The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 92

Pag Twelve Has Polish and Sophistication Holbrook Blinn Brought the Benefits of Screen Technique Back to the Legitimate Stage By George Halasz r--5TT HE MDE bis first appearance on any stage at the tender ate of six. Cf the play no one seems to kcow cure than that its title was "The Streets of London Indeed it seems pretty certain that if it were not for the fact that it was the first play in which Holbrook Blinn first acted, even its would be forgotten. Holbrook Blinn remembers that he had to walk on to the since twice or three times in the course of the evening, had to yell, "Hooray! Hooray!" or something equally irtrortanr, at the top of his voice several times, and then wnlk off again. The encasement did not last for long. Master Blinn temporarily rave up his stags career and returned to school.

fined outwardly, of course and since Holbrook Blinn ia really the personification of what people are wont to' call worldliness, the adjective stuck to him. But he does not like to be labeled as such. He does not because he is a versatile actor, not one who can play only one type of roles. So he welcomed the opportunity to play in Molnar's "The Play's the Thing," his present starring vehicle. In this play he portrays a dramatist, clever and witty, worldly and suave said to be Molnar himself.

The play has been running now for more than eighteen months, and, in all probability, -it will run for another year or so. Holbrook Blinn is no longer the "perfect bad man." However great his success in this comedy may be, Blinn is not completely satisfied. And one can very well understand why he isn't. To play three roles for nine years is an ordeal. No one who has And do not forget that Holbrook Blinn is not a movie actor.

To hear the movies praised by a cinema star is not out of the ordinary. But to hear a legitimate star ay kind words about the films, why, that's different. He was born in San Francisco, in 1872. His mother was Nellie Holbrook, an actress of ability, his father, Ail this happened, half a century aeo. Today, fifty years later, he is one of the greatest actors of America.

"Fifty years! he mused. "They eerr: like eighty. And still I feel like novice in the Which statement seems to be just a bit exaggerated. At IcaM the second part of it, that about feeling like a nov-ioe. Of course, it only seems se.

No one can tell just how be feels. Bat when one looks at Holbrook Biinn, or rather hen one watches him play-inc it certainly seems to be exaggerated. For there is hard-tf another actor in America today more suave, more pol-tvhed, more sophisticated (in the finest sense of the wordi thaa Holbrook Blinn. And afeese art characteristics no novice can possibly own. To acquire those features one aeeds training, technique, experience.

And only the years oaa bring one these requisites. Holbrook Blinn, to speak in the parlance of the theater, ia one of the biggest box office attractions in the country. He stages toe plays be appears in himself, lie knows the tricks of the stage, the little tricks of the profession that do layman can ever observe for tney are apparently very insignificant, perhaps better than any body else. At least as well as the next fellow. His naracterizations are perfect in themselves.

Yet he is not isrumed to admit that thctc are things he has learned very recently. In fact, he is constantly aJJuf new shades, new ttists tc h's ait. (Perhaps he referred to when he said never done this knows how terrible it is. But -such are the customs and the contracts that he is forced to do it. "We have no repertory theaters here in America," says he, a little sadly, "and so we just have to go on.

But I am going to make a little repertory of my own. Next year I am scheduled to appear on the coast, and I am going to revive two of my old plays, giving them alternately with 'The Play's the "You see, when you are appearing in a good play, it Is not so bad to play it for years. But when you play a bad one! And how many bad plays there are which run for years! "This is the kind of play I like to act in, this 'Play's the But there is only one Molnar, alas." Ten years ago, Holbrook Blinn had a company of his own. He leased the Princess Theater and he offered there one-acters, the kind of plays the celebrated Grand Guignol Players in Paris have made popular. At the Princess Blinn had the time of his life.

But the war came and so he gave it up. But the repertory theater is still one of his favorite ideas. He lives in his country house, Journey's End, at Croton-on-the-Hudson, and commutes when he is playing in New York. He is always meticulously dressed indeed, he is one of the best dressed men in America. (Perhaps that is one of the reasons why he is so very successful and so well liked in London.) His favorite recreations are riding, tennis, painting, farming and well, collecting Napoleana.

j4 I 1. I mum m. wmammmimim vr iincm -Mam mi writ mi -aTirmirrrrnr riwal This last one sounds very fascinating. Holbrook Blinn is one of the greatest authorities on the great emperor of the French. In 1903 he pIayed NapoIeon in pIay called 'The Duchess of Dantzig." To bring the "little corporal" faithfully to life on the stage he began to study closely the Corsican's adventures and exploits.

And he presented a portrayal of the hero that has not been equaled since. For the past quarter of century he has been collecting Napoleana. He smokes cigarettes, likes to take a nap after the matinee and likes to read on the trains that take him to New York and back again to Journey's End. He prefers biography to fiction. He Is an excellent conversationalist, has blue eyes and Tikes the theater.

In fact, he adores it He hates bad plays and bad actors. He Is the only man on the American stage whq knows how to pronounce French names and words cor. rectly. Holhrouk Blinn Colonel Charles H. Blinn, surveyor of San Francisco.

As said at the beginning of this article, Master Blinn made his first appearance on the stage at the age of six but back he went to school again after the engagement of "The Streets of London" was terminated, and he studied until he was twenty-one. He studied at the Stanford University, and came East in the year 1892. On the second of January, 1893, he made his first New York appearance at the Broadway Theater in a play called "The New South." To enumerate all the plays he acted in since 1893 would require a great deal of space and yet it would not mean much. Titles only, mostly. Titles alone do not mark a man's career.

Unless he is an Englishman and he is made a knight by the king. In 1920 he appeared in a piece called "The Bad Man." The play was a great hit and ran for three years. In 1924, he was cast as the villain in "The Dove," and he was playing that melodrama for another three years. Soon everybody was talking of him as "the perfect villain." Of course, it Is ridiculous to refer to him as the prototype of the bad man. He Is not tbat But fhero popular legend tbat villains are utterly polished and re be was- it li a novice.) And he is not afraid to say so.

Of course this is just another sign that he is an exceptional actor. Only little men consider themselves infallible and rerfect. The great know that they will never be perfect. Holbrook Blinn admits that he has learned a great in tru movies. In this regard he is unique.

He is probably the only legitimate star who does not speak disparagingly cf the moving pictures and Hollywood. "Nr how accomplished one may be on the tagi," he sas, "when one gets in front of the moving picture camera, he faces an entirely new world. He has to adapt himself to new circumstances. And when one is directed by a director of ability of course, I speak now-only of who are not mere automatons one can learn a great many things that may be used on the stage to excellent advantage. "The most important thing a legitimate actor can leare from the movies is restraint The camera registers and reprtiiaces gestures and movements more rapidly than does the human eye.

Slower gestures bring out 'the suspenst more clearty, heighten the effects. There are sew angles in the movies, because the camera may be placed anywhere but you can't move the audience in a tVstec Applying these principles to the stag; one can eokrt Dotal anf Intercede.