(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Rich Kleinfeldt with the Special English program, People in America. Today, we tell the story of Jessica Tandy who died in nineteen ninety-four. She won many awards for her acting during the almost seventy years she performed.
Jessica Tandy probably is best known for winning an Academy Award in nineteen eighty-nine for the movie "Driving Miss Daisy. " She was the oldest person to have won the award. But for many years, she had received praise for her great performances.
Tandy appeared in more than one hundred stage shows, twenty-five movies and on many television programs during her sixty-seven years of acting. Most of her performances were in the United States, although she did not become an American citizen until nineteen fifty-four.
Jessica Tandy was born in London, England, in nineteen-oh-nine. Her father died when she was twelve years old. Her mother taught and took other jobs at night to make extra money for her three children. Jessica's older brothers showed an interest in the theater. They would put on shows in their London home. Jessica said later that she was terrible in all of them. But she said taking part in those plays as a child created a desire in her to be someone else.
Jessica loved going to the theater. And she loved British writer William Shakespeare. Years later, she acted in many of Shakespeare's plays, with great actors like John Gielgud and Lawrence Olivier. This love of the theater led her to attend an acting school in nineteen twenty-four. When she was eighteen years old, she performed in her first play. It was called "The Manderson Girls. " She did not earn enough money to pay for the five different dresses she had to wear in the play. She solved the problem by sewing them herself.
Jessica Tandy always thought she was plain-looking. So did most theater professionals. She said people in the theater knew she was a good actress, but did not believe she was pretty enough to be a success. She noted that they said, "She is plain but on the stage she looks all right."
Pictures of Jessica Tandy do not suggest that this is true. She just looked different from the leading women actors of the day. Later, she said that it was good that she was not considered pretty. She said she got more interesting parts that way.
In nineteen thirty-two, critics in London recognized her great acting skill in her performance in the play "Children in Uniform." That part gave her what she said was one of the moments she loved most in the theater. She said at one performance, people watching were so moved they continued to sit quietly when the play ended. That same year, she married actor Jack Hawkins. They had a daughter, Susan.
Tandy continued to work in the theater in London. By nineteen forty, her marriage was ending. So she took her daughter and moved to the United States to escape World War Two. In New York City, she met a young actor named Hume Cronyn. Two years later they married and moved to Hollywood. By nineteen forty-five, they had two children.
In California, Hume Cronyn was getting good parts in movies. But Tandy was not. She got only small parts, when she got them at all. She said the producers in Hollywood did not take her seriously as an actress. She began to feel like a failure. Jessica Tandy was considering not acting anymore. But then her husband did something that changed her life. He gave her the lead part in a play he was directing in Los Angeles. It was "Portrait of a Madonna" by Tennessee Williams. She played a lonely woman. Critics praised her.
Tennessee Williams came to Los Angeles from New York just to see her in the show. He said later that he knew he had found the actress to play the lead in his new play, "A Streetcar Named Desire." That play opened in New York in nineteen forty-seven. Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter were the stars. It won a Pulitzer Prize and many other awards.
Tandy won the first of her four Tony awards for best actress in a play. One director said that she was full of surprises. He said that she always did things better than expected.
During the nineteen-fifties, Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn began working together in theaters in New York City. Their first appearance together in a major Broadway theater was the hit play "The Fourposter. "
Through the years, they appeared together in nine other plays on Broadway, including "A Delicate Balance," "The Gin Game" and "Foxfire. " Their last Broadway appearance together was in "The Petition" in nineteen eighty-six. Tandy also worked with her husband in local theaters across the United States. They liked doing it because they had a chance to play parts in the older well-known plays.
In nineteen sixty-three, for example, Miss Tandy played Gertrude in Shakespeare's "Hamlet," Olga in Anton Chekhov's "The Three Sisters," and the wife of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." She also acted in plays in the Shakespeare festivals in Stratford, Connecticut and in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.
Jessica Tandy said she hated seeing herself in the movies. She said she never was as satisfied making movies as she was working in the theater. But she thought it was important to accept the acting jobs that were offered. It helped pay expenses when she performed in small theaters for less pay.
Tandy played Hume Cronyn's wife in four movies during the nineteen-eighties, including "Cocoon" and "Batteries not Included." In nineteen ninety-two, she played an old woman in the movie, "Fried Green Tomatoes. " But she never really thought of herself as a movie actress. Perhaps that was because of her experience earlier when she was not accepted in Hollywood.
Even after her success in the play "A Streetcar Named Desire," Hollywood producers did not choose her to be in the movie. Vivien Leigh replaced her in the part of Blanche Dubois. Tandy said she was surprised when she won the academy award for "Driving Miss Daisy. " She said then that the wonderful part she had made up for her lack of experience in movies.
Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn were married for fifty-two years. During their years of acting together, they won almost every cultural award possible. In nineteen eighty-six, they won the Kennedy Center lifetime achievement award.
In nineteen ninety, President George Bush presented the National Medal of Art to them. A few months before she died, Tandy and Cronyn were honored with a special Tony Award for their work in the Broadway theater. Reporters always were asking them how they were able to work so closely together for so long. Tandy said they never discussed their work at home. She said they always honored each other's ideas if they did not agree about something.
Jessica Tandy suffered from stage fright that became worse as she grew older. It made her feel sick before a performance. Yet her husband said she was at her best when she was working. She was in great demand as she grew older. Tandy took good parts and bad ones. She always said a person is richer for doing things. If you wait for the greatest part , you will wait a long time and your skills will decrease, she said. You cannot be an actor without acting.
Tandy was an actor until the end. She had problems with her eyes and her heart. Yet they did not slow her down. In nineteen eighty-eight, she won an Emmy Award for a television movie of the play "Foxfire. " Three years later, Jessica Tandy had a cancer operation. But she continued working. She did not let her pain lessen the effectiveness of her performance. She appeared in more television movies in the years before her death. And she made several movies that were released after she died September eleventh, nineteen ninety-four. She was eighty-five.
Jessica Tandy said as an actor her job was getting the best out of what the writer expressed in the play or movie. The critics said she did. They said she always was able to show deep meaning in the people she played. One critic wrote that she was such a good actor that only poets, not critics, should be permitted to write about her.
重点解析
1.put on 上演
The band is hoping to put on a show before the end of the year.
该乐队正希望在年底之前举行一场演出。
2.sew 缝补
She sewed the dresses on the sewing machine.
她在缝纫机上缝制了这些衣服。
3.plain-looking 相貌平平
Though plain-looking, Mary is possessed of great intelligence.
虽然相貌平平,玛丽却拥有智慧。
4.So she took her daughter and moved to the United States to escape World War Two.
escape躲避
Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history.
同胞们，我们不能逃避历史。
5.She said the producers in Hollywood did not take her seriously as an actress.
afford买得起
The arts should be available to more people at prices they can afford.
艺术品应该以人们支付得起的价格提供给更多人。
6.She did this during a period when many people believed those infected with the disease were immoral and few recognized its danger.
take seriously 认真对待
The book puts forward such shaky arguments that they're impossible to take seriously.
这本书提出这样靠不住的论点，他们不可能对其认真看待。
参考译文
我是雪梨.格里菲斯。我是里奇.克林沸德。这里是VOA慢速英语栏目《美国人物志》。
今天我们将讲述洁西卡·坦迪的故事。洁西卡·坦迪死于1994年。在她近70年的艺术生涯中，她获得过很多奖项。大概洁西卡·坦迪最出名的是因出演电影《为黛茜小姐开车》而获奥斯卡奖。她是获奖者中年纪最长的一位。但是多年来，她出色的演技广受赞誉。在坦迪67年的演艺生涯中，她出演过一百多场舞台剧、25部电影以及很多电视节目。虽然她大多的演出都是在美国，但是直到1954年，她才成为一名美国公民。
1909年，洁西卡·坦迪出生于英国伦敦。她的父亲在她12岁的时候去世了。她的母亲是一名教师同时在晚上还兼职其他工作来养她的三个孩子。洁西卡的哥哥对戏剧很有兴趣。他们在伦敦的家里表演。后来洁西卡说她是几个孩子里演的最差的。但是她也说到，儿时参与这些表演让她生出了演绎别人的愿望。洁西卡喜欢去剧院。她喜欢英国作家威廉·莎士比亚。多年后，她和其他伟大的演员，比如约翰·吉尔古德以及劳伦斯·奥利弗一同出演了多部莎士比亚戏剧。
1924年，正是这份对戏剧的热爱让她进入了表演学校。18岁时，她出演了她的第一部戏剧《曼德森的女孩们》。她没有支付戏剧中五套戏服的钱，她自己缝制了戏服。洁西卡·坦迪总认为自己相貌平平。很多戏剧专家也这么认为。她说剧院里的人知道她是个好演员，但是却也认为她的外表不足以让她成功。她注意到他们的评价，“她长相平平，但是在舞台上她还不错。”从洁西卡·坦迪的照片来看，事实却并非如此。她只是和那时女主的标准长相不一样而已。之后，她说大家认为她不够漂亮也是好事。她说，正因为这样，她才获得了很多有趣的角色。
1932年，她在戏剧《穿制服的孩子》中的出色演技得到了伦敦影评人的认可。出演这个角色，她说，是她在剧院中最爱的时刻。她说，演出结束后，观众们仍沉浸在感动之中，静静地坐着那里。同年，她嫁给了演员杰克·霍金斯，并有了一个女儿苏珊。坦迪继续她在伦敦剧院的工作。1940年，婚姻结束。
她带着她的女儿来到美国躲避二战。在纽约城，她遇上了年轻演员休姆·克罗宁。两年后，他们结婚了并搬到好莱坞。到1945年，他们拥有了两个孩子。在加利福尼亚州，休姆·克罗宁接了一些不错的电影，但坦迪却没有。她只是出演一些小角色。她说好莱坞制片人并没有把她当成一名女演员来对待。她开始觉得自己很失败。洁西卡·坦迪考虑退出演艺圈。但是她的丈夫改变了她的一生。他让坦迪在他导演的一部戏剧中担任女主。这部剧是田纳西·威廉斯的《圣母像》。她在剧中扮演一个孤独的女人。影评人赞扬了她的表演。田纳西·威廉斯专程从纽约来到洛杉矶只为看她的演出。之后他说，他找到了出演他的新剧《欲望号街车》的女主角。该剧1947年在纽约上演。洁西卡·坦迪、马龙·白兰度以及金·杭特共同演绎。该剧获得了普利策奖及其他多个奖项。坦迪获得过四次托尼奖最佳女主，这部剧让她首次获得该奖。一名导演说她充满惊喜。他说她的演出总是超出预期。
1950年代，洁西卡·坦迪和休姆·克罗宁共同在纽约城的剧院工作。他们首次合作是在一场大型百老汇剧场，该剧是《四张海报》。多年来，他们共同出演百老汇的9部剧，包括《微妙的平衡》、《陷阱游戏》以及《火狐》。他们在百老汇的最后一次共同演出是1986年的《请愿》。坦迪还和她的丈夫在美国当地一些剧院工作。他们喜欢这份工作，因为他们有机会出演古老有著名的戏剧。例如，1963年，坦迪出演莎翁《哈姆雷特》一剧中的格特鲁德一角，安东·契诃夫的《三姐妹》中的奥尔加一角以及阿瑟·米勒的《推销员之死》中威利·罗曼的妻子一角。她还在斯坦福、康乃迪克州、斯特拉特福、安大略以及加拿大的莎士比亚戏剧节上表演。
洁西卡·坦迪表示她讨厌看到电影中的自己。她说她在电影中的表演没有戏剧中那样让她满意。但是她认为重要的是接受演绎工作。在小剧场的演出收入帮助她支付开支。1980年代，坦迪在四部电影中扮演休姆·克罗宁的妻子，包括《茧》和《鬼使神差》。1992年，她在电影《油炸绿蕃茄》中出演一位老太太。但是她从没觉得自己真的是一个电影女星。也许这是因为她之前不被好莱坞认可时的早前经历。即使是在她成功出演《欲望号街车》后，好莱坞制片人也没有选她来出演。费雯·丽代替她出演布兰奇·杜波依斯一角。坦迪说当她获得最佳女主时，她很惊讶。她说她在这部电影中的出色演出弥补了自己在电影中的经验不足。
洁西卡·坦迪和休姆·克罗宁结婚52年。合作期间，他们赢得了几乎所有能获得的文化类奖项。1986年，他们获得肯尼迪中心终身成就奖。1990年，乔治·布什总统授予他们国家艺术奖章。坦迪去世前几个月，坦迪和克罗宁因他们在百老汇的工作而被授予特殊贡献奖。记者总是问他们如何能如此长时间的保持密切合作。坦迪说他们从不在家里讨论工作。她说如果他们意见不同，也会尊重彼此的想法。
洁西卡·坦迪很怯场，随着年纪的增大，这个越发严重。这会让她在演出前感到不适。但她的丈夫说工作时的她是最棒的。随着年纪增大，邀她演出的机会就越多。好坏角色她都接过。她总说做事才能让一个人更加富有。如果只等待最好的角色，你将等待很长时间，而你的演技也会衰退。没有演技称不上是一名演员。
坦迪永远都是一名演员。她患有眼疾和心脏问题。但是疾病并没有拖慢她的步伐。1988年，她因获得电视剧版《火狐》获得艾美奖。三年后，洁西卡·坦迪做了一次肿瘤手术。但是她坚持工作。她没有让疼痛影响她演出的效果。去世前几年，她出演了很多电视剧电影。一些电影是在她死后才上映。1994年，85岁的坦迪逝世。洁西卡·坦迪说作为一名演员，她的工作是演绎出作者在戏剧或电影中想要表达的情感。影评人说她做到了。他们表示她总能展现出人物的深层含义。一名影评人写到，她是一名好演员，除了诗人，没人能书写她的演绎，就连影评人也不能。
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