THE TIP-TILTED NOSE.

Otago Witness, Issue 4033, 30 June 1931, Page 66

THE TIP-TILTED NOSE.

A woman with a retrousse or tip-tilted nose may not be able to act in comedy or in anything, but it is common to find that great comedy actresses generally have retrousse or tip-tilted noses. Generally speaking, a tragedian or serious actor has a straight or aquiline nose, although there has been an instance of an actor with a tip-tilted nose acquiring fame in tragic parts. The great French actor, Coquelin, could not play serious parts because nature had denied him a serious nose; he was a born comedian. He tried to subdue nature by using nose paste, but he remained ineffective in serious parts. This fact proves that the shape of the nose has some subtle relationship to the nature and disposition of its wearer. Ellen Terry had a slightly tip-tilted nose, and what., a delicious comedienne she was! Her nose made her a brilliant Beatrice, but it ruined her Lady Macbeth. A glance at a photograph of Miss Marie-Tempest, the most brilliant comedienne on the English stage, shows that she, top, has a retrousse nose. So has Miss Irene Vanbrugh. So has Miss Phyllis Monkman. So. have Miss Cicely Courtneidge, Miss Adele Astaire, anjl Miss* Gertrude Lawrence. Nell Gwyn!s nose was slightly tip-tilted, ilf a gallery of portraits of comediennes were to be founded, practically every face in it would be seen to possess a retrousse nose. Such have pathos, but not tragedy, and it is as impossible to conceive of one of them in

the part of the Medea or Hecuba as it would be to think of Sybil Thorndyke, Who' has a serious and straight nose, in the part of O Mimosa San, in “ The Geisha,” although Miss Thorndyke has acted comic parts and can do them well enough. Mr Charles Chaplin, who is a handsome man in private life, has the sensitive face and flexible mouth and pathetic eyes that are often found in comic actors, and, as. anyone who saw him in “ The Gold Rush ” can testify, he can be most appealingly sad in his acting, but he has not the tragic quality of a Henry Irving, and is for ever debarred from the performance of such parts as Hamlet. Pathos, indeed, is common among comedians, many of whom are wistful and pathetic in their appearance. There is a look of melancholy in Mr Chaplin’s fine eyes. The late Dan Leno, immeasurably the greatest comedian I have ever seen, was a sad-looking little man who excited sympathy for himself in his audience by a lost look that he had. Dan Leno made everybody laugh, but he also made everybody wish to protect him and take care of him. Mr Chaplin, to,'excites that feeling in hi=r admirers. —St. John Ervine, in Good Housekeeping.