The Pittsburgh Press (February 10, 1946)
I DARE SAY —
Success does not enslave the film actors as it does the stage players
By Florence Fisher Parry
As I see it, the motion picture actor has but one advantage over the actor of the legitimate stage. He is not enslaved by a success; rather does a great hit in a screen role instantly provide its fortunate star opportunity to follow up his advantage with immediately accessible new roles.
Ingrid Bergman, on the crest of the waves, is the star of three pictures simultaneously released in which she has the opportunity to display astonishing versatility: “The Bells of St. Mary’s,” in which she plays a nun; “Spellbound,” in which she plays a young psychiatrist, and “Saratoga Trunk,” in which she plays a hussy. Within the period of one month, Ingrid Bergman has enjoyed the acclaim which an actress on the legitimate stage could only have had after a number of years.
In the theater, if a play is a success and its star has made a resounding hit, the engagement will continue for at least a year, probably two, and in some cases four or five years before the poor star has an opportunity to play another role.
Laurette Taylor was the darling of the theater when she played “Peg O’ My Heart,” but its continued run for an unremembered number of seasons sapped her best years. The same thing occurred in the case of Helen Hayes in “Victoria Regina,” and Katharine Cornell in “The Barretts of Wimpole Street.” Jeanne Eagels, one of the most gifted young actresses the American stage has ever known, played for so long in “Rain” that it corrupted her spirit, ruined her health and precipitated her death.
I could name actress after actress, actor after actor, who has had to give of his best years sustaining roles in plays which he either could not quit, because of contracts, or would not because of the temporary security they offered, or just because of good sportsmanship.
In the time of John Barrymore, at the end of 101 performances of “Hamlet,” he stopped dead in his tracks and refused to give another performance. He could have been playing “Hamlet” to the day of his death, for all the world wanted to see it; but he was smart; he knew when he’d had enough.
Joe Jefferson established himself as a theater legend because of his faithfulness to the role of Rip Van Winkle; but what dreary monotony must have been his to endure! And who is to say what immortal roles he would have created if he could have indulged in the playing of new, {resh, original parts instead of adhering to Bob Acres and Rip Van Winkle?
Raymond Massey found “Abe Lincoln in Illinois” the luckiest, most profitable role an actor could ever wish for (except for the movies, in which he was able to vent his limited talents). But Abe Lincoln typed him forever, and even today those who are seeing his Professor Higgins’ role in the successful revival of Shaw’s “Pygmalion” simply see, in his performance, a rather grotesque Abe Lincoln meandering around the stage.
Now in the movies, the monotony of continued performances and long runs is telescoped in a curious fashion.
Let’s take Ingrid Bergman and her three current hit performances. As far as these three movies are concerned, her troubles are over. She swallowed them all in three large, stuffed, indigestible capsules. While she was making the pictures, every day she worked on each picture, she had to get up at the crack of dawn and work steadily all day long in a studio or on location.
All day she would have had to devote eight hours repeating over and over and over again what, in the finished product, would represent not more than two minutes of dialogue. But once the picture was finished (a picture which took about two months, let us say to make) she was through. She didn’t even have to see it if she didn’t want to (Ha! Ha! Just as if!).
It’s just a question in my mind which technique taxes the actor the more: This piecemeal monotony, or repeating the whole works at a time, through the 40-week-gilt-edged-tours of two or three seasons. In either case the actor’s job is not one of inspiration. Anything but that!
It’s an old saying on the stage that an actor earns his entire season’s salary in the eight weeks of rehearsal, dress rehearsal and the first week of the engagement. After that, however, he enjoys signal rewards for at least the first season of the play’s engagement. That is, if he has a stimulating role. He has the reward of audience participation and recognition, for his reward in that regard is immediate and gratifying. Besides, after a while, his performance practically takes care of itself. It becomes a routine, almost subconscious reflex, very little more. His real creative work was done during the days of rehearsal and try-outs.
Now in the case of the motion picture star, his work in a role is over in a very few weeks; and if he’s in the hands of an intelligent management, he will not be called upon to make more than two or three pictures a year. But between pictures he is apt to feel worried and insecure, for he knows that he is only as good as his last picture. Too, the movie actor knows that his career is very short, shorter even than that of a prize fighter, for the hateful statistics show that a star’s life seldom exceeds five years.
Think of this when you read the fantastic salaries that are paid to our motion picture stars – the figures of which, by the way, represent the salary paid, not the net which the actor actually gets after the government extracts its extortionate portion.