Anthony Hopkins: The Unauthorized Biography by Michael Feeney Callan

Author:Michael Feeney Callan [Callan, Michael Feeney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Published: 1994-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

FLYING

‘We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers,

ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows,

brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves …’

James Joyce, Ulysses

CHAPTER TEN

THE WAY

TO SEXY DEATH

At thirty-six Anthony Hopkins bore the appearance of a middleclass businessman. ‘He was never strictly a rebel,’ says Alan Dobie, who recalls a hunt ball in Yugoslavia during War and Peace when ‘I came very informally, with an open shirt and casual trousers and we were turned away at the door. Tony, to my great surprise, was actually embarrassed on my behalf. They wanted to give me a tie and he said, “For God’s sake, put it on,” and it struck me that he had a need to conform.’

Arriving in New York and checking into the Alonquin with Jenni, Hopkins was still blindly clinging to the vestiges of boarding school propriety and an actor-idol manque image based loosely on Olivier. Underneath, he hated himself, his face, his fatness, the limitations of mortality and education, and was racing through philosophical literature for answers. ‘On the outside,’ he would write, ‘I probably looked all right. But those close to me sensed that all was not well. I was committing suicide on the instalment plan because life was not living up to my expectations and was disappointing me deeply.’ In this frame of mind, flagrantly suicidal, undertaking Dexter’s Equus was a do-or-die bid for the ultimate American acceptance, which he saw as some mystical elevation that would repair him. Wary as he was of his ‘bad chemistry’ with Dexter he saw no other option but to tackle the dragons and demons head-on. The fact that Dexter called him ‘Miriam’ was just another cross to bear; but soon it would be a cross too many. Equus, in its National run since July 1973, had won Dexter fair with this consensus. For him the play was ‘an invitation to theatricality, a command to do something unique in a unique way … It wasn’t film material and it required the fullest expression of theatre, which is how it was with Alec McCowen and Peter Firth in London.’

Equus was a barbed, emotionally jolting play, yet another variation on Shaffer’s constant exploration of conflicts — between logic and passion, between mediocrity and genius, between man and God. In it Strang, a stable boy, blinds six horses who witness his frustrated sexual adventure, then faces the interrogation of a ‘self-laceratingly literate’ psychiatrist, Dysart. The play mirrored in a curious way the dialogue between intellect and passion that raged in Hopkins. Dysart was the frustrated, erudite oracle, controlling passion, who is, as one critic observed, ‘prick aroused’ by the boy’s capacities; Strang is the unapologetic reactor — hugely powerful and resonant — apparently untouched by mortality, morality or destiny, who spits in the face of insanity; each infiltrates the other, seemingly detrimentally, bringing about utter emotional collapse.

Rehearsals started well and Dexter was initially pleased with his lead actor, which gave Hopkins great comfort. All along Hopkins had been dreading some acid onslaught in repayment for the abandonment of the National, and of Dexter’s plans for him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.