Medford mail tribune., December 25, 1960, Image 35

i I " ' '
Portrayed by Robert Ryan (left), John the Baptist prepares to baptize Jesus and followers in the Jordan.
THE ACTOR WHO WILL PLAY
CHRIST
LWti
By C. GREGORY JENSEN
f . - - .- iM .'- - . - ... .
Jeffrey Hunter
What happens to a Hollywood Star casl in the greatest of all roles? For
Hollywood star Jeffrey Hunter does not exist not at the
moment. As an actor, of course; Jeff Hunter is present and
accounted for and then some. He's starring in a gigantic, $8
million epic planned as 1961's biggest movie.
But Jeffrey Hunter, the Hollywood Movie Star in capital letters
has simply disappeared. Not since Greta Garbo "vanted to be alone"
has a big-name star dropped so completely out of the public's sight.
Since last May, Hunter has avoided publicity like the plague.
His door is closed to fan-magazine writers and movie columnists. He
skips parties and film festivals and the other usual haunts of movie
stars abroad. In effect, he leaves his Madrid home chiefly to work;
and even on the set he is aloof, apart, and unapproachable.
This is not ordinary behavior in an industry which thrives on pub
licity. But "King of Kings," the massive movie now being filmed in
Madrid, is not an ordinary movie. And Hunter's role in it definitely
is not an ordinary part.
Hunter portrays Jesus Christ.
He Will appear on the screen just as any other character does.
Hunter as Christ will be in full view, face to face with the audience.
Thus every believing Christian will compare Hunter with his own
private conception of the Son of God. And woe to Hunter if he fails
to match those individual ideas.
That is what H. B. Warner learned, to his regret, more than 30 years
ago. Warner played Christ in a silent film and never lived it down.
Hollywood hasn't shown Christ in full view since. Not until now.
Hunter himself says it wasn't the risk to his future which forced
him into seclusion during, and even beyond, the six-month filming.
"It would be impossible," he said before shooting started, "to dis
cuss my feelings about portraying Christ with authority. So I must
keep my personal life and my professional activities anonymous."
Producer Samuel Bronston says another reason for Hunter's isola
tion is the "tremendous strain" which the role of Christ imposes on
an actor. "Hunter is striving to portray this role for an audience of
a billion Christians. We must not distract him more than necessary."
At first glance, Jeffrey Hunter seems to have few qualifications
for the role of Christ. His major subjects at Northwestern University
were speech and radio, not theology. As an all-around athlete, his
hobby is sports, not philosophy. He has been in Hollywood for 10 of
his S3 years. His 26 movie roles have included everything but religious
parts war stories, historical dramas, Westerns. He is divorced and
remarried, with a son from each marriage.
But Hunter has one particular feature which led Bronston and
director Nicholas Ray to him his eyes.
"They grip you," Bronston says, "and they hold you." In costume
as Jesus, Hunter's pale blue eyes leap out at you from a bearded,
sunburned face. Everyone in the cast speaks of their powerful effect.
"I was quite a long way from him in the baptism scene," says Irish
actress Siobhan McKenna, who plays the Virgin Mary, "yet I could
see his eyes, with a strange kind of power, penetrating right through
me, over all that distance."
There were, of course, other factors involved in Hunter's choice
for the part. His wide acting experience was one. Mentioning another,
Bronston says, "We investigated him, and even in Hollywood he lives
a quiet and peaceful life."
Siobhan McKenna gave one of the most thoughtful appraisals :
"I don't know if Jeffrey's performance is good or bad," she says,
"but it is right." She paused, frowned, and shook her head. "I don't
talk of performances in this film," she goes on. "There are people,
and they are either right or not right. I think Jeffrey Hunter is right."
Siobhan McKenna plays the Virgin Mary, almost as beloved to
Thousands of actors and extras flock up hill where Jeffrey Hunter stands ready to deliver immortal words of Sermon on the Mount in ' King of Kings."
Jeffrey Hunter it has meant Strain, seclusion -and an uncertain future
devout Christians as Christ Himself. So Miss McKenna shares some
of the risks and responsibilities Hunter faces. And her attitude toward
playing Mary gives a good indication of Hunter's own approach.
"It is something that frightens me," Miss McKenna says. "I think
it's an awful responsibility. I think one would be out of one's mind
to try to be the Virgin Mary. I'm probably not at all like the real
Mary, but I'm doing it as if she were an ordinary, everyday kindof
woman. I can only play the human side. I can't play the mystery."
There is, however, something mysterious about Jeffrey Hunter's
performance an atmosphere which seems to surround him on the
set even when the cameras aren't turning. Perhaps this mystery
showed best irrthe filming of the Sermon on the Mount.
This is a tremendous scene in terms of sheer scalea fitting spec
tacle for a movie designed as a successor to "Ben-Hur."
Most of the film's 60 leading characters milled about the barren,
sun-baked hillside near the village of Venta de Frascuela, outside
Madrid, where the scene was shot. So did 7,000 extras, including a
good portion of the Spanish army. Every person was costumed in
hand-woven desert fabrics scoured from every corner of the Mediter
ranean world. Camels from the Canary Islands mingled with un
counted horses and burros. The sequence was so vast it had to be
planned like a military operation. It took more than two weeks to
film, and will last less than 15 minutes on the screen.
But all through the massive turmoil of this scene, Jeffrey Hunter
stood quietly apart. Everyone else wore incongruous straw hats
against the searing sun : Hunter stood bareheaded in the heavy woolen
robes of Christ. Everyone else joked and chatted between takes:
Hunter stood with his eyes closed, seldom speaking to anyone. The
whole hillside crawled with chattering, raucous Spanish extras : but
when Hunter walked among them with the slow, deliberate movement
he uses even off camera, the extras fell silent.
"The Spanish actors in the film really have a sort of reverence for
the characters playing Christ and their beloved Virgin Mary," Miss
McKenna explains.
She recalled the filming of Christ's baptism as another example.
In that scene, scores of extras "had to stand around in water for hours
at a stretch," Miss McKenna says. "They stood there with a kind of
awe at what they were doing. And when they came out of the water,
their faces well, their faces were wonderful to see. I honestly believe
that for them it was a great religious experience."
This atmosphere influences the whole making of "King of Kings,"
not just the crowds of extras or Hunter in his role of Christ.
"You know," says glamorous Rita Gam, who plays Herod's wife,
"there is the most extraordinary harmony on this picture."
"Nobody complains," agrees Bronston. "Always, in any company,
is a troublemaker or someone who is unhappy. But not here."
Miss Gam speaks in awed tones about one scene in the kitchens of
Herod's palace. Everything went wrong. Thunderstorms flooded the
set and knocked out the electricity. Meat which was roasting in the
rscenes turned fetid. Spain's summer heat was stifling. Loaded down
for her role as Herodias with a wig weighing 30 pounds, plus nearly
35 pounds of Egyptian and Oriental jewelry, Miss Gam fainted. "The
whole thing was horrible," she says. "Yet nobody complained."
Jeffrey Hunter makes no complaint either about the strenuous
demands made on him or about the self-imposed isolation.
"He is engrossed in his job," Bronston says. "It's a tremendous
moral challenge a tremendous strain and responsibility."
And a responsibility that observers agree has already left a mark
on young Hunter and may continue to do so long into his career.
12 Family Weekly, December 25. 1960
Family Weekly, December 25, i960 13