Laurette Taylor

Laurette Taylor
Laurette Taylor in 1914
Born	Helen Loretta Cooney April 1, 1884(1884-04-01) New York City, New York
Died	December 7, 1946 (aged 62) New York City, New York
Occupation	actress
Years active	1912 - 1946
Spouse(s)	Charles A. Taylor (1900-1910) J. Hartley Manners (1912-1928)

Laurette Taylor (April 1, 1884 – December 7, 1946) was an American actress of stage and silent film, considered by many to be a leading figure of 20th century theatre.

Personal life

Laurette Taylor was most likely born Helen Loretta Cooney (although other possible birth names have been suggested) in New York City of Irish Catholic extraction.

She married her first husband, Charles A. Taylor, around 1900, when she was sixteen, and they had two children, Dwight and Marguerite, but they divorced around 1910. In 1912 she married British-born playwright J. Hartley Manners, who wrote Peg o' My Heart, a major and enduring personal triumph for Taylor, who toured in it extensively throughout the country. Based upon the popular novel by Mary O'Hara, the play's success inspired a 1922 film version starring Taylor and directed by King Vidor. A six-reel print of the film survives in the Motion Picture Division of the Library of Congress. Taylor remained married to Manners until his death in 1928.

Approach to Acting

Taylor wrote an essay on acting, titled "The Quality Most Needed," which was included in some of the early editions of the text "Actors on Acting."^[1] In it, Taylor muses on the importance of imagination over physical beauty for the actress wishing to truly create art. She sharply criticizes performances where you can "see the acting," and warns against paying too much attention to the traditions of acting, saying it "cramps creative instinct." To Taylor, the imaginative actress will leave you with a feeling that you can imagine the character's conduct "in any position, aside from the situations involved in the actions of the play." Taylor applauded the imaginative actress who "builds a picture, using all her heart and soul and brain," not for the audience but for herself.^[2]

In legendary actor and teacher Uta Hagen's highly regarded 1991 acting text "A Challenge for the Actor," she described Taylor as her "idol" and "an inspiration," seeing her as the ultimate example of an actor working from the inside out. Hagen praised Taylor for saying that her identification with a character wasn't complete until she was "wearing the underpants of the character." Hagen's description of Taylor's acting was that she subjectively developed her actions and words, that "always sprang from her as though for the very first time."^[3]

Charles Durning described of seeing Taylor's acting, "I thought they pulled her off the street. She was . . so natural." ^[4]

Actor Martin Landau said Taylor "was almost like this woman had found her way into the theatre, through the stage door, and was sort of wandering around the kitchen."^[4]

Critical acclaim

Taylor began attracting critical acclaim virtually from her first known performance on Broadway in The Great John Ganton in 1908 and building her reputation in such stage productions as The Ringmaster, Alias Jimmy Valentine, Seven Sisters, Lola Lola, and The Bird of Paradise. Peg o' My Heart, which ran on Broadway from December 20, 1912 to May 1914 (a total of 603 performances) cemented her fame and reputation with audiences as a skilled actress. She toured the nation with the play, which reopened on Broadway at the Cort Theater on February 14, 1921 and ran for another 692 performances. She achieved great success starring in such other productions as Out There, One Night in Rome, The Wooing of Eve and the special production Laurette Taylor in Scenes From Shakespeare. In the latter production, she performed scenes from Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and The Taming of the Shrew. Prominent critics of the era outdid each other in praising her prodigious gifts, versatility, and beauty.

However, very little of Taylor's performances is preserved on film. In 1924, Taylor starred in the film version of another theatrical success by her husband Manners. Happiness, directed by King Vidor, told of the adventures of a young shopgirl named "Jenny Wray," who learns that riches do not necessarily lead to happiness. The cast included Hedda Hopper and Pat O'Malley. The same year, Taylor starred in another screen version of Manners' dramatic play One Night In Rome, in which she played the dual roles of Duchess Mareno/Madame Enigme. Taylor seems to have enjoyed making One Night in Rome as she kept a personal print of the movie to always show guests at her home, re-running it over and over again.

Taylor's outsized personality, mercurial moods, and eccentricities became legendary. Her friend Noel Coward spent a weekend at the home of Taylor and, inspired by that remarkable visit wrote, in just three days, his devastating, witty comedy of manners Hay Fever (1925). The play, a widely-praised comedic dissection of a family whose theatrical excesses drive to distraction their unsuspecting visitors, was a major hit from the moment of its August 6, 1925 debut. It also caused a serious and permanent rift in the friendship of Taylor and Coward.

Laurette Taylor suffered from severe alcoholism for many years, a condition which sharply limited her appearances from the late 1920s throughout her career. In 1938, she headed the cast in a revival of Outward Bound and did not appear again until her reemergence in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie in 1945; her performance particularly received rapturous acclaim. Alcoholism almost certainly contributed to her death from a coronary thrombosis at the age of 62.

Legacy

Writing after Taylor's death, Tennessee Williams paid tribute to "the great warmth of her heart," saying, "There was a radiance about her art which I can compare only to the greatest lines of poetry, and which gave me the same shock of revelation as if the air about us had been momentarily broken through by light from some clear space beyond us.^[5]"

In 1960, the play Laurette, starring Judy Holliday and directed by Jose Quintero, closed out of town in Philadelphia due to Holliday's illness. Produced by Alan Pakula, the play had a supporting cast that included Patrick O'Neal, Joan Hackett, and Nancy Marchand. For years, film director George Cukor tried unsuccessfully to launch a film version of Taylor's life. Among the actresses who declined the role were Holliday and Elizabeth Taylor.

In 1963, a musical adaptation of Laurette opened on Broadway. The musical was called Jennie and starred Mary Martin in the title role. Arnold Schulman's book is credited as having been suggested by Marguerite Courtney's Laurette, with a score by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz. It only ran for 82 performances, receiving mediocre reviews.^[6]

A one-act play, "Opening Night", appeared briefly off Broadway in October 1963. Peggy Wood portrayed Fanny Ellis, a once famous star who is preparing for a performance in her dressing room. Many thought Fanny was actually Taylor. Wood appeared with her co-star from the CBS-TV series, MAMA, Ruth Gates. The play lasted 47 performances.

In the 2004 documentary Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There, several Broadway veterans such as Harold Prince, Charles Durning, Uta Hagen, Marian Seldes, Kaye Ballard, Maureen Stapleton, Fred Ebb, Nanette Fabray, Martin Landau, Maureen Stapleton, June Havoc, and Gena Rowlands nearly unanimously rank Taylor's stage performances as the most memorable of their entire lives. A rare sound film clip of Taylor in a screen test made for the David O. Selznick studio is included in the documentary. The test, for a role in the film The Young in Heart reportedly did not meet the approval of studio executives. Among the greatest admirers of her talents was Spencer Tracy, who corresponded with her and emulated her style.

The actor Tony Randall, of Odd Couple fame, was a great admirer of Taylor and named one of his daughters after her.

Her great granddaughter^[7] is currently an actress in Los Angeles.

Motion Pictures

Taylor planned to make her film debut in Peg o' My Heart, but the film version of the hit play was coveted by nearly every screen actress, including Mary Pickford, who made an offer considerably in excess of the highest amount ever paid for the picture rights to a play or a story. The rights to the film were coveted because of the production's established popularity. Almost any actress in the famous role would be assured of a resounding success, however Taylor doggedly clung to the movie rights for her own use, should she ever commit to appearing in a film.

The heads of more than one prominent company were particularly desirous of securing Taylor’s services and the commercial potential her following would bring with an appearance in movie theaters in Peg O’ My Heart. Rather than become just another movie actress, however, Laurette steadfastly declared that she would stay out of the films forever. Her idea was to make one picture and one only -- Peg O’ My Heart.

It took years for the play to be produced and released. King Vidor remembered in his autobiography, A Tree Is A Tree, “I soon landed a job at the old Metro studio on Romaine Street – the assignment: to direct Laurette Taylor in Peg O’ My Heart. Although I had never seen Miss Taylor, her name carried with it a certain magic to my young ears.”

The play was considerably expanded for the film version, and the final production was an immediate success with audiences. Taylor went on to make another adaptation of one of her stage successes, Happiness, and then a third and final film for MGM, One Night in Rome.

She never appeared in another film, although David O' Selznick did invite her to film a sound test for a role in his 1938 film The Young in Heart, which Taylor did, but she chose not to accept the part (Minnie Dupree was cast. The sound film test exists and has been shown on TV from time to time).

References

• Laurette Taylor papers

Further reading

• Brenon, Harold. "Must They Have Temperament?" Motion Picture Magazine, February 1926.
• Courtney, Marguerite. Laurette. New York: Atheneum, 1968.
• Carroll, Gardiner. "Why Jane Cowl Avoids the Screen, Norma Talmadge Avoids the Stage, Laurette Taylor Appears on Both." Photoplay, July 1924, 72-73.
• Dowd, Nancy and David Shepard. Metuchen. King Vidor. N.J. The Directors Guild of America. London: The Scarecrow Press, 1988.
• Jackson, Kenneth T. The Encyclopedia of New York City. The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. P. 1155.
• Menefee, David W. The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era. Connecticut: Praeger, 2004. ISBN 0-275-98259-9.
• "Laurette Taylor a Delight in Adaptation of Her Stage Success." Film Daily, December 17,

1922.

External links

• Laurette Taylor at the Internet Broadway Database
• Laurette Taylor at the Internet Movie Database
• Laurette Taylor at Find a Grave
• Laurette Taylor photo gallery at NYP Library