The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 80

Page Thirteen A Without ctress emperament Alice Brady, a True Daughter of the Theater, Who Is Equally at Home in Light Opera, Comedy or Serious Drama, Never Fusses About the Size of Her Dressing Room or Her Name in Electric Lights or Any of the Other Little Worries That Beset a Star ft a 1 Alice Brady She was still undecided whether to be a prima donna or a dramatic actress when she was invited by the Fair.ous Players Company to become a movie star. For the next three years she was one of the leading stars of the silver screen and at that time was recognized as one of the "Big Six" a group classification given to the six most popular actresses in the movies. During her last year with the Famous Players her salary was $5,000 a week. In JS18 she returned to the stage, appearing the Ftar of "Forever After." Subsequently she appeared in a long list of plays, most of which are already fcrto.ttn, fcr reasons enumerated above. Those which still in the memory are "Zander the Great," "Bride of the Lamb" and a revival of the Bernstein drama.

"The Thief," in which she was co-starred with Lionel AtwilL In Hurlbut's "Bride of the Lamb" she gave what critics considered her greatest emotional Following that, producers were trying to star her in rcles similar to the one she portrayed in that drama, a religious fanatic. But without success at least as as the plays were concerned. Alice Brady is a remarkable "study." She memorizes of those actresses, alas so rare, who are not ashamed to appear in four, or even five different plays in the course of a single season. She loves the stage, the theater is in her blood. She is the daughter of William A.

Brady, the famous producer, and his first wife. Rose Marie Rene, a French actress whom "Old Bill" Brady met in his young days. Alice was born in New York, and her mother died when the girl was only two years old. From her mother she inherited her dark complexion that is so characteristic of her. And perhaps her grace.

As she herself says: "I am the daughter of an Irish father and a French mother; it is probable that is why it is comparatively easy for me to be a comedienne." She wanted to be an actress in her childhood, when she was studying in a convent. But her father thought it would be wiser for her to become an opera singer for Alice had a lyric soprano voice of singular sweetness and high range. So the girl went to Boston to study-there at the Conservatory of Music under Theodora Irvine. She made her first stage appearance in 1911, in an operetta called "The Balkan Princess." When the cperctta opened in New Haven for a try-out, she was billed on the program as Mary Rose an Americanization of her late mother's given names. But when the operetta came to New York a few weeks later and opened at the old Herald Square Theater, there were no efforts made to conceal her true identity.

Later that season she appeared in a revival of and then in other Gilbert and Sullivan operas. She played no leading roles but important ones. Then she tried her hands at the legitimate drtma and played Meg in "Little Women" and the lead in a comedy entitled "The Things That Count." Again she returned to light opera and sane leading roles with DeWoif Hopper in "The Mikado," "Iolanthe," "Pinafore," "The Pirates of Penzance" and others, all in all, in nine of the Savoyards' operas. Then once more she deserted the singing stage and appeared as leading woman in "Spinners" at the Playhouse. was r.cw but in By George Halasz NO OTHER actress of importance on the American stage has achieved such outstanding success in so.

many different mediums of the theater as has Alice Brady. She has been singing in light opera with success, appearing in comedy, farce and musical comedy with success. If any actress deserves the adjective "versatile," Alice Brady is certainly the one. But so it seems to at least one writer of things theatrical versatility alone is not an extraordinarily great achievement. After all, the genuine actor should be capable of portraying various characters in divers moods.

All the great actors and actresses of the past and the present were and are easily at home in all the mediums of the theater. For this is, so I think, the one criterion by which the greatness or insignificance of a player can be judged. Of course there is, generally, one medium in which the particular actor achieves greatness." But to be able to play in only one medium, to be a "type" actor in other words is no sign of great talent. Consequently, Alice Brady achieves singular importance when she is regarded as an unusually versatile actress who is not only relatively at her best in the so-called drawing room comedy, but who is absolutely excellent in this particular branch of dramatic literature. She is, as Joseph Wood Kruttrh of The Nation so adroitly phrased it, "the most accomplished American interpreter of the spirit of polite comedy." And perhaps because she is the best interpreter of such roles, she has never yet had one quite worthy of her talents.

Whether this is so because she and her managers are unfortunate in the selections of plays or because there simply does not exist such a play, remains a debatable question. Three seasons ago, Vincent Lawrence's "Sour Grapes" seemed to have brought forth the best in her for one and a half extraordinarily fine acts it seemed Alice Brady had found "the" play. And so It seems when one sees her In her current starring vehicle, "A Most Immoral But only for a while. To quote Mr. Krutch once more, "she exists as a constant challenge to our playwrights." Where is the author to accept the challenge? But whatever be the play in which she appears, she permeates it so thoroughly with her suavity, grace, charm and polish that even the poorest of them seems to be better than it actually is.

This Is the most complete compliment one can possibly pay her. She is not a tempcranrental'actrcss. She does not fly itito fits of rage when a play ot hers fails and Bhe is one her parts quickly. When "A Most Immoral be irg rehearsed, she threw away her "part" at the ithcars.il. She knew already every comma.

She to play. Particularly, she likes to create roles. She is immensely absorbed in her new parts after the tenth performance or so she loses ir.tere: thorn. But no member of the audience can pes-ib'; serve this. She plays her roles for the hundredth just as excellently as on the opening night.

Her dressing room table is always cluttered v.ith manuscripts of new plays. She is forever looking far "the play." She makes no fusses about dressing room. r.o complaints about the size of the type in billing. Sh? just does her job quietly and efficiently. When her latest comedy opened, the scenery v.as hauled to the theater on the morning of the premiere.

There were no last-minute rehearsals. Other stars would have insisted upon an all-night dress rehearsal to "get the feel of the theater." Alice Brady opened as complacently as if she was playing a one-night stand say, in Wilkcs-Barre, Pennsylvania. 1.