An Actor

"If he was neither a great actor nor showman he made up for it by high technical skill and shrewd judgement of what he could do best." In Search of My Father, pg. 15

"...his instinctive genius for playing parts for which he was eminently suited, such as Peter Standish in Berkeley Square and Alan Squier in The Petrified Forest. But these were oases in a desert of trivia." In Search of My Father, pg. 39

"Never a robust or emotionally powerful actor the arena of the stage was not really his battle place and he no longer felt any inclination to strut the boards." In Search of My Father, pg. 39

"Leslie...was the least flamboyant actor and...quite unmagnetic...Never a traditional actor—yet certainly a transitional one—he was to be identified more with a way of life that was shaping outside the entertainment world rather than what was still being presented in it. If younger audiences, in the twenties, were looking for something more typical of the new society they were creating and identified with, then Leslie's more 'naturalistic', under-playing style of acting accurately reflected it."  In Search of My Father, pg. 33

"He was a technical actor—one who relied not on emotion but on technique to carry a part. I can never remember his 'living' a role at home or for five seconds after he had stepped off the stage or away from a camera." A Quite Remarkable Father, pg. 6

"...Gerald du Maurier was at Wyndham's, and Leslie became much influenced by his work. Du Maurier was the 'great exponent of natural acting and of the art that conceals art,' and his light comedy became the ideal for the dramatic society in Upper Norwood." A Quite Remarkable Father, pg. 21

"Thus it was that he took his place among the senior members of his profession. Out of the murk of a dozen second-rate plays and third-rate parts, he appeared, looking rather surprised, and became what is generally acknowledged as a 'star.' It had been a long apprenticeship, ten years of work that was hard, tiring, and deflating. Ten years—twice as long, in fact, as he had given himself in 1917. Then, he had told Ruth that if success did not come in five years he would give up the theater and try to become a man of business. Now at last he had a name in his chosen, though somewhat despised, profession. Where would he go from here? The road up had been hard and slow, but, viewed from the top, the road down looked fast and slippery." A Quite Remarkable Father, pgs. 131-132

"In company with most good actors, perhaps to a more marked degree than many, Leslie could now look at his lines and decide almost immediately how he was going to handle them. He never worried about several interpretations; he read the words and there seemed only one way in which they could be read. He had developed a technique, to be sure, and, though he played naturally and without theatricality, he never supported the school of extreme naturalism; he was not a Stanislavsky follower. Acting was a job for which you were trained in the same way as many other jobs, and, though you developed your own specialty, you did not spend hours imagining yourself an empty teacup, an overflowing bathtub, or a limp flower. It was quite possible to be considering what you would eat for dinner and still turn in a creditable performance." A Quite Remarkable Father, pg. 142


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