Jimmie+Langton

Jimmie Langton and his role in Julia’s life. Jimmie Langton, fat, bald-headed, rubicund man of forty-five, who looked like one of Rubens’ prosperous burghers, had a passion for the theatre. He was an eccentric, arrogant, exuberant, vain and charming fellow. He loved acting, but his physique prevented him from playing any but a few parts, which was fortunate, for he was a bad actor. He could not subdue his natural flamboyance, and every part he played ,though he studied it with care and gave it though, he turned into a grotesque. He broadened every gesture, he exaggerated every intonation. But it was a very different matter when he rehearsed his cast; then he would suffer nothing artificial. His ear was perfect, and thought he could not produce the right intonation himself the would let a false one pass in anyone else. “Don't be natural ,' he told his company. “ The stage isn’t the place for that .The stage is make-believe.But seem natural.” He worked his company hard. They rehearsed every morning from ten till two, when he sent them home to learn their parts and rest before the evening’s performance. He bullied them, he screamed at them, he mocked them. He underpaid them. But if they played a moving scene well he cried like a child, and when they said an amusing line as he wanted it said he bellowed with laughter. He would skip about the stage on one leg if he was pleased, and if he was angry would throw the script down and stamp on it while tears of rage ran down his cheeks. The company laughed at him and abused him and did everything they could to please him. He aroused a protective instinct in them, so that one and all they felt that they couldn’t let him down. Thought they said he drove them like slaves, and they never had a moment to themselves , flesh and blood couldn’t stand it , it gave them a sort of horrible satisfaction to comply with his outrageous demands. When he wrung an old trooper’s hand, who was getting seven pounds a week , and said, by God , laddie , you are stupendous, the old trooper felt like Charles Kean. Jimmie Langton told to Julia that she was a genius, she had the face that actress wanted. The face that could show every thought that passed through the mind. He paid her more than to other actresses. “Come to me and I’ll let you play twenty parts a year. You’ve got magnetism and you don’t seem to have an idea how to use it.” He made her the star and she played the best roles in the theatres.