Chapter - 08

Smooth, Svelte AND Fascinating

Were your midriff muscles sore during the first few days of suspension on the posture hook? Did the muscles in the back of your legs get a bit stiff? Good! That's because you've been giving them a real workout. It proves you've practiced.

Your new posture started as a mind picture, came into being through your physical apparatus, and by now it should begin to fit you like a glove. But don't expect to be absolutely comfortable with it at first, especially if you've been careless about posture in the past.

After all, a stoop-shouldered person may well be more comfortable when he lets his shoulders sag than when he starts to straighten them. Or if he has a bay window, he is much more comfortable with his paunch protruding than when he occasionally pulls it in.

Consequently, his shoulders slump worse and worse, or his bay window grows more flabbily entrenched. His muscles get lazily comfortable as time goes by. Finally comes a day when he can do very little to help his appearance.

I hope you understand that my use of the word "he" throughout most of this book is a matter of convenience, and that "she" is also implied.

Young Academy award nominee Diane Varsi is among the feminine players who always call themselves "actors."

"I get paid for being an actor," she says, "and I like being one."

She uses the word deliberately, somewhat in the spirit that a physician who happens to be a woman would refer to herself as a "doctor," not a "doctoress."

So never let it be thought that I mean to slight the ladies. Their dowager's hump and spreading beam must also be very comfortable, or we wouldn't see them so frequently on what should be the lovelier sex. But can you imagine Marlene Dietrich with a dowager's hump? Or Burt Lancaster with a bay window? Never!

Keep yourself consciously suspended on your hook until you've mastered good posture with relaxed constriction. You're going to put your hook on an overhead "traveler" and start walking.

Your physical mold for walking is the same as for standing. The chin is level, the chest is high, the shoulders relaxed and slightly forward, the waist long, the spine straight, the buttocks pinched in and the abdomen flat. The base is narrow. In walking, as in standing,, let your weight rest lightly on the balls of your feet. It will give you a feeling of leaning slightly forward. That's all right. It's balance in operation.

Disturb the air around you as little as possible when you walk. Move through the surrounding air the way a good swimmer moves through the water—directly, smoothly, without splashing.

You can do it if you keep in mind that you're on a hook, your hook is on a traveler, and you move yourself along barely touching the ground. Try to give your walk that lithe, highly charged quality of Yul Brynner's walk.

A normal, intelligent, virile man walks with his arms swinging naturally and easily—fairly close to his body—his shoulders and hips almost immobile. Lower levels of intelligence seem to walk with the arms swinging out from the body in an apelike movement.

A woman is most pleasingly feminine when she walks with her arms almost immobile, her shoulders and hips entirely so.

Next time you're out among people, look around and see how much a sloppy walk detracts from good appearance.

Does the shuffling of that man's feet remind you of Clark Gable's virile stride? Does that woman, trotting on her high-heeled shoes and signaling port-to-starboard with her hips, bring to mind Loretta Young's gracefully feminine yet vital walk? No, certainly not.

Walking is very important to an actor. An actor's walk is often an "action bridge," spanning a gap between shots cutting from one scene to another; a gap that might otherwise have to be filled with extra dialogue or narration to hold the audience.

Walking should never be merely a slipshod way of propelling the body from one place to another.

Remember how Gary Cooper walked down that deserted street in the Western classic High Noon. His walk alone suggested strong drama, danger being met with courage. All through a way of walking.

Once you know how to walk right, you'll be able to work out any tricks of stylization that defy the usual rules. You'll walk at will like a cowpoke or sailor, a "B" girl in a cheap dive or a high-fashion model on Fifth Avenue.

Make it your general rule to keep in mind the theory of walking in partial suspension and disturbing the air around you as little as possible.

I tell my students in Hollywood that when they're walking around a studio lot they should feel they are holding themselves so that their bodies don't quite touch their shorts. With the girls it's girdles, of course. But the principle is the same. The very thought of holding the body away from its clothing helps to keep the body in line and build up muscle tone, or habitual muscular alertness.

When you look at television or go to the theater you can, merely by observation, learn a great deal about walking.

Hitch your "walkin' wagon" to the stars. Most of them are models of relaxed constriction as they move around a set.

By following the few simple suggestions in this chapter you will become body-conscious in the best possible sense. You will discover that you can move your arms without awkward distortion of the rest of your body. You will learn that you can walk very fast or very slowly without throwing yourself off balance. You will even begin to sense the centralized control—the co-ordination— that fine dancers and great bullfighters have.

If you've heard that you ought to practice walking with a book on your head, go ahead and do it. It's basically a good exercise.

David Belasco used to tell us to walk as though we were hanging by a forelock of our hair.

Everyone has his own special descriptive imagery to bring about the universally desired goal of good posture and well co-ordinated movement.

So get on your feet again and start walking. If you have a partner, drill each other till that sergeant you used to have (or that hard-driving gym teacher) seems like a sissy in retrospect. Then reverse roles. Check up on whether you disturb as little air as possible when you walk, and every time you turn make your pivots smooth and well balanced.

When you can't walk any more—try sitting. That's an exercise too. Keep your tail-piece in line with the rest of your body. Don't thrust it out, but tuck it under as you seat yourself, and again as you rise.

While you're sitting, stay on your hook to keep your chest high and your physical apparatus free for speech and movement. You'll find that you can even slouch and fall into all kinds of "natural" positions while you're on your hook.

Sit down and stand up a few times, still imagining that the hook is under your breastbone, both to take the weight off your feet and to pull you straight up. As you rise you should feel a sense of pushing down lightly with the feet. When you rehearse sitting and rising over and over again, disturb the air as little as possible.

Sit down. Stand up. Walk around the room. Walk around the furniture. Break the monotony by lifting articles from a table or desk and then putting them down again. Go through some of the actions you ordinarily make during the course of a day.

When you light a cigarette or take a bite of food, let your arms and hands bring the cigarette or food up to your mouth. Don't meet them halfway—or even a fraction of an inch of the way —by ducking your head, stretching your neck forward, or contorting your shoulders.

Always be sure to:

DISTURB AS LITTLE AIR AS POSSIBLE.

MAKE YOURSELF LONG THROUGH THE MIDDLE.

KEEP YOUR SHOULDERS RELAXED.

SUSPEND YOURSELF FROM THE HOOK ALWAYS.

LET YOUR ARMS, NOT YOUR SHOULDERS, DO THE WORK.

ALERT YOUR MUSCLES FOR MUSCLE TONE.

And once again:

DISTURB AS LITTLE AIR AS POSSIBLE WHEN YOU MOVE.

I'll continue hammering away at you in your training, and, while I do, keep this in mind: There isn't a star in New York or

Hollywood who hasn't been through what you're going through. Actors are diligent, hard-working men and women. Even after years of rigorous schooling, they spend additional months of training to prepare themeselves for every new role.

Weeks became months as Marlon Brando worked on Guys and Dolls, perfecting his tough stance and other mannerisms until they appeared natural and spontaneous. Robert Alda worked equally hard on the same role for the New York stage production. Each of these actors interpreted the character differently, but with individual artistry and success.

Rita Hayworth spent a full six months making ready for the hit performance she gave in Cover Girl. Her beauty and her stellar name were only two elements, however important, which she brought to Cover Girl. To them she added interpretation of character, arrived at by understanding. She researched her role as painstakingly as a scientist researching a formula. She took full advantage of every bit of expert guidance the resources of Columbia Studios made available to her. The result of this concentration of collective talent and technical know-how was a glamour picture that remains to this day a classic of its kind.

These people, and others whose names you see in lights, weren't born stars. They became stars.

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