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Show Importance of kind words to young actors By Ruth Thompson You hear the sentence often from nominees for Oscar and Tony awards: "It isn't the winning win-ning that counts, it's the recognition rec-ognition by my peers." But there is one kind of recognition rec-ognition that counts even more: the combination of kind words and useful examples from an older actor of reknown. It can happen at many stages. stag-es. Kevin Dobson, now of CBS's "Shannon," got his inspiration just as he was about to give up acting. Alley Mills, currently seen Mondays in CBS's "Making the Grade," already had a sure stage technique but was shaky about her first television televi-sion job (in "The Associates") when she got her reassurance. Anthony Andrews was already star billed (in the television tele-vision series "Danger, UXB") when an evening's talk about theater and its people "gave me a sense of acting history and of being part of it in a way I have never felt before." Kevin Dobson tried acting at his sister's urging and got a role on stage in "The Impossible Impossi-ble Years," which starred Tom Ewell. Dobson recalls: "One day I went along to hear Tom talk to some students about what acting meant to him. He made it so clear, I realized I felt the same way. Then I would watch him on stage and he would give me tips on how to get the feel of each audience and vary the timing accordingly." accord-ingly." Alley Mills says she's telling tell-ing no tales out-of-school by mentioning that Wilfrid Hyde-White Hyde-White doesn't bother to learn lines, that he follows the John Barrymore tradition of having hav-ing them scattered around -with the props. L 3 Jv I i Alley Mills "He would shuffle a stack of papers and there would be his lines. Once I wore some pinned to me. It's his thing, I think it amuses him... and he's such a good actor it always works. I adore him. Everybody Every-body does." Oh, Alley will continue to memorize her scripts, but she intends to copy other Hyde-White Hyde-White characteristics. "Because he is such a gentleman gentle-man he is always kind at the same time he is being a thorough thor-ough professional." Anthony Andrews says his greatest memory happened in Venice when "Brideshead Revisited" (the recent PBS series) was filming on location with Andrews as Sebastian and Sir Laurence Olivier as his father. "Larry was not very well but he insisted we dine together togeth-er just the same. We demolished demol-ished several bottles of wine on a beautiful summer evening eve-ning and he told me wonderful stories about his introduction to films, about his 'Henry V,' and about theater. "Imagine. Me sitting there with Larry Olivier whom I've always admired. It was a kind of pinnacle for me." |
