{"id":128800,"date":"2025-05-11T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=128800"},"modified":"2025-05-10T06:02:56","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T10:02:56","slug":"bette-davis-on-martha-graham-to-me-martha-graham-is-one-of-americas-few-authentic-geniuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=128800","title":{"rendered":"“To me, Martha Graham is one of America’s few authentic geniuses.” – Bette Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Martha Graham’s Birthday: <\/h1>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\nFirst: Joan Acocella wrote a wonderful profile of Graham for The New Yorker<\/i>. I discussed it – and Graham – here<\/a>. In researching this post, I came across a beautiful piece about the time Helen Keller visited Martha Graham’s studio<\/a>, and joined the dancers at the barre.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a>
\nHelen Keller visits Martha Graham\u2019s studio. (1954)<\/i><\/p>\n

Bette Davis studied with Martha Graham when she was a teenager attending the Robert Milton-John Murray Anderson School of the Theatre. In her first memoir, The Lonely Life: An Autobiography<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, she wrote about Graham, and Graham’s influence on her work. Well worth quoting in full:<\/p>\n

Our instructress for dancing was Martha Graham. Her job was to teach us how to use our bodies properly. <\/p>\n

“To act is to dance!”<\/p>\n

I worshiped her. She was all tension – lightning! Her burning dedication gave her spare body the power of ten men. If Roshanara was a mystic curve, Miss Graham was a straight line – a divining rod. Both were great, and both were aware of the universal. But Miss Graham was the true modern.<\/p>\n

I had already learned that the body via the dance could send a message. Now I was taught a syntax with which to articulate the subtleties fully. She would with a single thrust of her weight convey anguish. Then in an anchored lift that made her ten feet tall, she became all joy. One after the other. Hatred, ecstasy, age, compassion! There was no end, once the body was disciplined. <\/p>\n

What at first seemed grotesque to the eye, developed into a beautiful release for both dancer and beholder. To me, Martha Graham is one of America’s few authentic geniuses. I was lucky enough to study with her.<\/p>\n

A mutual friend recently repeated this great woman’s happy observation that amongst dramatic actors, I have always expressed an emotion with full body – as a dancer does. If this be so, I would like to remind her that it was she who made it possible. Every time I climbed a flight of stairs in films – and I spent half my life on them – it was Graham step by step.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bless the soul who put this together:<\/p>\n

\n