Callow, Simon 1949- (Simon Phillip Hugh Callow)

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Callow, Simon 1949- (Simon Phillip Hugh Callow)

PERSONAL:

Born June 15, 1949, in London, England; son of Neil Francis (in business) and Yvonne Mary (a secretary) Callow. Education: Attended Queens University, Belfast, Ireland, 1967-68; trained for the stage at the London Drama Centre.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Maggie Hanbury, 27 Walcot St., London SE11 4UB, England; (acting) John Wood, Sally Hope Association, 108 Leonard St., London EC2 4XS, England; (directing) Harriet Cruickshank, 97 Old S. Lambeth Rd., London SW8 1XU, England; (stage writing) Waverley House, 7-12 Noël St., London W1F 8GQ, England; (film writing) Alan Brodie, 6th Fl., Fairgate House, 78 New Oxford St., London WC1A 1HB, England.

CAREER:

Actor, director, and writer. Worked as a theater box office attendant in London; member of National Theatre Co., London, 1979-81. Actor in stage productions, including The Thrie Estates, 1973, Soul of the White Ant, 1976, Devil's Island, 1977, Titus Andronicus, 1978, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, 1978, Amadeus, 1979, Sisterly Feelings, 1980, Kiss of the Spider Woman, 1985, Cosí Fan Tutte, 1987, Die Fledermaus, 1988, Single Spies, 1989, Il Trittico, 1995, La Calisto, 1996, Il Turco in Italia, 1997, The Consul, 2000, Le Roi Malgré Lui, 2002, The Mystery of Charles Dickens, 2003, and The Magic Flute, 2008; motion pictures, including Amadeus, 1984, The Good Father, 1986, A Room with a View, 1986, Maurice, 1987, Manifesto, 1988, Faust, 1988, The Importance of Being Oscar, 1997, Shakespeare in Love, 1998, No Man's Land, 2000, A Christmas Carol, 2000, Thunderpants, 2001, Bright Young Things, 2003, Through the Leaves, 2003, The Phantom of the Opera, 2004, Bob the Butler, 2005; and television productions, including David Copperfield, 1988. Director of stage productions, including Shirley Valentine, 1988, Carmen Jones, 1991, 1994, and Les Enfants du Paradis, 1996; and the films The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, 1991, and Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor, 1988.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Drama Desk Award nomination for best director, 1989, for Shirley Valentine; Olivier Award, London Critics' Circle Award, both 1992, both for Carmen Jones; honorary D.LL., Queen's University, Belfast, 1999, and University of Birmingham, 2000; CBE, 1999.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Being an Actor (memoir), Methuen (New York, NY), 1984, Picador (New York, NY), 2003.

(Translator) Milan Kundera, Jacques and His Master (based on the play Jacques le fataliste by Denis Diderot; first produced at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, Los Angeles, CA, 1987), published by Faber (New York, NY), 1986.

Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor (biography), Methuen (New York, NY), 1987.

(With Dusan Makavejev) Shooting the Actor; or, The Choreography of Confusion (memoir), Nick Hern Books (London, England), 1990.

Acting in Restoration Comedy (nonfiction), Applause Theatre Book Publishers (New York, NY), 1991.

Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu (biography), J. Cape (London, England), 1995, Viking (New York, NY), 1996.

(Adapter) Les Enfants du Paradis (based on the screenplay by Jacques Prevert), produced at the Barbican Theatre, London, 1996.

The National: The Theatre and Its Work 1963-97; And a Chronology of Productions 1963-1997, Nick Hern Books, in association with Royal National Theatre (London, England), 1997.

Love Is Where It Falls: The Story of a Passionate Friendship (memoir), Fromm International (New York, NY), 1999.

The Night of the Hunter, BFI Publishing (London, England), 2000.

Oscar Wilde and His Circle, National Portrait Gallery (London, England), 2000.

Shakespeare on Love, Frances Lincoln (London, England), 2000.

Henry IV ("Actors on Shakespeare" series), Faber and Faber (London, England), part I, 2002, part II, 2002.

Shooting the Actor; or, The Choreography of Confusion, interventions from Dusan Makavejev, Picador (New York, NY), 2003.

Dickens' Christmas: A Victorian Celebration, Harry N. Abrams (New York, NY), 2003.

Orson Welles: Hello Americans (biography), Jonathan Cape (London, England), 2006.

Also author, with Adam Godley and Mark McGlynn, of Zero Hour, 1986. Author of introductions to books, including The Great Stage Directors: One Hundred Distinguished Careers of the Theatre, Facts on File (New York, NY), 1994, and Antony Armstrong-Jones, Snowdon on Stage: A Personal View of the British Theatre, Pavilion (London, England), 1996. Translator and director of Jean Cocteau's The Infernal Machine (play), 1986.

SIDELIGHTS:

Simon Callow is a multitalented artist who has won acclaim as an actor, stage director, and writer. As an actor he is probably best known, particularly in Britain, for playing the role of Mozart in Peter Shaffer's 1979 stage production, Amadeus. (Callow also played a minor role in the 1984 film adaptation.) Callow has also distinguished himself in British theater as director of Jean Cocteau's Infernal Machine. This 1986 production, translated by Callow, was described by London Times reviewer Jeremy Kingston as "a lively treat for the senses." As director of Willy Russell's comedy Shirley Valentine, Callow earned a Drama Desk award nomination in 1989. In addition, Callow served as translator of Jacques and His Master, which Czech novelist Milan Kundera adapted from Denis Diderot's eighteenth-century philosophical satire Jacques le fataliste. Callow also won praise for his work in a one-man show based on the life and works of Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Charles Dickens.

Callow made his literary debut in 1984 with Being an Actor, an account of his own career as a performer. Here Callow relates that actors, often misunderstood as egotists, are actually motivated by the desire to subordinate their individual personalities to those of the characters they portray. A successful performance, Callow continues, is likely only when the actor capably realizes that subordination of self. Craig Brown, writing in the Times Literary Supplement, recommended Being an Actor to anyone aspiring to the craft and deemed the book "fascinating." Another enthusiast, Giles Gordon, wrote in Spectator that with Being an Actor Callow has produced "the most stimulating, informative and provocative book about his profession in years."

In 1988, Callow published Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor, a look at the renowned stage and screen performer. In the biography, Callow proposes that Laughton's considerable talent derived from the actor's insecurity, anxiety, and alienation. Laughton, Callow contends, did not feel a part of humanity. This hellish personal turmoil often made Laughton a difficult actor with whom to work, but—according to Callow—it also enabled Laughton to fashion several great performances, particularly in the 1930s, when he distinguished himself in such films as The Private Life of Henry VIII, Mutiny on the Bounty, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. "Of all the film performances of his era," Bruce Cook wrote in Washington Post Book World, Laughton's "were the most consistently memorable." Callow's biography, the reviewer affirmed, is "truly enlightening." Chicago Tribune Books contributor Richard Christiansen also offered praise, noting that Charles Laughton "is dotted with revealing and amusing anecdotes." And David Kaufman, writing in the New York Times Book Review, lauded the biography as "an impassioned and dedicated portrait of an unhappy man."

Among Callow's other works is Shooting the Actor; or, The Choreography of Confusion, a collaboration with acclaimed filmmaker Dusan Makavejev. The book is primarily Callow's account of acting under Makavejev's direction in the film Manifesto, an offbeat work—adapted from Emile Zola's fiction—about romantic and political intrigue. In Shooting the Actor Callow relates how his collaboration with Makavejev degenerated from comradery to antagonism. While directing Callow, Makavejev constantly sought to undermine the actor's security and sense of craft. "Don't act," Makavejev would continually harangue Callow, "just be." Callow found Makavejev's methods increasingly disconcerting, and he found himself reduced to a state of continual dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Callow used Shooting the Actor as a means of expressing his disdain, and accompanying Callow's heated complaints are Makavejev's own comments, which are expressed in a tone of deliberation and calm. Critics noted that the juxtaposition of Callow's and Makavejev's accounts makes for a provocative work.

Callow's biography of film legend Orson Welles, Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu, covers Welles's life up to the premiere of his masterwork, Citizen Kane. Robert Brustein summarized in New Republic: "The Road to Xanadu takes us from the period preceding Welles's birth in 1915 to 1941, the year immediately following the release of his first film, when he was barely twenty-six. The book finds dramatic climax in the well-told tale, now amplified with rigorous research yielding many fresh details, of the making of Citizen Kane and the resistance that cinematic provocation encountered from [William Randolph] Hearst, studio moguls and, surprisingly, its earliest critics and spectators."

Critics were largely positive in their assessment of Orson Welles. Many critics felt that the biography benefited from Callow's background in the theater and his knowledge of filmmaking and acting. Stuart Klawans in Nation claimed: "Callow has brought a welcome expertise to the discussion of Welles's stage work." This, argued critics, enabled Callow to "move beyond Welles biographies by [others] … (although he pays due homage to their different merits) and to place the actor firmly and surely in the context—theatrical, political, artistic and social—of his times," according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Klawans, however, felt that Callow was too determined to cut down the legend of Welles, a sentiment echoed by Brustein. Stanley Kaufmann in the New York Times Book Review faulted Callow for errors in certain aspects of theater history and for "surprisingly often" misspelling names, but concluded that after the Callow's second volume is finished, the result "should be the monument that this insufficiently monumental figure needs—this genius who did much but not nearly enough, who could have had long, magnificent careers in both theater and film and who, to our immense loss, left both of those careers unfulfilled." The reviewer in Publishers Weekly wrote: "Callow's book overflows with drama, telling anecdotes and surprising revelations. If the second volume is up to this standard, Callow's life of Welles will comprise one of the great theatrical biographies."

In 1999, Callow published Love Is Where It Falls: An Account of a Passionate Friendship. The memoir chronicles Callow's platonic love affair with legendary agent Peggy Ramsay, who was seventy years old when Callow, then thirty years old, first met her. Callow was also involved at the time with Egyptian-Turkish (and suicidal) filmmaker Aziz Yehia. "Typically they would talk all night, then go home, write each other lengthy letters about what they'd discussed, exchange those letters the next day along with little gifts, dash off a note or two during the afternoon, and then do the whole thing all over again that night," explained Michael J. Giltz in the Advocate. Critics were largely positive in their assessment of the memoir. "This is a sensitive, loving portrait, but as a biography it is a little unsatisfying," claimed Jayne Plymale in Library Journal. "Callow's sincerity, however, is tangible." Michael Spinella in Booklist lauded: "It is a poignant, gut-wrenching, and intimate story of a remarkable relationship that Callow tells without being overly sentimental. A magnificent memoir."

Callow continued his account of the life of Orson Welles in Orson Welles: Hello Americans. This volume takes on the difficult subject of Welles's career from the time of his great triumph with Citizen Kane until his departure for a long, self-imposed exile in Europe that began in 1947. Despite his undisputed brilliance, Welles was unable to maintain the quality of his work following Citizen Kane. Callow suggests that there are several reasons for this. Welles preferred conceiving new projects to working on them and seeing them through to completion. He tended to work on several projects at once and often dropped projects before they were completely finished, leaving the detail work to others. Studio executives, frustrated with the lack of commercial success seen in Citizen Kane, made decisions regarding Welles's works that, deliberately or not, served to sabotage the success of some of his films. "Welles is complex, and Callow has come neither to praise nor to bury him, providing a balanced, well-crafted portrait that brings him to life," wrote Michael Rogers in his Library Journal assessment of Orson Welles: Hello Americans. "Callow is a superb writer—the best prose stylist who has ever written a Welles biography (including even David Thomson, whom he judiciously and justifiably passes over in silence)—and a very thoughtful analyst, especially of the art of acting," commented Jonathan Rosenbaum in a Cineaste review of Orson Welles: Hello Americans. Rosenbaum had some reservations about Callow's work, finding the author a little too quick to state his opinion on every aspect of his subject. Yet, he concluded, "in most areas, he's on solid ground, and his intelligence rarely lets him down." A Publishers Weekly writer strongly recommended the book, calling it a "scintillating follow-up" to Callow's first volume of Welles's biography.

Callow once told CA that he is motivated by the "passion to communicate the nature of the actor's art and experience."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Callow, Simon, Being an Actor, Methuen (New York, NY), 1984.

Callow, Simon, Love Is Where It Falls: The Story of a Passionate Friendship, Fromm International (New York, NY), 1999.

Callow, Simon, with Dusan Makavejev, Shooting the Actor; or, The Choreography of Confusion, Nick Hern Books (London, England), 1990.

PERIODICALS

Advocate, June 8, 1999, Michael J. Giltz, review of Love Is Where It Falls, p. 79.

Booklist, October 15, 1995, review of Orson Welles: Road to Xanadu, p. 363; May 15, 1999, Michael Spinella, review of Love Is Where It Falls.

Bookseller, May 12, 2006, review of Orson Welles: Hello Americans, p. 39.

Cineaste, fall, 2006, Jonathan Rosenbaum, review of Orson Welles: Hello Americans.

Entertainment Weekly, February 7, 1997, review of Orson Welles: Road to Xanadu, p. 65; August 25, 2006, review of Orson Welles: Hello Americans, p. 88.

Library Journal, July, 1999, Jayne Plymale, review of Love Is Where It Falls, p. 103; July 1, 2006, Michael Rogers, review of Orson Welles: Hello Americans, p. 79.

Nation, January 8, 1996, Stuart Klawans, review of Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu.

New Republic, October 16, 1995, Robert Brustein, review of Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu, p. 38.

New York, September 25, 2006, "The Giant Boy: Orson Welles Eats His Biographer," p. 74.

New York Times Book Review, May 29, 1988, David Kaufman, review of Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor, p. 15; January 7, 1996, review of Orson Welles: Road to Xanadu, p. 7; August 8, 1999, review of Love Is Where It Falls, p. 19; September 3, 2006, review of Orson Welles: Hello Americans, p. 12.

Publishers Weekly, November 20, 1995, review of Orson Welles: Road to Xanadu, p. 62; May 3, 1999, review of Love Is Where It Falls, p. 61; June 19, 2006, review of Orson Welles: Hello Americans, p. 55.

Spectator, May 12, 1984, Giles Gordon, review of Being an Actor, p. 25; June 10, 2006, review of Orson Welles: Hello Americans.

Theatre Research International, summer, 1998, Aleks Sierz, review of The National: The Theatre and Its Work, 1963-97; And a Chronology of Productions 1963-1997.

Times Literary Supplement, December 7, 1984, Craig Brown, review of Being an Actor, p. 1418; January 4, 1991, review of Shooting the Actor, p. 21.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), June 19, 1988, Richard Christiansen, review of Charles Laughton, p. 6.

Variety, August 21, 2006, "More Ideas than He Knew What to Do With," p. 30.

Washington Post Book World, June 19, 1988, Bruce Cook, review of Charles Laughton.