"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Jean Arthur, on-screen the picture of streetwise self-sufficience, off-screen suffered debilitating stage fright:
[Frank] Capra claimed she vomited before and after every scene, and hid crying in her dressing room between takes. When called for the next scene, she would drum up every sort of excuse for not being ready. 'And it wasn't an act,' [Capra] said. 'Those weren't butterflies in her stomach. They were wasps. But put that neurotic girl forcibly, but gently, in front of the camera and turn out the lights - and the whining mop would magically blossom into a warm, lovely, poised and confident actress.' Despite all this, Capra often said that of all the actresses he directed, she was his favorite."
Arthur was an intensely private person, once remarking on Hollywood "I hated the place - not the work, but the lack of privacy, those terrible prying fan magazine writers and all the surrounding exploitation." When asked if she would do an interview, she replied, "Quite frankly, I'd rather have my throat slit."
She got her start in the silents and was pushing 40 when she played Clarissa Saunders; later, in her 50s, she preceded Mary Martin playing Peter Pan on Broadway. But her chronic insecurities eventually brought her acting career to a close.
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