in the form of Xenia Julia Siller, daughter of a prominent Moscow industrialist. Years later — they have been married since 1919 — Mrs. Chekhov confessed that after she saw Michael's Hamlet Callouses Pain, Burning, Tender ness Quickly Relieved You'll quickly forget you have painful callouses, tenderness or burning on the bottom of your feet when you use thin, downy-soft, wonderfully soothing, cushioning Dr. Scholl's Zinopads! Instantly lift pressure on the sensitive spot. Speedily remove callouses when used with the separate Medications included. Cost but a trifle. At all Drug, Shoe, Department Stores and Toiletry Counters. Insist on Dr. Scholl's. D-Scholls Zi no-pads BRUSH AWAY GRAY and look fO Years Younger • Now, at home, you can quickly tint telltale gray to natural-appearing shades — Iroai lightest blonde to darkest black. 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