Whenever film folk talk of Eric, they invariably praise his kindness and consideration. Two of his successive leading ladies, themselves both stars of the first rank, spontaneously said when they knew I was going to write this article, "Oh, Eric Portman, the nicest leading man I know." From all quarters I was told stories of his unfailing quiet courtesy and how working with him was to feel that one's best was somehow brought to the surface and given an extra polish.
Yet even his most ardent fans will admit that the parts he has played have with few exceptions been hardly loveable characters. he first received the acclamations of film-goers all over the World for his rôle as the fanatical Nazi U-boat Commander in 49th Parallel; the professional critics saying that he shone even in such a galaxy of Stars as Raymond Massey and the late Leslie Howard. In One of Our Aircraft is Missing, we found him in R.A.F. Uniform, as a Yorkshireman with a portrayal that was both witty and keen. In Squadron leader X, he was again a Nazi and the followed Great Day in which he was a retired British officer, painfully struggling to keep up appearances in a small village. This was a masterful piece of acting that forced sympathy even while it excited contempt. He told me that he was "really sorry for that fellow." I could see that his success is based on the fact the he truly lives the part he plays.
Canterbury Tale saw him as a dual personality; the respected leader of village life by day and the pervert with a penchant for pouring glue over ladies' hair by night. Still grouchy, the 'man who was misunderstood' gave vitality to another submarine picture, We Dive at Dawn. He gave yet another facet of human character as foreman in Millions Like Us, taciturn and down-to-earth, picking up the petulant socialite, (Anne Crawford) and dumping her unceremoniously in an air-raid shelter. All over Britain the girls thrilled to this, and Anne herself confessed to me that she had known worse moments. Here for the first time, Eric showed the masterful touch, and while some writhed in impotent fury, his feminine fan public increased.
Then came Wanted for Murder which many have voted his finest film to date. Again there was a dual personality and the pathetic struggle against the dark forces of libido so accurately expressed. Although he played a strangler and a madman, such finesse was put into the part that it created sympathy, for Eric realises that no villain is entirely bad, and he knows that the secret of such portraits lies in the delicate shades and not in the liberal application of stark black.
Men of Two Worlds shows yet another Eric Portman, in the part of a colonial administrator, who while he handled women and natives admirably and firmly, still did not smile. Three new pictures have been completed which will surely forever fix him in the public mind as the man who plays queer parts, and yet commands both sympathy and respect. Dear Murderer finds him eliminating a rival in a gas oven. Daybreak shows him as the detestable yet necessary public official, the hangman, while Corridor of Mirrors will give us yet another neurotic who tries to live in the past the escape the unendurable hardships of the present.
Eric was born in Akroydon, Boothtown, Halifax, the son of a Yorkshire Wool Merchant. He went to school at Rishworth and his boyhood was spent among the bracing moors of the West Riding. He attributes much to this early Yorkshire background, for he told me: "The business of being a film actor makes tremendous demands on one, both physically and mentally. I often feel that without the wonderful start I had in my early environment, I should not have the vitality I have today.
| Photograph of Eric poring over a jumbled collection of crime books |
| Apart from the crime rôles which Eric Portman has played in various films, he takes a serious interest in criminology and is here seen in his study with a selection of books on the subject |
| Photograph of Eric and Greta Gynt lounging on a bed |
| Eric Portman and Greta Gynt in a scene from his latest film Dear Murderer, which was directed by Yorkshireman Arthur Crabtree of Shipley, produced by Betty Box |
He is an amateur swimming champion and a general all-round athlete. Characteristics like these enabled him to stand the twenty-five successive takes in an ice-cold tank for the drowning scene in Wanted for Murder, and complete Corridor of Mirrors recently in Paris, where it was so cold he had to suck ice cubes to prevent his breath from clouding.
Like all our great film players, he started his career on the stage. In 1928, he reopened the Old Vic as Romeo. In 1936, in "Bitter-Harvest" his Lord Byron was hailed as an acting triumph. Strangely enough his first film part was in that hoary old melodrama, Maria Marten, or the Murder in the Red Barn. He played the part of a gypsy boy.
I feel that had he stuck to his early job as a salesman in a Leeds Department Store, he would today be a leading figure in he commercial world, but that the world of art would have suffered a grievous loss. Although film fans have never heard him sing, in his younger days he played lead in Operettas for the Halifax Light Opera Company, and his speaking voice has a thrilling quality which has never to my knowledge, been successfully imitated by radio impersonators.
| Photograph of Eric carrying a dog and looking over the hedge of his home in Cornwall |
| Eric Portman is a keen lover of the countryside and of animals and the proceeds from subscriptions to his Fan Club, which is run by a Leeds woman, go to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals |
Still he continues his career by playing the objectionable people, yet with true artistry manages to imbue his characterisations with a touch of pathos hat makes them so natural. His next production is entitled tentatively The Mark of Cain, based on the novel "Airing in a Closed Carriage", where we shall see him as a Lancashire business man who has a yearning for a wider, more artistic life.
I suggested to him that a film based on the recent tragedy of the sadist Heath would give him fine scope, for I am sure that he alone could portray the complex twists of that warped mind. He agreed that with suitable modifications it might make a fine picture and sound a psychological warning. His ambition is to play Lord Byron on the screen, but he emphasised that it would be the later life of the poet. In contrast to the Hollywood picture that Cornell Wilde is making it should provide an interesting comparison.
On his all too infrequent returns to his native town, Eric shows that he still loves the County of his birth, and he is proud to claim allegiance to the soil of Yorkshire. Likewise Yorkshire folk are proud of their son, who today ranks as one of Britain's leading film personalities.
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