The Actor Within: Intimate Conversations with Great Actors

263 Pages·2011·3.98 MB·English

by  Rose Eichenbaum, Rose Eichenbaum, Aron Hirt-Manheimer

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The Actor Within

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The Actor Within

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Rose Eichenbaum
Wesleyan University Press Middletown, Connecticut
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress
∫ 2011 Rose Eichenbaum
All rights reserved.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Richard Hendel
Typeset in Minion by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Wesleyan University Press is a member of the
Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets
their minimum requirement for recycled paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eichenbaum, Rose.
The actor within : intimate conversations with great actors /
Rose Eichenbaum ; [foreword, Aron Hirt-Manheimer].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8195-6952-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8195-7165-6 (e-book)
1. Actors—United States—Interviews. 2. Acting. I. Title.
pn2285.e35 2011
792.02%8092—dc22 2011012328
5 4 3 2 1
Title page: Karl Malden
To Mimi
May your actor within
soar and propel you to
great heights.

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Contents
Foreword ix Julia Stiles 130
Preface xiii Shelley Berman 136
Teri Garr 142
Norman Lloyd 2
Bill Irwin 148
Frances Fisher 10
Marcia Gay Harden 154
Joe Mantegna 16
Elijah Wood 160
Amber Tamblyn 26
Lainie Kazan 166
Karl Malden 32
Elliott Gould 172
Amy Madigan 40
Piper Laurie 178
Hector Elizondo 46
Stephen Tobolowsky 184
CCH Pounder 52
Marlee Matlin 190
James Cromwell 58
William H. Macy 196
Gloria Stuart 64
Wes Studi 202
Bill Pullman 70
Ruby Dee 208
Debra Winger 76
Larry Miller 214
Charles Durning 82
Ellen Burstyn 220
Stockard Channing 90
George Segal 96 Acknowledgments 227
Marsha Mason 104 References and Recommended Viewing 229
Ed Asner 110 Index 239
Amanda Plummer 118
Ed Harris 124

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Foreword
Rose Eichenbaum met her first movie star at the age of ten. Her big
brother delivered newspapers at the Samuel Goldwyn Studio near their
home in West Hollywood. He often took Rose along on the back of his
bike, and when they entered restricted areas, he left his extremely shy
sister on sound stages and instructed, ‘‘Don’t move until I get back.’’ On
one such occasion, she was on the set of I’ll Take Sweden, starring Bob
Hope, Tuesday Weld, and teen idol Frankie Avalon. During a break,
Avalon walked up to her, stroked her cheek, and said, ‘‘You’re very pretty.
What’s your name?’’ ‘‘It’s . . . Rosalie,’’ she stammered. That experience
would presage her entrance some forty years later into a world inhabited
by the people most mortals see only on the ‘‘silver screen,’’ theatrical stage,
or television.
Even if her brother hadn’t taken her on his paper route, Rose couldn’t
have escaped the glow that the movie industry cast over the landscape of
her life, from such visions as the imposing hollywood sign, street ven-
dors hawking maps to stars’ homes, and the frequent street closures for
on-location movie and television filming. And if you were in the right
place at the right time, you might even catch a glimpse of a famous movie
star. Rose once spotted a white-haired Cary Grant on Canon Drive in
Beverly Hills, and Lauren Bacall in a restaurant. But you knew they were a
di√erent breed, almost royalty. As a rule, you could acknowledge them
with a polite bow or by calling out, ‘‘I loved you in . . .’’ but to say more
would be regarded as a rude trespass.
As a teenager, before the era of shopping malls, Rose and her friends
hung out on Hollywood Boulevard along the Walk of Fame. Their play-
ground was the sidewalk imbedded with star-shaped bronze plaques, each
inscribed with the name of a film industry icon. From Highland to Vine,
Rose knew the exact locations of all of her favorite stars so enshrined. In
front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre she would place her hands and feet
into the cement impressions left for posterity by Judy Garland, Marilyn
Monroe, and Elizabeth Taylor.
As an adult, Rose overcame, one might say overcompensated for, her
shyness, as evidenced by her two earlier books, Masters of Movement
(2004) and The Dancer Within (2008), which required her to interview
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