Hollywood
As did other Group members like Franchot Tone, Clifford Odets, Stella Adler, Elia Kazan and Harold Clurman, Lewis found the "need to sin" in Hollywood (as Odets called it) irresistible.
In his book Slings and Arrows: Theater in My Life, Lewis complains that "being short and round", he reluctantly had to accept that, as an actor, he fell into the character, rather than the leading man category.
True enough, after moving to Los Angeles in 1940, he became known in Hollywood for his ability to transform himself into memorable screen characters, particularly characters of different nationalities. He played German officers, such as Colonel Pirosh in Paris After Dark (FOX, 1943), opposite George Sanders, and Sergeant Schmidt in Son of Lassie (MGM, 1945), starring Peter Lawford, Donald Crisp and June Lockhart. He became French collaborationist Maurice Bonnard in Tonight We Raid Calais (FOX, 1943), and the villainous Japanese Colonel Sato in Dragon Seed (MGM, 1944), starring Katharine Hepburn. A highlight of his Hollywood character actor career came when he played Frenchman Maurice Bottello opposite his friend Charles Chaplin in Chaplin's controversial film Monsieur Verdoux (1947).
Though he went on to perform in and co-direct (with Vincente Minnelli) musicals like Ziegfeld Follies (MGM, 1946), starring Fred Astaire, and he directed the 1956 version of Anything Goes (Paramount), starring Bing Crosby and Donald O'Connor, Lewis was strictly tied to a contract with MGM studios. Lewis reminisced he felt bored, underused and flustered in Hollywood; and struggled for some years to get out of his contract at MGM so he could return to Broadway and the East coast.
Robert Lewis did return to New York in 1947 to direct his first big commercial success on Broadway, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's whimsical musical play Brigadoon.
Even after becoming a successful director, Lewis apparently preferred Broadway to Hollywood: He turned down an offer to direct the film My Fair Lady, choosing instead to remain in New York to stage a play with Cheryl Crawford.
Read more about this topic: Robert Lewis (actor)
Famous quotes containing the word hollywood:
“In Hollywood now when people die they don’t say, “Did he leave a will?” but “Did he leave a diary?””
—Liza Minnelli (b. 1946)
“To say “I accept” in an age like our own is to say that you accept concentration-camps, rubber truncheons, Hitler, Stalin, bombs, aeroplanes, tinned food, machine guns, putsches, purges, slogans, Bedaux belts, gas-masks, submarines, spies, provocateurs, press-censorship, secret prisons, aspirins, Hollywood films and political murder.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)