Uta Hagen: Make It Golden

Paul Kelly and Uta Hagen in Clifford Odets' The Country Girl, for which Hagen won her first Tony Award, in 1951. (Photo courtesy of Photofest.)



Interview
1998/New York City
From Artistic Suicide



This, of course, is a golden age. Give it time. Ten years from this very day, you will marvel at all that was being done, being allowed, being attempted. Then the pissing and the moaning. Every age in which I have worked was golden, but I decided that it would be. I don't like getting older, but I adapt. I'm not sure what I think of all the machines taking over the world--fax, computer, cellphones--but I'll adapt. I'll adapt because I want to be here and do well. I'll adapt because I believe in what I'm doing.

1938 was a great year; so was 1951; so was 1962, '63, '64. The 1970s saw me growing as a teacher. Now we're in the 1990s, and I love what I'm doing. I've had two terrific parts recently. What's so bad? Things were bad in those earlier years, too, and I'll talk about that later, but I want to stress that one's age is the only one in which we get to live and work and make any difference. Make it golden. Make it memorable. This is our responsibility.

©2013 James Grissom

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