PEOPLE IN AMERICA - From London to Broadway to Hollywood: Je

PEOPLE IN AMERICA - From London to Broadway to Hollywood: Jessica Tandy
By Nancy Steinbach

Broadcast: Sunday, August 14, 2005

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VOICE ONE:

I'm Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Rich Kleinfeldt with the Special English program, People in America. Today, we tell the story of Jessica Tandy who died in nineteen ninety-four. She won many awards for her acting¹ during the almost seventy years she performed.

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VOICE ONE:

Jessica Tandy probably is best known for winning an Academy² Award in nineteen eighty-nine for the movie "Driving Miss Daisy. " She was the oldest person to have won the award. But for many years, she had received praise for her great performances.

Tandy appeared in more than one hundred stage shows, twenty-five movies and on many television programs during her sixty-seven years of acting. Most of her performances were in the United States, although she did not become an American citizen until nineteen fifty-four.

VOICE TWO:

Jessica Tandy was born in London, England, in nineteen-oh-nine. Her father died when she was twelve years old. Her mother taught and took other jobs at night to make extra money for her three children. Jessica's older brothers showed an interest in the theater. They would put on shows in their London home. Jessica said later that she was terrible in all of them. But she said taking part in those plays as a child created a desire in her to be someone else.

 
 

VOICE ONE:

Jessica loved going to the theater. And she loved British writer William Shakespeare. Years later, she acted in many of Shakespeare's plays, with great actors like John Gielgud and Lawrence Olivier. This love of the theater led her to attend an acting school in nineteen twenty-four. When she was eighteen years old, she performed in her first play. It was called "The Manderson Girls. " She did not earn enough money to pay for the five different dresses she had to wear in the play. She solved the problem by sewing them herself.

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VOICE TWO:

Jessica Tandy always thought she was plain-looking. So did most theater professionals. She said people in the theater knew she was a good actress, but did not believe she was pretty enough to be a success. She noted³ that they said, "She is plain but on the stage she looks all right."

Pictures of Jessica Tandy do not suggest that this is true. She just looked different from the leading women actors of the day. Later, she said that it was good that she was not considered pretty. She said she got more interesting parts that way.

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen thirty-two, critics in London recognized her great acting skill in her performance in the play "Children in Uniform." That part gave her what she said was one of the moments she loved most in the theater. She said at one performance, people watching were so moved they continued to sit quietly when the play ended. That same year, she married actor Jack⁴ Hawkins. They had a daughter, Susan.

Tandy continued to work in the theater in London. By nineteen forty, her marriage was ending. So she took her daughter and moved to the United States to escape World War Two. In New York City, she met a young actor named Hume Cronyn. Two years later they married and moved to Hollywood. By nineteen forty-five, they had two children.

VOICE TWO:

In California, Hume Cronyn was getting good parts in movies. But Tandy was not. She got only small parts, when she got them at all. She said the producers in Hollywood did not take her seriously as an actress. She began to feel like a failure. Jessica Tandy was considering not acting anymore. But then her husband did something that changed her life. He gave her the lead part in a play he was directing in Los Angeles. It was "Portrait of a Madonna" by Tennessee Williams. She played a lonely woman. Critics praised her.

Tennessee Williams came to Los Angeles from New York just to see her in the show. He said later that he knew he had found the actress to play the lead in his new play, "A Streetcar Named Desire." That play opened in New York in nineteen forty-seven. Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter were the stars. It won a Pulitzer Prize and many other awards.

Tandy won the first of her four Tony awards for best actress in a play. One director said that she was full of surprises. He said that she always did things better than expected.

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VOICE ONE:

During the nineteen-fifties, Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn began working together in theaters in New York City. Their first appearance together in a major Broadway theater was the hit play "The Fourposter. "

Through the years, they appeared together in nine other plays on Broadway, including "A Delicate⁵ Balance," "The Gin Game" and "Foxfire. " Their last Broadway appearance together was in "The Petition⁶" in nineteen eighty-six. Tandy also worked with her husband in local theaters across the United States. They liked doing it because they had a chance to play parts in the older well-known plays.

In nineteen sixty-three, for example, Miss Tandy played Gertrude in Shakespeare's "Hamlet," Olga in Anton Chekhov's "The Three Sisters," and the wife of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." She also acted in plays in the Shakespeare festivals in Stratford, Connecticut and in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.

VOICE TWO:

Jessica Tandy said she hated seeing herself in the movies. She said she never was as satisfied making movies as she was working in the theater. But she thought it was important to accept the acting jobs that were offered. It helped pay expenses when she performed in small theaters for less pay.

Tandy played Hume Cronyn's wife in four movies during the nineteen-eighties, including "Cocoon⁷" and "Batteries not Included." In nineteen ninety-two, she played an old woman in the movie, "Fried⁸ Green Tomatoes. " But she never really thought of herself as a movie actress. Perhaps that was because of her experience earlier when she was not accepted in Hollywood.

Even after her success in the play "A Streetcar Named Desire," Hollywood producers did not choose her to be in the movie. Vivien Leigh replaced her in the part of Blanche Dubois. Tandy said she was surprised when she won the academy award for "Driving Miss Daisy. " She said then that the wonderful part she had made up for her lack of experience in movies.

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VOICE ONE:

Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn were married for fifty-two years. During their years of acting together, they won almost every cultural award possible. In nineteen eighty-six, they won the Kennedy Center lifetime achievement award.

In nineteen ninety, President George Bush presented the National Medal of Art to them. A few months before she died, Tandy and Cronyn were honored⁹ with a special Tony Award for their work in the Broadway theater. Reporters always were asking them how they were able to work so closely¹⁰ together for so long. Tandy said they never discussed their work at home. She said they always honored each other's ideas if they did not agree about something.

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VOICE TWO:

Jessica Tandy suffered from stage fright that became worse as she grew older. It made her feel sick before a performance. Yet her husband said she was at her best when she was working. She was in great demand as she grew older. Tandy took good parts and bad ones. She always said a person is richer for doing things. If you wait for the greatest part , you will wait a long time and your skills will decrease, she said. You cannot be an actor without acting.

Tandy was an actor until the end. She had problems with her eyes and her heart. Yet they did not slow her down. In nineteen eighty-eight, she won an Emmy Award for a television movie of the play "Foxfire. " Three years later, Jessica Tandy had a cancer operation. But she continued working. She did not let her pain lessen¹¹ the effectiveness of her performance. She appeared in more television movies in the years before her death. And she made several movies that were released¹² after she died September eleventh, nineteen ninety-four. She was eighty-five.

VOICE ONE:

Jessica Tandy said as an actor her job was getting the best out of what the writer expressed in the play or movie. The critics said she did. They said she always was able to show deep meaning in the people she played. One critic wrote that she was such a good actor that only poets, not critics, should be permitted to write about her.

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VOICE TWO:

This Special English program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by Lawan Davis. I'm Rich Kleinfeldt.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week for another People in America program on the Voice of America.

1 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

2 academy   

n.(高等)专科院校；学术社团，协会，研究院

参考例句：

• This is an academy of music.这是一所音乐专科学院。
• I visited Chinese Academy of Sciences yesterday.我昨天去访问了中国科学院。

3 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

4 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

5 delicate   

adj.巧妙的，敏感的；易损的，娇嫩的

参考例句：

• Be careful with those wine cups — they are very delicate.当心那些酒杯—它们很容易碎。
• The delicate handicraft works will not bear rough handling.精致的手工艺品经不起粗鲁的摆弄。

6 petition   

n.请愿书，申请书，诉状；v.请愿，正式请求

参考例句：

• Thousands of citizens subscribed the petition.几千名公民在请愿书上签名。
• The number of signers of the petition for a new school snowballed.要求增设新学校而签名的人像滚雪球似的越来越多。

7 cocoon   

n.茧

参考例句：

• A cocoon is a kind of silk covering made by an insect.蚕茧是由昆虫制造的一种由丝组成的外包层。
• The beautiful butterfly emerged from the cocoon.美丽的蝴蝶自茧中出现。

8 fried   

adj.油煎的；油炒的

参考例句：

• I ate everything fried.所有油炸的我都吃。
• I prefer fried peanuts.我选择炸花生。

9 honored   

adj.光荣的：荣幸的v.尊敬，给以荣誉( honor的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I hope to be honored with further orders. 如蒙惠顾，不胜荣幸。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This is a time-honored custom. 这是一个古老的习俗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 closely   

adv.紧密地；严密地，密切地

参考例句：

• We shall follow closely the development of the situation.我们将密切注意形势的发展。
• The two companies are closely tied up with each other.这两家公司之间有密切联系。

11 lessen   

vt.减少，减轻；缩小

参考例句：

• Regular exercise can help to lessen the pain.经常运动有助于减轻痛感。
• They've made great effort to lessen the noise of planes.他们尽力减小飞机的噪音。

12 released   

v.释放( release的过去式和过去分词 )；放开；发布；发行

参考例句：

• He was released on bail pending committal proceedings. 他交保获释正在候审。
• With hindsight it is easy to say they should not have released him. 事后才说他们本不应该释放他，这倒容易。