1961-04-22 — Page 21

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1961.

* Roderick Mann Mr. Rod Steiger explains: Why I am not a star

London.

LAST time I was down around the Naples waterfront I ran across Lucky Luciano — who is always good for a laugh and a talk about the good old days before they invented silencers and the like.

He had just seen the film Al Capone, I recall, and he was most cut up.

"AL wasn't no murdering roughneck like they showed," he said reproaching. "Al was all right. But that guy that play- cd Al-Ral Steiger he was OK. He could play me in my film story. Tell him if you see him."

I had the good fortune to run across Mr Steiger the other day, so I hastened to pass the good

news to him.

**Thanks," he said fatly **Thanks very much. I can't nay I'm Battered but I'll bear it in mind.

"Playing one real gangster is enough for a lifetime, I feel. Though I confess Capone istri Hued me. Do you know at the height of his power he was only 28and earning 3,000,000 del lars a week through bootleg beer alone.

Instead...

"He stopped using a gun only because in the end he didn't need one. He was using money instead. It was a much more formidable weapon."

'THAT'S THE WAY I LIKE IT'

their public stature-and they're constantly aware of it.

his breakfast, so I did not detain

ilm.

But as I left I sald; "Shall I tell Lucky to look around for someone else then?"

"I consider It impossible for someune to be a good actor unless he's intelligent too. A movie star, maybe, but not Q Mr Steiger chuckled for the good actor.

Bra time. "Do that," he said.

"Hollywood is the place for

to

stars, not for actors. Out there, 20 YEARS ON there's no encouragement for nn actor to do his homework; rehearse the next day's scenes. Instead they go out on a wing, and their performances usually show it.

"Me. I work like mad at part. It's the only way to get And realism is the realism. only thing that's worth having. Take the psychiatrist 1 played in The Mark: 1 was determined thut he'd be real.

HAVE been talking with Deborah Miss

Kerr, who is in London at the moment filming Tho Inno- conts.

And while I do not share the English preoccupa- universal lion with other people's ages, I feel bound to reveal—since Miss "I was sick of seeing psychta- Kerr and were discussing ages trists portrayed as pipe-smoking that the delightful Deborah is characters beckoning people only one year of being twice

as old as she was 20 years ago. over to couches.

"I agree

"I know about psychiatry-I ought to. I've been psycho- analysed enough. You don't to lie on a couch. You have can stand on your head If you like.

twenties are over; that she's no longer a giri."

On the subject of her career- which is still stellar-bright after 20 years-Miss Kerr says:--

"I consider myself more for- tunate than someone, say, Ilke Monros. She has to Marilyn

the burden

carry around

of

being a sex symbol-and live up to it. She can never coal down.

"But with the French,'

me my burden has Miss Kerr says "They take the always been that I am allegedly view that a woman only really frigid. So I can always warm becomes herself at 49.

up. And I do. It's much easier."

Between the ages of 40 and

50 the Frenchwoman is supreme GIMMICKLESS

ly elegánt. But her English counterpart?

Oh, dear. She is that she is through;

Mr Stelger, who was dressed elegant black in one of those silk nuits that carry a curious

"I don't want to talk about aura of menace with them, went on: "I'm

not interested In but I do say this: psychiatry repeating roles. I'm an actor. can do nothing but good. When convinced Not a star. I've got no teenage

Clits Will following, which you must have course

more. make any mall comes difference to my acting?" I said. to ben stor. My

zie runs from the 25's and over, and I'd

"The psychiatrist gave me a rather have it that way.

"Of course,

with the studio long look: " nou think the acquisition of knowledge about machine behind you, almost any- one can be inade into a star, but ourself and others can be of no benefit to you, I suggest you It's pretty

to live with hard

be on our way," he said. unless there's a mind to match.

"When's next appoint- "You've no idea how many stars drink themselves into oblivion at night simply because their intelligence doesn't match

I trist went I was wary, on that there is no need to try any WHAT happened to that

ment? I sold."

It was nearly 3 pm, and Mr Steiger was in a hurry to have

it home:

Are you

much - heralded

now

America didn't.

"After

last year, the smells

And the wags were busy. Sald Millon Berle: this, when a producer says he's made a stinker, we won't know whether he means it's good or bad. And people with colds will want in for half price."

Now, Mike Todd jun, tells me, the smells are being removed, "It didn't work," he says. "And I can take a hint. The film is now being re-edited as a straight picture." EXPLOSIVE

"And every woman's maga- film gimmick

Small-O that up with a catalogue of what Todd jun. was so enthusias- IR Finished at Forly? They follow Vision, about which Mike you have lost and a chart de tic two years ago? scribing ways and means of get- ting it back again.

"The only time I was ever conscious of my ago was when I became 30. That's the critical nge for a woman-riot 40. When she reaches 30 she knows the

The secret war struggle of two top scientists

AND GOVERN-

THIS book is about a SCIENCE

struggle for power MENT, By C. P. Snow.

Oxford University Press. 9s. 6d.

by George

He

CAROL REED,

IT'S THAT MacLAINE GIRL AGAIN THE girl with

the elfin look 11 of course, Bhirley MacLaine. Atid

hai good reason to mulle, Her performance in The Apar!- ment has just won for her the Briitus Film Academy Award as Best Foreign Actress of the Year. Her latest 11 m. The Spinster, will be In London soon,

its stars. Trevor Howard

and Marlon Brando.

"They

Trevor,

are magnificent to- "Remember. he anys. has rarely had the Bether Brando opportunity of acting against anyone as strong as They both possess this wonder- fully explosive screen chemistry: all you have to do is sit back and wait for the explosion.

The great problem they face with this film is that Trevor who plays Bligh drops out of the picture half-way through. It's going to be terribly difficult. sustaining the same level of Interest once he's gone.

"It was

a problem, you'l remember that I had with The who Kett. Trevor was killed half- that alm, and through way William Holden had to hold tho picture together.

D resigned as director of On tho Bounty produced a fim called Mutiny

of Scent of Mystery in which 40 because of differences

"With someone as magnetic assorted smells were piped to opinion with his Hollywood as Howard gone, that's a very each seat in the auditorium.

While the film itself got good producer, has been talking dimcult thing to do,"

to it opened in to me about his work with. ACCORDING

Miss reviews when

A Zsa Zsa Gabor, there used to be an ultra-exclusive private club in Budapest which had this sign over the cloakroom :---

The

*

big challenge

to the lurid cover

THE

by JOHN WATERMAN

'HE challenge to the lurid-covered paperback is on. As the torrent of bright jackets grew and grew, Penguins remained for years practic- ally the sole serious paperback publishers. Now they have been greatly reinforced:

At least half between two important

a dozen pub- lishers are putting out illes scientists during the

The picture is not quite fair.

ume of serious-evon weighty- war. It was fought out Professor R. V. Jones, who knew

reprints. in secret, at the far end both men well declares that

A significant sign is the pub- "Lindemann was unquestionably Sharpened up and over-simpli- of "the corridors of the better scientist of the two."

fed, the story of the clash be- cation of the first Everyman ago these In the years before the war, ween

remarkable Paperbacks, Years those two power."

and generously the conflict broke out.

men makes exciting reading. It cloth-covered

classics could be The two men had been friends is presented, however, as a cau-gold-lealed in youth, when they met in tionary tale and It raises an im-bought at is. portant issue:

Malcolm Thomson that foreshadow a growing vol- ZHIVAGO by Borla Pasternak

""

It has everything that appeals 10 Sir Charles Snow'n romantle imagination.

The two protagonists,. Str Henry Tizard and Professor Landemant, are brilliantly con- trnsted.

Berlin.

Now they mot on a committee How is the fayman, whether for the scientifle study of air he is a politician or a civil ser- defence of which Tizard was vant, to know which refentist to chairman and which Lindemann trust in mallera which are Tizard, ruddy blue-eyed, "Eng- joined as Churchill's benchman, necessarily beyond the layman's lish of the English" not well-

Snow declares, that, but for understanding? olt.

Tizard, Britain might not have "Over the figure of Lindemann had radar in time for the air the lighting is adjusted with battles of 1940. sume care. Ancestry-German Lindemann opposed the sys- Alsation. Jewish?

Awany rate, tem..

in women, wine.or art.

he is pallid, heavy, Central Euro- He was obsessed by another pean. And rich! Not Interested system of detection depending on Infra-red rays the heat waves given off by aircraft en- gines.

HIS HUMOUR

But "his passiona were bigger than life-size-they took on the inflated mutiomania of Balzac's novels.” His humour was sadis-

tle.

a-tremble

This seemed wildly Imprac ticable then...It

A TRIBUTE

catch up on one of the great novels of the century DR.

(Collins Funtona Gs.) is avail- able once again.

Outstanding value are £10 kistrated biographies or more accurately, lengthy profiles-in the Evergreen Series (Weiden. feld and Nicholson). Nina Gourfinkel writes on GORKY (Cs.) and Marc Bernard on ZOLA (53.) with

fascinating photographs, generous autobio graphical extracts, and, critical Today the paperback editions Thaight that give new perspec- enn he bought at rather more tives of these authors. a reflection on the fortunes of

Back among tho bright

are It he leaves the choice of his the,£, but a tribute to publishera covered paperbacks there scientist to some super-scientiat determined to sell good bunks two editions of the SATYRICON he does not solve the problem.at a reasonable price.

by Petronius--a book which For how is he to know that the super-scientist wil make the Among the first is PLAYS, makes the most of every ap to paperback publish- proach PRORE. WRITINGS AND right choice?

POEMS by Oscar Wilde (59. Od.) Ing by combining sex with trans-

voluminous selection of the lation from the Latin,

One, translated by Sank best of Wilda,

Lindsay (Destseller, 35. Od.), is described as "the only authentic

‘A ́ MENACE

Snow

wants to sea ame

Another excellent huy in the basic Gothle nave? FRANKEN-

..

Rome." se even scientista mixed up in our at BTEIN by Mary Shelley (30. d.). account of the orgies of ancient more wildly Impracticable now." folrs.” Not melentista like Linde- The heaviest and most daringt The other, an American It is not so wild or all that mom "anyone who is drunks contribution of all to the now edition by Wililam Arrowsmill An American bomber was shot with gadgets le a menace." But wave of paperback progress.hos (Mentor, ds.), in the down recently by a Sidewinder scientista like Tizard. missile which hamed on flster-

get by infra-red detection.

wanton

been made by Routledge and world of Nero's Rome caught by Assuming we could and our Kogan Paul Their firat Hat is the satiric gentus, of the most of 10 reprints, mostly of basic cultured cynic." Both are aggres- and formativo, contributions to sively colloquial--but I refuse to

belleve Roman slaves can bel acholarship and might.

translated as saying "Masna,"

A character. la short, "who made a novelist's fingers itch,"

But, undoubtedly in the pre- Tizards, would everything then But if the novelist's Angers fich, war years, radar deserved fall be plain selling? the historian's pen must remain priority over any other detec The story Snow tolls does not steady. Sir Charles's is slightly dve method. But was Linde- carry conviction. For the wary

OOD MAN QUT, - the tense, mam completely intransigent reader ausprets that, in realis. GREAT NOVEL. The scientiae pretensions of in his opposition fo radar? Bir there was not a bad Lindemann

shadowy novel of a man on the the faintly sinister Lindemann, R. Watson Watt, the radar plon who was always wrong and are forbund padam

run in Belfart, by F. L. Green Among them are the cinenic" (Ace, Jai ód.), lé a welcamo`adili- j cart na villain in this melodrame,cer, does not think so... goo Titard who wore the clonk aro dismissed with nome im» Tia certali, however, that of infallibility, but two prickly, by Trem, TOTEM AND TADOO tion to the lists,

too, is NO LOVE FOR rationce.

Lindemann was prejudiced talented, opinionated and tom-(68.) and J. A. Richards's proves, Bo,

MERER VIKUNNE CALīva veritient-primer: "RIN= 2OHNNIK -- (Arrow. - 21. (d.). He was a creator of gadgets; against anything that Tizari perumental meo.

In making an argument that CIPLES OF!! *-man wlio has fallen shot of his champkined and that, when he

LITERARY" Wilfred Fignburgh's novel ot jilë

and love. ii Verimlaster, own hopes for himself, Buch quit the Tisard committee, fall, Bnow has, in effect, writ-CRITICISM (BM d.); \ \

ten an excellent historical noveli For those who still want to (London: lapists Service). men are dangerousi

everyone was vastly relieved.

}

"Members may not bring their mistresses in as gucata un- less they happen to be the wives of other members,”

-(London Express Services,

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