Screenland (Feb-Oct 1949)

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Whether he plays a ship's cook, a disreputable sailor, a wealthy playboy, a detective or a priest, all of his widely diversified roles reflect some of Fitzgerald and some of the personalities he has watched during his sixty years of life. Despite his Oscar and its attendant fame, you've read much less about Barry Fitzgerald than he deserves, but that's because he never seeks publicity and actually avoids the press. Newspaper and magazine people have to pursue him for weeks or months if they really want to interview him, because his shyness makes him shun them. A pity, too, because he's such an amiable and friendly man, when he's finally cornered. And at least one subject — acting — makes him definitely loquacious. For one thing, he believes that no one can be taught to act. "That sounds unorthodox and I suppose all the drama school people will hate me for saying it. What I mean is that to be a real actor one must have the spark, the inner ability; without it all the dramatic lessons in the world cannot produce an actor. One may learn the mechanical details of acting technique but these become stilted without the spark, the soul of acting. Audiences like sincerity. They may not think about it or ever be conscious of it, but they do and the actors they choose as their favorites are the ones who possess this sincerity and spark." Barry insists. Since the enormous cost of producing new plays on Broadway now limits their number so considerably, Barry thinks the only hope of the theatre in this country is the little theatre movement, but this too has its limitations, he points out. "The average little theatres present nothing new. They produce copies of Broadway hits, partly because these hits will attract audiences, which they need for financial support, and partly through lack of imagination. So the young actors in these rehashed plays do a fair carbon copy of the actors who created the roles. They have no chance to create anything new. "I really think the American public should be ashamed of itself for this. Surely somewhere in this wealthy country we should support a real experimental theatre that would try new plays. When I was at the Abbey Theatre we had eight or ten new plays every year; it was a cockpit for expression. Someone would get steamed up about a subject, usually some local controversy, and write a play about it. Why can't that be tried in little theatres here? We need new playwrights as well as new actors. "A play with a purpose usually has a better chance of success because it is based on conviction. I don't mean that propaganda plays are necessarily good, but conviction does carry weight." Barry, as a theatre-trained actor, naturally feels that motion pictures must depend on little theatres for a great deal of new talent. He himself, however,, at this point of his career has no special hankering to return to the stage because he thinks it is a much more difficult medium than movies. "It's a much tougher grind to main tain a characterization over many months, as happens in any successful play, than to do something new every day as we do in motion pictures," he points out. "But to young actors who want to get in movies — and most of them do — I'd say get all the training possible in the legitimate theatre." Barry, as you may have heard, was graduated from college in Dublin, where he was born William Joseph Shields, and was working as a civil service clerk when he became interested in acting and joined the Abbey Theatre as an after-hours volunteer. For fifteen years he clerked during the day as William Shields and acted by night as Barry Fitzgerald, a name given him at random by the Abbey manager because Barry was afraid his bosses at the Board of Trade might not approve of clerk Shields also being an actor. It was not until he was 41 that he quit his secure civil service job and became a full-fledged member of the Abbey Players; the same year he made his first great hit in Sean 0'Casey's "The Silver Tassle." In 1931 he toured the United States with a repertory of Abbey plays, was well received by Broadway but ignored by Hollywood. It was in 1937 that he was brought to the film capital by John Ford for "The Plough And The Stars," and he has remained in movies ever since, except for an occasional fling on Broadway's stages. Barry thinks the easiest role he ever did was in "Going My Way" and the most difficult that in "Stork Club." "The latter was obvious humor, the double-take sort of comedy. Just expected reactions that were telegraphed to the audience. To me, that's the most difficult sort of acting because it is so obvious," he says. Before he starts any new role he reads through the entire script to get the feel of his character, without learning any dialogue. Then he studies his role for one salient thing, one keynote to the character. On this he builds in his imagination until he has a definite man in mind and then he starts studying lines. His effortless ease and naturalness in any role are based on these weeks of preparation, not to mention that spark, or soul, of acting which is natively his! Two years ago Barry took a trip back to Ireland after a decade's absence. He looked forward to a quiet vacation with his sister in Dublin, with absolute privacy. But if he thought Hollywood was a goldfish bowl, he found Ireland even worse. He was hero-worshipped and fussed over everywhere he went, treatment which sincerely embarrasses him. The only place he found real privacy was on a friend's yacht! He wanted to rest, but he was bothered by repeated picture and play contracts. And he couldn't get a good cup of coffee. "Of course the tea was wonderful. We don't make good tea in the United States, but neither do they make decent coffee in Europe," says he. Barry Fitzgerald was glad to get back to Hollywood, where he can blame his bad tea on his own brewing — and where his neighbors are nice friendly people who take him for granted and don't treat him like a movie star! 72 Screen land