HARD STRUGGLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 726, 27 July 1929, Page 28

HARD STRUGGLE

Sybil Thorndike’s Fight for Recognition BROTHER WRITES STORY OF ACTRESS’S LIFE In her brother, Russell Thorndike, himself an actor, and a writer of dis tinction, Syblil Thorndike has found a most happy biographer. Mr. Thorndike is frankly enthusiastic about his sister, but his book. "Sybil Thorndike,” is not an essay in flattery. It is a sympathetic, bu' most revealing, portrait of a great actress. Sybil Thorndike was the mother of four children when her talents first met with wide recognition, and it may surprise some of those who know he 1 * only as a star to be told that during the war, when her husband was ou

active service, she was glad to accept 10s a performance, four times a week, for her wort at the Old Vic. Miss Thorndike was born at Gainsborough, in Lit* eolnshire. but when she was a babv she went with her parents to Rochester. where her father had taken

up an appointment as minor canon. When she decided that she wanted tn give up her musical career and become an actress her father merely said: “All right. We may as well have a shot at it.” Tour in America Sybil Thorndike left the Guildhall School of Music, and she and her brother joined Ben Greet’s Academy. Finally Miss Thorndike joined Ben Greet’s company and went to America on tour. She wrote loug and frequent letters home, from one of which her brother quotes an account of the chance that came to her to play Violo. The actress who was to have played the part was taken ill, and Miss Thorndike was asked if she thought she could play the part: ... I relieved his mind of all doubts as to my ability, and then I prayed hard —and oh! Father, what I -wanted to prav "• ls this. Oil! Lord God. please smite her with a fell disease so that she can't ,> ,:‘; y . for weeks, and let me play the parts, oh. Lord! But no! not your good ChrisE l jfl] Rind little daughter. I said meekly: Oh. Lord God. please make her better, but let it be necessary for her to have one night at least.” The American tour was broken short by injury to Miss Thorndike’s vocal chords, and she had to return to England. When she had recovered she began a dreary hunt for work. Finally she managed to join the Play Actors’ Society, which had just started, and she was seen by Shaw in a farce. Shaw liked her. and thought that she might do as an understudy for Ellen O'Malley in “Candida.” Her Chance When Shaw had heard Sybil read the part he said to her: "You go home and learn housekeeping, and have four children, or six if you’d rather, and then come back and show me ‘Candida.’ ” It was while understudying Miss O’Malley ou tour that Miss'Thorndike met Lewis Casson, later married him and became, according to Shaw’s advice, the mother of four children. In 1919 she was still without her great chance. She understudied Madge Titheradge in “The Night Watch, and then came “the greatest piece of luck Sybil ever had.”

The Pioneers, run by Edith Craig, asked her to play in Claudel’s “The Hostage.” Tom Kealy, of Fleet Street fame, who had long wafehcd Sybil’s career, went to Leop M. Lion with his pocket full of notices, and Lion engaged her on the spot. She replaced Ethel Irving in “The Chinese Puzzle,” and her subsequent successes, in Greek tragedies, in “Saint Joan” and in “Macbeth” are well known to the public. Her name was made—after years of struggle and disappointment.