“At the Royal Academy. — Mr. Potts, the Model, under a Few Disguises” from the 1873 “Fun”

At the Royal Academy. — Mr. Potts, the Model, under a Few Disguises

James Frank Sullivan [?]

Fun

See captions and commentary below

Courtesy of the Suzy Covey Comic Book Collection in the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida.

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Eight captions appear underneath image — from left to right: “The gentleman at home," “Porytrait of a gentleman,” “a Chinese money-changer,” “Horatius [at the bridge],” “Signing of the Magna Carta,” “Head of an Anchorite,” “The Minstrel,” and “Landscape with figure.” The joke of course is about the way some models, male and female, had such popularity that they appeared in various guises at the R.A. and other annual exhibitions.

Fifty years ago I met the father of a friend in Golders Green who was the cinematic incarnation of Mr. Potts, albeit a much better looking one. An elderly gentleman who many years before had left Vienna before World War II in time to escape the Holocaust, he heard that a major British movie studio hired extras, and since he was now retired he applied on a lark. As it turned out, he was perfect in many roles, for costume and makeup transformed him. I don't recall all the films in which he had roles — one day he, my wife, and I looked through his large scrapbook of photographs of himself with famous stars like Elizabeth Taylor — through I do recall that he was one of the jurors in A Man for All Seasons (1966), the film about Sir Thomas More. A delightful, if bitter irony, came about for this man who had escaped the Holocaust: since he was fluent in German, he was several times cast in the part of the Nazi officer who shouted words to the effect of “Blow up the monastery!” or “Shoot the villagers!” He enjoyed having been a twentieth-century Mr. Potts. — George P. Landow

Bibliography

“At the Royal Academy. — Mr. Potts, the Model, under a Few Disguises.” Fun. (7 January 1873): 242. Courtesy of the Suzy Covey Comic Book Collection in the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida. Web. 2 March 2016.

Last modified 16 March 2016