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August 03, 2005
Favorite trivia about an actor
Every so often, you hear something about an actor that reveals an unlikely area of expertise. Oh, sure, we expect Tim Robbins to be an expert on nuclear weaponry; Barbara Streisand an international strategist of Kissingerian dimension; Susan Sarandon a titan of environmental sciences, and Janeane Garafalo a tattooed, vaguely lesbian-ish version of arch political strategist Karl Rove.
But the generation of actors who were old enough to have fought in WW2 had real-world experiences and expertise that shamed our modern stars. Jimmy Stewart volunteered and flew B-17s over Germany; Clark Gable was a middle-aged gunner on a bomber; Charles Durning was an Army Ranger and survived the massacre of POWs at Malmedy; and James Doohan was a thrice-wounded veteran of the invasion of Normandy.
While Tom Cruise can draw upon his ordeal at the hands of Matt Lauer as a motivation for his anguish in any given scene, consider the . . . expertise Christopher Lee can draw upon, as recounted in a movie review by the great Mark Steyn:
My favourite moment in the Lord of the Rings movies isn't actually in any of the movies, but in one of those the making of documentaries that appears on the DVD.
It's the scene where Saruman gets stabbed by Grima Wormtongue, and Lee explains to director Peter Jackson that the backstabbing sound isn't quite right, because in his days with British Intelligence during the war he used to sneak up and stab a lot of Germans in the back and it was more of a small gasp they made. Jackson backs away cautiously.
Can you picture the consternation amongst the actors? I'll bet the craftspeople -- electricians and carpenters -- exchanged a knowing glance and nodded their approval of the old fella's toughness.
Posted by Mike Lief at August 3, 2005 02:05 PM