For the Love of Their Craft

Dorothy Barrett stood in front of her beginning acting students, ranging in age from 7 to 20, and gave them the benefit of wisdom gained during a career that has ranged from performing in major studio films to coaching future television stars.

“It’s not what you say, but how you say it,” she tells her 40 students, echoing Mae West. “It’s not what you do, but how you do it.

“You must project yourself to your audience.”

As an actor and dancer, Barrett appeared in hundreds of movies, including “Gone with the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz” and “Mildred Pierce.”

But she is best known for her real-life role as a teacher at the American National Academy of Performing Arts in Studio City, a nonprofit school founded in 1957 by actor Francis Lederer.

Barrett has been teaching at the school since 1964 and is now the academy’s administrator. The children’s workshop, which she started the year after she arrived at the school, has been an early training ground for such notables as Fred Savage of “The Wonder Years” and Tracey Bergman of “The Young and the Restless.”

The students are now preparing for a Christmas show during which they will show off the skills they have been learning. “All students receive instruction in acting, tap dancing, ballet, speech, jazz dancing and musical comedy,” Barrett said.

Some of the academy’s students have stayed with the school long after completing the workshop.

“Several instructors began as students at the academy when they were as young as 3 or 4 years old,” said Barrett, who estimates she has worked with nearly 3,000 young actors and actresses over the years.

It has been a labor of love.

“The academy believes that one must love the theater,” she said. “If we work with love, we can not help but succeed.”