GLADYS COOPER

Waikato Times, Volume 111, Issue 18524, 2 January 1932, Page 14

GLADYS COOPER

A BOOK ON HERBELF. MADE £40,000 OUT OF PLAY. The autobiographies of players more often than not make dull reading, because they substitute for Ihe cliche "All the world's a stage" the firm belief that the stage is all the world. For Gladys Cooper, whoso book "Gladys Cooper," by herself, has just been published, that is impossible, for to her the theatre '.s only a means to an end. Tills in part may be due to the inherited sense of spectatorship of her journalistic father, still alive at 87, which prevents her from taking herself too seriously: "I have plenfv of faults, but vanity is not one of them." And then her home has always been her chief background: "I wish I had six children." Behind these qualities again there are clearly expressed methods of achievement —■ “I got on because I meant to, . . . I should call myself an actress, but by instinct. I am a business woman. . "The people. I despise most in the world are those who are just, content to remain jogging along anyhow, and not making the most of their talents. They become parasites. “I am the type of woman who would always do something or be something. I am by nature energetic. "I do not, believe that real success ever comes without hard work.” “World’s Worst Rc.hoarser.” With a very clear, though not- doctrinaire, philosophy of life—but for the fact that she Is "not a great reader," she would recognise herself as a disciple of pragmatism—she started with assurance: as a child she was never afraid to let herself go. Vet she is never truculent, and is always conscious of her limitations and failures, as when she says, "I am the world's worst rehearser." She admits the mistake of her girlish marriage, to Mr Buckmaster and of her beauty business, noting, by the way, in passing, that physical beauty, of which she herself has abundance, may be a drawback In suggesting, in terms A the supposed law of compensation, that Hie possessor may be emptyheaded. She is remarkably devoid of bitterness, lliough there is a touch of it in her reference lo I lie "hoy critics" of the drama, so that she can pay a tribute to her successor, .Miss Nellie Taylor, now Mrs Buckmaster, who was "one of (he cleverest artists in musical comedy.” In view of these qualities, Ihe plain man and woman see a human being in Miss Cooper, difficult to recognise in many players. One can understand the reason of her success from the moment, a quarter of a century ago, when she boldly walked into a voice trial at the Vaudeville, and,, like "a little fool," declined to understudy Phyllis Dare in “The Catch of the Season," down to the present time, when she is a very successful manager and a social success, with a son at Eton, There have, of course, been strokes of luck, as when Mr Frank Curzon offered her a partnership without her putting money into It: but even then she will have nothing to do with royal roads. Nor does she suggest that she is inordinately clever: "I choose a play very much as I choose a house to live in—by instinct. ( know when I have read a play whether I can do il op not ] have never turned down a play which subsequently proved to be successful on llie ground Hint it was a bad play.” When she produced Somerset Maugham's “Tho Letter” sho put £4OO Into It and rnado £40,000 out of It. On llie oilier hand, Fir Gerald du Maurier lost the chance of producing "The Last of Mrs Ch.ey.ney" because he fell asleep when Mr Lonsdale was reading il to him. Miss Cooper heartily sympathises with him, however, because sjie "cannot stand" having plays read lo her. No Illusions. In Ihe same way, she lias none of tlie. usual illusions of theatre folk, although she is never disillusioned in a cynical way: "The public may come to see me, but they would not come to see me if I did not give them a good play. Everyone wants good value for their money. . . . There never was a bad play written that was a lasting success. . . . One of Ihe penalties of our profession is that il, is easier to get up than it is to remain there. The getting there Is not as hard as the staying there.” Innately shrewd and full of common sense—"a play with a meal in it attracts me"—and with that, keen sons'’ "f humour that conies from detachment. slip crowds her pages wit?> Knod stories, such as tho one about Mr Lonsdale, who once said lo a mm lo disliked: "A Happy New Year to you-—but only one."