Actors and their lives
Jun. 28th, 2003 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakActors' memoirs are funny things. I remember reading Marlene Dietrich's autobiography for research purposes and being bored to tears. Not because she didn't lead an interesting life - she certainly did - but because she couldn't tell it in an interesting way. Or whoever ghostwrote for her couldn't. Chaplin, on the other hand, could write in an interesting way, so his autobiography wasn't just research duty but something I read more than once.
Post-England, I finished the second volume of Sian Philipps' memoirs, "Public Places". Since I adored her as Livia (best female villain on TV ever, though sometimes I'm inclined to allow Servalan the top spot; not Darla or Lilah, though, no matter how much I love them), I was prejudiced in a positive way, admittedly, but I do think they're well written and worth reading. Both volumes, "Private Faces" about her Welsh childhood and start in the acting profession, and "Public Places", covering mostly the years of her marriage to Peter O'Toole, whom she treats with an exasparated affection and only rarely with a little elegant verbal stiletto. Here's an account from meeting Katherine Hepburn when O'Toole was filming "The Lion in Winter":
"When O'Toole, who was very smitten by her glamorous, unusual presence, was moved to say, 'My God - if I was thirty years younger I'd have given Spencer Tracy a run for his money', we looked at each other, slightly cross-eyed, wondering which of us had been more insulted; Kate for being considered too old to be desirable or me, who, all things being eqal, would have been discarded in favour of a young Kate. It wasn't something to be thought about too closely, so we both smiled sweetly."
An early remark about her wayward husband, when her father died shortly before the premiere of "Lawrence of Arabia" and O'Toole ditched the publicity machine to be with her at her father's funeral, sums up her attitude towards him:
"I was overwhelmed with relief. I adored him in the role of rescuing cavalry. He could be awful but he wasn't mean and at moments of crisis he displayed a shining grace that lightened all around him."
Finally, here's a quote for you Ethan Rayne fans. This one is set after her marriage with O'Toole had ended and she tried out domesticity with Robin Sachs:
"Robin loved sunbathing above everything and while the sun shone he lay beneath it, methodically 'working' on his tan. As I hoovered and struggled to come to grips with domestic arts I'd never before had to try to master except briefly at Stratford - which was a long time ago - I looked malevolently at the oiled, brown body on the balcony. O'Toole's words to me after he'd met Robin crossed my mind. 'Watch out for those small brown eyes,' he'd said, 'and remember, you can't afford him.'"
Post-England, I finished the second volume of Sian Philipps' memoirs, "Public Places". Since I adored her as Livia (best female villain on TV ever, though sometimes I'm inclined to allow Servalan the top spot; not Darla or Lilah, though, no matter how much I love them), I was prejudiced in a positive way, admittedly, but I do think they're well written and worth reading. Both volumes, "Private Faces" about her Welsh childhood and start in the acting profession, and "Public Places", covering mostly the years of her marriage to Peter O'Toole, whom she treats with an exasparated affection and only rarely with a little elegant verbal stiletto. Here's an account from meeting Katherine Hepburn when O'Toole was filming "The Lion in Winter":
"When O'Toole, who was very smitten by her glamorous, unusual presence, was moved to say, 'My God - if I was thirty years younger I'd have given Spencer Tracy a run for his money', we looked at each other, slightly cross-eyed, wondering which of us had been more insulted; Kate for being considered too old to be desirable or me, who, all things being eqal, would have been discarded in favour of a young Kate. It wasn't something to be thought about too closely, so we both smiled sweetly."
An early remark about her wayward husband, when her father died shortly before the premiere of "Lawrence of Arabia" and O'Toole ditched the publicity machine to be with her at her father's funeral, sums up her attitude towards him:
"I was overwhelmed with relief. I adored him in the role of rescuing cavalry. He could be awful but he wasn't mean and at moments of crisis he displayed a shining grace that lightened all around him."
Finally, here's a quote for you Ethan Rayne fans. This one is set after her marriage with O'Toole had ended and she tried out domesticity with Robin Sachs:
"Robin loved sunbathing above everything and while the sun shone he lay beneath it, methodically 'working' on his tan. As I hoovered and struggled to come to grips with domestic arts I'd never before had to try to master except briefly at Stratford - which was a long time ago - I looked malevolently at the oiled, brown body on the balcony. O'Toole's words to me after he'd met Robin crossed my mind. 'Watch out for those small brown eyes,' he'd said, 'and remember, you can't afford him.'"
