While the subject is still actresses

Things weren't all that different in 1880:

Then to put an end to the discussion, he introduced his cousin, M. Hector de la Faloise, a young man who had come to finish his education in Paris.  The manager took the young man's measure at a glance.  But Hector returned his scrutiny with deep interest.  This, then, was that Bordenave, that showman of the sex who treated women like a convict overseer, that clever fellow who was always at full steam over some advertising dodge, that shouting, spitting, thigh- slapping fellow, that cynic with the soul of a policeman!  Hector was under the impression that he ought to discover some amiable observation for the occasion.

"Your theater--" he began in dulcet tones.

Bordenave interrupted him with a savage phrase, as becomes a man who dotes on frank situations.

"Call it my brothel!"

At this Fauchery laughed approvingly, while La Faloise stopped with his pretty speech strangled in his throat, feeling very much shocked and striving to appear as though he enjoyed the phrase.  The manager had dashed off to shake hands with a dramatic critic whose column had considerable influence.  When he returned La Faloise was recovering.  He was afraid of being treated as a provincial if he showed himself too much nonplused.

"I have been told," he began again, longing positively to find something to say, "that Nana has a delicious voice."

"Nana?" cried the manager, shrugging his shoulders.  "The voice of a squirt!"

The young man made haste to add:

"Besides being a first-rate comedian!"

"She?  Why she's a lump!  She has no notion what to do with her hands and feet."

La Faloise blushed a little.  He had lost his bearings.  He stammered:

"I wouldn't have missed this first representation tonight for the world.  I was aware that your theater--"

"Call it my brothel," Bordenave again interpolated with the frigid obstinacy of a man convinced.

Meanwhile Fauchery, with extreme calmness, was looking at the women as they came in.  He went to his cousin's rescue when he saw him all at sea and doubtful whether to laugh or to be angry.

"Do be pleasant to Bordenave--call his theater what he wishes you to, since it amuses him.  And you, my dear fellow, don't keep us waiting about for nothing.  If your Nana neither sings nor acts you'll find you've made a blunder, that's all.  It's what I'm afraid of, if the truth be told."

"A blunder!  A blunder!" shouted the manager, and his face grew purple.  "Must a woman know how to act and sing?  Oh, my chicken, you're too stoopid.  Nana has other good points, by heaven!-- something which is as good as all the other things put together. I've smelled it out; it's deuced pronounced with her, or I've got the scent of an idiot.  You'll see, you'll see!  She's only got to come on, and all the house will be gaping at her."

He had held up his big hands which were trembling under the influence of his eager enthusiasm, and now, having relieved his feelings, he lowered his voice and grumbled to himself:

"Yes, she'll go far!  Oh yes, s'elp me, she'll go far!  A skin--oh, what a skin she's got!"

---from Nana by Emile Zola.

Comments

[Campaspe]

Now what has happened, I wonder, to the plans to make a movie of Therese Raquin with Kate Winslet? I see Kate much more as Nana, frankly. I have not seen the 1934 Nana starring Anna Sten, a.k.a. Goldwyn's Folly. But here she is in the part:

http://tinyurl.com/fkzp5

She really looked the part.