Word: arliss
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...from Harvard how bad a Scotch comedian could be, that a burr was nothing more than another reason for seeing Doctor Means. Fyffe is a consummate actor, product of the English school of generous gesture. He is as far removed from American vaudeville standards as Ruth Draper or George Arliss. Last night he gave three portraits: an old man, a sailor, and a mildly intoxicated inciter of the proletariat. These are fat material, and Fyffe has brought to them a rollicking voice that was born in the sea chanty rather than the inhaled, lyric school of voice culture...
...George Arliss with subdued strength plays Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice" this week at the Plymouth. He has throttled down the weeping and wildly gesticulating Shylocks to his own restrained taste. Moderation is born of the knowledge that orating Shylocks have long lain in the alley, that age's resignation to evil is in Shylock's limbs, and that this play is leaving the category of the one-part show. When Lorenzo has flown with Jessica and the old man knocks at the door of his house, there is no crescendo from wonder to premonition to fear to sorrow...
What must have been the feelings of George Arliss, famed actor in The Green Goddess, Old English, The Merchant of Venice, frequent benefactor of needy actors, and councilor of the Actors' Equity Association when he read last week two communications addressed to the last named organization and signed by 60 actors and actresses. The purport of these epistles was rudely apparent; the 60 actors and actresses wished Mr. Arliss, long one of the major ornaments of the U. S. stage, to be excluded from holding office in Equity because he is a citizen of Great Britain...
True, foreign actors are almost always forbidden to act in England. True also that the 60 signers did not have enough influence to cause Mr. Arliss to resign from Equity. Yet it must have been painful for Mr. Arliss to realize that some at least of his ungrateful confreres would go far into the past and repay kindness with spite in the foolish effort to requite their grudge against his country...
...eloped with a youth of an opposing race, frantic because he could not extract the pound of flesh which was the price of his loans to one Bassanio, is not one for starched shirts and diamond dignity. The demeanor of flawless respectability which has so often served able Actor Arliss well now plays him false. He finds it difficult to add writhing to his words as they eject ". . . and spit upon my Jewish gaberdine." He finds it difficult to scream "My daughter, my ducat...