At the top of My Blog List (to the left) is a site called About Last Night, an intelligent and literate site that I go to often to see what the provider, Terry Teachout, has to offer.
Today, in a post called A Great Actor Reads, it has the recorded voice of Charles Laughton reading for an audience .
Please check it out. In the first one, he reads from Jack Kerouac's book The Dharma Bums. I was struck by how much the reading reminded me of the Dylan Thomas poem Fern Hill.
What a voice Laughton had!
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Lincoln, Thanks for the heads up!
ReplyDeleteI have the original vinyl, but it is always great to hear it again: "The Storyteller" is a great record, and the Chartres story is simply wonderful.
I wish Laughton had written a bit more than he did, it's evident he was a good storyteller, not only of other writer's work, but of his own stories!
The funny thing is, he would go reading even to small auditoriums deep in America, who of course, would be very appreciative of his Bible readings, and then, right after that, he would read Jack Kerouac: he sure liked to open his audience's eyes to new things and different viewpoints!
As usual. Gloria, your assessment of Laughton is correct. His Chartres story (and the visit with Menassier) almost brought tears to my eyes. Probably woud have if I were younger.
ReplyDeleteI should have guessed that you had seen that video on the blog About Last Night, including the second one he posted showing Laughton reciting Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in the movie Ruggles of Red Gap.