Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
American actor and art educator who portrayed Prince Albert on Broadway and lectures annually on art at over 200 colleges.
On the island
Eight records
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08You came to Europe as a boy, didn't you?
I came actually as a young man. I was uh at uh I saved my money and bought it one of those glorious trips, like see twelve countries in twelve minutes. And there were no aeroplanes, so you know we saw most of it from the train window. But it was a terribly exciting experience for me because I'm very visually minded and I knew every work of art before I came. So I think anybody who'd been near me would have heard nothing but, oh, that's it. So that's what it looks like.
Presenter asks
1:46How did the theater come into your life?
Well, I I have a suspicion vaguely through the Glee Club. The thing of performing I liked. So while I was here at the Courtold I met some people who worked at the Gate Theatre and I went down and met Norman Marshall. And Norman gave me a walk on part as a policeman in a play called Chicago.
Presenter asks
2:30This was a quick success, wasn't it?
Yes, it was. It took me about five years to live up to.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
You of course take a great interest in the art world. You do a lot of committee work in American museums and foundations. What led you to that?
I um that goes really back to to my debt to the President, President Roosevelt. Because I feel that the actor, if he is an important actor in the public's mind, that part of his debt to himself, particularly and to his public, is to be a public servant and to do something good. The one thing I knew before I became an actor was the history of man through his art. And in America we were a nation, quite honestly, of blind people. Of actually musically we're terribly aware, but we're still just learning how to open our eyes and see.
Presenter asks
3:53You lecture each year on art. What do you lecture on?
I go every single year, usually in the month month of February. I should have my head examined. Because it's the worst month in America from top to bottom, weather-wise, and I fly. But I have lectured in 200 colleges in about 350 different cities. I lecture on Van Gogh. I lecture on thing called Three American Voices — Walt Whitman and Tennessee Williams and Whistler. I lecture on the American spirit. And I feel that part of my job is to interest the American people in themselves culturally.
“I came actually as a young man. I was uh at uh I saved my money and bought it one of those glorious trips, like see twelve countries in twelve minutes. And there were no aeroplanes, so you know we saw most of it from the train window. But it was a terribly exciting experience for me because I'm very visually minded and I knew every work of art before I came.”
“Well, I I have a suspicion vaguely through the Glee Club. The thing of performing I liked.”
“It took me about five years to live up to.”
“I feel that the actor, if he is an important actor in the public's mind, that part of his debt to himself, particularly and to his public, is to be a public servant and to do something good.”