Paul Robeson (123 page)

15.
ER to CVV, June 14, July 8, 1928, Yale: Van Vechten; ER Diary, “May 1928,” RA; A. J. P. Taylor,
Beaverbrook
(Simon & Schuster, 1972), p. 235. Lady Ravensdale's guests (as reported in the
Daily Sketch
, June 16, 1928) included the Duchess of Marlborough, Mrs. Samuel Courtauld, Mrs. Phipps (Lady Astor's sister), and Lord Allington.

16.
Philip Sassoon to PR, June 28, 1928; Barry O'Brien (Wallace's agent) to PR, Aug. 13, 1928; Edgar Wallace to PR, Aug. 16, Nov. 12, 1928, RA; ER to CVV, June 14, July 8, 1928, Yale: Van Vechten. At the Prince of Wales's party, the press reported that the King of Spain had been “enormously impressed” with Robeson's singing, which was part of a general cabaret offered that evening (
Sunday Dispatch
, June 13, 1928). Robeson told a reporter (
Star
, Nov. 28, 1929) that he was “tremendously pleased at the prospect of starring in a Wallace play; he had thought
The Squeaker
“really splendid.” Except for the incidental wish expressed by two or three reviewers to hear Robeson in an expanded repertory (“It would be interesting to hear what the singer could do beyond the modest range of these Dixieland ditties” [
Daily Mail
, July 4, 1928], the notices of the Drury Lane concert were uniformly excellent. One stands out for raising the question “What is the secret of his mastery?” and for its provocative answer that the “trance” Robeson created in his listeners hinged on more than his greatness as an actor and a singer—“He is a great man, who creates the soul of a people in bondage and shows you its true kinship with the fettered soul of man. We became like little children as we surrendered to his magical genius” (James Douglas, in
Daily Express
, July 5, 1928).

17.
ER Diary, “May 1928,” RA.

18.
I've pieced together the story of Robeson's Equity suspension from a combination of newspaper accounts and ms. sources. The latter will be cited in the notes that follow, but the newspaper accounts are too numerous, and I've drawn from them too piecemeal, to bear individual citations; suffice it to say that the most important are: New York
Amsterdam News
, Sept. 12, 19, 1928; New York
World
, Sept. 5, 18, 25, October 4, 1928;
Equity
, Sept. 1928; London
Times
, Oct. 4, 1928;
Variety
, Oct. 17, 1928; and
Star
(London), Oct. 3, 1928.

19.
ER to CVV, Aug. (?), NYPL/Ms. Div.: Van Vechten; quotes from the conference with Gillmore are in “The Tangled Affairs of Paul Robeson,”
Equity
, Sept. 1928; ER cable to PR, Aug. 26, 1928, RA.

20.
PR, undated cable, RA;
Equity
, Sept. 1928. Langston Hughes may have played some role in the affair, judging from two oblique references in his letters to Van Vechten: “I may have to see Mrs. Reagan” (LH to CVV, Aug. 18, 1928); “I hope Mrs. Reagan really puts on a show” (LH to CW, postmarked Aug. 28, 1928)—both in the NYPL/Ms. Div.: Van Vechten. Hughes had been working on lyrics and sketches for a Reagan revue at least as early as 1926 (see Arnold Rampersad,
The Life of Langston Hughes
[Oxford,
1986], vol. I, especially pp. 133, 135, 154).

21.
New York
Amsterdam News
, Sept. 19, 1928; Walter White to PR, Sept. 20, 1928, RA.

22.
“Law Report,” Oct. 3, London
Times
, Oct. 4, 1928; the settlement papers are in RA; ER to CVV and FM, Aug. 5, 1929, Yale: Van Vechten.

23.
Ethel Mannin,
Confessions and Impressions
, p. 160.

24.
Fred and Adele Astaire to “Mr. and Mrs. Robeson,” n.d. (1928), RA (the entire note reads: “We would love to come to your party”); Chicago
Defender
, Jan. 5, 1929; CVV to Stein, Nov. 27, 1928, printed in Burns, ed.,
Letters of GS and CVV
; Walpole to ER, Nov. 27, 1928, RA; CVV to ER, Dec. 12, 1928, RA.

25.
Kahn's registered letter, Dec. 21, 1928, went astray and had to be traced; Otto Kahn to ER, Dec. 18, 1925 (lapse), ER to Kahn, Jan. 20, 1929, RA.

26.
ER to Otto Kahn, Jan. 21, 1929, PU: Kahn.

27.
Otto Kahn to ER, Feb. 1, June 15, 1929; ER to Kahn, Jan. 21, March 12, May 23, Oct. 7, 1929—all in PU: Kahn (as is a series of letters between the offices of Kuhn, Loeb and Co. and Metropolitan Life detailing the payment of Robeson's life-insurance premium).

28.
Bromley to Otto Kahn, Jan. 31, 1931; ER to Kahn, Dec. 21, 1931, PU: Kahn. Tony Salemmé told me he thought Kahn had been “very mean” in asking them to pay back the loan (interview with Salemmé, March 31, 1983).

29.
ER to Otto Kahn, Jan. 21, 1929, PU: Kahn; ER to LB, Feb. 15, 1929, NYPL/Schm: Brown. When he first opened in
Show Boat
, Robeson had been worried, not about his own possible boredom but about how to keep the repetitive rendering of “Ol' Man River” from becoming monotonous for the audience. When Essie arrived in May, she had helped him work out a “nice variety” of delivery (ER to CVV, June 14, 1929, Yale: Van Vechten).

30.
ER to Larry Brown, March 6, 1929, NYPL/Schm: Brown; ER to Otto Kahn, May 23, 1929, PU: Kahn (Vienna, Prague). A full set of the Vienna, Prague, and Budapest reviews is in RA; the Vienna reviews frequently referred to him as the “Coloured Mitterwurzer”—an allusion to the famous Viennese interpreter of folk songs. The flavor of Robeson's press reviews in Central Europe is accurately captured in the description Essie sent Kahn: “I am sure you would think I was exaggerating if I told you what the finest critics in the German, Austrian, Czech, Hungarian newspapers said about his production, the beauty of his voice, and his great artistry, so I would rather you read them yourself” (ER to Kahn, May 23, 1929, PU: Kahn).

31.
PR interview with R. E. Knowles, Toronto
Daily Star
, Nov. 21, 1929 (African-Russian); Seton,
Robeson
, pp. 48–49 (poverty).

32.
ER to Kahn, Jan. 21, 1929, PU: Kahn. PR told Ethel Mannin that the echo in the Albert Hall “worried him and when I asked him if he did not think it a dreadful, dreary place, he laughed and agreed” (Mannin,
Confessions and Impressions
, p. 159).

33.
ER to CVV, postmarked June 4, 20, 1929, Yale: Van Vechten; CVV to ER, June 16, 1929, RA; CVV to Knopf, June 25, 1929, UT: Knopf. I have, as it turns out, inadvertently confirmed my agreement with CVV's estimate of ER's first draft by referring to it in these notes as “ER, Ms. Autobiography”—a form of citation I've decided to retain as illustrating my own view of it, though the ms. is in fact the first draft of her biography of PR. The contracts, along with considerable correspondence about editorial changes, are in RA. See pp. 139–40 for the effects the published book had on Robeson.

Van Vechten seems to have avoided making further comments on Essie's ms. (ER to CVV and FM, Dec. 6, 1929, March 25, 1930, Yale: Van Vechten). After Alfred Knopf turned the book down, Essie decided not to bother Van Vechten again about trying to place it, sending it out herself to other publishers. She also decided not to pursue an offer Van Vechten had made to write a preface to the book (ER to Otto Kahn, May 23, 1929, PU: Kahn; ER to CVV and FM, March 25, 1930, Yale: Van Vechten). She instead asked Eugene O'Neill, who turned her down: “… I long ago, in self-defense,
made an absolute rule to write no introductions under any circumstances.… I know you will understand” (O'Neill to ER, April 10, 1930, RA). The book appeared without an introduction. (Additional correspondence on the subject, especially between ER and her editor at Harper and Brothers, Eugene F. Saxton, is in RA.) In summarizing the twists and turns, Essie gracefully let Van Vechten off the hook: “But Carlo, my dear, it would take more than a book—or two books—to make me quarrel with you. My friends are my friends, no matter what they do—or don't do” (ER to CVV and FM, March 25, 1930, Yale: Van Vechten).

34.
The canceled film contract, dated Feb. 28, 1929, is in RA; Frank Dazey to PR (1929), RA; Louella O. Parsons's syndicated column for June 17, 1929, Denver
Post
; ER to CVV and FM, Aug. 5, 1929, Yale: Van Vechten; Nerina Shute, “Robeson Talkie Search,”
The Film Weekly
, vol. 2, no. 45 (Aug. 26, 1929). The British producer Herbert Wilcox was interested in making a film with Robeson and tried, among other possibilities, to get the rights to
The Emperor Jones
—but O'Neill refused to relinquish them. Avery Robinson was also involved with PR in trying to put together a film project (AR to PR, Sept. 19, 1929, RA).

35.
ER to Otto Kahn, Oct. 7, 1929, PU: Kahn; ER to Larry Brown, March 15, 1929, NYPL/Schm: Brown (dentistry); Sir George Henschel to PR (scheduling voice lessons), Oct. 13, 1929, RA. During these months Essie supervised their move (in late March 1929) from St. Johns Wood to a house in Hampstead, priding herself on her ability to locate the best shops and the best prices (interview with Rebecca West, Sept. 1, 1982; interview with Fredda Brilliant, July 20, 1985).

36.
Philip Merivale to PR, June 6, 1928 (Othello offer); Merivale to ER, June 22, 1928; Maurice Browne to PR, Feb. 14, 1929, RA; PR to Maurice Browne, Oct. 6, 1928, Browne and Van Volkenburg Papers, University of Michigan Labadie Collection (henceforth UM: Browne/Van Volkenburg). Browne had had the financial backing of Dorothy Straight and Leonard Elmhirst (the innovative couple who had founded Dartington Hall), and they were his partners in the theater purchases as well (Michael Young,
The Elmhirsls of Darlington
[Rout-ledge and Kegan Paul, 1982], pp. 217–19; interview with Michael Straight, April 3, 1985).
Daily News
(London), Sept. 4, 1929 (contract); ER to Stella Hanau, Sept. 10, 1929, courtesy of Richard Hanau (“very excited”). “We all feel that it will be a great event,” Essie wrote to Kahn (ER to Kahn, Oct. 7, 1929, PU: Kahn). Ten years later Merivale again approached PR about an
Othello
production, with himself as Iago (Merivale to PR, Feb. 17, 1940, RA). Robeson told a reporter that Othello was “one role I have always wanted to play.… This may be because most of the Othellos I have seen, with blacked faces, have been unsatisfactory to me” (
Lantern
, Ohio State University, Dec. 13, 1929).

When
The New York Times
announced that Robeson's portrayal of Othello would “probably” mark the first time a black had done the role, James Weldon Johnson wrote the
Times
to say the news came as a surprise to a group of American blacks who had “recently subscribed $1,000 to endow a memorial chair in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre” at Stratford to Ira Aldridge, who had played the role in London and on the Continent, with Edmund Kean (among others) playing Iago (JWJ to The Editor,
Times
, Sept. 6, 1929).

37.
Interview with PR, Ceylon
Morning Leader
, Sept. 13, 1929 (“illiterate”); reports of the protest meeting, as well as PR's letter, were widely printed in the English press; among the fullest accounts are:
African World
, Nov. 21, 1929; Man chester
Guardian
, Oct. 23, 1929; Liver pool
Post
, Oct. 30, 1929. Long accounts also appeared in the American press, including
The New York Times
(Nov. 17, 1929) and the
Herald Tribune
(Oct. 29, 1929), from which the quote from PR about “ignoring” the incident comes.

38.
Seton,
Robeson
, pp. 50–52;
The New York Times
, Nov. 18, 1928 (PR visit to Commons), Oct. 24, 1929 (Hughes), Nov. 17, 1929 (other cases of discrimination; hotel reactions); Knoblock to PR, Oct. 22, 1929, RA. In Feb. 1929 the Robesons had been guests of the National
Labour Club, Ltd., of which the Rt. Hon. J. Ramsay MacDonald was president (Fred O. Roberts to PR, Feb. 19, 1929, RA). The Robesons' solicitor, Philip Cox, personally conducted an inquiry at the Savoy and reported to the Robesons that the manager of the Grill Room “denies having spoken to you at all and he says that so far as he is aware no one referred to a colour bar or to any restrictions whatsoever!” (Cox to PR, Nov. 8, 1929, RA.)

39.
Contender
, Oct. 28, 1929;
New Leader
, Oct. 25, 1929.

40.
PR Diary, Nov. 8, 1929, RA.

41.
PR Diary, Nov. 9, 10, 1929, RA. Among the unfavorable critical responses to his Nov. 5 Carnegie Hall concert, Pitts Sanborn (New York
Telegram
, Nov. 6, 1929) found “excessive reserve” in PR's performance and suspected “there has been some unhappy tinkering with a naturally easy tone production”; Noel Straus (New York
Evening World
, Nov. 6, 1929) thought PR showed “a decided loss of bloom and power” and also denigrated the program as “too little differentiated in treatment”; Samuel Chotzinoff (New York
World
, Nov. 6, 1929), perhaps the most scholarly of the critics, based his objections on technical matters, on PR's inability to vary his “tone color and musical artifice.” The far more favorable reception of the second (Nov. 10) Carnegie concert was exemplified by
The New Yorker
's review (Nov. 16, 1929)—though
The New Yorker's
critic sounded a cautionary note that was frequently heard: “… it is a pity for an artist of Mr. Robeson's gifts and intelligence to appear only as an intoner of racial airs.” Among the few unfamiliar songs Robeson added to his repertoire was “Exhortation” by the black composer Will Marion Cook—but of all the numbers on the program, that one fared the worst with the critics; “… it has a hollow and artificial ring” was one representative comment (Detroit
Evening Times
, Dec. 7, 1929). “Exhortation” was again excoriated—this time by English critics—when Robeson performed it on his 1930 tour of the British Isles (Birmingham
Post
, March 9, 1930; Yorkshire
Post
, March 15, 1930).

42.
Pittsburgh
Courier
, Dec. 7, 1929; Chicago
Herald and Examiner
, Dec. 10, 1929; Rutgers concert program with ER's handwritten comments (“college yell”); Toronto
Musical Courier
, Dec. 7, 1929.