Jimmie+Langton

9.Jimmie Langton and his role in Julia’s life.

Jimmie Langton, a fat, bald-headed, rubicund man of forty-five, who looked like one of Rubens' prosperous burghers, had a passion for the theatre. He was an eccentric, arrogant, exuberant, vain and charming fellow. He loved acting, but his physique prevented him from playing any but a few parts, which was fortunate, for he was a bad actor. He could not subdue his natural flamboyance, and every part he played, though he studied it with care and gave it thought, he turned into a grotesque. He broadened every gesture, he exaggerated every intonation. But it was a very different matter when he rehearsed his cast; then he would suffer nothing artificial. His ear was perfect, and though he could not produce the right intonation himself he would never let a false one pass in anyone else. "Don't be natural," he told his company. "The stage isn't the place for that. The stage is make-believe. But seem natural." He worked his company hard. They rehearsed every morning from ten till two, when he sent them home to learn their parts and rest before the evening's performance. He bullied them, he screamed at them, he mocked them. He underpaid them. But if they played a moving scene well he cried like a child, and when they said an amusing line as he wanted it said he bellowed with laughter. He would skip about the stage on one leg if he was pleased, and if he was angry would throw the script down and stamp on it while tears of rage ran down his cheeks. The company laughed at him and abused him and did everything they could to please him. He aroused a protective instinct in them, so that one and all they felt that they couldn't let him down. Though they said he drove them like slaves, and they never had a moment to themselves, flesh and blood couldn't stand it, it gave them a sort of horrible satisfaction to comply with his outrageous demands. When he wrung an old trooper's hand, who was getting seven pounds a week, and said, by God, laddie, you're stupendous, the old trooper felt like Charles Kean. When Julia was sixteen and went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Gower Street she knew already much that they could teach her there. She had to get rid of a certain number of tricks that were out of date and she had to acquire a more conversational style. But she won every prize that was open to her, and when she was finished with the school her good French got her almost immediately a small part in London as a French maid. It looked for a while as though her knowledge of French would specialize her in parts needing a foreign accent, for after this she was engaged to play an Austrian waitress. It was two years later that Jimmie Langton discovered her. She was on tour in a melodrama that had been successful in London; in the part of an Italian adventuress, whose machinations were eventually exposed, she was trying somewhat inadequately to represent a woman of forty. Since the heroine, a blonde person of mature years, was playing a young girl, the performance lacked verisimilitude. Jimmie was taking a short holiday which he spent in going every night to the theatre in one town after another. At the end of the piece he went round to see Julia. He was well enough known in the theatrical world for her to be flattered by the compliments he paid her, and when he asked her to lunch with him next day she accepted. They had no sooner sat down to table than he went straight to the point. He said that he had never slept a wink all night for thinking of Julia.He had been at this game for twenty-five years. He had been a call-boy, a stage-hand, a stage-manager, an actor, a publicity man and even a critic. He had lived in the theatre since he had been a kid just out of a board school, and what he did not know about acting was not worth knowing. Jimmie thought that Julia was a genius. She had got everything. She was the right height, she had got a good figure and indiarubber face.That was the face an actress wanted. The face that could look anything, even beautiful, the face that could show every thought that passed through the mind. That was the face Duse's got. Jimmie said that she had got a wonderful voice, the voice that could wring an audience's heart. Her timing was almost perfect. That couldn't have been taught, she must have that by nature.He had been making inquiries about her. He gave her twelve pounds, and he was sure that it was more than she was worth. She had got everything to learn. Her gestures were commonplace. She didn't know that every gesture must mean something. She didn't know how to get an audience to look at her before she spoke. Jimmie said that if Julia came to him he would make her the greatest actress in England, he would let you play twenty parts a year. Ibsen, Shaw, Barker, Sudermann, Hankin, Galsworthy Julia had been on the stage for three years, she had been working like a horse and had learnt a good deal. Jimmie Langton made Julia the star, he made her one of the most famous actresses and she played the best roles in the theatres.