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Norman Lloyd reminisces about Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre

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Norman Lloyd was holding court to talk about his warm friendship with Charlie Chaplin, timed to Sunday’s Silent Movie Celebration of Chaplin’s 1925 classic “The Gold Rush,’ presented by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra at Royce Hall.

But the 94-year-old kept his audience of one enthralled with stories of practically any important actor, director or writer of the 20th century.

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When Lloyd was a young actor on Broadway in the 1930s, he was an early member of Orson Welles’ seminal Mercury Theatre, and their relationship was not without tension.

Lloyd appeared in the group’s initial Broadway production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” in 1938. Welles set the production in Fascist Italy, and Lloyd received rave reviews for his performance as Cinna the Poet. Lloyd also appeared in Welles’ Mercury Theatre production of “The Shoemaker’s Holiday” in 1938, which featured a star-making performance by Hiram Sherman as Firk.

“The two of us [thought we] made rather stellar contributions,” said Lloyd with a smile.

Welles, who was just 23, didn’t let anything stand in his way.

“One day, Orson said we are going to do a play — I don’t remember the name — but it was an Elizabethan dark tragedy,” Lloyd remembered.

“The point of the story is: He called a rehearsal, a reading after one of the shows at 11:30 at night. We come in and the theater is almost filled with actors who have been promised parts in this eight-character play. Chubby [Sherman] and I were assigned three lines each. I remember [Welles] sitting there with a dollar cigar and a gardenia.... It was then I made up my mind I was leaving. And Chubby, who was his oldest friend, in a way, also left. “

Tension continued between Lloyd and Welles. “When Orson recorded ‘Julius Caesar’ [for the radio], he didn’t ask me to do my part, which sounds very vain of me, but I had been the fulcrum of the play. He put someone else in the reading of the thing.”

The two reunited briefly for a radio recording of “The Merchant of Venice.’

Years later, they met up at a Directors Guild panel about Welles’ contributions to film that he brought from the theater.

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“I was asked to appear on the panel with Kenneth Tynan,’ Lloyd said. ‘Orson arrived eventually.... When I greeted him -- and not having seen him in a long time -- he gave me this great bear hug. As he did he whispered into my ear, ‘You son of a bitch.’ ‘

Click here to read my full interview with Lloyd.

-- Susan King

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