Leaving Home

"Leslie was always permanently gloomy about leaving home—or travelling at all which he hated—and he frequently referred to 'the awful annual exodus' to which he had to submit himself to earn a living. And he, equally, talked of being bored, as other actors did, with long runs. At the same time, he was quite well paid for his boredom. Certainly his first ten years as an actor had been a hard slog, and he was in and out of plays with, at times, sickening regularity, sometimes two or three a year. He then complained when they didn't run, and, later when they did, became bored with their constant repetition. That was where writers, he felt, had it all over actors: they didn't go on repeating the same lines, they wrote different ones. And directors preserved their sanity by directing different plays." In Search of My Father, pg. 36


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