The Story of My Life: Recollections and ReflectionsTerry, Ellen
General
The Story of My Life: Recollections and Reflections
Terry, Ellen
Actresses -- Great Britain -- Biography; Terry, Ellen, Dame, 1847-1928
It is because of Teddy that "Eugene Aram" is associated in my mind with
one of the most beautiful sights upon the stage that I ever saw in my
life. He was about ten or eleven at the time, and as he tied up the
stage roses, his cheeks, untouched by rouge, put the reddest of them to
shame! He was so graceful and natural; he spoke his lines with ease, and
smiled all over his face! "A born actor!" I said, although Joey was my
son. Whenever I think of him in that stage garden, I weep for pride, and
for sorrow, too, because before he was thirty my son had left the
stage--he who had it all in him. I have good reason to be proud of what
he has done since, but I regret the lost actor _always_.
Henry Irving could not at first keep away from melancholy pieces.
Henrietta Maria was another sad part for me--but I used to play it well,
except when I cried too much in the last act. The play had been one of
the Bateman productions, and I had seen Miss Isabel Bateman as Henrietta
Maria and liked her, although I could not find it possible to follow her
example and play the part with a French accent! I constantly catch
myself saying of Henry Irving, "That is by far the best thing that he
ever did." I could say it of some things in "Charles I."--of the way he
gave up his sword to Cromwell, of the way he came into the room in the
last act and shut the door behind him. It was not a man coming on to a
stage to meet some one. It was a king going to the scaffold, quietly,
unobtrusively, and courageously. However often I played that scene with
him, I knew that when he first came on he was not aware of my presence
nor of any _earthly_ presence: he seemed to be already in heaven.
Much has been said of his "make-up" as Charles I. Edwin Long painted him
a triptych of Vandyck heads, which he always had in his dressing-room,
and which is now in my possession. He used to come on to the stage
looking precisely like the Vandyck portraits, but not because he had
been busy building up his face with wig-paste and similar atrocities.
His make-up in this, as in other parts, was the process of _assisting
subtly and surely the expression from within_. It was elastic, and never
hampered him. It changed with the expression. As Charles, he was
assisted by Nature, who had given him the most beautiful Stuart hands,
but his clothes most actors would have consigned to the dust-bin! Before
we had done with Charles I.--we played it together for the last time in
1902--these clothes were really threadbare. Yet he looked in them every
inch a king.
His care of detail may be judged from the fact that in the last act his
wig was not only grayer, but had far less hair in it. I should hardly
think it necessary to mention this if I had not noticed how many actors
seem to think that age may be procured by the simple expedient of
dipping their heads, covered with mats of flourishing hair, into a
flour-barrel!
Unlike most stage kings, he never seemed to be _assuming_ dignity. He
was very, very simple.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account