American Artist

[poliphilo]

I was wrong about John Wayne. He didn't dodge WWII on the strength of a football injury. The truth is he was exempted from service on the grounds of age (he was 34 at the time of Pearl Harbour) and because of  family commitments. No shame in that. Of course he could have got round the ruling easily enough- and in fact he tried- only not hard enough. That's what he reproached himself with afterwards- not having tried hard enough.

Poor John Wayne. He was a sissy at heart. I'm convinced of this. He was a very delicate artist- look at the grace with which he moved, look at the understatement he brings to all his best roles, look at the fine and sensitive business with which he creates character- the fumbling with the glasses in My Darling Clementine, the right hand grasping the left elbow as he walks off into the desert at the end of the Searchers, consider the intelligence with which- if caught off guard- he could discuss the craft of acting. But America- Bitch mother that she is- insisted on him being a Man- meaning all that two-fisted, raw-steak eating, whisky drinking  machismo he fell into in later life. He wasn't alone. American artists of all types keep being squeezed into this mould. 

Want a list? Here, have a list.

John Ford
Howard Hawks
William Wellman
John Huston
Sam Peckinpah
Ernest Hemingway
Charles Bukowski
Hunter S Thompson
Norman Mailer
Jackson Pollock
Jim Morrison
Snoop Dogg

And that's just off the top of my head.

Why do so many American artists end up as alcoholics? Because they're running scared. Because they're afraid they're going to be exposed as the sissies they are. 

In any other society Wayne's reasons for staying out of uniform would have been accepted as perfectly honourable. In every other society the artist is valued for being an artist and isn't also expected to out-drink, out-fight, out-fuck every man in the bar.  Only in America do artists  feel compelled to turn themselves into dicks.

Comments

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

You left out Humphrey Bogart and Jason Robards (Both married to the same actress by the way; not at the same time of course.)
At the risk of calling a kettle less than white; your own 'ahem' artists, don't stand up to scrutiny on the alcohol front either; Hmmm now. let's see.......... Burton, Behan, Thomas and that's just at the Western edge of the Sceptered Isle.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the list could have been a whole lot longer.

A lot of British and European artists have had problems with alcohol- I wouldn't deny that- but there's a whole masculity package (booze, violence, sex, chest-beating and muscle-flexing) that's peculiarly American.

Though it does intersect with an Irish package that has similar features.

I think the difference could be that the Irish substitute religion for the chest-beating and muscle-flexing.

There was also a pan-national culture of artistic booziness that flourished in the 1950s which had a lot to do (I reckon) with the post-World War II blues.

Yes...

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

And the women a cross between Mata Hari and the virgin mother.

Re: Yes...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"Mata Hari and the virgin mother"- I'll have to think about that...

Re: Yes...

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

It's easy. We have to look like a porn star and behave like a saint.

Re: Yes...

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I think maybe 1 out of every 20 people who patronize my work even know what I look like, so I'm not sure the porn star requirement is a requirement.

But then, maybe this is specific only to actors/actresses... I don't know.

[zeeshanmn.livejournal.com]

I would agree with what you say, specially when you mention Jim Morrison in your list.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love the Doors.....

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

In every other society the artist is valued for being an artist and isn't also expected to out-drink, out-fight, out-fuck every man in the bar. Only in America do artists feel compelled to turn themselves into dicks.

Well, let me see. There's Peter O'Toole, there's Richard Burton, there's Laurence Olivier. All wonderful actors. Peter O'Toole admits he has been in rehab, Richard Burton was a drunk and Laurence Olivier had strange sexual preferences.

You are the master of sweeping statements, aren't you?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The sweeping statements are quite deliberate. I'm hoping to stir debate.

There was a whole generation of post-war British and Irish actors- Burton, Reed, O'Toole, Harris- who embraced the bar-fly lifestyle and underperformed in consequence. It's as if they were setting out to negate their talent. I attribute this to guilt at having "missed out" on WWII.

But they're a blip. British actors traditionally like a drink, but that's the only generation that set out en masse down the road to self-destruction.

Olivier is a mystery. He seems to have covered his tracks very well. Was he straight? Was he gay? Was he bisexual? Nobody seems to know for sure. I suspect that- like many actors, like the better-documented Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers- he didn't know who he was when he wasn't putting on a funny voice and wearing a putty nose.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

This was true of most actors - regardless of country of origin. The more effective they are, the less identity they actually have. I use the past tense of the verb as there are many modern day actors - even, heaven forfend, Americans who are not especially heavy drinkers but who manage to perform their craft rather successfully - George Clooney comes to mind.

Today, the wretched excess brigade seems to be over run by music players with England's very own Pete Doherty at the bottom of the heap.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A lot of actors seem to be faintly ashamed of being actors and long to be something more substantial.

And then there are those- like John Gielgud- who embrace their profession with exuberant affection. No problems about identity there.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Yes, but he only became a public persona when he was too old and successful to give a damn what the great unwashed thought of him. AND he's dead now.

I'm talking more about the general nature of being an actor. I worked for many years in the off-off Broadway theatre community in New York and so have known many actors both on and off stage. The good one's disappear into their parts and are far from the characters they play in real life.

I would also point out that you are using examples only from the old and DEAD generation. Modern day acting is a different business. For one thing its is much more demanding physically and so the excesses of the past are not tolerable. A drunk, even a drunk with an Oscar on his mantle wont survive long in today's film business

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You're right of course. I don't have a handle on today's actors. I suppose that's partly because they're still in mid-career and also because I just haven't looked that closely at their work.

And the third reason- which I'm loathe to admit- is that I'm getting to be old and out of touch.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

You don't have to do THAT. I'll bet a wee dram of Laophroag that I'm older than thee and I can assure you - It ain't necessarily got's ta happen. The body WILL fail us but the mind doesn't have to.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I assure you I don't WANT it to happen- but I used to care very much about keeping abreast of things and now I find I care less.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

A lot of actors seem to be faintly ashamed of being actors and long to be something more substantial.

I think you hit on something significant here.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That may be changing. I think there's less self-hatred in the profession than there was in the 50s and 60s. As saare_snowqueen points out, acting today is much more demanding than it used to be.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Richard Burton was Welsh as is Anthony Hopkins who used to be a heavy drinker UNTIL he moved to California

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Hopkins was Olivier's understudy for a while. I think they're the same kind of actor.

I don't know whether there's anything- apart from Welshness and drunkenness- that connects Hopkins to Burton. Do the Welsh have a greater propensity to drunkenness than the English or Scots? I don't think so.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

The voice. I spent an extraordinary night in a bar with Anthony Hopkins when he was doing 'Equus' in New York. I could have sat there listening to him tell stories until forever. THE VOICE

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Aaaaah....

Lucky you.

[creakiness.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering about something like this. On the art forums I read, when ever someone brings up the topic of fighting everyone seems to jump in with how much they love to fight, and how they only go out on the town for this purpose. It'll then go into a lot bragging about how many arms, legs, and jaws they've broken. I not sure how much of it I believe, but you would think it's like Fight Club or something. The biggest tough guys of the bunch always seem to end up being Canadian.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

Also a little alarming.

[senordildo.livejournal.com]

I remember reading how on the set of the Alamo Wayne would shout at his actors "Walk gracefully damnit! Like me!"
I'm sure that masculine guilt plays a large part in the massive alcoholism of American artists, but on the other hand, artists have a propensity for substance abuse and being difficult. John Ford and John Huston both had nothing to be ashamed of during their WWII service--they both just liked booze. Nor am I so sure that Wayne was a macho man because America insisted on it--it did, but I think he quite liked being one. Had he really wanted to, he could have taken different roles (Henry Fonda helped invert his screen image by playing cold, psychopathic villains), but he had a pretty square, neo-chivalric conception of the sort of roles he wanted to play and of the Western--he criticized Clint Eastwood and Sam Peckinpah for not meeting his genre standards, and The Shootist might have been a much better film if the Wayne hadn't insisted on reworking the original part to match the persona he spent his lifetime building up.

P.S. Henry Fonda starred in My Darline Clementine, not the Duke. Perhaps you meant She Wore a Yellow Ribbon?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ach- *slaps wrist*- of course I meant She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.

Wayne was offered a role in Blazing Saddles. He told Mel Brooks (in so many words) "I can't be in your movie becasuse it's too dirty, but I'll be first in line to see it."

I'va always wished he could have worked with Peckinpah. William Holden was magnificent in The Wild Bunch, but just imagine if that had been Wayne playing Pike Bishop!

[philtration.livejournal.com]

And what about the long list of British rock stars?
Surely you could wirte an entire book about them with Keith Richards and Keith Moon having a chapter all their own.
Was their a point to this other than "Americans are assholes while we are so much better"?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's a certain kind of machismo that is purely American. Drinking is a part of it, but only a part. This wasn't Yank-bashing but an attempt to identify something particular and peculiar in American culture.

Yeah, a lot of British artists have been equally drunk- but the persona affected by the drunken British artist is different. Brits go for a an effete, floppy-haired dandyism.

The American artist needs to prove that in spite of being in a sissy profession he's still a man. The British artist embraces his inner sissy and aspires to be Oscar Wilde.

[philtration.livejournal.com]

I don't know.... saying that drunken machismo is purely American is far from the truth. We have sports events year round here and even in the dead of winter they will be 100,000 fans attending an American football game. When have you seen any reports about drunken hooligans fighting in the stands and starting fires?
It does not happen here but it certainly does happen in the U.K.
For all the talk of the "Ugly American" tourist, when have you seen mobs of Americans running amok in the streets of a foreign country? When British football fans travel abroad to support their team security has to be beefed up to contain the drunken riots.
I love the Brits. I cannot imagine my music collection without the Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin...
I love your sense of humor and wit.
It seems that the Brits are in the mood for lecturing us on our shortcomings, as if we are not aware that we are not perfect. Believe me.. we do know.
A film containing violence and crude behavior is just "Typical brutish Yank behavior" unless it is a Guy Ritchie film then it is a "Cinematic Masterpiece"
The Brits have their own long sorid history filled with colonialism, slavery, conquest, murder and pillage of dirt poor people from every corner of the globe but expect the Americans to be without fault and seem to take great pleasure in pointing them out to us.
This tide of anti-Americanism in the U.K.cannot be all from George Bush. Believe me, we hate him far more than you do.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But I'm talking about artists not sports fans.

British artists don't feel obliged to be tough guys, American artists do.

I know that's a sweeping statement and there are exceptions on both sides of the pond.

Guy Ritchie for instance- who gets much mocked over here for pretending to be a cockney geezer when he's really a privately educated toff. I can't stand the fella.

[philtration.livejournal.com]

I agree that many artists go that route but it is certainly not a monopoly held by the Americans.
Is there a bigger jerk in the acting world today than Russell Crow?
I do see your point and I find the whole macho image rather boring myself.
I saw a documtery the other day about Monty Python's The Life Of Brian and John Cleese was talking about the film. I loved the fact that he was very humble in spite of his populairty on both side of the ocean.