SIR FRANK BENSON'S 70TH BIRTHDAY

Evening Star, Issue 20058, 26 December 1928, Page 3

SIR FRANK BENSON'S 70TH BIRTHDAY

— “ I HAVE JUST GIVEN UP FOOTBALL " THREE PROUD MOMENTS. Sir Frank Benson, the Shakespearean actor-manager, was seventy years old last month. Hu received many messages of congratulation ami good-will. “1 was the laziest boy at A iuchcsIcr, and the laziest undergraduate otony time,” he said, in an interview. “ Hie only thing i worked at was athletics. But 1 know that incidentally 1 was developing an endurance that proved useful to me in tho very exacting lot of a Shakespearean actor-manager. I grasped the truth of the relation between efficiency of mind and efficiency ol body, especially for acting. It is to the aiiilctic spirit that to a certain extent 1 attribute the success of the Bensonian Company. ■ “ My health and vigour to-day 1 attribute to my life-long devotion to athletics. The doctors tell mo 1 have tho arteries and blood pressure ol a man of thirty. 1 have just given up lootball. l" can still swim a mile out to sea and hack. “ But 1 am not a particularly exceptional individual. What struck me in tin war was that there were men older than I who were serving, some ol whom had come six thousand miles to do their bit, and as Englishmen serving with the French wo were always given jobs requiring muscular effort. The great asset of" our Empire is that there are thousands of men older than I who are just as fit. “ Quite seriously. 1 have a bet that if I reach the age'of eighty I will walkeighty miles on my eightieth birthday.” Asked what had been the proudest moments in ills liie, Sir Frank said; “ These —-that on niy sixtieth birthday they were good enough to give me the Croix de Guerre on the field ot battle; fhe winning of the three miles lor Oxford against Cambridge; and being knighted hy the King at Drury Lane.”