Michael Greer as 'Queenie'

Michaei Greer

Role great, but image disastrous

By Emerson Batdorff QUEBEC CITY Michael Greer, extremely tall, well-built, handsome, and with long, curly hair, was puzzled.

"Why does my success come because of homosexual roles?" he asked. "Why not a western? Why not James Bond?”

On the stage, he played Queenie in "Fortune and Men's Eyes" for more than a year and a half. (“Long enough to get sick of it... on the stage anyhow,” he said.)

On the screen, he played the gay landlord in "The Gay Deceivers.' ("They say I stole the picture. If so, it was petty theft. It should have been done as though Billy Wilder directed it. I did my role as though Billy Wilder was directing.")

"Then, in "The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart,' I did not play a homosexual. This time I was a harmless, drug-addicted rock singer.

“After playing so many kinky roles, I was concerned about how my father felt. He had just one comment:

"Don't you know John Wayne?”” Michael Greer is up here in snowy Canada making the movie version of "Fortune and Men's Eyes." Once again, he's Queenie.

Over some brandy, he meditated a little.

"If I'm out with my girl, people holler across the street, 'Hi, Queenie!' "There's a man I've convinced.

"If they think I'm not acting, I'm upset. It means they think I have no talent. Just doing what comes naturally... they hired me off the street."

Greer does a night club act that he writes himself. He has to start out by shooting down the audience wiseacres who confuse him with his screen roles. He always has done a lot of writing. In all his movie roles so far, he has been allowed to cast the lines to his mold.

He figures that he wrote about 60%

of the lines Queenie says, and not because the author of the play, John Herbert, is a bad writer either. It's just because his own lines fit him better. and because times have changed since the play was written.

The movie, he says, is being much more subtly done than the play was. It was done fairly broadly on stage. On the screen, which is a different medium which permits small gestures to be seen clearly, no arm waving is called for.

"I am very pleased to be doing the role on the screen," he said. "You know how it is when you do a role on

STAGE SCREEN

stage. They never let you do it on screen. I figured the part would go to Barbra Streisand or Lee Marvin."

He says that sort of thing without a smile and apparently with a clear conscience. He's a thoughtful fellow. He was thinking some more about the problems of an actor who excels at playing homosexuals.

"When you play a role like mine, if you're not convincing, you're a bad actor.

"If you are convincing, you're a homosexual. As a result, I get caught between the two. I'm damned convincing. I'm convincing because I'm a good actor. Because I have a good eye. Because I listen. I have a good ear."

Queenie was modeled on no one homosexual. Greer took a gesture here, a tone there from homosexuals whom he knows.

"I know a lot of homosexuals," be said. "I don't care whether a person is

a Republican or a Democrat. I don't care what they do.

"I get so angry when I think about it (the tendency to equate his performance with his inclinations). As an actor, it is a joy to play Queenie because I know people are going to be thrilled.

"I know they're going to gasp. I know they'll be shocked. I know they'll be tickled. I know they'll be amused and they will love Queenie."

He said he didn't study for the role because he doesn't study for any role.

"I am not a method actor," he explained. "I'm a person of instinct. Everything I do in my life is based on instinct. I'm lucky that way. I see a lot of actors who go insane preparing for a role. I just do it."

His family is not upset by the roles he plays but they regret his having changed his name.

He was born James Robert Malley in Galesburg, I., and grew up there.

"They called me Jimmy Malley which sounded like whimmy whammy, he said. “And Malloy and C ́Madey unш i got tired of it.

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"So five years ago, I legally changed it to Michael Greer. For some reason that's done the trick for me. As James Mauley, I didn't do very muca but grow up: As Michael Greer, I'm beginning to and myself.”

Why did he pick that name? I asked. "I always liked the name Michael. I went for about six months using Michael alone. No last name at all.

"Then one night I was watching the Johnny Carson Show and there was an actress that i'd respected as a kid, Jane Greer. So I decided to take her name: Jane.”

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He kept his face straight and reflected a while.

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"I thought I was an Irish potato,' he said. "I turned out to be an Irish artichoke."