FEATURES OF ACTORS

Evening Star, Issue 19044, 12 September 1925, Page 15

FEATURES OF ACTORS

GGspJEUH’S ROSE The. stago is a place—tlio only place—where we expect to see beauty allied with brains. To realise that many of the world’s greatest actors have not boon all that might be desired physically gives one something of a shock. For instance, Betterton, who earned during his splendid career a place in the front rank of actors, is thus described by a contemporary;—“Air Betterton, although a superlative actor, labor’d under an ill figure, having a groat head and short, thick neck, stoop’d in tho shoulders, and had short, fat arms. . . . His actions were’few, but just. He liad little eyes and a broad face, a little poek-fretteu, a corpulent body, with thick legs aud large feet.” Edmund Kean, like Garrick, was a very small man. Airs Siddons, when she acted with him in Ireland before ho had become really famous, described him as an “ odious little man,” who acted marvellously. As at the time she know nothing, good or bad, of Kean’s character, she must have been influenced by bis appearance. He, however, possessed eyes of an extraordinary and terrible brilliance. Those who have come across that strange work, ‘The Diary of a Late Physician,’ by Samuel Warren, will remember the account of the lunatic who was haunted by the thought of Kean’s eyes. Charles Alattbews, whom Coleridge pronounced a genius, and who was Alacuulay’s favorite actor, was an impersonator and mimic of unequalled ability, though not reaching quite the front rank as an actor. His face was oddly contorted, so as to give it the effect of being knitted together on one side—an effect which cannot be well described, but which is marked in all the existing portraits of Matthews. Ho was over Gft high, and at one time, during tho earlier part of his career, so thin that his manager said a. hiss would blow him right off tho stage. 'Coquolin, tlio great French actor, had an unfortunate feature—his nose, which was distinctly, like that of the lady Lynetto, “tip-tilted.” Ho was once bewailing his lack of success in tragedy when someone candidly’ said; “Why, don’t you see, Conuelin? It’s that nose of yours!” Though Sarah Bernhardt asked him why he took any notice of such a remark, Coquolin ever afterwards used “ nose paste ” when he essayed tragic parts—and little use it was to him.

The fact is that had Coquolin been a tragedian of any ability the angle of nose would have hindered him very little, for Lekain, the great French tragedian oi Hie preceding century, labored under a precisely similar disadvantage. Henry Irving was physically far from the ideal actor. Ho had a trick of “dragging his leg,” of which he never entirely ridded himself. One could not always hear what he said, and his pronunciation, quite unconsciously, was frequently peculiar.