Word: boothed
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When she was a little girl in Philadelphia, Shirley Booth invented a game called "Talking Balkan" that she played on streetcars. Shirley would jump on ahead of her mother and race to the front of the car. When her mother took a seat, Shirley would come dashing back, babbling ecstatically in a homemade, foreign-sounding tongue. The game had everything a fledgling actress could want. There was a captive audience of nice, admiring old ladies ("What an enchanting child!"). There was a touch of mystery ("What language is she speaking?"), a touch of pathos ("Look how sweet...
...playing her game, Shirley was also practicing the two rules that still guide her career: 1) "Actors should be overheard, not listened to," and 2) "The audience is 50% of the performance." Shirley Booth without an audience is as improbable as an Easter Parade without hats. She prefers to do her stuff before rapt thousands, but will give just as intense a performance for an audience of one. Her first husband, Radio Comedian Ed Gardner, says that Shirley is always acting, on stage and off: "She sincerely believes in her self-cast roles. One day she would be a grande...
...intervals, famed footlight personalities wander into the picture (it was produced with the help of the Council of the Living Theater, which will get 25% of the profits to advance the cause of the legitimate theater outside New York City). Among the guest artists: Shirley Booth handing out autographs; Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II shown composing a new song, a process which, in this version, consists chiefly of Hammerstein complaining that he cannot think of any words, and Rodgers saying soothingly, "It will come, Oscar, it will come"; Joshua (South Pacific) Logan and John (The King...
...Shirley Booth...
Come Back, Little Sheba. Burt Lancaster as a reformed drunk and Oscar Winner ("Best Actress") Shirley Booth is his slatternly wife (TiME...