An Actor In the Hollywood System

"...he carefully avoided falling into the mill and being ground to the uniform size." In Search of My Father, pg. 21

"If he disapproved of their methods, yet took advantage of them, this was felt by some to be a rather snide way of biting the hand that fed him." In Search of My Father, pg. 22

regarding Leslie and his place in the "star system" and "actors as trademarks:"

"If Leslie was, inevitably, to become a star of this older system of the personality cult he was not really of it—nor had he any attraction to it—in fact, the reverse. He deplored the absurd postures of some successful actors and their vanity about themselves which frequently affected production adversely. He was always modest about himself and disliked affectations in others, or any pretence of grandeur. He expected actors to take advice and listen to the director's interpretation—not supply their own. On the other hand he didn't think actors should be moulded slavishly like plasticine. They should be encouraged to contribute their own personalities—that is what they were employed and paid for—to an intelligent illumination of the roles they were assigned. Primarily actors were interpretive—not creative—though they could create in their plastic natures very vivid effects. But they must not try to capture audiences out of context by being encouraged to perform 'star-turns.' They must remain a disciplined part of the pattern.

"Unfortunately, the basic trouble with many plays and films of the twenties and thirties was that they were constructed for just that purpose—to show off one or two stars to effect and the producers, playwrights and script-writers connived at it, so that the director simply became the tool of the 'star-system.' And of this Leslie strongly disapproved for he knew, instinctively, that actors should not control the system in this way."

In Search of My Father, pg. 32

"Leslie was all too familiar with the bogus veneer of respectability under which people in Hollywood lived while their private affairs were conducted secretly out of town or, at least, out of sight, and he refused to pay lip-service to these insincere moral codes. Hollywood's married stars had always to appear to their fans as happily, almost idyllically, married when frequently the reverse was the case. Their contracts with the principal studios were well-laundered yet peppered with legalistic moral clauses embodying the purest fidelity in matrimonial matters. Having achieved this consensus the studio bosses could sit back satisfied that they had done their utmost on behalf of the League of Decency, Daughters of the American Revolution and the Zionist organisations to all of whom marriage laws were inviolate and, apparently, irreversible. Certainly, nobody must live openly in sin in such a pious community for that was not only bad for Hollywood's moral image but very bad for business as well and could lead to instant termination of contract."


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