PAUL ROBESON RETURNS TO ENGLAND HAPPY.

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 666, 19 October 1933, Page 3

PAUL ROBESON RETURNS TO ENGLAND HAPPY.

ENJOY LIFE THERE.

Mr. Paul Robeson, the great Negro actor and singer, returned to England inj August, and likes it. He told an interviewer why, and they are good sound reasons, thoughtful reasons, much hetter and more original than the rather stereotyped compliments which visiting artists pay. There is not a word in them about how splendid are the London police. "I certainly can make more money in the United States," says Mr. Robeson, "but I certainly can ejoy life more in England. "You see, over there, they expect you to be working at the top of your form all the time. In England, if you are not quite so good on the stage one night the people say, 'Oh, he's a bit off colour. He'll be all righ't again in a day or two.' Thejr still believe in you, follow me. . . . "But in the United States if you flop one night the show is finished. Everybody talks of it as if it were dead. "I remember what a terror it was when I was playing- in 'The Show Boat' in New York, never to be able to relax the strain for one night for fear the whole play would have to come off. "It is the same idea of life for an artist at Hollywood. Th'cy take you, make you work at top pressure for three years, until there is not another ounce of energy left in you, and then throw you away. You are dead. You are no m.ore use to them. "No, London: I do not see why I should not be singing as well as ever to big audiences when I am 63, just' like Chaliapine (Mr. Roheson is 45 now). "Three years in the Unit:d States or 20 here! That is the choice, and th'at is why my choice is England. "Of course, it entails a lot of sacrifiees — -jincome tax (a sigh) and — -oh. well, let it go, I'm happy hsre." Mjr. Robtson had been to the Uxi-ttd States to make his first- film — & screen version of "Emporor Jones," which is to be released shortly on both sides of the Atlantic. As to his future activities; Mr. Roheson has no settled plans, but he wants to find a play about a great bistorical Negro chaxacter who does not' . have to sing plantations songs.