The Player A Profile Of An Art

by Lillian Ross

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

468 pages, Paperback

First published August 13, 2015

About the author

Lillian Ross was an American journalist and author, who was a staff writer at The New Yorker from 1945 until she retired.

Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Timothy Hallinan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The legendary Lillian Ross (author of "Picture," the great journal of the making of John Huston's film of "The Red Badge of Courage,") joined forces with her sister, Helen, to compile this book from interviews Lillian Ross had originally done for THE NEW YORKER. It's an invaluable snapshot of the changing nature of the actor's artistry during the first half of the 20th century.

The oldest interviewee, Cedric Hardwicke, walked onto a stage for the first time in 1912, illuminated by actual gaslight. John Gielgud, with Olivier, was one of the greatest two actors of the British stage for more than 30 years.(Gielgud says, "I pride myself that I can shed tears at exactly the same word at every performance.") Ralph Richardson and Michael Redgrave, two more towering figures of that age, are also interviewed, as is Margaret Leighton.

Stars from the earlier days of Hollywood include Melvyn Douglas, Joan Crawford (unendurably self-centered; it's hard to imagine anyone else saying, "Writers give their words to paper, I give life to their words."), Henry Fonda, and Ingrid Bergman. The (relatively) younger performers include some of the early stars from the Actor's Studio, among them Kim Stanley, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, the great Geraldine Page ("When the character uses you, that's when you're really cooking."), Paul Newman, and others. Broadway stars -- which are different from actors in some ways -- include Zero Mostel and Katherine Cornell.

There's no dish here, just fascinating insights into the changing ways actors approached their craft in the past century. Best browsing book I read all year, but you can also sit down with it for hours.

[kabukigal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is the result of non-recorded interviews with a large number of well-known and many outstanding stage and screen actors. The interviews were done between 1958-62. Each actor related how they grew up, when they knew they wanted to become an actor and the path that they took to get there. Each person's story was fascinating -even those of stage actors whose work one has never seen.
The one problematic element of the book was that the authors turned each interview into an autobiographical form -as though written by the actor. This caused most of the fifty-five actors to sound very similar --like they had the same voice. Tape recorders were available in this period, but were not commonly used by interviewers. That said, the stories of these fifty-five actors were remarkable.