The Madge Bellamy Acting Workshop
by Robert J. AvrechA few years ago, I was up in Toronto, on location for Within These Walls, a film the Academy Award winning actress Ellen Burstyn, acting as producer and star, asked me to write. Ellen, one of the great Hollywood actresses—past and present—discovered the true story and immediately realized its potential as a powerful and entertaining film. The challenge of playing a hardened murderess—redeemed by training dogs for the disabled—greatly appealed to Ms. Burstyn.
Silent Star Madge Bellamy
During the first week of production, one of the featured actresses—not Ellen—knocked on my hotel door and asked if she could discuss her role with me.
Of course I sat down with the actress—a recognized and respected talent—and we discussed her role, the character’s history, motivation, and dramatic arc. The actress relentlessly probed every single line of dialog. She challenged me to defend all the hard decisions I’d made in writing the character.
I kept saying:
“I think you do this because…”
“I think you feel this because…”
“I think the big turning point is when…”
The Actress kept saying:
“I feel that I do this because…”
“I feel that my character experiences this because…”
”I feel that my character…
I short: I was thinking and she was feeling.
The great liberal, conservative divide as applied to a film.
It was a long night, but because film is a collaborative craft, and because I respected the actress and she—I think—respected me, we each made concessions, and ultimately the character that emerges in this fine and touching film is richer, more complex than I originally imagined. The actress turned in a stupendous performance. After a few days of watching rushes, I took the actress aside and said:
“You’re making me look good.”
“Honey, I’m just doing my job,” she purred.
Which brings me to Madge Bellamy.
Madge Bellamy, studio publicity photo
A huge Hollywood star in the early 20’s, most of Bellamy’s early, silent work has been lost. But you can still see her in starring roles in John Ford’s Iron Horse (1924) and Maurice Tourneur’s Lorna Doon (1922). In the sound era, Madge’s most famous role is as Madeleine Parker, in White Zombie, with Bela Lugosi (1932), a cult classic.
Tragically, Madge was one of the most self-destructive Hollywood stars of all time. In a town where players excel at self-annihilating behavior, that’s quite a distinction. In 1943 Madge stalked and shot her former lover, Stanwood Murphy. The massive publicity and resulting scandal destroyed her already sputtering career. Regarding the shooting Madge said: “I only winged him, which is what I meant to do. Believe me, I’m a crack shot.”
Madge Bellamy, cover of Photoplay Magazine,
January, 1929
But for now, let’s leave scandal behind and focus on how Madge learned to act in motion pictures as revealed in a fascinating interview from Photoplay Magazine, Oct. 1927.
Madge had the unfortunate reputation of being a dumb actress—probably because she made a series of disastrous career choices and insulted so many powerful Hollywood moguls. She walked out of L.B. Mayer’s office just as he announced that he wanted to cast her in the starring role of his next film. Madge explained that Mayer didn’t stand up to greet her like a proper gentleman.
Big mistake.
However, as you can see from this excerpt, Madge Bellamy was bright and articulate. Unfortunately, then and now, beautiful women are often ruthlessly stripped of their brains by bright people who should know better.
“Acting,” for instance. “I always thought that acting was a question of emotions—that you felt a scene and played it as you felt it.”
“Well, I was wrong about that. Acting is a matter of intelligence and observation. You don’t have to feel an emotion to portray it. You must observe how other people express their emotions.”
“Mr. Dwan [Alan Dwan, the great, pioneering director] and I had an interesting conversation on the set this morning. I had been playing a sad scene and when I finished, Mr. Dwan asked me what I had been thinking about. And I told him I had been thinking about something sad. ‘Well,’ said Mr. Dwan, ‘you should have been thinking of the muscles of your face.’”
“Now I see what has been wrong with me. I have been trying to feel emotions and express them. I have never thought much about the technique; I simply wanted to be sincere. That was a mistake.”
“So I have been sitting here practicing with the muscles of my face. Look!” And Miss Bellamy drew here eyebrows. Instantly, the tears slowly rose to her eyes.
“See, I am crying and yet, I am not thinking of anything sad. It’s just a muscular reaction.”
Adoring crowds line up to see Madge Bellamy in Ankles Preferred (1927)
Madge Bellamy authored a fascinating if deeply eccentric autobiography, A Darling of the Twenties, published in 1989, a few months after her death. Silent film scholar Kevin Brownlow’s introduction is free of star-worship and highly informative. Unfortunately, new copies of the book are impossible to find, but used copies, usually cast-a-ways from public libraries, are readily available on the internet. Madge’s autobiography is filled with fascinating details of her years in early Hollywood, and illustrated with dozens of rare photos from Madge’s personal collection.
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17 Comments
Mr. Avrech,
While it is tempting the the age of information at your fingertips to start a guessing game about the actress in question, or to simply go to IMDB, I will appreciate that your anecdote was complimentary to the actress, and resist the urge.
I think your article is somewhat akin to the classic remark that acting isn’t hard, Shirley Temple could do it at age five.
Nice bit of film history, too—thanks!
Ohio Wolverine Mom:
Thanks so much for the generous comment. Yes, my anecdote is meant to be complimentary to the actress. She is incredibly talented and working with her was a pleasure and an education.
Shirley Temple explains in her fantastic autobiography that as an adult she became deeply self-conscious in her performances and thus, she was unable to continue with her Hollywood career.
And if you look at the films she made as a young adult you’ll notice that her performances are slow and measured—overthinking is deadly—lacking the sparkle and spontaneous joy of her childhood work.
So the great liberal/conservative divide comes down to thinking versus feeling? Really? This was an interesting post, about emotional versus technical acting, and well worth reading. But are all “method” actors liberal and all “technical” actors conservative? If so, how do you know this?
Why pollute an interesting personal story with with pointless political point making? (Other than to make it of interest to Big Hollywood, I guess.)
I thought young adult Shirley was pretty good in “Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer” and “Fort Apache.” Perhaps she was unable to continue her career as an adult because she’d essentially had a full one already–she’d been doing it since she was a toddler; it’s called burnout, and very few child stars continue into adulthood anyway. I don’t really get where the political take is relevant to acting–it’s a bizarre internal practice that’s as different for everyone as making meatloaf. At least the actress came to you before shooting to answer her questions–so you can’t say she wasn’t THINKING about her part, and she FELT she had to discuss it with you, the writer.
.
Excellent piece and an excellent read. Bravo.
There’s a LOT of former child stars now working as respected adult actors: Seth Green, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Eliza Dushku, Amber Tamblyn, Michelle Trachtenberg, Fred Savage, Adam Baldwin !! and Amanda Bynes come to mind. So does Kurt Russell for that matter.
All have reps for professionalism, good performances, and stability. Most of the child actors come out of either soaps, Disney, or both, and have to have various approaches/interpretations ready to go. As both Russell and Gellar explained it, in soaps and Disney stuff, you shoot easily 25 pages or more a day. You can’t fool around, you have to be FAST. It’s common for them to learn the other actors lines and prompt them to keep the shoots going.
Method folks seem to come out of film, where the pace allows it. Instead of the sheer volume of soaps and Disney stuff. It’s interesting that most of these actors above are very much NOT method.
Robert has forgotten more about this era of filmmaking than most of us, including myself, know. His talent as a writer to both eloquently and forcefully make a case for these films kindled my interest and the reward has been a treasure chest of art unlike anything made since.
What a gift these films are and how lucky we are to have Robert bring them back to life for us.
Whiskey–a damn good list, but with the possible exception of Savage and Russell, none of the actors you list had anywhere near the fame or stardom (or worked as profusely at SO young an age) of a Shirley Temple who was part of the zeitgeist well before she was a teenager. The pressures were greater on her I’ll wager, than anyone on your list. Seth Green has said that he ‘worked’ as a kid, but was thankful he wasn’t a star; he refers to Macauley Culkin as having a much rougher time. To bolster my point I might name all the Cosby kids except Malcolm Jamal Warner (who directs now), and the youngest daughters from Roseanne and Family Ties, not to mention Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and all the kids from Family Matters. (although Urkel turned up recently in Dreamgirls) It’s a tough transition from cute kid to viable adult, and we all know fame is teh most cracked-out crapshoot imagineable. (the entire cast of High School Musical?!?!) I just think Temple had the chops to continue…she chose not to, and the public probably couldn’t see her beyond “Curly Top.” (Took me a looong time to accept Ricky Schroeder as a grown man)
Actually, the “think” versus “feel” is also a big divide between men and women.
Robert – I have noticed both on your own blog site and here that you have a talent for bringing to life actors and actresses that have been gone for decades – you should write a book about Hollywood!
Turning down Louie B Mayer – not the smartest career move but then what would Casablanca be like if Ronald Reagan had accepted Humphrey Bogart’s part?
I am trying to remember the quote Spencer Tracy made about acting
+JMJ+
Bill: Are you thinking of the time a young actor asked Tracy for acting advice, and Tracy said, “Learn your lines and show up on time”? =)
(I’m sorry if this turns out to be a double post.)
Well, la di da! TGB1000 says Avrech ‘pollutes’ the discussion by giving a different opinion than TGB – an opinion TGB labels as ‘pointless’.
Is it stating the obvious that TGB FEELS all this but doesn’t think it? But then why should he? After all, thinking is so…so…so conservative.
And TGB wouldn’t want that, would he?
TCM is repeating their child stars interview on Thursday. Robert Osborne talks with child stars Margaret O’Brien, Jane Withers, Dickie Moore and Darryl Hickman about what it was like being a child star and what their lives have been since. No one as big as Shirley Temple was but interesting insights nonetheless.
Enbrethiliel – It was something to the effect that “acting is the easiest thing there is – just don’t let someone catching you at it” – or something to that effect.
At least I think that was attributable to Tracy
What a nice theme
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