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THE PLAIN DEALER, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1966

No man-hater, Beryl Reid

* NEW YORK, (?) Broadway's toughest moll is an offstage dove, luv. Just determined, and amused by all the pother.

"When I used to come up for a part in a revue back in England," she smiles, "the writers would say, 'Oh, here's Beryl Reid, that awful Scotch Presbyterian who won't say a nasty word.'"

So what happens? Why, Miss Reid, in the first dramatic role of her 30-year career, goes clumping into the murky depths of black comedy where words may not be always nasty but conditions are.

The offbeat switch has paid off beyond her fondest dreams. Although "The Killing of Sister George" drew heatedly mixed reviews on its recent arrival at the Belasco from a long London run, the personal Reid notices were unanimously the kind that kindle attention for season acting honors.

Miss Reid portrays a soap-opera heroine who *away from the radio mi*crophone turns into a

cigar puffing, sadistic harridan who torments her female buddy.

"You just keep a level head about it, luv," she ex-

plains. "These are just people and what they do mustn't influence me. All one can do is act out the relationship."

New York audiences, she notes, seem more shocked by lesbian references than British spectators, which mildly shocks her.

"I think such behavior is more taken for granted there," says Miss Reid, "though I've seen more than a bit of it over here."

Dressing room visitors always seem surprised.

"I don't know what they expect when they see me without the grey wig and makeup," declares the 5-foot-3 actress whose own locks are soft strawberry blonde and whose complexion is creamy hereford.

"But I'm absolute feminist, all frilly dressing gowns, and I likes the gentlemen." After two marriages and two

divorces.

:

By William Glover

longs for affection and I'm not going to be out of it."

Miss Reid leaps over to shut off an air conditioner in the corner of her hotel. apartment "It always makes me crouch." Then she fixes a short snifter"I don't like tea at allthere's something obscene about all those leaves." And resumes the Reid saga.

“Everything that has happened to me in my work has taken place so slowly that when something comes along -like this play-I can do

it."

Sometime during her Manchester childhood, the future music hall comedienne got the acting urge, though her background was altogether opposed. Her father, still alive at 84, was a real estate auctioneer and estate appraiser. Her mother, now gone, a stalwart homemak-

er. Her brother is a scientist

who used to invent cake mixes and now concentrates on and now concentrates on explosives.

"It's terribly difficult to have a successful marriages if you are a success in the theater, because doesn't make the heart grow fonder and one is always on the go.

absence

“But I'm not disenchanted oh Lord noI'm one who

"None of them was ever impressed by all this showbusiness twaddle," she blithely admits. Still, there was no parental objection when Beryl Elizabeth started doing impersonations at

14 for hospital socials, Masonic evenings and police benefits "Oh, the cheek I had."

Her first professional job got her 2 pounds sterling at 17, and soon it was 1937 and she was braving the offices of London impresarios. Her first job in a pantomime came after three obdurate weeks of sitting in an anteroom "And then I worked for that manager eight years." Such revue stalwarts as Jack Buchanan, Harry Secombe and Max Bygraves became her onstage companions.

Miss Reid reached stardom when her flair for perky characterization created Marlene of the Midlands, "A hip with-it teenster in a long blonde wig and miniskirt she's given me a good living for 10 years.'

but he'd seen everything I'd done. He asked me to go see 'Entertaining Mr. Sloane.' I found out later he'd thought about me for a part in it, but there was my reputation about being shockable.

"Well, I wasn't shocked at all and told him, so when 'Sister George' came along he got in touch."

She got the part without an audition, too"Haven't done one in 20 years and if I did, I'd never work."

The theater, she realizes, "Is an awful dodgey business," so as a balance for serenity Miss Reid at home nips off after each performance to do some cooking in her thatch-roofed sanctuary on the Thames near Windsor, Honeypot Cottage.

"It was built by a man potty about circles," she says. "The only square room But Miss Reid had other in the dear little place is the goals in mind.

"One of my few real talents is great singleness of purpose," she puts it. "For purpose," she puts it. "For seven years I kept saying I wanted to do a play. A lot of people said, 'Yes, luv, but not now.'"

bath."

New York she finds a bit

frightening, particularly for someone like her.

as

"

"I'm not setting myself up she a great actress," muses. "But I have got an awful lot of feeling and warmth for other people. And I get a feeling all the blooming nuts in the city "I'd never worked for him, find me and want to talk.”

Michael Condron was the producer who broke the ice.

Beryl Reid as Sister George