Union formed for actresses who will not strip

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32665, 22 July 1971, Page 7

Union formed for actresses who will not strip

LONDON. The chances are you will soon be seeing less of the permissive society at your local cinema. And not because of a sudden change of heart by the censor.

It is just that the shapely girls who star in them are rebelling against having to take off their clothes at the drop of a producer’s chequebook.

Five years ago, there was scarcely an actress from San Francisco to Sydney who would not shed her clothes for the prospect of wealth and stardom. But now the mood has changed. More and more, actresses are refusing to strip at any price, top! international stars among i them and their numbers! are growing every week. Why are the beauties! suddenly becoming awkward?) Surely not because they are; worried about their modesty?; “Yes they are.” says the’ British actress, Mary • Mitchell, and she, if anyone.' should know, for she has just, founded the world’s first j “Actresses Who Won’t' Strip” Union. Business is brisk, too, she! reports. "The girls are simply | rushing to join.” And not just to protect

their modesty. “The real point we are trying to get across,” says Miss Mitchell, “is that actors and actresses are paid to act, not to shock. Their job is to stimulate audiences’ emotions by using their technique, art and talent, not by indulging themselves.” The girls seem to be getting their message across. One worried film company official says: “The whole thing may sound very funny to the laymen, but the fact is that the public have come to expect realism on the screen.

“If we can’t supply it because actresses won’t co-operate, then obviously we stand to lose a lot of money. And nobody likes losing money if they can help it”

Miss Mitchell, herself a shapely brunette who has appeared in a number of films and television series, insists that her own objections to stripping have nothing to do with morality.

“An actress,” she says, “is not using her talent when she strips in front of a camera. It is too easy to get a shock reaction from an audience by stripping, and love-making in public.” One of Miss Mitchell’s strongest supporters in Britain is Lynn Redgrave, star of “Georgy Girl” and “Blood Kin.” Though her sister, Vanessa, has stripped for “Blow Up," “The Devils” and several other films, Lynn says: “Perhaps it’s prudishness on my part, but I just won’t appear nude in a film. There are certain parts I’d love to play, but I know I’ll never get them because of my views on undressing in front of the cameras.

“There is an elite band of us who won’t strip, too — Elizabeth Taylor. Raquel Welch, Diana Rigg, Gemma Jones and others—so I feel I’m in pretty good company really.” Lynn admits that her reasons for not wanting to strip are purely personal. Frankly, she is embarrassed. “Ultimately it doesn’t really matter," she says, "but at the moment films are going

through a sort of phase where nudity is obligatory even when it isn’t necessary.

"I don’t like the idea of appearing naked in front of a crew, let alone the 50 million people who will eventually see the film. My husband doesn’t like the idea either.

“Imagine opening the door to the milkman the morning after he'd seen a film in which you had appeared naked. The fact is, it’s your last realm of privacy. Why should you be expected to reveal it to the world?”

There are many young actresses who are also refusing to strip for practical reasons.

“Some girls are worried that stripping in a film might cost them their reputation ; s a serious actress,” says a producer. Certainly, British Equity, the actors’ and actresses’ official union, is continually dealing with complaints from actresses pressured into stripping against their will by forceful directors.

A spokesman told me: “You often get the impression from what you read that actors and actresses are only too willing to take their clothes off in films. In fact this is far from the case.

“The thing that annoys us most ,is that film companies will sometimes sign a girl on for a film, making no mention of the fact that there is a nude scene in it. Then when filming actually begins