Word: robeson
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...Iago, José Ferrer was no longer dwarfed by Robeson, but a proper foil. Too mild a villain last year from not wanting to be too melodramatic a one, Ferrer now is supple, mettlesome, lightly Mephistophelean-a virtuoso who lays bare the workings of Iago's fiendish mind, though not the mainsprings of his enigmatic nature...
Probably the most famous living Negro, Paul Leroy Robeson was born 45 years ago in Princeton, NJ. His father, a run away slave in his youth, was a deeply respected, deep-voiced Presbyterian minister ("When people talk about my voice," say Robeson, "I wish they could have heard my father preach"). Entering Rutgers on a scholarship, Paul wound up in Phi Beta Kappa and a four-letter man. In football he was twice chosen by Walter Camp as All-America end-"the greatest defensive end," said Camp, "that ever trod the gridiron...
...Robeson graduated from the Columbia Law School, was offered a job in an excellent law office, gave it up because of possible racial complications. Said Robeson: "I could never be a Supreme Court judge; on the stage there was only the sky to hold me back." The stage quickly pitched him to fame in O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings and The Emperor Jones. A scene in The Emperor Jones called for whistling and, because he could not whistle, Robeson sang. Having stirred the audience with his deep, rich voice, Robeson-who had never...
Conquest of Britain. He went to London, conquered it, then conquered half the cities of Europe. Back in England, he played in Show Boat, The Hairy Ape, Othello. The first night of the London Othello drew 20 curtain calls but, says Robeson, "it wasn't a success to me because I hadn't worked...
...Robeson and his wife Eslanda, a biologist he met while at Columbia, settled down in London. In England he found equality, which he prized above homage. In 1934 he made the first of several visits to Russia. Russia impressed him even more than England: he had thought that race prejudice could never be entirely stamped out and "here was a country where it did not exist." In 1936 he put his nine-year old son, Paul Jr., to school in Russia because he did not want him to contend with race prejudice "until he is older and his father...