Stella Adler: Awake and Dream! from "American Masters"

[Music] actors say that if you can get through Stella Adler's training nothing will ever frighten you again after almost 50 years of working with actors her Legend Continues to grow depending on whom you talk to she's a bully a genius a tyrant an angel the only thing it is is that you act with your soul you do not act words and you do not act this you act with your soul and you don't have that Soul yet you don't that's why you want to be an actor I don't blame you that's why you all want to be actors because your souls are not used up by [Music] life American Masters is made possible by a major Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts with additional funding from this station and other public television stations The Corporation for Public Broadcasting the Marilyn M Simpson charitable trust and Rosalind P Walter I am not oh my God I'm telling the whole world I'm not a play girl I don't like to lunch I don't chat one of the great political statements that Stella ever made at that time was when she said well of course I could live in any communist country providing I was the queen she said life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one she never lets you go when she's got you if she likes you let's it to say life sentence she's inspires she cajoles she prods she pushes three years ago I think I took one of her classes and just the way she came down to present herself to the class was an entrance it wasn't just come in front of the class and talk it was an entrance and Stella's whole life is a theater should I tell you what I am yes guess I'm a Jewish broad from [Applause] Odessa he Stella actors say that if you can get through Stella Adler training nothing will ever frighten you again after almost 50 years of working with actors her Legend Continues to grow depending on whom you talk to she's a bully a genius a tyrant an angel oh God God how weary stale flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world fire haunted ah F there's a dream thats I want something there's an inner desire to express something that you can't in daily life an actors know that there are parts of themselves that they haven't used it is not nor it cannot come to good but break my heart for I must hold my tongue it's good but it's not Soliloquy quite what what actually Soliloquy is is to speak out the thoughts that are tormenting you inside the inner thoughts verbalized it's you are trying to understand your own thought okay then what then what should I um pick as as like a focus to um that's a very very very profound question you ask because every Hamlet has asked the question I've heard it answered speak to your other self speak to the Hamlet out there but I would take an image of my thought my mind out here my you mind if you need that Focus take it out there as if your mind were in front of you yes a little lower down I got up and worked in the class that first day and she was so wonderful to me oh God when you when you don't know anything you're so brave now I wouldn't dare work like that in front of her but but she would see she gave gives you the courage to fail I need an army philli Dr I am tough I ask a lot there is no kindness in my demand there's simply We're In It Together We got to fight it out and you better do it my way because if you don't you'll lose so do it my way and stop it I'll have your answer yes or no you'll have it when I give it you see I have changed okay if an actor came in dressed as you are dressed he would be asked to leave the theater and not come back because I don't see that you would dare wear anything like that for it belongs to you it's your own isn't it no it's not it's you borrowed it I stole it [Applause] now now you mustn't put anything on your body which doesn't feed the play and which doesn't feed your soul because you're not acting words you are not acting words that is not part of the tradition in which this playright wrote a play you cannot dress that way you cannot use a bottle that way you cannot use candles that way and I don't want to be subjected to it you understand I can't get anywhere with you in the F and I apologize for not being prepared I I accept your apology knowing that it will help you and that you will do a lot to change it you did the CH off and you have the talent what you don't have is a sense which Americans don't have of the style and that you must achieve I simply was brought up to be what I am and I'm suppose it's coming over is being very theatrical a child of famous actors Stella's New York apartment is a Fifth Avenue Fantasy A gilded setting for Golden memories of her theatrical Roots part Venetian part Madame pomidor it also resembles the opulent dressing rooms of a bon era in which an actress received her public today these rooms are alive with the presence of her late husband Mitchell Wilson and reminders of her spiritual teachers the Russian stanislowski the French Sarah Bernhard and most honored of all a mother who inspired courage and a father known as the great Adler star of the Yiddish stage his Merchant of Venice was so important that the world came to see him and a producer from the American Theater asked Adler to do it on Broadway and Adler said I don't really speak in any other language but my own so I can't do it on Broadway the producer came back again and said we will let you play in your language and Surround you with an all American English cast and he said no and then somebody smart enough said Adler you owe it to the Gentile world only a few minutes of damaged film remain as a record of an actor who was a hero to his people he specialized in Parts which reveal the moral tug between good and evil flesh and spirit melodramatic by today's standards Adis style came from the language he spoke yish an emotional blend of German Hebrew Pleasure and Pain his great purpose was not to entertain but to teach an audience of immigrants between 1900 and 1920 one and a half million arrivals turned New York's Lower East Side into the largest Jewish ghetto in history Adler fed these hungry people a diet of great plays and Noble ideas from tenaments from push carts from sweat shops came Jewish hopes and American Dreams and Adler the great Yiddish actor gave them [Music] voice he believed that his courage could influence people and so when he took me the actor said you can coach her and give her lines to do and expect to wait and get her queue and he said she can and I first appearance on the table in front of an audience I said feet m is at 3 years old he Lifted Me Up showed me to the audience cuz he was a devil and they screamed because they knew I couldn't talk and I didn't know but I was a baby that was being trained that was being loved and he said she can do that and I did it the force of Adas presence set the tone for Stella's childhood at night after a performance the house would explode with joy so he would wake me up and he would take me into this large dining room with other actors and guests and things and he'd say now imitate your teacher and how does she talk and I would imitate the teacher then I would imitate gestures then I would imitate this thing and they loved it in her early days there were no formal acting classes Stella learned on stage under the Towering influence of her father he said to me you're going to do young Spinosa now go to the library and find out about young Spinosa and then go into the Wardrobe and get your costume now that's really a very very important story that he understood that a 9-year-old child had the responsibility of going and looking at the pictures and finding out it's your business Stella's mother Sarah was the burnhard of the Year stage she and Adler were famous for their tragic scenes and happily their drama continued offstage when Jacob left home for another woman Sarah started her own theater and triumphed in a variety of roles I had the opportunity of seeing the mother on her 90th birthday Luther Adler stepped out in the National Theater in New York introduced Stella and Stella introduced her mother and her mother came out at the age of 90 a tiny woman and started to perform things that she had done in her repertoire she played a 16-year-old girl she played a leading lady she played a character woman and it was amazing to see this old woman step out and become all these parts I was there that day the Adler household to borrow from the Yiddish was like Thunder from sunny skies she separated from him at one point he came to the house and and he saw a light in her room he went up and he opened the door and had a gun and it was her son he was a very jealous man my mother once said to me you know when I met Adler I knew I would be in love with him she say and I think that any woman that touches him will feel the same way that I felt her jealousy expressed Itself by having to go to a sanatorium out of sheer pain her doctor said uh Madame Adler do you want to live or do you want to die and she said I want to live and the doctor said then you have to tear this man out of your heart and every once in a while she would say things to me like uh you know darling now she wouldn't use the word darling I she would say Stella if you like a man very much it's all right but don't let it go down too far that's dangerous you can love up to hear but beyond that there's danger by 1920 Adler had been acting for almost half a century despite a crippling stroke he gave a series of farewell and positively Last Farewell performances in 1926 he collapsed and his heroic age of Yiddish theater had come to an end one couldn't accept that nobody could accept it the audience couldn't accept it the Press couldn't accept it it was it was too big at his funeral 50,000 people lined the streets in an outpouring of universal grief even church bells rang out in his honor I think he would be astonished surprised that acting could be analyed to such a degree that you could give it to other people it's a wonder that I hadn't gone mad I told him I had once that time I ran out in my night dress and tried to throw myself off the dock you remember that don't you think it amazing to see the development in the actor through craft through technique through work through educating his body his voice his mind I think he would be astonished baby don't you hurt me so dreadly I'm sorry Mama you brought it up all right now she has just had this big scene you've heard it now you you want to stop it you want the whole thing to stop you want to get to yourself you have words and you say them and then you stop and you say them but you have no action to say I got to stop this and she got to know the truth she's got to know I'm going to die she's got to know this and I'm going to tell her to her now there's an immediacy about your work and whatever you say don't keep any pauses just she's got know and she's too far gone and you're going to make her understand make her understand something that's more important than what she's saying okay Stella's vocabulary is precise when she says action she means the character's emotional objective in this scene a young man must make his drugged mother understand that he has tuberculosis his action is to make her understand no how dare Dr Hardy advise such a thing without consulting me you're my baby care yourself away from her because she that's not the point yes okay yes tear yourself away from her CU she's still going on with her own life and she doesn't want to hear about this you all of this talk of loving me and you won't listen to me when I try to tell you how sick now now that's enough I don't want to hear because I know it's nothing but hard she doesn't want to hear dnie she doesn't want to hear don't wait go away from her okay you understand you have an action to tell her yes and she won't let you that's a fight all right okay come on so continue the fight actively go on want I know is the craft of acting has been developed into being like the craft of music or architecture it is a craft now that can be attained and can be used in practiced by young actors it couldn't years ago in the 1920s Stella blossomed from Leading Lady into Restless spirit in London she gave what would be her final performance with Adler and met her first husband who would be the father of her only child back in America she flirted with vaudville and a new first name her search for identity made her ripe for Revelation in 1924 stanislavski's Moscow Art Theater came to America and changed Stella's life but I saw the most subtle most truthful most theatrical kind of acting and I was stunned by their ability IES stanislavski's method was based on psychological truth with the fervor of a convert Stella trained with disciples at the American Theater lab but there was little room on Broadway for the kind of acting she admired I didn't so much like going on to Broadway because you were picked up to play in Another play with other strangers whereas in the eish theater you always knew everybody searching for a home Stella finished the decade as the leading lady of yish star Maurice Schwarz in this famous scene Schwarz plays tevia whose daughter has just eloped with a Russian soldier the yish language is an extremely warm emotional and Soulful language and so you could express yourself more quickly without laboring on this rather Puritan iCal [Music] English I was playing I was acting and I was on Broadway and I met a man who Carol Clan I heard him speak and I was overwhelmed at his knowledge at his Brilliance Harold Kerman would become Stella's second husband a fervent idealist he convinced her to take part in a noble experiment the group theater the Depression had turned America into a landscape of Broken Dreams out of the ashes of these dreams came voices demanding change politics combined with art to create a golden age in American Theater people had lost their homes their jobs but not their souls kman preached his group theater aimed to cultivate the American Soul just as Adler raised his immigrant audience now Kerman intended to do the same on Broadway I said I want to be near this man I want the influences that he can uh give the theater I think it's for me the group theater was the utopian brainchild of Harold Kerman Lee straber and Cheryl Crawford a family of actors to mirror the family of man life said Kerman cannot be lived except in terms of people together sure and strong in their togetherness kerman's dream became Stella's burden I expected what I would get if I joined the familiarity a togetherness a sense of comaraderie what I met was a group of strange people from different parts of the world and it was the damnest experience of my life it was like living with strangers for 10 years group playright Clifford odet ventured the opinion that no Adler could ever be made a group person I didn't belong in any Democratic situation I didn't like any aspect of it neither the clothes or the ideas or the way they dressed or the addiction I simply am an individual and her individual qualities led to a number of unique performances that electrified Broadway Stella convinced her brother Luther to join the group they performed brilliantly together despite their frequent quarrels claron remembers that their curtain calls amused and terrified the company because between boughs they turned on each other to resume their cat and dog fights she also had heated battles with her director Lee sturg who developed an acting method based on his understanding of stanislavski's principles the central disagreement I would say that the theater exists 99% through the facility of the imagination and Mr straber insisted that that was secondary straber was adamant Stella must develop her roles by exploring emotional memories from her own personal past I didn't want to think of when was I moved by uh my my sister when she vomited I I didn't like that whole thing I wanted to be in the dramatic sense of the author and the author's characters and I fought Strasburg like H in 1934 Stella went to Paris she met stanislavski by chance and accused him of ruining her Joy of acting they took an afternoon stroll in the B of bolognia where he was surprised to learn that Americans were still using emotional memory a technique he had abandoned years earlier he took me under his wing and together with the secretary we worked for weeks on clarifying what Mr Stanislas understood was being uh made into a kind of mystery in America I don't think he want did that inspired by this passionate Young American stanislowski outlined his current theories and confirmed Stella's belief in imagination not emotional memory as the key tool in an actor's art her return to New York caused an uproar so she came flying back with this message well you can imagine the actors hearing this cuz this is now coming from the horse's mouth and it said Stella asks son slavski answers there was no improvisation about it it was factual it was thoroughly investigated it was like a breath of fresh air you can imagine that we didn't have to worry all the time about you know this emotional memory stuff and I think it was then that sturg retired from the group theater in 1935 awaken Singh was a group theater Triumph as well as a trial by fire straber withdrew to develop what came to be known as the method giving Kerman his first chance to direct the play's message that life isn't printed on dollar bills is expressed by an unhappy family torn by disintegrating values Stella refused to play the unglamorous role of Bessie burer a woman of 50 until Kerman suggested that she might not be able to do it she was very funny as well as mean as she was supposed to be in the part but she hated one thing more than anything else and that was the fact that she had to make up old when she was a beautiful woman uh not anywhere near Bessie Berger's age and uh that people would think that that was her especially when they'd come backstage and say are you Luther's mother she wanted to kill them because there was one year's difference in their age Stella has been quoted as saying it was not a barrel of laughs being in the group it was not fun it was not music not painting not culture it was deep it was as though someone had discovered an underworld very good the interesting thing is that she did her greatest acting in the group theater and she was one of the best actresses in the group theater even though she did not feel that she belonged there in 1937 Hollywood called and Stella answered to a new last name art I had this long controversy with them and At Last I remember I said well if I can pronounce it you can spell it any way you [Music] like hello boys thank you I don't know of anyone I so happy to see how's that darling Little Dog Be Mr BR he is a darling isn't he cute did you say hello to Sam for me not only hello but skull Pro and Har thank you how Grand it is to see you looking so well you mustn't believe everything you see Mr John this is a great pleasure Lindy pleas is all mine bzy please seated gentlemen and just relax I don't think I can help you you see I hardly knew Mr battle oh well you didn't miss much he wasn't exactly one of Nature's noblemen really how nice chamia doesn't have any fragrance it doesn't need any around you I'm glad you like my perfume she was a lady to start with you know very elegant and then she turns around and she really really shows the worst side of her which is a gun mall and you say dirty words and I like that twist in it why the detour none of your business I'm not on trial not yet that's what I deserve for letting a double crossing cup in the door get out uh get out thanks for the chameleon and don't come back don't look now but your accent showing this fi Mrs fi yes I'm home denck is home I heard already it's not your home till you pay the rent oh now Mrs f is that a way to greet a man who's been away for 3 months who's been longing for your cooking all this time who's been thinking of you every minute the rent you owe me since last spring 3 months the room has been empty did I ever get a letter from you a a word from you I sent you a postcard didn't I how could I send you a letter how could I what would your fiance think uh you still got the same one which one was it when you were here uh Rudolph no the next Mr fud's name is uh oh he's got his own barber shop I used a Hungarian accent and I used Hungarian motions and I was so busy and the director finally said still it isn't only your play I mean if you tone down a little bit we'll let you be in the picture but you're just taking over not only pay a rent but will you get a present smoocher the 1940s was a period of flowering by the end of the decade Stella's Restless Spirit would find a home from the time her father first presented her on stage she had traveled a journey that would lead to her greatest role as a teacher but first she made her farewell to Broadway in a drama and a comedy that confirmed her status as a grand dam of the American Theater at those days it was sort of fashionable for the leading lady to arrive a little late to show who she was like 20 minutes after about an hour and 20 minutes Stella arrived looking absolutely beautiful with a great hat with quivering feathers all around it and long black gloves and making gestures of pretending that she wasn't trying to disturb anybody I told her who I was and she looked at me with his beautiful blue eye and held my hand if sella likes you it's difficult to get your hand back you know she holds on to it and uh she spoke the first words I ever heard her speak she said are you Jewish when the Allies liberated the concentration camps they found shocking evidence of Hitler's Final Solution homeless the Jews who survived languished in displaced person's camps like her father before her Stella answered the call of her people as a freedom fighter she went to Europe and helped secure passage for 750 Jews by train from Frankfurt by boat from Marseilles and onto Palestine back home she brought her passion for people for life and for the theater into the the classroom in 1949 she opened an acting studio which continues today okay it's a lively Applause but I don't trust it uh I think because it's raining uh you might be a little bit uh protected by scarves and sweaters and so let's scream [Applause] okay who shy come over and shake my hand there now and look at these people and tell them what you've done come on now you see where the shinness comes in my work is mostly to give the actor a confidence in himself a confidence which nothing can shatter I I I Live Now with the birds in Hollywood I shouldn't have said that I didn't mean that I mean it is it's there a sanctuary there I must tell you I'm if you want to learn how to be free listen to the birds and they'll find out out out the tiniest thing is out the court record was good enough My Success in my field has been to allow and to see that the person achieved a self anybody that knows my father okay I'm going to stop the scene it's too passive it's much too passive it has nothing to do with acting it has to do with the reading of lines now I would say in the play you say my father was a weakling but there's nobody acting weaker than you you are playing your own timidity which is very bad for the part and very bad bad for the play the momentum of the scene has to be Theatrical Theater the soul of the people that are playing has to have go I say the only thing it is is that you act with your soul you do not act words and you do not act this you act with your soul and you don't have that Soul yet you don't that's why you want to be an actor I don't blame you that's why you all want to be actors because your souls are not used up by life I remember the first class she said you must listen with your blood I thought oh my God you know and she said you have a huge responsibility in life to take life in completely you know and uh so I started then I started listening so hard that you know I it hurt I was a workingclass girl from Australia who never read a book who who hadn't heard classical music I mean I I think my family read Zan gray detective stories and Stella opened a whole world of knowledge the actor has in him the memory of everything he's ever touched or tasted or eaten and he is by nature gifted with memory he can go very far back and he does go very far back and under very simplified circumstances you can urge him to extend himself now you heard that knock and you had no reaction to it I need more reaction much more darling 1,000 times more I heard somewhere that you came from some background of Italian background yes well for God's sakes you know that no background is lost no background is lost so for God's sakes never mind the blue eyes and never mind the fine thing I want the Italian in you that's where the acting is the Italian in the the American actor has pushed his feelings down to such a level that it is almost impossible for him to uh arouse himself to the force and the dynamic that you have to use as an actor she call me a Gentile once and I think it was the worst thing she ever said she said darling you're so you're so wasp you're so boring you've got to get some Italian in you some Irish in you get get Jewish a sign in her Studio says Stella would like all actors to know that her criticism is not personal nothing in the theater is personal theater is for the world there's always a controversy who's right in a modern play but in a sure play he knows what's right he tells you who's right and you're playing it against somebody who is wrong and wrong is wrong and right is right and you're playing it is right and wrong are the same and so we don't get any kind of uh aspect of what you really want to tell them about how wrong they are how right you are it's not heroic enough now an English actress doesn't need all that she doesn't need that much explanation she say I can live on bread good enough sweetheart good enough when have I asked for more great great don't knock it don't but we can't do it so you've got to do something something else you've got to know what the heroic is and you've got to know sure and you have to have that stardom in you that says I the name of the play is St Joan and I can't be a kid there is a very good story around that long time ago that I went into uh Tiffany and bought some you know that story yes it's it's a very good story and I bought something and the lady said uh where should we send it in England I said uh oh I don't live in England they said I thought you were English I said no just [Laughter] affected you will never govern Mary if I let you go back there will be long broils again in Scotland dangers and right ones to my peace at home to be fair to my own people this must not be now speak once with your realism what behind it come here Dad stay there speak to her and make her realize the technique of being a queen now you are speaking to her without uh guiding her a Awakening her to this technique of governing which is masculine which is strong which is don't it's not going to help you uh she says I too now what you must realize is that every Queen is brought up educated to rule they are not educated to be girls you will never govern Mary you will never govern Mary if you want my love you shall have it freely when I am free you will never govern Mary if I let you go back to Scotland there will be long broils again dangers and right ones to my PE and more to be fair to my own people this must not be colors colors lots of colors up and down and there now darling you must realize a star plays Elizabeth she was a star she's Queen now you're playing you're playing the wa lady in waiting there is no age for an actress there is no age you have to have it you have to be able to produce it you have to have that tone that you give her you can't always do this cuz I'll kill you so what's the good of it and who will rule in my place why rules now your brother he Rules by yes but all this could be arranged or so I'm told if your son were Crown King and Moray made Regent all right every one of her arguments are stupid stupid walk away from stupid you're stupid you do as I say you don't always have to F her you'll do as I say I want to Stu with all this nonsense well now we have some more of this stupid uh feminine thinking finished with that I was standing still because I felt more powerful standing in one place and moving around I feel like I feel I don't know really I'm not kidding she's like I am fun of my piano teacher I'm playing D say faster I can't go so fast just a moment stop coughing no Act of coughs they don't sneeze and they don't they don't catch colds they're not tired they don't yawn and they don't chew gum so I told you in the beginning that no matter what I said you wouldn't listen you would go to the words you are drunk with words with you are infected you are diseased with words instead of what words come from you must contribute to the words are not your privilege the words are somebody else's you must do something with them you must give them life they are on the page Shakespeare is dead as door Nails on the page the play has nothing to do with words nothing at all to do with words it has to do with ideas that's what plays are about plays where you don't dance and you don't amuse the audience and you don't wiggle and you don't shake and it's not right there it's not absolutely com comprehensible not even to you those are the part that's what you call the the big theater that's what you got to work for I myself know you to be an Eater of dust leave me here and set me lower this year by year as you promised to the last is an oate and my name inscribed on the Four Winds Still Still I win I have been a woman and I have loved as a woman loves lost as a woman loses I have born a son and he will rule Scotland and England come turn the key I have a hell for you in mind where you burn and feel it live where you live and soft once more I ask you humbly to give up your throne no devil my pride is stronger than yours and my heart beats blood such as yours has never known and in this dungeon I win here alone brilliant brilliant absolutely brilliant absolutely brilliant size power okay the American Theater is producing good actor in the climax of this Arthur Miller play a Young veteran confronts a father responsible for the manufacturer of faulty plane engines and the death of 21 Pilots she's out of her mind you did it he never flew a P40 but the others she's out of her mind dad you did it Larry never flew a P40 you others what's the matter with you tonight huh how could you do that what's the matter with you how could you do that Dad you killed 21 Men okay uh the action nning is holding back from killing him not standing but holding back maybe putting I mean I I'm I'm and I you did it and we have to see physically that you want to kill him remember everybody can talk loud everybody everybody can do this and louder and still louder that doesn't mean that you're acting it means that I want it child I want to tell you something I'll kill you from here and not from the words more more more more we can pull you down but we can't lift up how could you do that what's the matter with you you're walking away you're walking away grab him by the neck grab him by the shoulders do something how can you do that how can you do that you killed 20 minutes how can you do that what killed 20 men I never killed anybody then explain it to me explain it to me tell me what you did explain it to me you're a boy what could I do huh I'm in business you got to process the process don't work you're out of business you don't know how to operate your stuff is no good they close you up they they they tear up your contracts with the hell it to them why didn't you shut them out I thought by the time they spotted him they they I'd have my process going again and they they see they see that they needed me and they let it go by okay it's business talking to civilization the boy is civilized and says you are a murderer and you deserve to be killed that must be in the scene Chris Chris I did it for you I'm 61 years old when am I going to get another chance to make something big for you you knew they trash I don't mean that then you thought they trash I was afraid maybe you afraid maybe I those guys those kids were up in the air they up in the air for you for me you did it for me I was dying out there and you were killing my boys and you did it for me what the hell do you think I was thinking of the business the goddamn business huh who the hell are you don't you have a country don't you have a world who the hell are you you're not even an animal animals don't kill their own am I what am I to do huh what am I to do I to tear the tongue right out of your head what am I to do what am I okay you see what I did was make the actor improvise on the stage so they had no rehearsal and and in the improvisation the actor's guts his life his everything started to work and he was ruthless and he was abandoned which is very good but you have to Stage it if not he would have killed him now every movement every movement at the far father was coming from the man who was the actor the the the son who understood the theme of the American World you did it for me you did it you killed for me so what kind of a son wants to inherit that kind of money so he says you're not even an animal so how big do you want the writer to be so let's applaud Mr Miller and then let's applaud these two wonderful AR thank you pretty brave pretty brave to do what he did he really went really went for it he didn't care and that's real acting she's given me such moments of inspiration I remember once in a scene with Queen Elizabeth I felt I could spit poison across the stage I felt I was six foot tall I mean really transformed me um you know and there this they're just moments but you know two of experienced those kind of moments is something extraordinary you know it's what every artist wants what every painter what every poet it's those moments and they're so minute in time and they float by so quickly and you spend the rest of your life sometimes you can spend 20 years before you get them back again but I would rather have them than to have lived a safe life I understood that most people myself included uh who am I who am I until I realized I am in deep trouble because I don't know how to do it I don't know how to find out who I am and in stumbling in literature through different authors and phases I got to one who actually said don't try to know who Thou Art long has this idea tormented thee it is much better to know what you can do and do it like [Music] Hercules [Music] for [Music] American Masters is made possible by a major Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts with additional funding from this station and other public television stations The Corporation for Public Broadcasting the Marilyn M Simpson charitable trust and Rosalind P [Music] Walter