The Kingston Daily Freeman from Kingston, New York • Page 45

Sunday Freeman (TEMPO) Sunday, April 27, 3 Kingston's Robert Hutton Home Again Film Star Opts for Movie Scripting lly Tobie itrrw up in I'Inter County only three miles from the Village of Hurley, where George Washington once dropped in to make a speech. She grew up in England only three miles from the British equivalent of Hurley, where Oliver Cromwell once slept. He haunted Kingston moviehouses in his youth; dreamed of being an actor; put in two seasons at the Woodstock Playhouse before Warner Brothers beckoned with a Hollywood contract; established himself as one of tilmdom's most attractive young leading men in such as "Destination 1 okyo, Hollywood Canteen." and Cinderfella," in which he starred with good friend Jerry She never missed a Bette Davis film as a young girl; studied every facet of the theatre from voice dancing to acrobatics; to the stage as an actress in mostly Restoration and classical dramas; decided after marrying him that one actor in the family was enough and began teaching childrens theatre. He is actor Robert Hutton, whose life-long Kingston friends still call him Bruce Winnie, whose Hollywood career spanned war movies and comedies; who has been living in England and acting in foreign films tor the last 12 years; who has ignored author Thomas Wolfe's admonition that an (to Again" and returned to a beautiful, old farm on 1 Sawkill Road to find himself, once again, only miles from Hurley. Sawkill Road Farm Quiet She is his wife, Rosemary, who.

followed him from film locution to film location for almost five years; is more than slightly enthusiastic about the quieter pace of of life since their arrival here some months ago; spends most of her waking hours scripting screenplays with her husband; contributes no small amount of spare time to the Ulster Youth Theater as production coordinator; finds herself once again only three short miles from Hurley, which is similar in atmosphere." she says, to its British counterpart. In the more relaxed lifestyle they now lead, the ebullient Huttons are finding time to become enmeshed in local history "I was unaware of Ulster history all the years 1 lived admits Bob. never saw the Houses of Parliament or Westminster bbey until Bob took me," says Rosemary. Today, a stunning lightbox dominates their living room. Several feet long and painstakingly constructed by hand by both of them working together, it is a miniature duplication of Ulster County's Village of Hurley; took three months to make.

But the Huttons work together more than most couples. "We were together 24 hours a day," says Rosemary, together, writing screenplays." A feature movie they scripted was produced in England last year, released under the title of "Persecution," and starred Lana Turner and Irevor Howard, not her screenplay on which they collaborated is now in Hollywood; has an excellent chance of becoming a television "Movie of the Week." While Robert Hutton has no intention of giving up acting now. he eventually hopes that movie scripting will become the "one anil only thing in his life. however, he and Rosemary agree that original stories and screenplays are "tough to since most producers "think it less of a risk to buy best seller books," and since most story editors have their own stable of writers. Even so.

Bob (who eventually came to realize he had "been away long and Rosemary (who is now totally used to American living) will continue their writing for, in the old Roach farm on the Sawkill. they have found that "quiet sought by all writers. "To have something of my very own to do. since we were together so Rosemary, who started a drama department in a school in her native England, is now deeply involved in the Ulster Youth Theater. She finds youngsters here "very adult to talk and "far less formal" than English children.

And she thinks theatre should be emphasized in the schools; that "drama is very necessary tor all children. "Teachers would find it easier to teach Shakespeare," she's convinced, "if instead of making students read his pfcys, they allowed them to act them. It would be a marvelous way for children to learn history through the costumes and speech patterns of the period. Drama teaches youngsters to have confidence in the way they sound and the way they U.k and. later in life, that visual and audial confidence can make a good impression in looking for a job and also help them on every other level of She thinks "most children can act; doesn beheve that "anybody can be taught to be an actor can only be taught to discipline acting talent and to usebody and breath properK Robert Hutton, a product ol drama schiK.l.

agrees. Drama school at least put me up on the stage, he says, "but my irst director at Warners hauled me out of school; me unlearn all the bad things I'd learned there; told me to stop acting like someonr else there and mywlt was rialr Steve McQueen IS Steve McQueen; John Wayne Is Wavne; Cary Grant has always BEEN ary THE WORKING HUTTON PAIR and Rosemary Ulster Youth Theater youngsters are a "delight to work with as says Rosemary, fantasy is important to them and they have a total facility of being able to forget themselves and become somebody think like somebody Says Bob, who has watched Youth Theater rehearse without any scenery whatsoever; tell a little girl she's behind a bush and, even though there's no bush there, she IS behind a bush." Adds Rosemary: "Adult actors working without scenery must have chalk marks on the floor to indicate furniture, but tell a child a table here or a chair there he wouldn't walk through them, chalk marks or not." Children are also the best audiences, in her opinion. "'They have such imagination. so easy to wrap them up in something; make them forget everything around them." Theater Youngsters Delight to Work With' "1 try and explain that no play can be put on without the people who play the smallest part, as well as the people who play the largest she says. "I tell them it's much.

much, much more difficult to be good in a small part of four lines than in a role in which you have the whole of the play to work with; that every actor has to learn that the part has to go to the 'physically right that abilities have nothing to do with it; that if the character is a short blonde, the role be played by a tall brunette." The petitest of the petite, very brunette and (just as coworker Bill Skilling describes her) "a cross between A'ivien Leigh and Jennifer learned to accept turn-doivns as an actress; missed out on a part in the film because co-producers Peter Falk and John Cassavetes were casting only tall, lanky, ultra mod British "birds." It the Huttons work together more than most couples, they also seem to agree on the basics more than most. Both are night people sometimes work all through the night on scripts. Both feel films today are "too prefer the more entertain ingmovies of the past, dmitted fans of Richard Nixon, they feel Watergate would have been totally differently by the British never allowed to blow up into such a big thing." Both treasure their strong friendship with Shokan's "first lady of radio," Mary Margaret McBride and, says Rosemary, "I would like to do what she does and do it as well." Of only one thing did we find them in disagreement. His tavorite movie of all time is "The Third Man;" hers is "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Go Home Again," wrote Thomas Wolfe, but actor Robert Hutton (who once slated to play novelist in a movie that was never made) has indeed come home again is glad he did. And if the boyish youthfulness and strmgbean physique that endeared him to moviegoers in Canteen" and "Destination Tokyo" has matured into a more masculine handsomeness, so, too, have all those leading ladies been replaced by Rosemary, as much "at home" in the Colonies as she was under the Crown..