Less isn’t always more for some actors

DOUGLAS. Oscar-worthy portrayal in “Lust for Life.” photo: theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com

Some actors act with their chin, while others use their neck. They focus their dramatic intensity on those body parts, the way Charlton Heston and Burt Lancaster do. They either shout or growl their lines.

Another kind of actor I dislike is the shouter, like William Holden. Heston had both bad habits—he is either stiff as marble or wooden, even when portraying larger-than-life characters like Moses, Ben Hur, Michelangelo and Andrew Jackson. So, when he won an Oscar for “Ben Hur,” I lost respect for the Academy—moreso when it honored Grace Kelly for “Country Girl” over Judy Garland’s fabulous sing-act-and-dance act in “A Star is Born.”

Besides, I think it was Bing Crosby who came off best in “Country Girl”—neither Kelly nor William Holden came close to his level of acting!

The overrated Holden was a “chin” actor who was always predictable and stiff. Moreover, he was a “shouter.” He may have been an Adonis in his youth, but in his old age, he slurred his lines and looked like the alcoholic he was!

Painter

Kirk Douglas was superb as Vincent Van Gogh in “Lust for Life,” but it was Anthony Quinn who brought home a Supporting Actor Oscar for portraying the painter, Gauguin. The former was OA in many of his movies, especially when he co-starred with the equally flamboyant Burt Lancaster in “Gunfight at the OK Corral,” in which each actor was as over-the-top as the other! They were so bad that Rhonda Fleming looked good beside them!

Douglas never won an Academy Award, though he may have deserved one for “Lust for Life.” He was also good in “The Bad and the Beautiful.”

Scene-stealer

Lana Turner was effective as the hedonist daughter of The Great Profile, but the scene-stealer in that film was the luminously beautiful Elaine Stewart, who is best remembered in “Young Bess” as Anne Boleyn and in “Brigadoon” opposite Gene Kelly.

John Carradine was another “chin” actor. On the other hand, we also have the so-called “neck” actresses, represented by the likes of Jennifer Jones, Dorothy Malone and Natalie Wood.

Jones won a Best Actress trophy for “The Song of St. Bernadette,” while Malone got an undeserved Oscar for “Written in the Wind.”

Wood tried to get an Oscar for “Splendor in the Grass” and “West Side Story.” Alas, her neck acting wasn’t good enough for the members of the Academy! I was so happy—and, my respect for the Academy was revived.