ENGLISH IS A DIALECT

ENGLISH IS A DIALECT

Jack Lloyd is one of the busiest actors on the air. The shows he appears in are so numerous it would take too much space to list them except to mention that they’re of the caliber of We the People, Front Page Farrell. The Kate Smith Hour, and Valiant Lady. The parts he plays on these shows are strictly American style juveniles and romantic leads.

Yet, in the most realistic sense of the word, playing an American juvenile is, for Jack, playing a dialect part. And he had a good bit of trouble learning this dialect. When Jack Lloyd arrived in the United States from Holland in 1939, he knew exactly two words of English. One of them was “yes” and the other “no,” by no means an extensive vocabulary for an actor. And an actor was what Jack intended to be, since it was the thing for which he was trained. He had already acquired quite a reputation for himself on the stage and in the movies in Holland.

Learning English was a slow process, at first. But the day that Jack took out his first papers for citizenship, he also took an oath to speak nothing but English from that moment on. He enrolled at Ohio University.

From the university, Jack went out to Hollywood and tackled the radio studios. His ability was obvious from the first moment. But he found himself going after dialect part only and realized that he was scared to put his new American accent to the test. Then it was put to the test for him. One day, he was called in to play Petuchio in “The Taming of the Shrew.” Jack promptly turned it down. But the director would have none of that. He insisted that Jack make a stab at the part. The show turned out so well that Jack’s inhibitions about his English disappeared.

Like all other young and healthy males, the call to arms hit him, too. He served in the Army Ski Troops, where he developed a hobby of writing and directing radio shows, a hobby which he’s since turned to good use. He’s sold several dozen radio and television scripts in the time he’s been out of the Army and every chance he gets he arranges to be able to direct as many of his own scripts as possible on local New York stations. Besides this “spare time” activity, he also writes monthly columns on show business for several magazines.

For awhile, after his discharge from the Army, Jack enlisted with the O.W.I. and most of the time he was not appearing on his regular radio stints was spent in broadcasting in foreign languages to occupied countries. Just to show how varied his talents are, here’s a list of his dialects – German, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, French, Russian, Continental, Italian and British.

Asked about his ambitions he said he had only two. One was to be as good an all round radio actor as possible and get a few breaks on Broadway, as well. His other ambition is to get married. We heartily approve.