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Women seem to find weight more of a hindrance, perhaps because Hollywood and the theater offer fewer roles for women. Shirley Stoler, best known as the prison commandant in the film Seven Beauties, played the mother in Edward Albee's Broadway version of Lolita this spring.
Both roles required her to be fleshy and sensual, and gave her a showcase—but such roles are rare. Kathleen Freeman, a vice president of the Screen Actors Guild who has played in more than 100 movies and won two TV Emmy nominations by portraying a battle-ax, says her shape registers with casting directors "right away." Being stereotyped as fat, even if employed, "infuriated" her, so she dieted from 200 down to 150 Ibs.—for about the third time in her life, she says.
Frantic dieting is common in Hollywood. Says Acting Coach Anna Strasberg: "When an actor's agent tells his [overweight] client he should start thinking in terms of character roles, the actor goes crazy." Freeman, though, built her career in character parts. So did Coco and Dom De Luise, both of whom have also gone on diets. None expects much change professionally. Yet each wants to improve his appearance. And each seems convinced he will be among the 10% to 20% of dieters nationwide who stay thin. Among those who have drifted back up is Edward Asner. He dieted when he shifted the TV character of Newsman Lou Grant from the Mary Tyler Moore Show to his own hour-long show, thinking the audience would take a lean editor more seriously. One champion drifter is Hines, now 265 Ibs., who has lost "at least a thousand pounds" and is now reconciled to playing fat parts. "Once an actor's image is established," he says, "it doesn't change. I've been all the way down to 220 lbs., and I was up for the same roles I am now."
Except for Burr and Conrad, fat actors and actresses rarely play heroes. They play extravagant figures of fun or menace, sometimes on the verge of losing control.
They are often asked to stereotype the worst things they may believe about themselves and then" weight. But to those moments in the dark, when an audience is demanding physical perfection, fat actors offer a comforting alternative—a tale of beauty and obese. —William A. Henry III.
Reported by Joseph Pilcher/Los Angeles and Janice C. Simpson/New York