Acting

his thoughts and feelings about the acting profession:

"I merely assert that, generally speaking, what the actor is in private life he is to a large extent on the stage, because he cannot conceal himself and his real personality from his audience. He is not like Dorian Gray; he has not got a picture that takes up all the things that he does not like about himself. Everything comes out.

"Of course, apart from his technique, I should say that he must be a human being. Some people say it depends on the part, and a favorite expression of actors is 'Good parts make good actors.' But bad parts make good actors too, and good parts certainly do not make bad actors into good actors, or vice versa. They say also that the actor cannot be better than his part, but I insist that he must be better than his part, because very few parts exist at all in the whole range of drama which cannot be and are not improved upon by the interpretation of the actor, by the creation of the actor. He must more than interpret his part; he must create it."

"In Which Mr. Howard Talks About Acting," The New York Times, March 23, 1930

"For some it works, for me it doesn't." In Search of My Father, pg. 21

Did the way Americans viewed the acting profession create an insecurity or self-consciousness about acting, or at least exacerbate Howard's feelings of embarrassment about the profession? "It all seems to me to go back to the fundamental difference between English and American actors. For instance, my friends in New York seemed to consider an acting chap not exactly a red-blooded he-man and certainly not a gentleman. In England, on the other hand, acting is an honourable profession. A gentleman's job as well as a man's job. The type of Englishman who takes up acting as his life's work is most often like the kind of American chap who goes in for banking or the law." Tales from the Hollywood Raj, pg. 115

"I hate acting" • "Film acting is a dreary life" • "Long runs in the theatre should be abolished" • "Acting is a woman's work" A Quite Remarkable Father, pg. 5

"First of all, let me admit that I am one of those unfortunate people to whom any kind of public appearance is an embarrassment, for whom to have to perform before my fellow men is a misery. I always sympathize with those wretched children who are made to exhibit their talents at parties. I, myself, never suffered thus as a child for the simple reason that I was utterly devoid of gifts of any sort; but from the moment when offered accidentally and accepted economically, I got my first job on the stage and sheepishly daubed my face with greasepaint, I had an inner conviction that this was the most embarrassing occupation in the world. And this belief, far from being modified by experience, I find only to be intensified by the years." A Quite Remarkable Father, pg. 5 and Trivial Fond Records, pg. 15

"The truth is that, to enjoy acting, one must be an exhibitionist at heart, one must revel in those exposures of the emotions which would be agonising to a shy or reserved person...As a boy the possibility of being an actor never even occurred to me. Nor could it have occurred to anybody who knew the shy and inarticulate youth that I was. I wanted to write. I felt I could express myself on paper; alone in a room I felt articulate and creative. But I was also lazy, a thing a writer never dare be. Application is, I am convinced, the first rule for authors." Trivial Fond Records, pg. 16

"I look like a silly old fool, not the respectable father I am." A Quite Remarkable Father, pg. 6

excerpt from "Leslie Howard's Lucky Coin:"

Howard returns alone to New York to appear in The Cardboard Lover with Laurette Taylor. 

"We rehearsed for a long while, then the play had its tryout in Great Neck, Long Island.

"Sadly enough, it was a failure, or shall I call it a flop, as you say in America?

"Oh, I can laugh at the experience now, but frankly I was heartbroken. I'd taken the last money we had to make the trip, anticipating that my previous success would herald a new and greater triumph. And I admit I was a disillusioned, discouraged, very thin and very hungry young actor out of work when the thing blew up.

"I came back to New York and hid away in a shabby, little room on a side street, wondering why I'd ever come from England on so thin a chance. I was terribly lonely. I walked the streets for hours, gazing into shop windows to take my mind off the disappointment which stayed with me like a nightmare.

"I was sitting disconsolately on the side of my bed one morning trying to figure out whom I could see next about getting a job, when the little envelope arrived, with the gold piece, from Ruth. I slipped it into my pocket and started out—really to buy some breakfast.

"At the corner of Broadway and Forty-Sixth Street, I ran into an acquaintance, a fellow I'd met while doing the rounds of theatrical offices.

"'Haven't you heard the news?' he shouted at me with great enthusiasm. 'Miller's going to try Her Cardboard Lover again—this time with Jeanne Eagels. Better hike up there and make a try for the part.'

"I rushed over to Gilbert Miller's office and was greeted with open arms. They'd been looking all over town for me. And there I had been, sitting in a shabby, little side-street room wondering where I'd find a job."

"Leslie Howard's Lucky Coin," Photoplay, March, 1934

excerpt from "Leslie Howard Gives Views on Actors and Other Things:"

"He [the actor] should be able to wear such a complete make-up on the stage that he will never be recognized off it...Actors ought not to be human beings; they should be part of the roles they play, and the audience should not be aware of them as personalities apart from those roles. It destroys that important element in the theater—illusion...Actors are human beings but their audiences should not be permitted to know it." from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 5 June 1932

excerpts from "Listing a Few of Leslie Howard's Peculiarities:"

"I think it's a mistake for an actor to make his face look like an expanse of pink blotting paper."

"Acting to me is something that amounts to imprisonment."

"Before the camera there is no need for any exaggeration. The camera brings the actor's face so close that the least flicker of an idea carries. There is something almost telepathic in pictures—the thought in the player's mind is so apparent."

"In the theater there is that direct touch of the player with the audience which nothing in a studio can replace. And it is the greatest corrective of an actor's work. I like to feel that response—that's why I'm here.

"In pictures one depends on memories—memories of how an audience reacts. As time goes on those recollections blur and grow dimmer—and then the performer may lose his bearings. The stage is the place the actor must come to, nearly always, for renewal."

from Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10 February 1935

excerpt from "All Is Told to 300 by Leslie Howard" regarding an actor's performance:

"He [Leslie Howard] doubted the extent to which acting could be taught in dramatic schools, declared that it 'doesn't matter a damn' if an actor feels emotion on the stage as long as the audience feels it, and declined to be lured into a specific comparison of the New York and London theatres." from The New York Times, 6 April 1935

articles:

Howard answers questions about romance, marriage and the temptations of Hollywood. "Is Movie Love Too Real?" Screenland, April, 1934

Howard talks about his start in Hollywood and the studio system. "Lancelot in Modern Dress," Screenland, March, 1935

Howard discusses his feelings about acting and horses and polo and tells the story of Betty. "Tea-Timing With The Horsy Mr. Howard," Silver Screen, March, 1935

Howard talks about the mechanics of acting. "Why Is Leslie Howard the Man of the Moment?" Movie Classic, March 1933


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