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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 Delicate Balance," "The Gin Game" and "Foxfire. " Their last Broadway appearance together was in "The Petition" 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 "Cocoon" and "Batteries not Included." In nineteen ninety-two, she played an old woman in the movie, "Fried 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 honored with a special Tony Award for their work in the Broadway theater. Reporters always were asking them how they were able to work so closely 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 lessen the effectiveness of her performance. She appeared in more television movies in the years before her death. And she made several movies that were released 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.
