Ronald Colman Exercises Great Care In Selecting His Annual Film Role

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 74, 28 July 1948, Page 3

Ronald Colman Exercises Great Care In Selecting His Annual Film Role

One word does much to explain how Ronald Colman almost invariably lands good parts in successful pictures. That word is, “patience.” Colman is never in a hurry when he is selecting a new role. He waits until he finds exactly what he wants. His latest role is in “A Double Life” coming to Whakatane this week. Previously, he starred in “The Late George Apley,” in 1947. Colman has made only one pictures year for the past eleven years. This is part of his set policy of waiting for just the right .role. During the year, he examines many scripts. He also keeps before the public by means of radio performances. When he has finally selected the film he wished to play, he develops it with the same patience he exercises in choosing it. Many other qualities such as his profound knowledge of dramatic valu.es and his sense of what the public prefers in films, combine to . give Colman his success in picking good roles, but his patience is the key to his policy. The effectiveness of Colman’s policy in selecting screen roles may be seen from his record. He entered pictures in 1923, playing the masculine lead opposite Lillian Gish in “The White Sister.” He has played nothing but leading roles ever since. He has starred in such notable productions as “Kismet,” “Random Harvest,” “The Light That Failed,” “The Prisoner Of Zenda,” “Raffles,” “One Night Of Love,” the “Bulldog Drummond” series, “Beau Geste,” “Lost Horizon,” “A Tale Of Two Cities,” “If I Were King” and “Arrowsmith.” In “A Double Life,” he is seen as a stage star who “lives” the roles he plays, so completely, that his part as “Othello” leads him to jealousy and murder. Signe Hasso, Edmond O’Brien, Ray , Collins, Philip Loeb, Millard Mitchell, Joseph Sawyer and Shelley Winters have featured roles in this film directed by George Cukor.