The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-04-02
CHANGING THEIR FACES
TRICKS OF ACTORS TO LITTER OR
 IMPROYE LOOKS.
Secrets of Increasing Nose-Wnys in
 Which Defects Are Concealed.

tors of merely enhancing tnelr lldtuId charms when they fix themselves up with paint and powder to appear on the
 stage Sometimes they try to hide de- ficiences and to avoid emphasizing the least advantageous qualities in their ap- prepares to face an audience in a the ater with the fierce glare of the foot lights between her and the public rarely does more than exaggerate the amount
 of cheek painting. lip reckoning and eyebrow blackening that might. be judged necessary for private life. Some
 times there are traits in the faces Of players which require more elaborate treatment. Short noses sometimes have
 to be made long, and those that are pronouncedly stub must be put into q form more suited to romantic ideas of
 beauty. A Sun reporter asked an actor | about some of the devices adopted in order to hide from the public such de- fleets.
 Whenever I hear that question" the
 actor said, q always think of woman
 with whom I used to act in melodrama. She is very popular actress and good
 one, and in that play she was at her best work, which consists In depicting
 the stage adventures. I often won
 dered what in the world she must look
 like to the people sitting in the audi ence. She was a sight to us on the stage. Her nose was so flat that it was
 scarcely a nose at all, and a woman without nose on the stage would lack l ohe important qualification for her work So something had be done to create at least the impression of nose l if it was not there in reality. To do | this she drew long white mark down | to the tip of her nose; it was very white and could be noticed from the back of | the theater On each side of it she used blue paint, not dark blue, but light blueish-gray from the sides of her nose up to the white mark darkest at the cheeks, and lightest at the ridge. This covered each side of the nose, which
 was flat and spread over her face. never saw her from the front, but per sons who have seen her have told me that few rows back from the stage her full face really looked as If she had a nose, although that Illusion was scarcely maintained even by the paint ahwhen she turned her profile
 Only short time ago I went to see an actor who has the reputation of sur rounding himself with rather poor com panies. They are made up for the most part of young men who are just begin ming on the stage. I saw him in Rich ard Ill., and when one of the com pany delivered his lines with unusually good elocution and real feeling I said to myself, Now there is dramatic school beginner evidently, but he speaks Shakespeare as nobody else on the stage can l got that impression from his youthful appearance. 1 took up my programme to discover who such a promising beginner might be, and found that he had already been for about for ty years on the stage and was very nearly sixty at that time But the youthfulness of his appearance was as- tonishing. If had been nearer the stage I might have detected that he really was not young, but he looked so from where I was sitting. I heard af-
  the greatest amount of work. His cheeks, particularly the lower part, had grown very stout and in a most un- usual fashion he had managed to con ceal that defect. The lower part of each cheek he carefully painted with blue and gray paints until to one only a short way from the stage this excess- i've jowl was scarcely noticeable and a person at the back of the theater would never have discovered it. He used to spend an hour or more every night in preparing his face. He was so careful about it that he used a large magnify ing glass, in place of the customary mirror, This, of course made his face look three or four times it's customary size, and in that way he was able to judge very accurately of the effects of the paints he used, and he was able, moreover to apply his makeup in a very much more careful manner He youthfulness made up his fave below had done another thing that night which always gives an appearance of youthfulness, made up his face with light or white paint I am only thirty seven years old and a man of that age is supposed to be able to look like a youth on the stage without the slight est difficulty. But I would not attempt to play Romeo, for instance, unless I had taken the precaution to make my face under the eyes very light. That gives immediately the look of freshness and youth to the face, and all actors who play youthful parts avail them- selves of the trick. The long white mark down the nose has long been used as the best means of lengthening the nose. Nearly all men and women on the stage do that, If a person with an ordinarily long nose attempts it, he or she gets beak that would do for Cy- rano.
 Some years ago I acted in con- pany with an Englishman who had i spent most of long career in playing the classic and Shakespearean parts. | He was afflicted with as plebian, unat- tractive and unmanageable a nose as | any l ever saw. It went straight up in to the air, and it did that in q most abrupt and uncompromislng manner. Blu tin every other way this fellow was equipped physically and in- 1 to pay the parts he under took. So he mercy conquered his nose and for years rose superior to it. He never appeared without false nCs,a