Day at Night: Hermione Gingold, actress

James da public television Pioneer and chairman of the C TV Advisory Board passed away in April 2008 his legacy includes the series day at night which aired for 130 episodes beginning in 1973 the program features interviews with many of the great thinkers and Achievers of the 20th century these 30-year-old programs have been restored the interviews remain fresh and relevant today exploring issues that are still important to society showing them again is C TV's tribute to Jim and his contributions to public [Music] television no one who's seen hermi ferdinanda gingle perform is likely to mistake her for any other she's as distinctive as her name her years on the professional stage span an incredible 65 years stretching from her London debut at the the age of 11 to her current starring role in the Broadway hit A Little Night Music although that career was born in the serious drama of ibson Shaw and Shakespeare her greatest Fame was made as a comedian in the ricking reviews of London's West End and New York's Broadway of her many roles in movies most will remember her best for her performance with Maurice chalier in the film XII Miss gingold is also a writer a book of light-hearted essays a play Abracadabra and a half finished autobiography half finished only because she thinks she's too young to finish [Music] [Music] it [Music] [Music] Miss kingled I suppose we all have um a threshold for people who bore us to death what kind of people bore you oh dear what an awfully difficult question most people I'm afraid uh I like animals really on the whole bed than people animals don't bore you they don't have the capacity to bore you I suppose they don't I I don't say all animals I'm not passionately keen on very large monkeys or elephants but small dogs and cats and we had the most terrible accident happen the other night there was a rather strange smell in my dressing we couldn't find out what it was and eventually behind the sofa where I'd tucked a flower bars we found a poor little mouse that climbed in the vs and hadn't been able to get out and my dress I spent practic the rest of the evening in tears we were so upset did did you have animals when you were growing up or is this making enough for the animals you didn't have no I've always had either a dog or a cat or some sort of animal hamsters or something mhm I think they're more reliable more loyal and they don't answer back and these are things you require in your friends are they uh reliability loyalty and not loyalty I think is terribly important that's why I think we go through life with very very few friends I mean I think you're Jolly lucky if you have one I think I probably have one I'm not sure but I do know hundreds of people and I think the people who bore me are PE unfortunately of people who aren't in the theater I think one gets awfully clicky and if you go out you want to talk who are aren't aren't in the theater I'm sorry I didn't I'm bored by people who aren't who aren't I see aren't in the theater or something to do like any of the Arts but I sometimes going to stay with my sister who's married to a naval officer and they talk about you know boats and ports and the Sea and I find myself terribly bored I think one should try and be interested in anyone's uh life but I find no I can't be so there you are you went into the theater at a very early age you said as a matter of fact that you wanted to act when you were born when did you when and why did you first want to go on the stage I really don't know but I remember when I was a little girl being taken by my nurse we were at the seaside and there were some minstrels I don't know if you have them over here we have Minal troops on the beach in England entertaining for the kids and I screamed and insisted on going up on the platform and joining them I always I spent a sort of terrible exhibitionism I always wanted to be in the theater none of my family oh yes one I had an aunt a mared aunt uh who was in the theater but not really seriously she was what I call a gifted amateur but nobody in the family my mother poor soul thought it was quite Gastly did she yes did did she not approve of your desire to go into the theater she didn't but I must say this for her when she found I was determined then she said well you're going under the best possible circumstances and sent me to a good dramatic school and I learned dancing and singing and fencing which hasn't been very useful so far at what age was this oh this was from about the age of 10 or nine nine I should say cuz I never went to school I went for kindergarten and uh then I was educated at home very privately was a good education well funnily enough it was in a way it left me without any idea of spelling or arithmetic but I learned a lot about literature and music I think it was the sort of Education that's probably very useful to one in afterlife when one goes out in the world after all no get someone to tell you how to spell and who wants to do arithmetic you leave that your business manager it's also nice to know about the other things so I think in a way it was a good education yes your father was from Austria was he not yes he was born in Vienna and was naturalized English and his mother was Turkish she was Turkish yes and I have Italian blood in fact one of my uncles was historian Royal to the count Court of Italy and was a count but he has such an unpronouncable name that I I can't flourish him at all all cuz I can't bring out a piece of paper and say my uncle and I can't remember his name cuz it's so difficult did you know him at all oh no that was before my time oh I see what kind of a family did you grow up in that you did now besides your parents a mad family mad really absolutely mad I had 13 aunts all of whom quarreled bitterly none of them ever went to buy a hat even without the other 12 coming and giving an approval I think that's why I'm a Loner because I saw so much of this and I thought it was so boring even when I was a child were you an only child no I had a sister I have a sister and then I had my father's family was divine they really were absolutely they were very handsome all of them my aunt the Mad aunt was about 6' three and she lived with the king of Greece not the present King one of them and he made her a colonel in one of his regim and she used to wear the uniform in England to go to maters to which used to take me and then complain cuz people were staring at her and then one day our husband said really I don't think you better go about in uniform quite as much as you do so she said no perhaps you'll rise and the next time I went to the theater with her she was in a Greek toger with grapes in her hand they're still looking so I didn't understand and she was absolutely mad in div Vine and I unfortunately didn't see enough of her cuz my mother disapproved of her so much my father used to sneak me up there on visits and you obviously were very fond of her yes yes and I think I resemble her more than anyone in the family cuz she was mad about the theater she was very unconventional and for a Victorian late Edwardian no earli ardian lady she lived a very startling life and she was divine very handsome have you thought of yourself for some years as being unconventional yes don't spoil everything and say you've heard I'm not yes I have that reputation I think when did that reputation first begin or did you set out to be unconventional when you were young not at all it just happened I think it is because I say what I think mostly and do what I want to do I don't hurt anyone that's one thing I wouldn't like to do but I go my own way and do what I like and after all in my days I remember divorce wasn't really looked upon as it is now I remember my mother saying to my Father which shows you what sort of mother I had I will not have that woman in my house she dies her hair well I mean that's and so divorce wasn't looked on as a good thing but I had two two of everything two divorces two divorces yes and uh that didn't make me very popular with my family CU at the time it was considered not at all the thing now nobody cares do they I mean they don't go so far as to bother to get in a situation where a divorce is necessary which is a very nice put yes you went on the stage at the age of 11 do you recall your first professional performance yes I do what was it it was in a fair a play for children called Pinky and the fairies and what kind of a role did you have I was the heral of the fairy queen I had a trumpet and I was dressed in a Herald's costume and it was his Majesty's theater with the Herbert beer Bone Tree and playing one of the aunts in the play very old and very blind was Ellen Terry did you know her at all as a youngster well I mean I didn't realize who Ellen tery was she seemed to me to be just a nice old lady but I remember her stopping me on the stairs of his Majesty's theater where that was my first appearance and I was putting everything I could on my face you know makeup and she said to me child you don't know how to use makeup come with me I'll make you up and I thought how will this half blind lady I had no idea you know if I'd known what Ellen ter meant and who she was the great great the English stage I think I'd have swooned away what sort of man was Sir Herbert beerbom tree well you know I was a child and I wasn't particularly overwhelmed by these people so I didn't watch them too closely but it was quite fun acting with him because when I finished playing The Herald I stayed on for the Shakespeare Festival and played Robin his Paige and the mer wives of Windsor and I would would say my master cometh and walk over to where I was supposed to walk over and bow deeply and he'd come in through the fireplace over the other side of the stage which was fun and I found a bit puzzling he was he was wonderful when we were in this Pinky and the fairies with him he asked all the children there must have been about 40 or 50 of us every uh Wednesday we had tea with him and we were all given an egg and brown bread and butter it was a great state occasion it was fun you played Shakespeare at statford on Avon for several years after that didn't you as a young girl I was about 17 then mhm did you enjoy Shakespeare was very difficult to learn but I enjoyed it enormously seems so far from what you do now well I don't know I was anyone who can play Shakespeare can play anything practically it's an aw good train yes frightfully good it is well I don't know there such a far cry from uh the show I'm doing now should be nameless in case I'm not doing it for much longer um it's it's been a great groundwork it's been a great help to have played Shakespeare I wouldn't like to play it now why cuz I really don't think I could learn it now because I'm rather aptive rown then to ad Liber little you are yesak no one's looking Shakespeare doesn't really allow for much ad living do it one wouldn't do it you also then went on to the uh old veck yes and played in what check off and no I played in the M no I didn't I played in uh oh The Merchant of Venice I played Jessica mhm and uh that was the old Vic before it was redone you was still belonging to Miss bis who started the whole thing and that was great fun did you have uh actors and actresses in those formative years those days no I don't mean it quite that way I mean people that you looked up to as a young person who was beginning as a young person I didn't look up to anyone I was terrified of them because they were older than I was but I don't know that I looked up to them because now when I was at Stratford in playing in trus and cresa the creser was Edith Evans it was her first appearance on any stage and I I wasn't frightened of her I didn't look up to her I thought how can she play C she's so ugly the extraordinary thing about Edith is that she is a plain lady I mean she she can make herself look more glamorous than anyone in the world and it isn't done with makeup she's Christian Scientist and she sits in front of a mirror and says she comes in she's all like this and sits in front of the Moon and says I am beautiful I am beautiful I'm and suddenly she becomes beautiful then when the play is over she looks in the moon says no I'm not beautiful and the whole thing drops I know you're not a Christian Scientist but do you do you do anything of the same sort yourself do you yes it works well I'll try anything MH I think you can get I thought myself thin once I've lost the trick of doing it but I've always been very fond of eating chocolate bars and I was gaining a lot of weight and I thought I think I can think myself thin and I kept on saying to myself these chocolate bars won't make you fat no no no no no and you kept right on eating them I kept on eating them and I lost weight but I've lost the trick what was the trick I don't know must have been pure thought which I can't stop you said that you studied singing when you were young and somewhere I read you were a color aura soprano exactly happened well I was also at the time I was studying seeing which I studied for about 10 years appearing in a review in London and I was doing I played 16 different characters during the evening and some of them were old ladies and some young boys and I had to alter my voice and I was misusing my voice terribly and I got this nodule on my vocal cords my mother who was in dread of any sort of operation absolutely refused to have it removed so I gradually lost my voice I gradually developed the sort of Base voice that I have now and people start say oh your voice is So Divine it's so funny and so I thought well what's the good so it came about through you misusing it yes what brought you from serious drama into reviews I know that this was just before the War I guess that you began to play in reviews in London oh about 5 minutes before the war yes is it because we played all through the war um well I was working at a theater club we did very esoteric plays which the public didn't rush to see and we were in very low water and we decided to put on a review a satirical review not the Ordinary Girl and sequins and you know usual sort of thing people think reviews are and we did we had very very good writers and very intellectual intelligent approach to satire and it became an enormous success and managers queued up to get it but none of them wanted me cuz I hadn't got a name and the management for once took a stand and said no if you take the R you take her money and eventually one man just said oh all right and cashed in on it we ran for 5 years and I became a stared I waited a long time was that sweet and low and sweet and lower and sweetest and lowest yes as did it end because it was there was nowhere else to go beyond swest and lowest yeah nowhere else and you played I understand to a good many American GIS who were in London during the war was it different playing to an American audience with a yes it was better because I have a rather curious sense of humor and uh it's apparently was very American in its approach because where some of the English didn't laugh at all the Americans laughed uproariously and I thought ah these are my people so after the war I came over here just to see and I've been here ever since you came here uh to America originally in a review too didn't you at U yes John Mari Anderson's or neck mhm that was after a brief stint in in Cambridge I understand yes that was the first thing I ever did over here we tried out all the sketches and they went very well and so we moved in was it in John Murray Anderson's Almanac that you did The Skit with Billy D wolf that we all remember so well about Salon was that about the two ladies on the train yes yes it was a Divine sketch and you know it's so funny because everyone where I go people of All Sorts say how's your sister from salon and you know I can't get one network to let me do that sketch they all say oh no even the networks are very fond of when do why I don't know it doesn't read as if it was very funny but it plays enormously abely and everyone adores it it's been recorded and even on a grammar phone record it's pretty funny so it' be much more funny I think oh I did do it once on TV when I first came over here but it wasn't I did it with Ed win not with Billy D wolf no I did with Billy De Wolf in the theater the of course yes but and he wouldn't he's a darling man and I love him but he wouldn't take it seriously and if it isn't taken seriously I mean they're two ladies as you know so he dressed up as a lady as far as his knees and then he had trousers and big boots and that wasn't the way it had to be played if he wanted to do it he should have been entirely addressed absolutely now I didn't need those additional touches to make to make it it was very important and I never forget Billy the wolf who I played it with wasn't very keen on doing he said I don't want to play an old lady so I said Billy you'll love it so we went to choose a dress for him and I never forget we went up and he found to a department store he found this beautiful lace dress he still had his mustache he said I can't see this in the small glass I've got to go out in the showroom so out walks Billy in a beige lace dress with the black mustache causes a riot and of course on the first night it stopped the show then he loved the sketch and it was wonderful and it was a wonderful sketch you've been playing in that unnamable show now A Little Night Music for over a year M does it get tiresome playing in one show well I don't think so I think I'm am not bored or tired and that is because the audience is so different every night well some nights it's extraordinary they'll all laugh at a lie the next night nobody laughed it at all as if they'd gone around to each other and said let's not laugh when it gets to that it's AB extraordinary you never know so that keeps you on your toes terrifically I think it's the audience that stop you from being bored because in a review playing comedy you have to be aware of your audience your audience is your St in a way you're as good almost as your audience whereas in a straight play there's this invisible fourth wall the audience is not there you play it the same every night you ignore your audience but in review your audience is part of the show or I don't say a review in a if you're playing comedy or musical comedy can you really ignore your audience even in in a in a can you really ignore your audience even in a straight play that fourth wall is a pretty thin wall don't you get some kind of resp St play Only In fast or [Music] comedy otherwise and certainly not in Shakespeare you ignore them completely they probably ignore you too but that's how do you feel about acting uh techniques are are you one who gets into the role by believing you are the person for the moment no well yeah yes and no that's a qualified from it is yes to a certain extent I think I do no I haven't done a straight play since I did O Dad Poor Dad MH and it's difficult to remember how I came by I'm not method I know one of these people who stand and prepare and breathe and think what the wallpaper was in the room upstairs which never appears in the show I'm not method at all but I think in a way one has one's own little method of approaching I think the first thing is to know one's lines very well second thing is to make sure the audience hear you which a lot of actors don't seem to care about at all they know but they're not going to let the audience into the secret and uh who was it said it's perfectly all right acting as long as you don't bump into the other actors that's the most important thing I don't agree with that I think there's more to it you've lived in uh America for 20 years now you still visit England are there things in England not people but things about England that you miss here here no you're perfectly happy yeah in America what is there about America that so attracts you I like it I like the people I like the pace I like is it faster oh much faster I think it's a more exciting country I like the fact that if you travel enough around you there's every sort of thing there's skiing there's surfing there's the only place I you do these things sometimes no I don't do surfing uh I miss places like Venice but big cities are very much alike I think this is the most exciting big city there is but there are lots of places in Europe I'd like to visit again but not big cities not big Capital Cities I don't want to go there do you enjoy travel would you like to be in a company that that's on tour I don't know if I'd like to tour no I don't think I would you see I I've never learned the art of traveling light if I'm out for the show I take pictur and cushions and books and it's Dreadful the way I travel and uh that really rather stunts my traveling I mean I even tra once I had a grand piano down in the H I brought my piano to England with me which was a nice piece of luggage how do you feel about um growing old you said earlier that um if you think of yourself as young or thin you may have lost the trick about thinness but what about staying young well that's very difficult isn't it because I'm sure you're told constantly that you seem so young if you're not I've just told you oh thanks very much uh I don't think the thing is not to bother about it too much and as long as you've got your health that's the most important thing isn't it and don't live too much in the past that's the awful thing that's happened to people they always live in the past I live completely in the future I'm already planning future for 10 years come what sorts of things do you most want to do is it in acting I'm not going to tell you I see all right I was going to confine myself to the theater oh good oh I don't know I want to do a lot of plays I want eventually to to be a director have you tried that yes I have mind you it was in Africa I went a long way off to try it are you ready to try it here not yet I don't think but I would like to do this and is there a role that that you want to do is there a ro that everyone wants to do yes I'd like to do some ibson some check off I'd like to play in The Seagull very much and uh what else do I want oh I've written a play and it's been done on the road on summer talk quite a long time but I have to rewrite it and it's very dreary I don't like rewriting thank you very much it's been a [Music] [Music] pleasure [Music] oh [Music] oh

Channel: CUNY TV

Views: 42,889

Keywords: Hermione Gingold, actress, Day At Night, James Day, CUNY TV

Id: W7Wuj9aEhNM

Length: 28min 57sec (1737 seconds)

Published: Wed May 25 2011