Henry Hull

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 91, 11 January 1935, Page 14

Henry Hull

Henry Hull wants to be the forgotten man. That is scarcely the accepted attitude for an actor to take toward his work, but it is perfectly sincere with the Broadway stage star, who begins his talking career in Universal’s “Great Expectations.” For 20 years he has been acting, and has so far managed to keep the light of his personality hidden under the bushel of make-up and characterisation. Audiences who have seen “Tobacco Road,” “Lulu Belle.” “The Man Who Came Back” on the stage will never forget Jeeter Lester in the first, the negro barber in the second and Henry'Parker in the third. Yet to-day Henry Hull, who played them all, is quite obscure .as an individual. He hopes that Abel Magwitch, his convict portrayal in ‘ Great Expectations,” will have such vitality and reality that no one will think of its creator at all. For Magwitch, Hull read over 20 books on the England of Charles Dickens’s times and of life in the Australian convict camps. That is the only way to get under character’s skin, he says. You must know his life from the inside. Make-up is only the finishing touch that conceals the aetor in the character he interprets. So brilliant, however, is the role of Magwitch in “Great Expectations” that it is bound to create much interest in the man who interprets the role, Henry Hull.