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If you wish to add a remembrance, please use the Form for Member News. or send an e-mail to: mailarn@netzero.com   Actress Born March 10, 1907 in Aberdeen, Scotland - Died December 13, 2007 (In 2004, when Evelyn became a member of the ARN, she was 97 years old, which made her the oldest living RADA graduate. However, as you'll discover here, she was often the youngest -- literally (in her career) and at heart. Evelyn was just 14 years old when she attended RADA, and graduated in 1921. A sampling of some of Evelyn's acting work includes: the Old Vic 1923 - 1925 seasons appearing in productions such as HENRY VI, CORIOLANUS, AS YOU LIKE IT, CHESTER NATIVITY PLAY; George White's Music Hall Varieties (1932); THE YELLOW IRIS, a radio play written by Agatha Christie and broadcast on the BBC (1937); STORM IN A TEACUP, by James Bridie, at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh; etc. From Nikolai Alexandrov (RADA grad, 1951), executor of Evelyn's estate: (At RADA) one of her teachers was Charlie Laughton, before he became a Hollywood star. Evelyn worked on the London stage and throughout England in rep until the second World War, when she married and had a child. She was as bright as a penny and extremely well read -- could talk on most any subject without seeming to be at all opinionated. A week or two before she earned her wings, we were having afternoon tea. Her husband was 93. She leaned over to me and said, "You know, Nikolai, I think Frank is falling in love with me again." A sweet and dear moment I shall never forget. Frank, her husband, earned his wings just 13 days after her passing.   Singer, Actress and Spokeswoman for the Arts Born September 3, 1910 – Died April 17, 2007 The following are links to two of the numerous obituaries for, and to sites relating to, Kitty Carlisle Hart: Obituary - The New York Times Online Obituary - National Public Radio (NPR) Wikipedia KittyCarlisle.com Internationally known stage director of opera, theatre, and television; Artistic DIrector of the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Missouri, U.S. Born September 22, 1931 – Died April 6, 2007 The following are links to a few of the obituaries for Colin Graham: Obituary - TimesOnline (The Times, UK) Obituary - Guardian Unlimited (UK) Obituary - Telegraph.co.uk Wikipedia  Michael John Andrew St Gallant McCallion Master teacher of voice, director, playwright, poet Born December 21, 1938 - died December 11, 2004 Obituary - Guardian Unlimited (UK) Treated the end of his life like a toy.' And said it with wonder, knowing that they Could do the same thing - starting today, It required that they let go of fear - that was all. And for all who had known him and heard their child call From the depths of their heart where they kept him fettered Smiling in hope that his life would be bettered. Few, so few, in the end were able To slip his chains, for they saw him sable, Not, as he was, with love for them, GOLD. They could see to be young so, they'd first to be old. They had to risk something with each drawn breath. And the something was death. Poem by Michael McCallion 28th January 2002  Theatre historian, playwright and director. Born Port of Spain, Trinidad, 5 August 1921 - died Hanover, New Hampshire, 15 September 2003. A HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN THEATRE, by Errol Gaston Hill (Cambridge University Press 2003) The following are links to obituaries for Professor Hill: Dartmouth College Yale University  Born in Singapore, October 31 1918 - died in London, August 24 2002 The following are links to two of the many obituaries that appeared for Hugh Cruttwell: The Guardian The London Daily Telegraph The following is an address made by MALCOLM McKAY at the Hugh Cruttwell Memorial Celebration held on March 9, 2003, at the Old Vic Theatre in London, (reprinted with his permission). (See also the PHOTOS page on this web site.): Hugh was born in Singapore, went up to Oxford, was a conscientious objector during the war, became a theatre director, and then principal of RADA from 1966 to 1984. He was a teacher, I think a very great teacher. And like all great teachers he was unique. He created his own world, Hugh's world, and if you were very lucky, he invited you in. Of course every great teacher needs great students... and Hugh had his own extraordinary way of finding them. He instructed all of us on the auditioning panel in his own particular, not to say, peculiar, method of rating applicants. You may not know this, but every one of you who went to RADA has been at one time, either a star, a query or... a dot. A star was immediate admission, a query, a query and a dot... a contender. A query double plus was roughly the equivalent of a dot minus – depending on how you looked at it; A dot double plus was pretty well a star, but you couldn't have a star minus - because a star was a star, and I hope that's clear. Hugh's world. I understand that he judged family holidays in much the same way. And a dot? I've no idea. Once he had his students he went to work and I think it's sometimes forgotten how hard he worked. In Hugh's world, an acting school didn't have any acting classes. There were professional classes and there were productions. Many, many productions and that meant that Hugh had to find all the plays. In most terms that would be four plays for the first group, three for the second, four more for the third, and often up to ten for the finals. That's around twenty plays a term, sixty a year. He would then cast each play with the greatest care and diligence, and, amazingly, work out a daily rehearsal schedule for pretty well all of them. Then he would watch them. He saw each play at least twice and finals productions three times including the infamous and terrifying - I speak as a director - Cruttwell run. I estimate that over his eighteen years at RADA, he selected, cast and scheduled over a thousand plays, and watched around three thousand performances. There's no-one knew you as an actor like Hugh did. On his nights off he went to the theatre - usually to check on the work of an ex-student. Aside from that he ran RADA. His three great precepts for acting were passion, poetry and intelligence. That's in case anyone thought it might be easy. It may seem a strange thing to say... but I can't remember a bad performance at RADA. This is why. To Hugh, acting was essentially an interior matter. An actor went on a journey. It began with study, which produced an act of imagination, which then demanded an interior admission. Sometimes that could be hard, because it might be to strive for a strength the actor didn't have, or admit a weakness he did, or a fear, or a vulnerability, or a violence, or maybe the most difficult of all, a love. Then came the invention of physical and vocal form, and finally the courage to show it all. And never once in all that, were you allowed to forget the truth of the matter. Because if you did, Hugh wouldn't like it - and he said so. Underlying all this was his faith, not only in this process, but in the capacity of the young actor to achieve it. That faith, which I believe was based on a profound generosity, never wavered. He may have been critical, but never once in the nearly thirty years I knew him, did I ever hear him lose faith in anyone he asked to come to RADA. And that's why there was never a bad performance. They may have been misjudged, or over the top, or under-done, or dare I say it, misdirected, but never bad. How could you judge a young actor as that, when he or she was prepared to admit all they had in the pursuit of the journey Hugh believed absolutely they could make. In Hugh's world the fat man could play the thin; the young girl, an old woman. He didn't think an actor was the casting director's one note, he thought an actor was the whole orchestra and could play across the entire spectrum of humanity, from the laughter and light at one end, to the darkness and despair at the other. An actor in his, imagination and courage, could be anything, and show everything. In Hugh's world, an actor was an artist. He was the principal in both senses of the word. He ran the place and he was the flame. He lit the way, and he burnt you if you lost it. He's gone now, but he remains. Here in everyone in this room. In his faith that we will continue that journey. " |
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