Irene Dunne Discusses Acting Ability

A Thin Argument

It has often been claimed that an actor´s aquaintance with hardships in early life has aided him greatly in portraying the sufferings of a character in poverty. Newspaper men, it is said, make the best newspaper characters when the appear on screen; from the ranks of former boxers graduate the screen´s finest fighting men. The cowboy induced by his attractive bearing and pleasant singing voice storm the heights of Hollywood, is naturally cast in Western pictures. The easy-going individual who has clowned his way through life is the screen´s comedian when he comes to the film capital.

Irene Dunne recently challenged this traditional belief in an interview, ascribing the view to the false sense of logic often at the root of cherished opinions.

"IT is not only false - the idea that the man who has know poverty can best portray poverty," says Miss Dunne. "It is unfair to the genius of the actor. Anyone with innate histrionic ability is characterised principally by his ability to think himself into positions which he has never really occupied.

"The finest actors of my acquaintance, the men and women I admired most for their artistry as actors and actresses, not for their ability to project pleasing personalities upon the stage, were people with a natural genius for feeling themselves into the souls of men and women other than themselves! That quality made actors and actresses of them."

Miss Dunne´s views she substantiates by the greatest stage artists in history. Sir Henry Irving made his debut at 18, following two years in an office as clerk. Sarah Bernhardt entered the Paris Conservatoire at 13, made her first stage appereance at 16. There were no opportunites for extensive life experience in these typical histories. What made Irving and Bernhardt outstanding in their day as portrayers of dramatic roles was not exceptional experience, but an innate capacity to express the moods and situations of others in a way that stamped them as great artistically.

So argues Miss Dunne. She instanced Paul Muni, Charles Laughton, and Spencer Tracy as screen examples. None of them has had an unusual life. Each of them, she says, has proven himself a magnificent actor in diversified roles. Paul Muni has portrayed gangsters, coalminers, scientists, eminent authors: Laughton has been Bligh, Mr. Barrett, the initmitable Ruggles; Tracy fisherman, lynching victim, Catholic priest. In every one of these roles the actors gave what were regarded as superb portraits. Yet Muni has never been a gangster, miner, author or scientist; Laughton never a naval officer or a butler; if Tracy has ever fished, he has not done so professionally, and certainly he had not been lynched!

Her Own Experience

"THEREFORE," declares Miss Dunne, "the argument is thin in the extreme. If an actor merely represents his own character upon the boards or before the cameras he is not acting at all. The actor who acts by the power of his imagination passes from the outward form of a play to the inner content of it. His imagination, inner histrionic genius, and sympathy transcend limitations of experience, so that with the assistance of the author´s written lines he can interpret any role that may be entrusted into his hands."

Obviously the same argument might be applied ot the case of women. Miss Dunne did not mention her own experience, but plainly might have done so. Few favourites of the cinema have triumphed in as many different roles as she.

Realistic drama in "Cimarron," emotion faithfully depicted in "Magnificent Obsession," roles in "Roberta," "Theodora Goes Willd," "Show Boat," "The Awful Truth" - how different they have been.

In reference to "Joy Of Living," Miss Dunne remarked that she believed she preferred playing in comic roles to those that were serious and tensely dramatic.

"When you make a comedy," she said, "you feel that you have done something to make life worthwhile for other people.

"Filmgoers in general do not appreciate that it is as difficult to turn in an outstanding comic performance as an equally good one in tragedy. Comedy is a serious business, paradoxical as it may sound. It is difficult to make people laugh, but it is infinitely worthwhile. You have lengthened their lives, or you have made them happier, and that is important in itself.

"Finally, there are probably more opportunities for actors and actresses to express themselves in comedy than in tragic parts, because a tragic interpretation must be played in accordance with the dramatist´s conception of the role, but by the nature of comedy there is some scope for individuality of reading.

"I don´t want to sound as if I did not appreciate the tragic actor´s genius, or that because my latest film is a comedy no other form matters with me. I merely want to express my conviction that the outstanding comedian requires as unusual a talent as the actor in more serious drama."

(The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday June 21. 1938)