Abstract
Chapter 7 clarifies the vision of Modern acting formulated by Academy director Charles Jehlinger, who led the school from 1900 to his death in 1952. Known in the 1930s and 1940s as the acting school that launched Spencer Tracy, Lauren Bacall, and other stars, its graduates today include John Cassavetes, Robert Redford, and Jessica Chastain. To illustrate the Modern acting strategies circulated at the Academy, the chapter examines notes from Jehlinger’s classes, material in an acting manual by Academy instructor Aristide D’Angelo, and reports by Academy graduates, who compare Jehlinger’s to Stanislavsky’s approach for many reasons, including both teachers’ emphasis on preparation that allows actors to set aside convention and personal experiences in order to do what the character would do in a specific situation.
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Notes
- 1.
Gerard Raymond, “125 Years and Counting: The American Academy of Dramatic Arts Celebrates a Special Anniversary,” Backstage (November 26/December 2, 2009): 6. The AFI’s list of “50 Greatest American Screen Legends” includes deceased actors and living performers whose first screen appearance was before 1951.
- 2.
The Academy includes actors who studied for one or two years in its list of Academy actors.
- 3.
James Robert Parish, The Cinema of Edward G. Robinson (New York: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1972), 17.
- 4.
Qtd. in ibid., 19.
- 5.
Qtd. in Doug Tomlinson, ed., Actors on Acting for the Screen (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994), 471–472.
- 6.
Qtd. in ibid., 472.
- 7.
Juliet Benita Colman, Ronald Colman: A Very Private Person (New York: William Morrow, 1975), 44.
- 8.
William Powell, “Personal Quotes,” Internet Movie Database, accessed January 24, 2016, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001635/bio.
- 9.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the Yale Drama School, the University of Washington, and the Goodman Memorial Theatre in Chicago had acting programs. In Los Angeles, acting courses were offered by: the Bliss Hayden School, the El Capitan College of Theatre, the Marta Oatman School, the Max Reinhardt Theatre Workshop, and the Neely Dixon Dramatic School.
- 10.
Homer Dickens, “The American Academy of Dramatic Arts,” Films in Review (December 1959): 597, 598.
- 11.
John Allen, “Seventy-Five Years of the American Academy,” New York Herald Tribune, December 6, 1959.
- 12.
“Barker on Stanislofsky (sic),” New York Times, March 21, 1915.
- 13.
Ibid.; Eleanor Cody Gould, “Jehlinger in Rehearsal: Notes Transcribed from Classes, 1918–1952,” 1968, American Academy of Dramatic Arts Papers, New York. Gould’s document does not have page numbers.
- 14.
Gould, “Jehlinger in Rehearsal.”
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Ibid.
- 18.
Ibid.
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Ibid.
- 22.
“Dramatic Arts School Graduates 44 Pupils,” New York Times, March 17, 1931; “Dramatic Art Class of 70 is Graduated,” New York Times, March 15, 1938.
- 23.
Pageant Magazine, January 1946, “Actors and Actresses Training to 1959” clipping file, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA.
- 24.
See Hume Cronyn, A Terrible Liar: A Memoir (New York: William Morrow, 1991), 95; see Kirk Douglas, The Ragman’s Son: An Autobiography (New York: Pocket Books, 1988), 65.
- 25.
Lawrence Langer, “Students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts Are Told: Mean More Than You Say,” Theatre Arts (July 1953): 29; see Helen Krich Chinoy, The Group Theatre: Passion, Politics, and Performance in the Depression Era (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 82; D’Angelo was later married to actor Mae Madison from 1935 to 1960.
- 26.
Jim Kirkwood, “A Report on Charles Jehlinger: The Man, The Teacher: Seminar in Theories of Acting,” November 8, 1960, American Academy of Dramatic Arts Papers, New York. Kirkwood explains that in his view, and based on his conversations with other graduates, D’Angelo’s book provides the best view of Jehlinger’s ideas. The edition of D’Angelo’s book that is still available was published in 1941; its copyright date is 1939.
- 27.
Aristide D’Angelo, The Actor Creates (New York: Samuel French, 1941), vii, 6, 4.
- 28.
Ibid., 43.
- 29.
Ibid., 11, 46.
- 30.
Ibid., 14.
- 31.
Ibid., 25.
- 32.
Gould, “Jehlinger in Rehearsal.”
- 33.
Ibid.
- 34.
D’Angelo, The Actor Creates, 24.
- 35.
Ibid., 23.
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
Ibid., 61.
- 38.
Ibid., 61–62.
- 39.
Ibid., 54.
- 40.
Ibid., 56.
- 41.
Ibid., 60.
- 42.
Ibid., 59.
- 43.
Ibid., 59, 60.
- 44.
Langer, “Students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts,” 28.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Ibid., 29.
- 47.
Bernard Kates, Letter to Frances Fuller, May 1, 1956, American Academy of Dramatic Arts Papers, New York, 1.
- 48.
Ibid., 5.
- 49.
Ibid., 2.
- 50.
Allen, “Seventy-Five Years of the American Academy.”
- 51.
Kates, Letter to Frances Fuller, 2, 5, 4, 3.
- 52.
Cronyn, A Terrible Liar, 95.
- 53.
Ibid.
- 54.
Douglas, The Ragman’s Son, 74, 65.
- 55.
Ibid., 76.
- 56.
Ibid.
- 57.
Cronyn, A Terrible Liar, 90.
- 58.
Douglas, The Ragman’s Son, 59.
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Baron, C. (2016). The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In: Modern Acting. Palgrave Studies in Screen Industries and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40655-2_7
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