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<\/i>:<\/p>\nSpencer had an aversion to makeup. To most actors, beards and mustaches, putty noses and tooth work, wigs and contact lenses are not only tools, but toys. Spencer shuddered at the thought, believing that characters had to be created from within rather than with artifice.<\/p>\n
Laurence Olivier once said to him, “I admire so much about you, Spence, but nothing more than the fact that you can do it all barefaced<\/i>.”<\/p>\n
“I can’t act with stuff all over me,” said Spence morosely.<\/p>\n
“But don’t you feel as though they’re looking at you<\/i>? Don’t you feel naked?”<\/p>\n
“Only when I have to say a lousy line, ” said Spence.<\/p>\n
This attitude once caused friction between us. When I directed him on Broadway in The Rugged Path<\/i>, there was a scene in which the character he played reached an island in the Philippines, having survived a torpedoed battleship.<\/p>\n
Eddie Senz, a brilliant makeup artist, devised an easily applied piece to simulate a beard growth. When he demonstrated it, Spencer turned and went to his dressing room. I joined him there a few minutes later.<\/p>\n
“Has he gone?” asked Spence.<\/p>\n
“May I ask you one question?”<\/p>\n
“No.”<\/p>\n
“How could a man drift in the sea for eight days and turn up clean shaven?”<\/p>\n
“Guess,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I know your feeling about all this, kiddo, but you’re not going to tell me you can act<\/i> unshaven!”<\/p>\n
“Watch me,” he said.<\/p>\n
In performance, he did precisely that. I still find it difficult to believe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I believe it.<\/p>\n
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