Sunday Forum; 1; Behind Every Great Woman: Jane Alexander

Good evening and welcome to the Sunday forum. Tonight we're beginning a series called Behind every great woman a collection of five seminars on human development bittering outstanding women. Our first guest is actress Jean Alexander. Academy Award nominee for Best Actress for her performance in The Great White Hope. And more recently the star of six rooms Riverview during its run in Boston and New York City. The host for Behind every great woman is will you. This is the first in a series of seminars called Behind every great woman. And the idea is to meet each time with an outstanding woman talk about her educational experiences career development so the things that the people in some of the events and things that went into helping her get where she is today. It's one of the things we we do a lot of in our society is talk about what went wrong with this one and what's the trouble with that one. It's nice sometimes to take the time to find somebody who's turned out well and see if we can learn something from her. My name is Will Fitzhugh.

My guest tonight is Jane Alexander who is nominated for best actress of the year for her performance in The Great White Hope. And I just finished a play on Broadway last summer called six rows Riverview and is currently under contract to NBC for TV's best special for next spring and is about to start production for a new play. Did you say were you born in Boston. Yeah. And but you moved to Brooklyn or you your parents were in Brooklyn. Yeah I lived in brick line all my life. And what did you go to public school for gone or no. I went to Beaver Country Day School and told them most for how many years and forever it was a wonderful school I think I was there from the third grade until graduation. Do they have a place for young youngsters.

Oh they certainly did. Yes I think I was in every single home when I could be and since that time I was very little I started off as Long John Silver in Treasure Island and worked my way up to a potato peeler in Ivanhoe I don't know I did a lot of it. Practically every school play there was I was in except one year I thought I'd be very magnanimous I think it was my junior year in high school and I said I'm not going to try out for any of the guys this year somebody else and somebody else had a chance and I went and thought oh my god. So much so the next year I went back and again was in the leading role. So it does put a clearer sort of from the beginning. Well I always love to do it but I found it frivolous at one point when I went to college. I thought that I should take some time and some of the science was my father's doctor and I was good at math. I had a wonderful math education in Beaver.

And so I became a math major and for the three years I was in college which was pretty disastrous. And when I finally flunked out of advanced calculus I decided perhaps the theatre which I had always kept up with anyway extra curricular would be my best bet. And I think I made the wise choice. Was this Sarah Lawrence for two years at Sarah Lawrence in the year at Edinburgh University in Scotland. Sir Lawrence. There's a school that does a fair amount of drawing stuff like this. Oh yeah and I did a fair amount there I did a lot and I did a lot of it. What did you go to what was it. I really went to Edinburgh because Harold Taylor left Sarah Lawrence. He was the president of Sarah Lawrence at that time I don't know if you know who he is but he was quite a wonderful educator at the time. Progressive. He was the head of Sarah Lawrence for a number of years and

was when I first went there and when he left. Also all my friends were seniors and they were graduating. And I felt in a very peculiar way lost. I felt the school was changing over in some way and I just felt the need to try something else. But it did I don't remember it as a huge first of all of the summer and stuff but yes I was in the was or was a part of because the theater at Edinburgh. But you wanted to go there. No no I went solo for physics. I studied physics math and Russian a year and and I did alright in math and I mean in the Russian and in geography too which was the one who works in Scotland you ran over there he did all that was delightful. But then as I say I flunked advanced calculus and I figured that was the end. Fortunately I was in the Edinburgh festival that year and a Tennessee Williams play

and I received such favorable acclaim that I decided to give up math altogether and leave school and get into the business of theatre. It must be I was just going to get There's almost be a transition point at which you have to decide whether you're going to take the risk and try to make a movie. Yes that was it I was a summer except I was still too chicken to go to New York so I went came back and went to Vermont and ski bum for four months and hit up in the mountains and had a wonderful time waiting on table at night and skiing all day and then finally a friend of mine called me up and said Get down here to the city I've got a job for you not in a play but working for an agent theatrical agent. She said you'll be making peanuts which I did but at least you'll be getting into the city which is where you have to be if you want to be an actress you have to go to New York or Hollywood. So but that was the decision finally.

So that would have been what the middle of the winter or something like it was in March. Yeah it was really what would have been your senior year. Yes. And so you went to work for the surgeon. Yes. And then probably given up trying to meet people. Or did you Lord Well it didn't it didn't I met a lot of actors who came in and out of his office and that was interesting to talk to them they all seemed sort of crazy to me. A lot of them were I think in retrospect but I couldn't get anywhere in the theater. Here I was working for an agent and I say I couldna try how close it was to what I was going to say I don't trust them to tell them. And he'd say yes to you that's very nice dear and would you please take you know this number. And I didn't ever make any headway while I was working there with him but I did get to know the ropes and one of the ropes I learned was that it didn't amount to much going around agents. You know they talk a lot about pounding the

pavement and going around seeing agents. Well I think that the odds against your getting a job through an agent if you just come to New York are probably five thousand one. And because I would see the pictures that come to my desk every morning 25 people would send in their pictures and their resumes. And he would just go through them cursorily and just chuck them in the wastebasket literally because he couldn't file that many pictures every day. So I learned that and I learned that I have to find another way to get into show business and the theater and it really was doing what I wanted to do which was the classics at the time so I would go anywhere to do them and that's what I did ultimately. So what. So you did I mean you had to leave New York. You were you were in the Harvard sore players. Well that was my first major. That was pretty close to something 61.

The summer of 61. Harvard Loeb theater opened that year and I was in one production. That previous fall one of their first Caucasian Chalk Circle she young man Harvard named John Hancock directed and John just recently directed a wonderful little movie called Bang the Drum Slowly. And John directed the Caucasian Chalk Circle I was in that the following summer he was going to do four plays and he asked me if I would play Rosalind in As You Like It. And also in the company were Faye Dunaway playing Phoebe and an actor named Peter Haskell who's a television actor now. It was quite a wonderful little company. And that was the first summer of the Harvard Loeb theater. So and that was that was a pretty it was a paid job. Oh yeah. And so then what happened after that. When I went back to New York and looked around again. But after that I never had any trouble getting a job. I don't know why. I think a lot of it had to do with the

fact that I would go anywhere to do certain plays I go anywhere to do Shakespeare or to do Williams or checkoff or Ibsen or any of the people whom I considered classics and I and who wrote the great parts but no. How did you find out the you know what if any were me. I means Connecticut. This was put in Indianapolis. OK. As far as anywhere you can. OK so you are New York how do you find out that someone's casting check often and you know what yeah. Well that there are several papers in New York. Like for any unions there are. I didn't belong to the union at this time that was another struggle that every young prospective actor will go through getting into the Union. But there are newspapers as there are for any profession actually if you look around for them. One is called show business and one is called backstage and then there's the big one called variety but that's really for business people not for actors and you get those weekly and then has

something called casting bits in the middle of the section and you just go to those auditions and so this will be like you have to go to your own expense and stuff and you know it was no no these would be hired jobs but they were hired out of New York also to do the casting in New York right. Oh yeah. Also that makes it easier there's very little casting major casting that's done out of New York or Hollywood. So what these these companies would be non-university companies would be community companies or something like that. No they were see those companies rated X Y and Z. The readings and these would be they would pay at that time. Sixty seven dollars a week. That was sixty two. And you'd find usually you'd live in somebodies house and in Indianapolis I'd find somebody who was renting a room or so you paid $15 a week so you could come home with a little cash.

So you do these e companies for a while in New York City I used to work in what is called off off Broadway and sometimes you wouldn't get paid at all. Well let me see you know first of Boston always a troll's playhouse. Yes was that with the company or no I don't think that was a company at the time I think it was a wide company. It sort of goes as to how much profit they can make. I mean they can't make any profit anymore but at that time they could make a little how much perspective box office they could make the size of the house. That's how it's rated. I don't go on and on about this but I think there's a difference between something like the Wilbur something which has a play coming on as a package and they just they're just given the building or something and a local company which which would be casting in your code and you were doing so these were there's a core of community theater groups are not exactly but. Well they're called X Y and Z dot companies. OK that's a different summer stock. It's also rated the same lifestyle those winter stock and summer stock and some

go all year round. Then they're what's called Lord contracts those are repertory or regional theaters which is what the child's playhouse came under later Lort contracts something like the Wilbur that contracts actually touring shows is a Broadway contract a production a road contract. That's much higher that that's higher scale pay much higher. I guess when you know something about it it seems to me when you're calculating your career you sort of have to it was really a question but it sounds like it. This is I guess it is but you must have to mean like you can't in your first play. You can't expect to win the Academy Award so you must have to say well try for this and then I'll try for that. You must sort of as you do you do well in the Edinburgh festival then you say OK I want to be a pro you know I want to try that and then you get into the hearts of our players and you do some of them you say OK no I am a problem. You know I'm surviving. I'm going home $50 a week. So could you give some idea of how your goals changed

you know as you as you went alone or do you want to be I mean that's an interesting question why. My goals never changed I really from early on I wanted to do certain classical plays and so that was the pursuit I was after. For me particularly Nothing really I mean you cannot win a Tony nomination playing in Indianapolis you just can't you have to be on Broadway and in fact your name has to be above the title and it's very rigorous the rules. So you have to have a certain status quo to begin with I mean you have to have a lot behind you and you have to have reached a certain point now. I I always wanted to do particular kinds of plays. So my goals never changed I still want to still want to do certain plays what happened somewhere along the line was money came into the picture and

agents come into the picture when they were very very interested right. That's right I didn't I couldn't get an agent until finally I was cast in the leading role of Great White Hope on Broadway then every agent in town wanted me. Right. And believe me I wouldn't have won today if I. I mean I wouldn't want one if if everybody had convinced me that I needed an agent to negotiate my contract and I still think that suspect I think I could probably do a better job myself. So there was a there was a change in you. Money came in and what did it do. So I don't know it does peculiar things to the head. After a while you begin to worry. Well they watch you for your agent calls up and says Well today I just had one somebody call from from California and a wonderful director named Lamont Johnson and he says this is great part in a new movie

for television I'm doing in. Coming up in the next few months and please do it. And I'm under contract to do a Broadway play. Now immediately what goes through my mind is it didn't used to be this way but right now is. What's what's the money that you what's the difference there. You know am I going to make more going to Hollywood or am I going to make more Stay here. Ultimately in a matter of a split second I finally said I really want to do the play I'm going to stay here and do the play. But that's taken me a number of use just now to get to that point and I think that a lot of actors and myself I was one of them. Pretty soon the money starts to creep into your mind and it is a lot easier out there. You work less time and you make more money in the movies. Oh yeah. Because that's that's interesting that's one of these I want to ask you about as a deflect first with the Great White Hope which is I mean you had not everybody who's done both plays and always has done made a movie of the

play. So it's had that experience yeah. And there was a long time you were in the playwright it didn't start in Washington or something. Yeah we first did it at the Arena Stage in Washington and that was a six week run there and then we did it in New York for over a year and then the movie was four months making it. Yes. Well and James Earl Jones was in the movie. Yeah. And what were there other people from the play. Yes and Lou Gilbert and George Allen that was all. So there were some new people you know a lot of you knew people a lot. Was that what was that was like the difference that you know the change from the point of the movie. Well for me it it was virtually no different because the people I had to work with were the same except for one character who was James Earl Jones trainer Jack Johnson's trainer and he was different and that was a little hard to work with. But mainly the difference for me was negligible. It was virtually the same script Howard Sackler did the play he also did the

screenplay. And I was working with James Earl most of the time. So it was as if I was putting a capper to a year's work. On the stage and getting it filmed that was the feeling except I had absolutely glorious costumes by Irene Sherratt Well they were something and and it shocked me a little bit to learn last month that my costumes but that movie alone cost two hundred thousand. You see what you mean about her. I use who I used to get shocked when she would come in with an alligator handbag for one scene that I was in which it never showed on the screen. I said why don't we have line will you have my own New England career and that kind of thing but that was Hollywood it's not anymore by the way that movie was budgeted 10 million and now it's rare that a movie will be made for over four million.

But there must have been other differences I mean. I have no idea what it's like to do so many performances for your performances but it must be I guess money. So most of us are at a magazine or something about movies being chopped up and early in the morning and all sorts of different hours and most of it a bit more I want to ask you Was it your first movie. Yes. So isn't Wasn't that strange different working conditions it's not like boner. Yeah it was and I was such a novice that at one point I had a very emotional scene in the play. For me it was the toughest scene where I'm talking with the district attorney and they're grilling me about my affair with Jack Johnson. And at one point he he hits on tries to imply that there was sodomy involved. And I break down and start to cry so it was a very difficult scene for me and I I rarely achieved what I wanted to on the stage with it.

So it came time to film it. And they had set aside a whole day for it hell Holbrooke was playing the D.A. I was more than a day but they were on my close ups this one morning and we sat there for a while and then I turned to the director Margaret and I said I really don't feel like it today. And Margaret was absolutely marvelous. He said What is that I really I don't want to do it let's let's break Now this was about eight o'clock in the morning. I said let's break now let's come back after lunch maybe I'll feel more up to it. But there was a long pause and then he said everybody go off come back from lunch one o'clock. And I had no idea that that morning he called some $10000 just to release the crew. I was so naive. The story got around very rapidly. Look at this kid from New York who's pulling these kind of thing. But Marty Ritt was so sweet about it. The director of social group it was awfully nice because I think it is tough for a man she really would have said Come on girl we're paying you a lot of money for this.

That's one of the best scenes in the movie. I think most of the right too. I don't pull that today I'll tell you. And so I found out what it costs to hold a crew. And I don't begin to pull it I come in already and I. That's funny. Let me just try one more because like you I obviously I'm letting my interest in showbusiness interfere a little bit but I know this to stay on the contrast. Maybe I can tie it into sort of how you were brought up to be over some figure I don't know exactly but surely there must have been a difference between a kind of hole that you do in an evening on the stage you know you go on and you get ready and you do the whole thing and it's all over at the end to the really I suppose what this was was a four month single production. It's like one evening stretched out over four months. Right. Because I knew the place so well it wasn't so difficult it's become

more difficult with the subsequent movies that I've done. But I worked with Henry Fonda recently and he put it better probably than any actor I know. He does films and he still keeps his hand in the stages. He does it an average of a play a year somewhere. In Hollywood somewhere and he says somebody asked him why. And he said The difference is if I can feel the hackles rise in the back of my neck once during the production of a film I feel myself very lucky and it happens almost every night on stage and that it's a personal satisfaction for the actor. As you say it's a whole thing it's completely it's round and it has the audience they're participating with you and a crew just doesn't make it. You know they're all involved in their own thing the cameraman is worried about getting the shot. Blue Man is interested in getting the sound and who can blame them.

But it's not an audience it is not satisfying at all I don't find it says one reason I really love to do plays. I'm very trepidations about this series that NBC is is involving me in. It sounded good at the time I'm interested in television because it is the medium nowadays it reaches the most people and seems to me if I wanted to get involved in and I've never done any television really except movies through some movies for television and NBC wanted to sign me to do a series and Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear who do all in the family and Martin and Sanford and Son want to write it and they've been writing it now for several months and we can't come up I mean they don't come up with anything that I'm interested in. So they're still writing it and maybe they

will but all I can see now is sort of a Diana Rigg show or a Mary Tyler Moore and I think we've got enough of that on television it wouldn't do you justice I don't think you or I really support your interest in the classics you know sort of stuff. I don't know if there's much of an audience anymore for it sort of an afficionado kind of culture like opera. I think the theater is really getting that way. Well when we get some help as I'm sort of going you know I would sustain when you make it. I would have you sustain yourself to do for for four months and one thing the hardest thing is fighting off boredom. It really is it's it's what it's sitting around and waiting and I know you've read that before and you've seen it but until you've tried it you don't know what it's like because what happens is. Well maybe you've waited for a

doctor for several hours or something like that. You're waiting for something to happen you know what's going to happen ultimately and it's going to be important but it's just sitting around. You read magazines you talk with your fellow actors you try to work on the script and that is the hardest thing over a long period of time. I was thinking more of the mood of the film making and the way it's in you when you do a play in one evening. Have the mood in the feeling of the plane as you were talking amends its done and completed in one evening that when you're making a movie you have to sustain a certain feeling about it for four months how do you. I know. Well I don't I don't know how to answer this. I don't know if it's a matter of craft or you begin to know the script pretty well. You know what's happening if you're fortunate enough to have a director

who's really cares about it. You'll have had a week's rehearsal but that week sometimes can be three months prior to your shooting date which doesn't make a heck of a lot of difference but it's a difficult thing to do. I think that's part of the reason you often don't get really fine performances on film and a lot of time it just becomes an editor's medium. You became this. Yeah. And you talked about your experience in going to college and I had made. This was not a complete experience. Some things that you didn't finish off and get your piece of paper and go. And yet you have a great love for the classics. You obviously were dead. Where did education work. Where did you succeed in your

formal schooling was important you carried. Where did you really let you go. Just so you know that's a good question because what happened was Edinburgh University was so unlike any previous education I'd had that I was not prepared for it. I had come from Beaver which I feel as it was when I went there and I'm I guess it probably still is an extraordinarily fine school. I loved school. I went every day looking forward to it every year I can't remember a time when I didn't love it. I went to Sarah Lawrence full of excitement Sarah Lawrence is a really progressive education far more than Beaver was. And it continued that excitement in math I mean how many kids adore math and I'm not. I'm not that kind of a person I'm much more artistically inclined but I love math was the most exciting thing. And I credit it all to my teachers when I went to

Edinburgh for the reasons I've already discussed. I was suddenly thrown intellectuals of 450 people and I couldn't even get to the professor and the assistant professors who were also usually graduate students they were interested in their own work so I didn't know how to cope. That's all I was unprepared for that university I was unprepared for those kind of exams and ultimately by the end of the year I didn't care. I really didn't care. I felt they didn't care. So I didn't care. I could have gone back to Sarah Lawrence. But as I said my friends have graduated and I felt a little lonely about that. I do remember trying applying for Radcliffe trying to get in and I did not get accepted. But you're right. I wish I had graduated from college and probably if I had not gone to Edinburgh and been so unprepared for that kind of education I would have found something in Sarah Lawrence or

I would have graduated with. It is left in me to do good. What was there about he was a person I don't know he was just extraordinary. When I am in as a freshman I remember walking down the campus. Probably my third day there and this handsome mid-forties looking man comes up and says hi here Jane. Now this is out of a class of 300 girls and I wasn't the only one. He knew everybody's name he knew what our major interests were and he also he played tennis with us. He invited us over to his house he became involved in our lives even in our personal affairs. If we had a problem half the girls didn't go to the school psychologist they went to Harris you know I mean he was quiet and and it wasn't only that he was really vitally interested in progressive education and I thought Sarah Lawrence

kind of education is rather exceptional. It's a seminar you know. You know similar to all of us sitting around the classes are rarely over 10 and you talk about about things. I loved it. Let me see if you can. I thought of that kind of education when you deal with a regular stereotype a bit is an hour a day and you may not know some educated guesses are in Cambridge and you know I'm sure and I'm going to happen to me.

I suppose if you're better prepared to meet it changes your life such as it changes are happening right now in the political situation and if you had ever done this trick to play non-progressive campaign as I did you do anything well it's interesting because like First they certainly were the life of the stages of one full changes and the I guess the question would be the kind of freedom that you had at Sarah Lawrence and look like a structure. Help you prepare for changes in your life and. You know I think so except Sarah Lawrence is not lack of structure. It's highly motivated in personal structures very intense. You are required to write virtually theses for each of your professors in each of your three. You take three courses the term you have to write these theses. Most people don't do that. What. So you graduate school senior year or something. We had to do it right away in the beginning.

So you were called to bring a lot out of yourself right away and you had to do a lot of research on your own not it's not unlike Oxford or any of those programs in higher English education but. I don't know there was. There are certain areas in which I I wish I had more discipline I think Matt was one of them. I think when I got to Edinburgh I was ultimately disappointed that I that I don't know I don't know how to answer it because I've never had a stricter education before I went to Edinburgh. It's so I don't know whether I would have even liked math. I don't know. Is that one of the things necessary for you in any type of education or any kind of situation. It's some sort of personal recognition of yourself. In other words again Sarah Lawrence it was small enough so people could appreciate you. And in Edinburgh you just felt lost. Yes. And I think this is necessary

for most of us that to somebody be aware of your efforts and what you do with what you do. And in order to grow and and be something you need that kind of recognition. You know I feel that strongly. But then I think I was lucky I never had it any other way. Your family's reaction. You're willing to go in there but also all the way there. I'm kind of wondering as you were going through from the very grave What did your well-wishers family's feeling but what is it. Well my dad the man behind me the reality he loved that he was part of it himself when he was younger. He chose medicine over the theater I guess he was part of a group called the University players which was a group in Selma in the late 20s early

30s. And it was a group composed of a great many talented people. Henry Fonda Jimmy Stewart Brattain Windass Joshua Logan. Margaret Sullivan just a lot of talented people and dad was one of them too. That may have been one reason he chose medicine but he always loved theater and I really think that he was the one that instilled me with the feelings that it was a great and exciting profession and romantic to which it is. It's all those things. I guess if you choose to look at it it's hard as hell but I mean not hard to do particularly hard to get in there because the odds against it are so great. Even though you work it won't get it. I don't know how many members there are of our union now but I know that when they recently did a financial study over 50 percent made

under $2000 a year in their chosen profession. So that puts him on a real subsistence poverty level. Of course they work at other things they have to. But just the fact that they can't work and what they want to do. But my parents say they were all for it all the time they didn't push me into it by any matter of means but I worked at community theatre when I was going to Beaver I would do some community plays and I would go to summer stock in the summer as an apprentice and they never they never were against it. They would check out the place like when I left that team. They go up and look around and look at all those dirty old men who were the actors. Fortunately most of them were homosexuals I mean fortunately for me for my parents I didn't know about that at the time. I keep falling in love with them but what would you know.

It's always hard to find the right line of inquiry but I one thing it's something we were talking just before we came on and something about the kind of parts you do and and you said something about I said something about playing strong people and you said you make something about that and what the way I'd like to pose it is yes it sort of related to Helen's question about I think about wanting to be acknowledged and so I think there's always one sort of thing about actors is they want to be acknowledged by that sort of a professional. But I'm not sure you know how it applies to you but the question of the week. You must you have to be yourself and you have to live you have to get up every day and you have to do the things you have to do. And. Then you also have to play a part because that's what you do for a living. The question would be something like as a have you tended to get parts that are better served to go along with the work you're doing on yourself anyway or have you sort of been

pushed into parts that are different from you and so it's extra us or you know how does that work. Well that's also a matter of what I've chosen to do. You know if I'm offered certain roles I certainly have the choice of not doing some of them even even an actress who doesn't get offered a lot of them has that option open to them what they want to involve themselves in. I wanted early on to involve myself and people like Saint Joan and Major Barbara and. So I did I got these strong roles a lot lately in the in the film and TV thing I find myself people whenever they need a pacifist housewife kind. That's me. You know and I've sort of put my foot down now I've had it up to here with that wife who is long suffering in the background. So I don't go to war in Germany or something you know.

But so I but I have the option to choose now. I mean I'm not that I get offered a lot of parts I don't have in films but I can say no to certain kinds that I don't want to continue to do because there is such a thing as type casting. And I think that more varied than that. I know I am. What if one of you liked me like you. You said you wanted to say John you got a chance to do that. Yes I did. I did get a chance and I loved it. Yeah this is a this year's Well 73 was the 50th anniversary of St. John's. And I wanted to do it again. But a good friend not a good friend but a person I had my very much Diana sands died recently. And Diana had been the last one to do it in New York and I sort of felt very strange about about taking up the banner again because her memory is so strong.

She really was. But I did get to do it myself about five years of no longer than that eight years ago at Arena Stage in Washington where you say older people have a sort of list of things I'm sure. Singer Olivier I'm sure had a I guess most experience classical actors have a little book may say or it's somehow motor of you know do you have you know something so you know what if I tell you. For a while I think it was about 10 years ago I thought that if I didn't get to play checkoff I would just go out of my mind. Finally I got to play Checa and I really didn't like it very much. So I did that went off my list right. I wasn't good in that part at all it was three sisters then my thing that I really want to do now is since I've been nobody wants to put on it and I can't find anybody who wants to put on the master builder but I've been dying to do that for a long time. Shakespear unfortunately

doesn't attract me he hasn't written that many great roles for women. They really are men's roles. There is Rosalind in as you like in violent Twelfth Night. But other than that the other ones don't attract me. And I did play a few you know when I was young I'm glad about when you're too young for Lady Macbeth iceballs or. Well I've been asked to play Lady Macbeth actually Lady Macbeth doesn't need to be much older than that in her mid 30s. She can be any at any age practically it's never really specified. But I feel there's always time for that that's that is a role I would like to do a Porsche so I could like them now that doesn't attract me to do. Here's my Kim Stanley Kim Stanley I thought was absolute genius so I still think she is and she doesn't work enough I think. But wow she was just

dynamite on stage did you ever see her work on stage and I haven't seen the great film she did called The Goddess I've never got to see it but she was good on television whenever I sing about on stage. She was electrifying you couldn't take your eyes off her. Even if she was way off the track in the role it was she invested so much of her own energy into any given performance that she was just dynamite. And I like Dan Bancroft. Mainly Kim Stanley and Kim Stanley also was responsible for a feeling of perseverance early in my career. I read that she had made a graph when she first came to New York about the number of interviews that she would go on interviews and auditions. And I think it started off I can't remember the figures now but it was something like if she got a

call back in the first few months on one out of 50 then that was the beginning of the graph and then at the end of three months you'd reduce it to one out of 35. Then one out of 15. You see what I mean. So at the end of her I think her time limit was something like six years if at the end of six years it wasn't one out of two. She quit the business. And I had that in the back of my mind too. And it worked. I had a graph up on the wall and sure enough the graph would climb slowly slowly. It was very exciting. I think it's very practical too because you don't want to spend your life at something I wouldn't in something I couldn't get to do. It's not like you can't pop you can pop by yourself with a potter's wheel but you can't act very well by yourself. Unless you're schizo phrenic which most are. Do you park by yourself you know I mean when you're talking about investing so much of yourself in the park or what Kim Stanley used to do I was wondering

how you was trying to especially when you're doing a year's run of something you must have to plan your days energy. And I was wondering if there's anything that helps you like you know puttering or doing something that is so important and I didn't catch on to that for so long. I can great white hope when I was doing that for a year I was so depressed constantly depressed and you got killed every day and really I was playing this character who was committing suicide eight times a week and I couldn't figure it out. I would go around. And I didn't have the energy I wake up I sleep till 10 in the mine and I get up a lot on my way to the theater and then I could hardly get back home. Finally I figured that you do have to involve yourself. I have to involve myself in doing other things and also take a lot of iron. That's what I need. I just have when I have emotional role there must be some connection does anybody know that connection between iron and emotion. I don't know. But I

find if I take iron pills I can keep on an even keel. Maybe it's all in my head. What do you mean America and efficient compression but like a band you know. Gotta be going much better than borders each week. Well I did after I started to take them. But that's only in an emotional role. Last year I was doing a comedy and I was just so happy all day long and I had so much energy it was terrific I thought. Go ahead you're saying you need to be and plus something else. Well something else too. Well I never found it out when I was playing very well I don't. Now I've found it out that if I involve myself just another activity social activists forced myself to to be different then the emotions the characters going through forced myself to go out and see

people make lunch and dates a garden do anything like that. That will involve me. I do think that it and I also know I'm quite strict about keeping up with my voice exercises and physically being in shape it's very important. I find for myself I get lazy as I say in a comedy role. But when I'm playing an emotional role then I get hard with myself now. When I was playing morning becomes electorate which is you know Neil's play it's about this wonderful lady named Lavinia who murders everybody or everybody dies except her by the end of the play her whole family. I was so hostile. It was it was impossible to live with literally everybody in the house with it. But. Getting a little anxious right now because in two weeks I go to in rehearsal for a

new play called Find your way home by an English playwright named John Hopkins and it's about a woman whose husband is leaving her for a man and it could be for a woman. It doesn't matter it's just that he's leaving. And from my point of view he's he's leaving and I get a little anxious about it because I know it's going to cost me something to put that in onstage you mean. And it's funny I try I try to put it say it's it's her it's not me. But nevertheless I cannot believe that what I'm feeling on stage does not directly relate to how the audience grasps it. I don't know if that's true or not but that's my personal belief. Olivia feels differently by the way I live it is live. What actors call a representational actor he believes in

representing the emotions that the character feels and not actually feeling them. But he does a pretty good job. And I don't think many of us could do that kind of job. And so people think yeah it looks like he's doing so he feels it's the same thing as well just as long as you think I'm doing something. And then some. If there is a very cool cause he says he's not but I I have the heart for me to believe too that he doesn't really go through certain things. However it's the basis of the film I saw recently on a movie called The dolls house and dolls house with Claire Bloom. And there was a scene in there I don't know if you saw it did you know when her husband Torvald in the end goes berserk remember when

he thought and I think I said to the producer here Lee Elkins that I just love that scene where he went absolutely crazy and hilly said well you noticed there was never a close up. Right. I said you're right there never was a close up but it was a wonderful scene it had so much energy and healing in it. He said we didn't close up because the fellow wasn't feeling a thing. And there was nothing registering. And that's the truth of the film. But wasn't it an exciting scene was the camera. Yeah. And I don't think you can do that you happen to be a commune just to feel the emotion. Do you think it's something you can go through life with. I mean can I could it's like great white hope every day for a lifetime. You know like can you can you do that do you can you see yourself. Do you like could you not kind of emotional drain. So at periodic times yes at periodic times certainly it's what I've chosen and it. And another thing is it's fascinating. It's like

psychology I guess is a puzzle involves just. Having those things well other than discovering the rehearsal process is so exciting because things happen. I find out things about yourself. So when you put yourself into a character does it bring to light something about you that you didn't realize. I never thought of that way. No I don't think so. I don't. I've certainly done a lot of thinking about myself but not in relation to any particular character I can write. That's interesting. What about the talks more about the puzzle but also about the way things happened you were saying. I mean like you you must be presented or you decide you can do it in this is the part of even the most sort of start from there.

Yeah it starts from there and then really I get I read the play a lot before rehearsals but I dont do much work on it. I just think I wont read it every day but I read it and then I think about a little while. The really important thing is when I am face to face with the other activists because so much depends on what theyre giving you giving me. I did a lot of work about 10 years ago in improvisation with a man named Paul Sills who something called Story theatre and Second City. This is the second city workshop and one of the rules of improvisation was you never refuse what a fellow actor gives you are always accepted. And that is that's probably one of the hardest things to learn but it seemed once it is it's so simple and it's the trick of improvisation by the way.

You know if somebody in improvisation throws you an imaginary ball and you pretend it doesn't exist. The improvisation is finished. You have to accept it. Or if I were to give you a seething look or a very angry look you have to say well what's that all about or respond in some way to what I'm doing you can't go on with a joke or something that has nothing to do with what I'm giving you. And it's the same thing when you have a script to show that you know what a person is it undoubtedly is from you know obvious but undoubtedly not only your picture of the character but everybody else's picture the care they were socialized you would have the part I mean that everybody who was acting with you has an idea of what you're going to be like when they do that to you as you're trying to work it out for yourself. So. It's really well it's a communal effort. Theatre is a group experience. So but talk some more. So it's a puzzle to try to figure out who this person

is or what I mean. Yeah and I don't do it consciously much anymore. I mean I don't when I remember when I was first starting out for example when I did Rosalind in As You Like It at the local theater in 61 I remember looking up and reading all everybody's interpretation of Rosalind. And I would read up a little bit in history everything I went so deep into it all and it didn't help me you know. It was probably hindrance. I did the same thing with St.. And I think all that gets in a way in the way after a while and it's probably. I don't mean to say I don't work I do work I read and I I do a lot of thinking and I but I don't do a lot of research on people anymore because that's really putting the cart before the horse.

You understand what I mean. For example I wouldn't say well this person never crosses her legs so therefore I'll never cross my legs. That will come out when the character will invade me. I won't invade the character the character will invade me. And then I will discover that she never crosses her legs. OK no but that's only when I really know the core of it so I don't put any restrictions on it. Also how do you get to know his character. Well that has to do with the other people. It has to do with what I have to say. And when I say how I say I mean it is a script. It's I mean it's a life script that you're given. Just like we're talking so you like it like when you get ready to go in rehearsal you don't have all the loaves you or you do you know.

No I don't know them although I could know them. I find it I learn them the third day we're on our feet. I practically know them anyway it's all associated I learned them associate typically with what other people are saying and moving around. I get a feeling of it and then they just come into my mind. But if I sit down and I memorize and that's another thing I tend to remember them when I'm saying them on stage if I sit down and memorize them for a long time I can't get the picture of the page out of my mouth. And it's sort of like cramming for exams and I think a lot of people do that trick. You know they memorize certain because it is a way that you know the way it has 1776 the American Revolution that's on page 42. So I I found I got in the way too after a while however if it's a very heavy role for example morning becomes elective was a four hour play.

I would sit down and go through them I would have somebody to me. It's easier for me if they're feeding me the lines rather than sitting down and learning them. But I will do it periodically. And if I was if I were to do some big role like King Lear which I wasn't I wouldn't want to but if I were to I would certainly learn those lines Shakespear I would always know that's a different cup of tea because the lines are important reason they're important they're poetic. Most of them. And it is important where you breathe in Shakespeare in contemporary CEP it's not so important where you very well I don't I don't want to drag it out too much but I the good thing it was interesting what you were saying about it being like psychology and also but it being well you said several things about discovering who the person is and about the things you know you're the person coming into you and sort of your going and then the other thing is that I had I wanted to pick up and it was the thing about there being surprises or that you know you work alone

and then you said things happened and I was wondering what like what. And you suddenly know what kind of things. Yeah I was just trying to think I remember last year in sixth room something to say surprised that I can't remember what I do now but it was a mannerism of the character. People often tell me things I don't like them to but they'll come up and they'll say oh I love the way you do this and I'll sort of look blankly and say what. And then then forever I'm hooked into oh the way you flick your little finger at that. Oh yes well isn't that wonderful then for the next 25 performances then thinking about how I'm flicking my little finger. And that's disaster. It was sort of always when you put 45 before 46 or something like that so that I mean what this is really a moral issue is if you're giving of being natural. Of course it isn't natural or whether it is it isn't but somehow as much as possible you let let it happen to you or something.

Yeah. Now see this is still in the when I was first acting professionally. I think that every actor has to get over what's called Stage fright or self-consciousness is in effect what it is and I think that only happens just by doing it over and over and over again. You know working in front of an audience doing anything most people probably have a certain amount of self-consciousness but if you do it long enough you get over it. And that's the first hurdle I think and a lot of people never in my profession never get past that hurdle because they don't work enough. They simply are not given the opportunity to work in front of an audience and that is that something you lose works for Already you have to lose it each time you get into a car. Well I I've lost it. Practically entirely now. I mean that that's not to say on opening night I don't have butterflies in my stomach because I do because that that's that's the Olympics. That's it. That's the race right

then. But it's it's not the same thing as stage right. It's just the thrill of race so it's an adrenaline you know it's it's it's that. So it doesn't happen anymore now and I'm I'm pretty loose now I wouldn't be in this room right now but with fellow actors rehearsing for a play I'd probably try anything you know but I'm not a good public speaker or anything I couldn't get up and voice when somebody asked me to speak in front of a club or something I just get absolutely. I get stage fright. Horrified. I mean I have to say my words as they all look at me the bad person is an actor. You know it's it's this is really such an interesting theme that I wanted to make a connection between something you were talking about was how you get into the war how you love the part where the person comes in the you. Yeah. And how that then we just pick up something because it's interesting that

scene one of things you were saying was a release of the connection I mean is it used. You said if you lose consciousness of yourself it might follow then that then you're available to be somebody else or to let something else come in and this is the thing that came to my mind as a thing in a book called Zen and the art of archery and that when they say that when the opponent's stroke is descending on your head the sword stroke at that the other thing about swordsmanship that that what makes a master different from other swordsman on earth is that he does not take a moment to wonder if it's going to kill him. You know he's done away with self-consciousness to the point of death. Right. So he has that freedom and that must be the kind of thing you're talking about the good that you have the freedom or more freedom than used to or something to let it come. Yes I certainly feel I have more freedom and I certainly don't think I'm a Zen master yet

but I do definitely feel much more freedom in what I'm doing now. It's it's exciting too. I do try a lot of different things now in rehearsal. I will go through all kinds of different ways of doing something in what they call letting it all hang loose I do do that and I find myself a lot. Eliminating certain things that just don't seem right. You know they just don't seem to true. It may be a trial and error process I don't know. But there always seems to be one path that's truer than others for me. There was probably other people have some influence and in the way they respond to what you're doing well an audience has enormous. The process of discovering a character for me isn't doesn't begin to get finished until

about the third month of playing in front of an audience because that's how important an audience is they really let you know. And in the comedy they let you know right away what's happening. But in a in a tragedy or a dramatic role it's harder to gauge but you can because an audience is a is an incredible group of people they You'll know with their border or if they're excited. It's fascinating. You can really you can feel and counting the number of coughs is not a bad measure at all. In a very particularly emotional moment if you hear five coughs forget it. You haven't you haven't gotten them. This is very interesting to me because I always sort of been fascinated by audiences and part of it sort of a lot of people being together in the dark. You know I think or you know then the focus is somewhere else and sports are not the same thing with what just occurred to me as a possibility

is that maybe some of the same kind of thing is happening to the audience that you were saying happens to you like because your attention is somewhere else. And because it there's sort of an agreement that you can we have for instance it's OK to weep if it's in the dark. You know nobody's innocent. You know it's a sad thing. It's not you know weaving for yourself at some certain thing you're watching but I'm saying is it. And also what is it the suspension of disbelief that you can say OK I'm going to this is and these are not actors notices this is a real situation I'm watching I'm going to get involved and stuff like that. So there's a kind of giving up of yourself consciousness in an audience as well. You know so there's the people in this you know yes and the people in the audience and maybe they're there and I just you know I don't know how you measure it we're going to meter you used but they're free to let those emotions come to. Right. Well this is this is very very important see right now a lot of the problem with audiences is that they don't have to do that with television. You know you don't have to do that with something that's in front of you and

isn't real. You don't have to invest yourself in it. So a lot of audiences now come to the theater and forget. That they have to give up themselves and say I'm going to believe in what's going on stage and there is a television syndrome among audiences and it's frightening. You know in a comedy it can be really frightening because they think they can turn it off any minute. They get bored. So you don't just think of something else you said earlier about when you're first or you're cursing and the improvisation the rules of improvisation. It's like the beer beer during a commercial. Whenever that that syndrome where there's nobody there anyway it's just it's like not salute standing up for the national anthem because it's over the radio. You know you're here you know that you know they really were exactly. And it's like that's breaking the contract that you were talking about not accepting. Yeah that's right I mean you do it and then they don't so

they say what. But there's nowhere else it must be a real letdown to use in an empty building actually having a rough time anyway. But that's one of the reasons.