The Times (16/Aug/1966) - Kedrova: a perfect instrument to play a marvellous tune
(c) The Times (16/Aug/1966)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Lila Kedrova, Torn Curtain (1966)
KEDROVA: "A PERFECT INSTRUMENT TO PLAY A MARVELLOUS TUNE"
Lila Kedrova's touching portrayal of Madame Hortense. the pathetic and aging cocotte in the film Zorba the Greek, brought her international fame and a 1965 Academy Award. Before this, she was almost unknown outside France where she was one of the most popular and respected actresses on the stage.
Since her triumph she has temporarily deserted the theatre for the cinema, operating mainly from Hollywood, and can be seen, though briefly, in the current Hitchcock Torn Curtain, in which she plays, with a combination of wit and pathos, an eccentric, fluttering Polish countess. It was a scoop for B.B.C. television to persuade her to come to this country to star in The Survivors; last Sunday's story in the Simenon series "13 Against Fate".
Not only is she very popular with the public — there was a steady stream of autograph hunters at her hotel — but she is also highly regarded in her own profession: Rudolph Carrier, in charge of The Survivors, in which she played an elderly lady of dubious reputation, found her superb, a perfect instrument 10 play a marvellous tune. And he confessed to being relieved and delighted that while most stars conserve themselves during rehearsals and give a complete performance only for the actual recording. Kedrova played full out all the time, insisting that only in this way could he judge and guide her.
Not surprisingly Kedrova found The Survivors an exhausting experience, for her English is by no means fluent. "But for me television is always more of a strain than the stage. I like to be allowed a certain freedom within a part, the chance to improvise."
In appearance Kedrova is quite unlike the popular conception of a star. She dresses plainly, almost severely, and her small, neat features would be merely agreeable, except for remarkable, luminous eyes. She is Russian by birth, but her family fled from the country during the Revolution, first to Germany and then to France, where they finally settled in Paris. Both parents were distinguished musicians: her mother sang in opera with Chaliapin, her father Nicola Kedroff had his own quartet.
In Russia the Kedroffs had been well-to-do; as emigrés life was a struggle. Though Lila Kedrova was a happy child she was also, perhaps because of insecurity, a restless one. " I played truant from school, even ran away from home. Once I joined the gypsies, another time look a job in a circus pulling a bear on a chain. When I was 12 I fell in love with the theatre, and knew then what I wanted to do. And though my parents had planned a musical career for me, they allowed me to join a troupe of Russian actors, resident in Paris, who played according to the Stanislavsky method. I was with them for three years.
"In those days I acted with complete spontaneity, lived my parts almost instinctively, and it was some time before I realized that any talent, however bright, needs guarding and guiding."
At drama school she acquired her fine technique, and there she studied under actor-director Pierre Valde, whom she married four years later. As an actress she was never without work, but it was not until 1952 when Valde directed her in the theatre for the first time that she achieved popular and critical success. Since then she has captivated French audiences in The Rose Tattoo also directed by her husband. A View from the Bridge with Raf Vallone, A Taste of Honey, and The Brothers Karamazoy.
In fact, she was so busy and fulfilled in the theatre that she could rarely be lured away, not even to have a holiday. In 1958, after one of her rare excursions into films, the French critics gave her an award for the Best Performance of the Year for her role as a drug addict in Razzia Sur Le Chnouf with Jean Gabin. Although she was auditioned for Zorba the Greek, the part of Madame Hortense went originally to Simone Signoret, but she withdrew from the role after two days on location in Crete. Immediately Michael Cacoyannis telephoned to Kedrova in Paris to invite her to take over. "I accepted, but in fact my feelings were ambivalent. It was a fascinating role, but not perhaps for me. What had I in common with this vulgarian, this whore. 20 years older than myself? Then I thought I must try to understand her heart, enter completely into her mentality, and find what is most real and sincere in myself. I found I could do this, but I was quite amazed, quite unprepared to win the Academy Award."
Michael Cacoyannis, however, told her afterwards that he had forecast this honour from the moment she played her first scene.
