William Gillette On The Art Of Speech On Stage
10http://nplh.co.uk - *S6, E2* Today I narrate William Gillette's thoughts on the art of speech in stage acting . William Gillette is best-remembered today as the living personification of Sherlock Holmes, but he was much more than that. He was one of the nineteenth century's greatest stars, among its most successful actors and playwrights. In a career spanning six decades, he was one of the best-known celebrities in the Western world, a towering figure in an age of towering figures. Among his friends were Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Theodore Roosevelt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Thomas Nast and Maurice Barrymore. He built a castle on the Connecticut River and a miniature railroad to run around it. Among the guests who rode on that train were President Calvin Coolidge, physicist Albert Einstein and Tokyo Mayor Ozaki Yukio, who gave to America the cherry blossoms in 1912. James M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, wrote two hit plays for which he specifically asked Gillette to star in.
Source: 'America's Sherlock Holmes' by Henry Zecher.