INTERVIEW WITH ACTRESS

by

Mary McCluskey

Interview with Edwina Gifford
Starring in She Stoops to Conquer. Drury Lane Theatre.
Stage door, 5 O'clock.

(Do not ask about affair with Harold Cummings, last marriage, or rumours of illness)

Poor background?

It was a mining village, like any other. Cramped terrace houses that bordered the lane to the pit. Coal dust that settled on everything - a clean tablecloth, a just ironed petticoat, a fresh apron. My father was a miner, my mother also. She was a sorter on the surface. Women were not allowed to go underground. I remember her burlap apron, her small leather boots, the handcuffs of coal dust on her wrist where the gloves ended and her sleeve began. I knew that I did not want that for my life. Anything but that.

Always want to be actress?

No. The stage was something remote from my life. I would not have dreamed of it. When I was young, I wanted to race pigeons. My uncles did. In the small patch of green between the houses, where we would play marbles or do handstands against the sheds, the men kept pigeon pens and raced the birds. I was given a pigeon of my own for my fourteenth birthday, the day I left school. I called it Blue-bird - his feathers were a dull blue-grey, like a cold winter sky. The boy who was my sweetheart then, his name was Jack, he had a pigeon too. Sparky. A dark, mean bird. Sometimes he won, sometimes I did.

How acting career began?

At school in the end of term play. I was Titania. The playhouse in town offered me a part - it was a boy's part, Mimillius in The Winter'sTale. Later, I auditioned in Birmingham and of course, London. It was not as hard as you might think, not as hard as people tell you. I could sing, too, you see, and dance a little and turn cartwheels. But I like dark parts. I like to draw on something within, a pain of some kind. Do you understand that? You have lived a clean life, I can see that. Healthy pink cheeks, a sensible diet. No sharing of the outhouse for you.

My uncles wanted me to go into music hall but I would not. I knew then, young as I was, that if you have done too many years in the halls, theatre would not take you seriously. So, when Harold gave me Cordelia I was grateful. Hamlet was one of the three plays that season. Of course I wanted Ophelia. Who wouldn't. I played her later, of course. You saw that? Yes.

Memorable Moment?

What stays in my memory is nothing to do with theatre. The day after I had won a part in my first London play and came back to welcome Jack from the Great War, I raced one of my uncle's pigeons. For fun, for sport. To make Jack smile. He had come back from the War with a stub of leg and eyes that were blank, hollow eyes. Eyes that would not look at mine.

It won, my pigeon, won against all the miners, even some from the next village. And so - I turned cartwheels on the grass and turned to see Jack laughing. I see his face now. He had not laughed all that day, but when he saw me looking he turned, picked up his sticks and hobbled into his house. I regret that moment, even now.

Why Regret?

Because I loved him. And the day my pigeon won and I turned cartwheels on the bare thin patch of grass between our houses, he laughed but then he turned away from me. And I felt shame, then, that I could turn cartwheels and he could not.

At Edwina's request - send copy of newspaper to Jack Harrington, 5 Colliery Road, Karley.

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Mary McCluskey is a British journalist who alternates between Los Angeles, California and a small Shropshire village in the UK.

Her work has appeared in a number of publications, including Zoetrope's ALL STORY EXTRA, LINNAEAN STREET, The PAMAUNOK REVIEW, EXQUISITE CORPSE, SALON, ATLANTIC UNBOUND, LONDON MAGAZINE, S MAGAZINE, SUNDAY EXPRESS-UK, GINGKO TREE REVIEW and NIGHT TRAIN.

She has completed a novel White Nights, and is working on another.

She is a Contributing Editor of LITERARY POTPOURRI and can be reached at:mary.mccluskey1@btinternet.com

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