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An Indian Prayer  Moby Dick The Raven
Voice Over Contest Los Angeles Speech Training
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Famous Students
Let’s start with the king
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Elvis Presley. When Elvis was
discharged from the army in late 1959 his first movie was GI Blues at Paramount
Pictures, introducing as his co-star Juliette Prowse. I played the part of Dynamite, the top sergeant. Elvis knew that I had been on Broadway,
featured in Stalag 17 and Shangri La.
He also was made aware that I was a successful dialogue coach. He asked me to help him not only with his
articulation and line readings, but with his actual vocal production. He was particularly impressed with a series
of vocal exercises I did everyday in my dressing room which was about 50 feet
from his. The exercises were by N.
Vaccai, who was, an 18th century composer and highly acclaimed voice
teacher. They were in Italian in the Bel Canto tradition. These exercises and others I gave Elvis
greatly helped him later on when he recorded Italian art songs in English.
I spoke to Elvis years later, just before his untimely
demise. He told me he did the Vaccai
vocalizes, and several others that I had given him almost everyday. He showed me several weathered pages of
vocalizes I had written out for him when he came to visit me at 20th
Century Fox when I was co-starring as Prince Charming in “Snow White and the
Three Stooges.” This was the only
A-picture the Stooges ever made. We had an Academy Award-winning director and
cinematography, Walter Lang and Jean Shamroy. During the course of seven weeks
of rehearsals for the production, Mo Howard and I became very friendly.
Mo wanted to do some lecturing and some drawing room
comedy. He was starting to make some
serious money for the first time in his long career. We talked often of his going off on his own and doing plays on
Broadway. I worked with him on several
monologues, including Gobo’s great speech from “The Merchant of Venice.”
Actually, toward the end of our filming, Mo had actually improved his line
reading one hundred percent. He had a
great latent talent.
I worked three times with Orson Welles. He was fascinated by the way I was able to
imitate James Mason. He said to me,
“You know something, Edson, no one can do James Mason like you. You’ve got to
help me learn how to do a 50% James Mason.”
Orson liked to use learned speech throughout his career. He had a great ear, but he only achieved a
modest amount of success in achieving his 50% James Mason depiction. Nevertheless, he seemed happy with his
progress.
I would like to point with quiet pride to one of my long
time students, Michael Drake, who, for the past decade, has been one of the
foremost audio directors and voiceover teachers in the industry.
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