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Show Leslie Howard Warns W. W. He's Not As Important as He Thinks He Is A Leslie Howard la WalterWlnchell'a guest columnist faxUr. Winchell Is on vacation and will be absent-with-leave during July. TomoiTOW'a guest column -will be by Tyrone Power. By LESLIE HOWARD Dear Walter: I remember hearing myself say, not. long ago, during an interview, in-terview, that an actor isn't as important to motion pictures as he together. The Golden Gate bridge ie being dramatised, too, although Its acting ability la probably less than either youra or mine. Tour first serious screen offering is, I believe, called "Wake Up and Live." In my first, "Outward Bound," I played a dead man. I think you had the advantage of ma there. - But In your first column you had to be clever. In mine I can be critical It's much easier to be critical than it la to be clever. I've got you there! I am aura your readers and d-mlrera d-mlrera are anxioua that you do not become aucb a great actor that you will forget how to write a great column. Acting la really real-ly a lazy man's Job and you might become spoiled. So I feel like wishing you only moderate success suc-cess aa a profile and a happy return re-turn to your own pasture. The clover In mine haa already been gnawed short. The great tragedy of pictures to an actor trained on the atage la that, when he finally sees himself on the screen and notaa tha mistakes he haa made, there la nothing ha can do about It His bad performance, hia careless speech, haa been embalmed em-balmed In celluloid for the duration dura-tion of the run. Even the leading lady can't be changed which may or may not be a misfortune. J 4ft v"' .el 1$'L: 1 fy bv r j ? '( thinks he is. "The producer uses him." I said -and at the time I meant It "aa a. medium to aell his product A motion picture player," I added. "needs to have TO per cent per- aonality, 20 per cent photographic quality and 10 per cent ability aa an actor." That sounded daring and different dif-ferent and was. I believe, something some-thing near the truth. I think the Interviewer felt that he had had hit money's worth because it didn't cost anything to get to see me and hear me talk. I felt quite smug about having aaid it It occurs to me now that perhaps per-haps a columnist Isn't aa Important to his nawspsper aa he thinks he Is. That goes for me, your today's substitute, snd Just between us columnists, that goea for you, too, Walter. Where would you be if it weren't for your "Girl Friday," and the numerous people who tell youchit-chat quietly and. I must '"say, effectively? Perhaps we all take ourselvea. too seriously, Wslter, In our new professions, you as an actor and I I aa a writer and vice versa. We both know so damned much about everything that we probably miss .Ufli Howard . . Actor not m important im-portant to motion o let .. In your lins you can write a poor column one day you have, at times, I suppose, but the memory mem-ory of it can be erased by a succession suc-cession of other columns mors carefully done. It's not so with a bad performance on the screen. I urge you to consider all this before be-fore you move permanently to Hollywood Hol-lywood and become the victim of autograph collectors. As for me if I am to assume you are Interested I don't Intend to give up acting for columning until I have better evidence than this that I'm equipped for euch work. I have one more picture to do for Warner Bros, before leaving for England. I do hope to produce pictures, plan them in advance and then act In them If necessary. .1 would like to direct because I think the director's part In a good picture pic-ture is generally and generously underestimated. But I have no intention of acting, directing and producing any picture at one and the same time, any more than I expect ex-pect to continue this column any further today or tomorrow or ever. Intermittently youra. LESLIE HOWARD. rience or even acting ability Is of any great value to a man or woman wo-man who haa determined to become a motion picture star. An established estab-lished personality, snd no one will deny you that snd ths ability to speak English, are the moet necessary neces-sary things. It Is a matter of record that you not only apeak English you manufacture It That Is something you and Shakespeare have In very common. Before I get an exaggerated Idea of my Importance as a writer, I should remember that Laura Jean Llbbey and E. P. Roe were writers, too, and before you buy new vests as an aotor, it would be well to recall that Bull Montana Mon-tana and Corse Peyton have been successful actors before you and that an Ice skater haa been made a motion picture star and that the current "sensations of the screen" sre that because of the accident of birth which brought all five of them into the world a lot. A life spent peering nearsightedly near-sightedly across the footlights or into a pretty young thing's eyes ' before the camera or with an ear, even figuratively, posted at a bedroom bed-room door, may, in the long run, ! prove to have been a rather empty life after all. You remember John Barrymore wrote In his first "Autobiography of an Actor," his amazing discovery that "fishing is, after all, a much more Interesting businese." i Of course, nothing I can say, j Walter, will ever discourage you j from continuing to be an actor. ; Nothing will keep me from trying j to write, either, I suppoee, as this i effort ghost-written though it is will prove. The other fellow's house and yard, even though It is a back yard, will always be more interesting than your own or my ! own. In all honesty, I don't see why you can't be as good a movie actor as anyone else all the established I stars particularly included. I doubt If stage training or theater expe- |
