Tuesday, 10.04.2007
Fame Game
Some of the best known people in the world today have been to night school. More than that, they have made famous careers thanks to going to evening courses.
Born in New York City's East Harlem, Al Pacino was the only child of Salvatore (an insurance salesman) and Rose Pacino. His parents divorced when he was two, and Al and his mother moved in with her parents. Little Alfredo was a rather sensitive child, and his overprotective grandparents coddled him to such a degree that he wasn't even allowed out until he had safely passed his seventh birthday! He got to tag along with his mother to evening features at the local movie theatre, however, and he'd spend his housebound days re-enacting for his grandmother the plots of the films he had seen. Young Al was a mischievous figure in the classroom, but when his teachers began to see his talent for drama, they encouraged him to perform in school plays.
After attending a performance of Chekhov's The Seagull at Elsmere Theater in the South Bronx, Pacino decided to transfer to the High School of the Performing Arts. At the age of 17, however, a disinterested Al left school altogether and spent several years working, variously, as a messenger, a cinema usher and, as a building caretaker.
During this period, however Pacino began taking evening acting classes and appearing in basement theatre productions. He also saved enough to enrol at the Herbert Berghof Studio, where he trained under drama coach Charlie Laughton. Apprenticing in acting, directing, and writing in a handful of way-off-Broadway theatres, Pacino eventually gained acceptance to the famed Actors Studio in 1966, where he received further training in Lee Strasberg's school of Method acting.
Renowned writer Frank McCourt had, famously, a hard childhood compared to Pacino's. He was born in 1931 in Brooklyn, New York, to Irish immigrant parents. He grew up in Limerick but returned to America in 1949. For thirty years he taught in various New York City high schools and city colleges. Today he lives with his wife, Ellen, in New York City and Connecticut.
After serving in the Korean War, McCourt became eligible for the GI Bill. He writes about his career aspirations and his love of books in "Tis", the second instalment of his memoirs. When McCourt applied to colleges without a high school diploma, the admissions officer at New York University had to be convinced that McCourt's interest in books and his having the GI Bill to cover his fees was enough to give the Irish man a start. McCourt got into the university on a year's probation and continued to do some work down the docks during the day to pay for his night-time courses.
After completing university with a primary and a master's degree, McCourt became a schoolteacher. He spent 27 years in the New York City system as a high school writing instructor, first at some of the city's toughest schools, but eventually at Stuyvesant High School, one of the most prestigious schools in the USA.
He was obviously good at his job: In a TV profile of McCourt, John Kwok, a student in McCourt's class in the 1976-77 school year, described McCourt's teaching as "inspirational." "Without question," said Kwok, "of all the teachers I've had, including college and graduate school, he was the best. He made me interested in writing. He made me love literature as something to be savored, and not just for academic study." And then, of course, he wrote Angela's Ashes, the book that would win him a Pulitzer prize and worldwide recognition.
A man who grew up through a similarly tough childhood is Thomas Sean Connery. Born the eldest of two sons to a truck-driver father and washing-lady mother in an Edinburgh tenement, young Seán started helping to support the family by delivering milk at the age of 9. Steady education was not a possibility and he eventually left school at the age of 13, first taking jobs as a labourer, steel bender, and cement mixer. At fifteen he enlisted in the British Royal Navy for what was to have been a 12-year stint. Severe stomach ulcers hastened his discharge within three years, however, and he returned to Edinburgh to work variously as a bricklayer, lifeguard, and coffin polisher. After work every evening, Connery was bodybuilding, and he even began earning some extra money posing for art classes and swimwear photo shoots.
While in London competing in the Mr. Universe contest (he came third), Connery auditioned for and won a part in the chorus of a year-long touring production of South Pacific. Though he had stumbled into acting on a whim (his real career aspiration at the time was to become a professional soccer player), subsequent intensive dancing, singing, and reading lessons in evening schools around London prepared him adequately for a spate of theatre experience and roles in British TV productions. Connery diligently worked his way up from bit parts to more substantial secondary roles, earning his first big-screen assignment of any note in the 1958 Lana Turner film Another Time, Another Place.
Connery's big break came however when he beat out several big names to play the cinematic incarnation of novelist Ian Fleming's glossy super spy James Bond in 1962's Dr. No, the first feature in what would prove an immensely successful and lucrative franchise in the decades to come. Producer Harry Saltzman awarded Connery the plum part of agent 007 on the basis of a single interview. No surprise - Connery had trained extensively in dramatic movement in his night classes, and, to this day, prepares for each role by working out how the character should move, which is perhaps why he is so effective a presence on screen.
So there you go! Big things from small beginnings grow. So it's never too late to start pursuing that career you've dreamed of. A great way to start is by looking over some courses on Nightcourses.com.
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