Actress

“ I could not understand it. The actress in her home is so often disappointing. Her beauty is the beauty of her rôle—of her lines, her make-up, of the lights—she lays it aside with her part—leaves it in the dressing-room. ”

“ Is there a woman in all England to be compared with you, my queen, my darling? What matters your being an actress to me? It is you, not the actress, whom I beg for a wife; and if you would see in what way I should ask you for so great a blessing—here at your feet I kneel, you an empress, and I your slave. ”

“ Unless I set you dreaming, unless I suggest in this or that varying pose or expression, the whole world of women, I'm not a born actress. Training, study can make a good mechanical nightingale of me, a clever imitation of the real thing. That's all. But unless I have the chameleon quality of reflecting my part, the unerring understanding of any type of woman I may be called upon to represent, how can I be an actress? ”

“ The young actress, after her evening's triumph in the theatre, was of course the centre of attraction for all the company. Besieged by the gentlemen with every species of homage, overwhelmed with compliments from the ladies, distinguished by the host and his wife with most flattering attentions, she was unable to escape from the stream of admiration which flowed towards her from all sides, and which, perhaps, was due as much to her beauty as her genius. ”

“ But suddenly he knew he was having the paper read to him by an actress! “An actress!” The old head lifted; two points of light quivered in the old eyes. “An actress—are ye?” And Miss Brill smoothed the newspaper as though it were the manuscript of her part and said gently: “Yes, I have been an actress for a long time.” ”

“ But, my poor lad, granting your actress is a divine instrument of amorous music, I don't believe you capable of drawing from it one single note of passion's fugue.... Just consider. I don't spend my nights supping with ladies of the theatre; but we all know what an actress is. It is an animal generally agreeable to see and hear, always badly brought up, spoilt first by poverty and afterwards by luxury. ”

“ The actress who has made her way gradually acquires, all unconsciously, a hundred nameless graces, little tricks of manner, movement or expression, poses, poises, flutterings, the turn of the head or the glance of the eye, and all seem so natural, so spontaneous ”

“ Then she became an actress using her eyes, her hands, every muscle in her body to court and conquer the camera as though it were her lover, whom she simultaneously dominated and was dominated by, adored and feared. ”

“ Except for the occasional reäppearance on the scene of her old triumphs, not oftener than once or twice a year, how quiet the life she now leads! what a contrast to the excitement and brilliancy that mark the career of a leading actress in the zenith of her reputation! ”

“ To say nothing of the fact that your triumphs as a pretty woman would in no wise interfere with your triumph as an actress. By the way, do you know, you must take a few lessons in elocution. With your voice, your intelligence, your charms, you would have a magnificent prospect. ”

“ Only the other day, an actress was saying that what she was most proud of in her art—next, of course, to having appeared in some provincial pantomime at the age of three—was the deftness with which she contrived, in parts demanding a rapid succession of emotions, to dab her cheeks quite quickly with rouge from the palm of her right hand, or powder from the palm of her left. Gracious goodness! why do not we have masks upon the stage? Drama is the presentment of the soul in action. The mirror of the soul is the voice. ”

“ I used to be devoted to the theatre, and therefore this fraudulent pretense of being an actress made me furiously indignant. My young lady had not the slightest right to call herself an actress or a singer. She was a creature entirely devoid of talent, devoid of feeling—a pitiful creature one may say. As far as I can judge she sang disgustingly. The whole charm of her ‘art’ lay in her kicking up her legs on every suitable occasion, and not being embarrassed when people walked into her dressing-room. ”

“ It struck me, and I whispered my suspicion in her ear as we passed into the drawing-room. But she is a perfect actress. Neither start nor look betrayed her. She stared at me with those insolent blue eyes of hers, as though she could not possibly comprehend. ”

“ Even then I possessed that curious sixth sense of the born actress, and as a doctor with the aid of his stethoscope can hear sounds of grim warning or of kindly promise, while there is but the silence to the stander-by, so an actress, with that stethoscopic sixth sense, detects even the forming emotions of her audience, feeling incipient dissatisfaction before it becomes open disapproval, or thrilling at the intense stillness that ever precedes a burst of approbation. ”

“ They seldom, if ever, separate the actress from the woman—and every action is judged of according to the gross ideas of the vulgar minded, or the fastidious scruples of those who measure a dramatic representation by the rules which prevail in private society. I know full well the invidious position which, as an actress, I occupy in the opinion of the public; and a consciousness that in my unfortunate profession, every step towards the achievement of excellence must be gained by a sacrifice of personal respect, often gives me melancholy sensations. ”

“ She looked up at him and smiled gaily at her little joke, which was uttered half in seriousness.
“So you’re an actress, are you?” An actress! It rather startled him. He had ideas about actresses—American actresses! But a French actress!...
“Non.... Non.... Non.... I am nothing. I am a young girl only, me. But I must do something. I have to live, is it not? Yes.... Then to be the actress in the Comédie Française is to be well.”
He was rather relieved. There is a difference between being an actress and desiring to be one. ”

“ If you do truly love acting, simply and solely for the sake of acting, then all will be well with you, and you will be content; but verily you will be a marvel.
For the poor girl or woman who, because she has to earn her own living, longs to become an actress, my heart aches. ”

“ We know too well that the actress with the handsome appearance will reply that it is wholly unnecessary, all results depending upon health and hard work. And when the actress without the handsome appearance answers that it is the whole question, and that without it you have about as much chance to rise as a blind mute in a cellar with three-pile felt nailed over the hatchway, we all know how something in the weary acid of that retort bites the more convincingly into our nerves. ”

“ There is about a successful actress a certain radiant something—a glamour, a luxuriousness, an atmosphere that suggest a mysterious mixture of silken things, of perfume, of adulation, of all that is rare and costly and perishable and desirable. ”

“ That extraordinary actress, little less illustrious for private virtues than splendid talents, being engaged one summer in the northern theatres, observed with pleasure and astonishment, a young man of abilities far above the crowd that played with him. ”

“ I feel, Messieurs, that your regrets recall that inimitable actress, who might almost be said to have invented the art of speaking to the heart and of presenting sentiment and truth where once had been shown little but artificiality and declamation. ”

“ If you can conceive this part, acted to the life by a woman, who moves with more complete disinvoltura in her men's clothes than most men do, you may imagine something of the personal exhibition at which we assisted. As for me, my eyes and mouth opened wider and wider, not so much at the French actress, as at the well-born, well-bred English audience, who, women as well as men, were in a perfect ecstasy of amusement and admiration. I certainly never saw more admirable acting, but neither did I ever see such uncompromising personal exposure and such perfect effrontery of demeanor. ”

“ All they see or know of theatrical life is its bright gilded side, the tinsel that looks valuable, the jewels that are paste, the silks and satins that are not what they seem, and the beautiful faces and bright smiles beneath which are wrinkles and toil-laden looks, when the actress is in her home plying her needle or studying210 the long lengths that belong to her part. ”

“ My companions, who have known me from babyhood, look upon me as a sister or daughter, and treat me with invariable affection and respect; and as for the men of the outside world who haunt the coulisses, and seem to think that an actress is public property, off the stage as well as upon it, I have thus far managed to keep them at a distance—continuing in real life my role of modest, ingenuous, young girl, without hypocrisy or false pretensions. ”

“ A whole life's work may be swept out of sight in a moment, and the life itself blighted forever. But when the moment of success arrives—what a thrill of joy the triumph sends to the heart of the actress, if actress it be! ”

“ The finest picture in the world may escape the admiration of the connoisseurs, if it is not placed in a proper light. But since I have been suitably framed and varnished, which could only happen in consequence of a theatrical finish, what a revolution! The finest young fellows of all the towns we pass through are shuffling at my heels. An actress, therefore, has all her little comforts about her, without deviating from the line of her duty. ”

“ I have never met actresses of standing who had admiration for actors as men, much as they might praise them as members of their profession.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the marriage of an actress is a mistake, a remorse, or an act of folly. An actress, in order to interpret the works of dramatists, should love, love passionately, dream, suffer even terribly, in order to be able to incarnate love, voluptuousness, suffering, and despair. The drama is the reflection of humanity ”

“ She spoke her sentences with ‘good emphasis and discretion,’ instead of running herself and the imaginations of the audience fairly out of breath with pleasure, love, wit, and playful gaiety. She has, however, white teeth and black eyes, a clear voice, a pleasing figure, with youth on her side, and a very good understanding to boot. What more can be required in a young actress, except by fastidious critics like us? ”

“ She was an actress, a painter, a singer, a socialite, and she had changed men almost as often as she changed the dresses she wore. Her face was familiar in newspapers and on television screens, her husky songs were on a million recording tapes, her colorful antics were the grist for magazine articles and the subject of denunciations from the pulpit. ”

“ She has so many ideas, as Madame Carré said."
"She wants me to be some sort of tremendous creature—all her ideas are reducible to that. What makes the muddle is that she isn't clear about the creature she wants most. A great actress or a great lady—sometimes she inclines for one and sometimes for the other, but on the whole persuading herself that a great actress, if she'll cultivate the right people, may be a great lady. ”

“ I was not a little astonished to find in a young and universally flattered French actress a noble-minded, superior woman, who had suffered deeply, and thought seriously and spiritually upon subjects generally considered irreconcileable with her profession. ”

“ Now, at least, she should throw all "support" to the winds, trust proudly to her own sense of art, her own rich and natural elocution, her beauty, which is unusual, her grace, which is queenly, and be assured that these qualities, as she now possesses them, are all sufficient to render her a great actress, when considered simply as the means by which the end of natural acting is to be attained, as the mere instruments by which she may effectively and unimpededly lay bare to the audience the movements of her own passionate heart. ”

“ I only urge you, in defiance of public opinion, to become an actress, as the only sure road to independence, fame, and fortune. And besides, there is no law preventing an actress marrying and being 'honorable,' as the world understands the word. You have heard of more than one example of this. ”

“ I think, if you don't mind, that I'd rather be an actress than a writer. Wouldn't you like me to leave college and go into a dramatic school? And then I'll send you a box for all my performances, and smile at you across the footlights. ”

“ A beautiful actress is invariably exposed to many temptations, which other women, occupying a more private position in life, are seldom subjected to; you possess accomplishments, and personal attractions, which will procure you the admiration of men, and the envy of women ”

“ But why choose a beautiful actress for the argument? This matter can only be debated fairly if we take the case of an actress whose lure is not beauty but some indecency of attitude, gesture or phrase, which is [Pg 61] meant to awaken the debauchee keeping house in the breast of each of us with the ineffectual angel, and which either does this or bores us into the bar. ”

“ It is too generally supposed by the great public that an actress must necessarily be “loud” in word, dress and voice, that she must be affected on and off the stage, and that her behavior is as objectionable as her manner and attire. ”

“ If I teach you Philippa, you will teach me Juliet; for I am very sure that when I have seen you act her, I shall know a vast deal more about her than I do at present.
"No great quality of an actress is absent from your performance. Very often you have vigor. But in other places where it is as much required, or even more, you turn limp. ”

“ If she dramatizes her part to-night half as well as she used to dramatize herself, she’ll be a great actress. But that remains to be seen. When I first heard she was going on the stage, it seemed like a clew to everything; she says she always wanted to be an actress ”