NOT DISCONCERTED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21100, 6 February 1932, Page 10 (Supplement)

NOT DISCONCERTED.

ACTOR FORGETS LINES.

EXPERIENCE ON STAGE.

Pat O'Brien, a stage actor for 12 years, now appearing in motion pictures, is never disconcerted when he forgets the lines of a scene, and always seems to have at his tongue's end some apt improvisation that prevents the scene being ruined. O'Brien, ■when appearing with Nancy Carroll in Paramount.'s '" Personal Maid, forgot a line during the filming of one of the picture's love scenes, but, so quickly did he improvise a substitute, that the scene .was saved. „ , When the director, Monta Bell, offered congratulations, O'Brien said: " I learned to do that on the stage. My first lesson in such work was a rather severe one. Playing - in Plainfield, New Jersey, my part -required me to conceal myself in a trunk from which I could spy on the leading lady. * At the end of the scene 1 was supposed. to raise the top of the trunk and get out. " But one day the top locked on me jn some way and I couldn't get out. I thought I would smother, and my efforts to free myself sent the trunk rolling round the stage. I thought the scene was ruined, when 1 heard the leading lady call out: ' Billy, are you a ghost?' Yelling at the top of my voice I replied: * No, but it's only a question of time before I will be.' / " The leading lady came and unlocked the trunk. I got out, and the action went on as if nothing unusual had happened. For the audience it was all part of the play. And never since then have 1 worried when a line slips my memory."