Movie stars vs. theatre stars.
Excerpt from Sidney Lumet’s Making Movies
Sidney Lumet:
A charming thing happened at the first reading of Murder on the Orient Express. Five stars of the English theatre were appearing in the West End at the time — John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Vanessa Redgrave, Colin Blakely, and Rachel Roberts. Sitting with them were six movie stars: Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, Richard Widmark, Tony Perkins, Jacqueline Bisset, and Michael York; Ingrid Bergman and Albert Finney bridged both worlds.
They began to read. I couldn’t hear anything. Everyone was murmuring their lines so quietly they were inaudible.
I finally figured out what was happening. The movie stars were in awe of the theatre stars; the theatre stars were in awe of the movie stars. A classic case of stage fright.
I stopped the reading and, saying that I couldn’t hear a thing, asked them to please talk to one another as if we were at Gielgud’s house for dinner. John said he’d never had such illustrious guests to dinner, and off we went.
