Word: munis
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...boys of Shakespeare's theatre played women, so the boys of the Yiddish theatre have for centuries played old men. Muni made his stage debut at the age of eleven in Cleveland, as an old man in a sketch called Two Corpses at Breakfast. He took to the stage as naturally as a grocer's son takes to the counter. But his parents had other ambitions for him. To the Jews of that generation any kind of musician was higher in the social scale than an actor. Paul was to be a violinist. He took his lessons dutifully...
...When Muni was 18 he was making an average of $15 a week. He was a success. In 1917 he showed up on Manhattan's lower East Side where he was soon spotted and signed up by Maurice Schwartz of the Yiddish Art Theatre. For seven years Muni plugged hard at his work. In 1926 Sam Harris gave him the lead in the play We Americans. The play was a hit and Muni's future was virtually assured. Success did not change him much. He did not gamble or drink or imitate the ways of the Gentiles...
Worrier. No other actor in Hollywood worries so much about his work as Paul Muni. He believes that in order to give a fine performance he must hypnotize himself into the mood of the role. On the set he does not laugh or tell stories or play mumblety-peg, as other actors do to while away the intervals of their work. He sits apart brooding. Before taking a role he studies all the research which the writers used in preparing the script. Once he went to a Warner Brothers producer and complained: "I don't understand this role...
...Muni set the second most important person is Mrs. Muni. If she likes a "take" she nods. If not, she shakes her head and even though Muni and the director are satisfied, the scene is done over...
...Muni is dreamy, sensitive, unpractical. When he bought a ranch in San Fernando Valley he mistook the irrigation stand-pipes for flower pots and planted geraniums in them. When the water was turned on, the geraniums flew into the air. He sold the ranch last spring for a hilltop home in Palos Verde, where he swims in his pool, plays with his dog and looks through a telescope at ships on the Pacific. He is never seen in Hollywood nightspots and takes no part in actors' disputes. He attended the mass meeting of the Screen Actors Guild last...