1961 Charles Laughton The Story-Teller Vinyl 2-LP Record Gatefold VG+

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1961 Charles Laughton The Story-Teller Vinyl 2-LP Record Gatefold VG+
Record Grade per Goldmine Standard: VG+
THE STORY-TELLER: A SESSION WITH CHARLES LAUGHTON side one INTRODUCTION TO ACT I, including THE GOLDSTEIN and MARGARET O’BRIEN STORIES POETRY: THE RABBIT-THE HORSE From THE DHARMA BUMS by Jack Kerouac CHARTRES CATHEDRAL STORY PSALM 104 side two From JULIUS CAESAR by Shakespeare side three INTRODUCTION TO ACT II, including THE GREEN ELEPHANTS and MOON-SPACE-SUIT STORIES Shaw’s APHORISMS From MAJOR BARBARA by George Bernard Shaw From THE PHAEDRUS by Plato (translated by Christopher Isherwood) side four THE FIERY FURNACE CARL MILLES LETTER WACULLA SPRINGS STORY Produced by BILL MILLER It was about two years before the end of the Second World War. I was in a movie with Deanna Durbin at Universal Studios, and one day in the Department of Still Photography there were a couple of forlorn, wounded Gl’s with whom I got in conversation. And they were complaining that they had nothing to do in the evenings at Birmingham Hospital in the San Fernando Valley. I was feeling blue myself. It was wartime and I did not feel I was contributing suf- ficiently to the war effort so I asked them how they would like an actor to go to the hospital and read to them in the evenings. I had one of those rich contracts at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. And, although a lot of money was coming into the family coffers, I was like a bear with a sore head around the house because a rich contract at Metro is not a full occupation for a man. And my wife Elsa, in one of her moments of illumination, had told me I was not sufficiently em- ployed and to get out and work. The two wounded Gl’s seemed pleased with the idea, so the following week I found myself reading to a small collection of men at Birmingham Hospital. I read in- nocuous and sentimental things which I thought would please them. I read three times a week, but one day I tried something heavy and tragic, and there was an immediate response. They started to talk about their own problems —being in bombers over Germany, or in foxholes, or how they felt after they had been maimed. And so I found that serious literature was a great help to them because other people in centuries gone and in the present had had all the experi- ences there are to be had, and the Gl’s felt they were not alone. This resulted in me having to read in a larger room at Birmingham because the first, small room could not contain all those who wanted to come. And then I had to read in a larger hall still. And when I was reading from all the books I loved, I found the business of reading aloud was a matter of making the effort to communicate something you love to people you love. And there was a moment when I went home to Elsa and said, “You know, I think people want this.” And so I started a career of reading in public. I have read in over three hundred and seventy locations in the United States alone. The first time I came back from a reading tour Elsa said to me, “You look very tired and fifteen years younger.” All this is to try to tell you that I have great joy and pride that my reading in public is successful. I have never made any compromise in the material I have read, but always make the greatest effort to communicate my own pleasure in it. And curiously enough I have been nervous when tak- ing part in a play, and nervous in front of a movie camera, and ner- vous when doing something for television, but never nervous when I have good books in my hand in front of any audience, anywhere. Thank you,



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