cast made a point of visiting hospitals every day throughout the entire tour. Now aged 51, Cornell was then told by the Army that she had done enough for the effort and to remain in Paris. Her response was to be taken as close to the front as possible. The company performed in Maastricht and Heerlen in the Netherlands, just eight miles from the front. The tour concluded in London amid exploding German V-2 bombs. Upon her return to New York, Cornell found mail piled up from the G.I.s who had seen the show. They thanked her for "the most nerve-soothing remedy for a weary G.I.," for having brought "yearned-for femininity," reminding them that, unlike other USO shows, "a woman is not all leg," and for "the awakening of something that I thought died with the passing of routine military life in the foreign service." Long after the tour was finished, Cornell continued to receive letters, not just from servicemen who had seen the show, but from wives, mothers and even school teachers from the home front. Their letters say that the first letter they received from their boy came after he had seen her show, or it was the first time they had heard from them in two years. Fellow actors reported that G.I.s in the South Pacific were heard to talk about the show. After the war, Cornell co-chaired the Community Players, a successor to the American Theatre Wing, to assist war veterans and their families on their return home. Post-war changes Candida, revived After the war, American theater was experiencing a change in style with the new generation. Cornell revived Candida for the fifth and last time in April 1946, with Marlon Brando playing the role of the young Marchbanks. Whereas Cornell represented an older, exuberant romantic style, Brando heralded the newer style of Method Acting, with its reliance upon psychological insights and personal experience. Although reviews were as good as ever, audiences and some critics had difficulty with the play itself, as the Edwardian drama had little relevance to post-war American life. Now in her mid-50s, appropriate roles became harder to find. The plays that had earned her such an exceptional reputation—young Elizabeth Barrett, Juliet, St. Joan, various sexually charged women—were no longer playable by her. The newer roles were simply not her style. Shakespeare and Anouilh In 1946, Cornell chose Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, which