MULTI-ACTORS
Some of my favorite Hollywood personalities over the years have been what I call “self” actors and actresses. The term is not a legitimate theatrical one, I know, but it describes my satisfaction the special knack some the actors have which allows them to play a wide variety of roles - diversified personalities and ways of living - but , at the same time to maintain their own identification combined with the illusion they are creating.
It should not work, of course and for some it doesn't, but for the gifted few it is effective and laudable. All the while you are witnesses to the actions, mannerisms and personality quirks of Rooster Cogburn, in “True Grit” ,you are still aware of the fact that the person you see, hear and feel doing.
You are very much aware of the undoubted fact that is John Wayne whom is doing the Cogburn things so convincingly. It is, perhaps, mainly one of voice - not so much what is being said, but in the vital essence of tonal placements.
Jimmy Stewart is another actor or who does a wide diversity of roles in which he film character lives apart! Even though is Jimmy Stewart all the way. Again I feel it can be said to come from vocal intonement and he has a special knack of being able to adapt to the plot-person his own physical mannerisms – some physical ones which are strictly Stewart-tonian. He makes them become a part of the character he is portraying and we accept the changes without being upset largely because he does it all so naturally we don't realize he has done so
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Cary Grant was another male lead who did it. Notice today, if you hear the audio from a movie running on TV in the next room, you will say “Hey! That's a Cary Grant movie!”. The whole process can be reversed when you consider some of the older western movies in which an actor played the same role for scores of pictures. Such cowboy actors became the characters they portrayed and if you had happened to meet one of them in the food market shopping for the family you might have greeted him as: “Hi, Hoppy!”
Concerning feminine stars. I don't seem to remember any who had this “to be con tinued”, double personality trait, at least not to such a marked degree. Barbara Stanwyk had a voice texture which carried over from film to film. There must have been others but I'd have to do some study time to find them.
I sometimes have wondered if we revere the memory of some of the older stars such as Wayne, Stewart and others because of the many different roles they played so well, or because of their own nature and personality which always seemed to shine thorough and make the fictional character ring true
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A.L.M. Sept. 30, 2004 [c495wds]
