Maugham on Actors

The fine actress Carole Shelley, appearing in a play by W. Somerset Maugham, says Maugham “didn’t like actors. I found that very depressing” (“A First Even for These Veterans,” by Mike Boehm, Aug. 26).

Perhaps I can relieve her depression, or at least teach her to think before she speaks. The following is from Maugham’s autobiographical “The Summing Up”:

“The actor’s calling is a hard one.... They have a natural gift and the desire to use it.... It is a profession that requires assiduous labor to achieve proficiency.... Long stretches of enforced idleness must be endured.... He is forgotten as soon as he ceases to please.... It is when I think of this that I [am] indulgent to the actor’s airs and graces, his exigence and vanity.... It all lasts such a little while. And after all his egotism is part of his talent.”

I find those comments to be more than generous toward actors.

SAM WOODS

Los Angeles