Paul Robeson

by Martin Duberman

  Paul sent Larry two notes of his own, one from shipboard on his way to England in mid-April, the other immediately on arrival. He apologized for not having written from the States, “but you know how I am—I was so worried for a while and so relieved when Essie improved—that I didn’t know just where I was and my plans were so unsettled.” But now he was excited by the new prospects. He felt sure the publicity surrounding his appearance in Show Boat would open up concert work for them, and he reassured Larry that “My musical career with you is by all odds paramount”—so much so that he was willing to guarantee him “a livelihood out of my salary—which is only fair.… I took this job only because it brought me back to my concerts with you and at the same time will give us something to live on while things are taking shape.… I’m here to take up our work and keep it up no matter what happens.”12

  Larry was persuaded. But the Show Boat rehearsals proved “so trying” that after them Paul would “go home to bed and stay there in order to be able to do my work.” He looked forward to Essie’s arrival, he told Amanda Ira Aldridge (daughter of the actor, whom he had met three years earlier), “because she’ll be able to make me comfortable and take care of me. I’m still rather a ‘baby.’” Essie did not arrive until after the opening, but all went well nonetheless. The publicity for Show Boat, as promised, did feature Robeson, his voice had reached a new level of richness, the London reception did prove tumultuous—and Robeson became the lion of the hour. As had often happened before, he came off better than the show. The majority of critics hailed the Show Boat production as (in the words of one of them) “an overwhelming feast of spectacle, melody and drama”—with its company of some 160, its one thousand costumes, its eighteen scenes (the opulent sets included a rendering of the Trocadero Music Hall and the 1893 World’s Fair at Chicago), its luscious score by Kern (along with an unimpressive book by Oscar Hammerstein II), and a cast that included Cedric Hardwicke, Marie Burke, Leslie Sarony, Edith Day, and Alberta Hunter. Some of the leading critics were less than enchanted, complaining about the length of the evening (three and a half hours), the lack of humor, and the confusing side plots. But none complained about Robeson. St. John Ervine in the Observer said that throughout the long evening only Robeson “remained superb,” and James Agate (perhaps the most prestigious London critic of the day) suggested in the Sunday Times that the producers cut a half-hour out of the “inept and clumsy” show—and fill it in with Robeson singing spirituals.13

  Despite the mixed critical reception, the public made Show Boat a huge hit—and moneymaker. That is, the white public. Many blacks who saw the show came away distinctly less enthusiastic. The European correspondent for the New York Amsterdam News, J. A. Rogers, reported in an indignant column (reprinted in the Pittsburgh Courier) that he had talked to “fully some thirty Negroes of intelligence or self-respect” who expressed “their disapprobation of the play,” and he had “also heard many harsh things said against Robeson for lending his talent and popularity toward making it a success.” “If anyone were to call him a ‘nigger,’” Rogers quoted one informant as saying, “he’d be the first to get offended, and there he is singing ‘nigger, nigger’ before all those white people.” Rogers also objected to the character of Joe’s being simply another instance of the “lazy, good-natured, lolling darkey” stereotype “that exists more in white men’s fancy than in reality.” The obvious solution, he wrote, was for blacks to write their own plays and books, but because he recognized that “it will be a long time before this is done,” Rogers felt he could not “join in the indignation against those actors and writers who sell their service to the whites,” much as he did regret that Show Boat represented a “deliberate attempt on the part of the White American to carry his anti-Negro propaganda into Europe.” Even a few whites objected to the show: a cartoonist in Sketch portrayed Robeson with the caption “Despite ragtime and jazz music, poor old Joe sings ‘Ole Man Ribber’ right through the years from 1880 to 1928.” The New York Times felt called upon—in response, it said, to criticisms by politically minded “negro newspaper editors”—to enter the fray with a defense of “artistic detachment,” insisting that “one should not forget that individuals concentrating successfully on their own creations automatically act as leavening agents”—precisely Robeson’s own attitude at the time, and that of most Harlem Renaissance figures.14

  Soon after the opening, Essie went to London, leaving Paul, Jr., with Ma Goode in a rented house in Oak Bluffs, on Martha’s Vineyard. Essie and Paul took a furnished flat in St. John’s Wood, directly facing Regents Park, and she reported to Van Vechten that “we are very happy” and that “Larry is fine, and in a splendid frame of mind for us—if you know what I mean.” Larry was indeed pleased with the flood of new engagements for him and Paul that immediately followed on the success of Show Boat. Sir Alfred Butt arranged a matinee concert in the vast Drury Lane theater, where Show Boat performed evenings, and considerable private work drifted in as well—including intimate parties given by Lord Beaverbrook, Ruth Draper, Sir Philip Sassoon, and Lady Ravensdale (the daughter of Lord Curzon). Paul went four times in succession to Beaverbrook’s house, Cherkley Court, at a fee of £84.10 for each recital—a large sum for those days. Within six weeks of Show Boat’s opening, the Robesons had paid off their small debts and (in Essie’s words) “are now rolling up our sleeves to tackle the large ones.”15

  The Drury Lane concert on July 3 proved a sensation. The theater was packed and, in Essie’s reliable judgment, Paul and Larry had never been better—“Paul took the audience and put it in his pocket with the first song, and kept it there.” The critics raved, the Prince of Wales ordained a command performance on July 9 for a dinner party in honor of the King of Spain at York House, and Edgar Wallace, the popular author of “crime” plays (The Squeaker was currently a hit in the West End), told Paul he would write a script for him and would himself invest thirty thousand dollars in it. “It looks as tho at last we are at the end of a long journey,” Essie wrote Van Vechten. “Paul is so happy he grins and jugs. He is the same sweet modest boy—but is tickled to death and greatly relieved. He really is nice, and I like him more and more—quite aside from loving him enormously.”16

  In between the succession of public triumphs were an abundance of good times: driving to Maidenhead and Ascot with Tandy Johnstone in his custom-built Daimler; an afternoon in a motor punt gliding up the Thames; nights out at Covent Garden to hear Eva Turner sing Turandot and Chaliapin Faust, to see the Diaghilev Ballet’s Firebird conducted by Stravinsky himself (“very beautiful and modern and unique” was Essie’s verdict), the Moscow Art Theatre’s “splendidly done, raw, red meat theatre diet” of Powers of Darkness; to watch Helen Wills defeat Señorita de Alvarez, LaCoste beat Cochet at Wimbledon (Row A, Centre Court—tickets courtesy of Sir Alfred Butt); to cheer on the great cricket star Constantine at Lord’s and at the Oval (“When Constantine comes to bat, the opposing fielders spread away out into deep field, exactly as they do for Babe Ruth in baseball. It is thrilling to see this done for a black man”); to hail Layton and Johnstone’s performance at the Alhambra, and Coleridge-Taylor’s cantata Hiawatha at Royal Albert Hall; to attend the several other concerts given by “our folks” in London, pre-eminently Marian Anderson’s “glorious” concert at Wigmore Hall accompanied by Sir Roger Quilter; to relax at a party at Maida Vale where the “our-folks” crowd included Turner Layton, Tandyjohnstone, Ella and Leslie Hutchinson, Johnny and Mildred Hudgins, Johnny Payne, Larry Brown, and Marian Anderson.17

  Then trouble arrived from an unexpected quarter. Back in January, Robeson, desperate for money, had taken an advance of five hundred dollars to appear in a “colored revue” in New York; it was scheduled for a fall opening, with Caroline Dudley Reagan, who had previously brought Josephine Baker in La Revue Nègre to Paris, as producer. Late in July, Dudley Reagan read in the New York newspapers that Robeson was scheduled to appear in a second company of Show Boat in the States in the fall, and immediatel
y wired to remind him that he was due to open in her revue then. When he cabled back, “All plans indefinitely postponed,” Dudley protested to Actors’ Equity: Robeson, she said, was refusing to honor his contractual obligations. Equity warned Robeson that if he failed to carry out the agreement with Reagan he would be liable for suspension, and expressed displeasure that he hadn’t attempted to seek a release from Reagan before starting production with Show Boat.18

  Essie took passage to the States in order (as she wrote Van Vechten) “to clear up Paul’s business affairs in New York, Ahem!” As soon as she arrived, she made appointments with Frank Gillmore, president of Equity, and with Caroline Dudley Reagan. Essie told Gillmore that her husband “does not like the idea of having to sing blues in a revue. He does not think that sort of singing would be good for his voice or his reputation.” Gillmore’s reply, in essence, was that Robeson should have thought of that before: Dudley Reagan “has done all her work and secured all her backing on the assumption that she would have your husband for the production.” Gillmore asked Essie to cable Paul regarding his intentions about returning. She did cable—but her own message: “Equity will cable demanding your return. You tactfully refuse in fairness to yourself and Dudley. Equity will then cable [Sir Alfred] Butt threatening you and him. Equity secretly sympathetic but must make grand gesture. I offered bluffing to buy Dudley contract and pay reasonable damages. She absolutely refused. Take song easy. All love forever.” She signed the cable “Cardozo.”19

  When Essie reported that she had had no reply to her cable, Gillmore then took it upon himself to telegraph Robeson, informing him that the Reagan contract was binding—“Do you wish to ruin her and stamp yourself as dishonorable?”—and threatening him with suspension “with its train of publicity and opprobrium” unless he cabled his intention of returning. He did not, instead cabling Essie, “Equity cabled.… Cable returning or suspension.’ … Of course will remain.…” On September 6 the Equity Council placed him under suspension for a month, to be changed to “an indeterminate term” should he continue to remain mute in the face of breach-of-contract charges. Equity struck a perhaps gratuitous racial note in asserting that “it would be a great pity if this outstanding member of his race should take such a narrow view of the obligations he incurred when he signed the contract.”20

  As Gillmore predicted, the suspension was widely reported in the press, and the unwelcome publicity included a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger account in the black Amsterdam News expressing the same hope Equity had that “there will be no blot on the career of this outstanding member of the race.” Walter White made the same point in a distressed letter to Robeson. Their mutual friend Arthur Spingarn, the white pro-bono counsel for the NAACP, had sent White a clipping from Equity detailing the case along with a note urging “very strongly”—“as I do,” White added—“whatever the immediate financial or other sacrifice which may be involved that to do other than to live up to your contract would be a very great mistake,” one that “would react upon all of us.” To illustrate the latter point, White recounted a recent exchange he’d had with “a prominent white person” who kept asking him, after White had agreed to do a certain thing, “Now, can I really depend on you?” Irritated, White replied sharply that he “had given my word and that was enough.” To which the man said, “Your people are not strong on keeping their promises are they?—Look at what your friend Paul Robeson is doing.”21

  The suspension did not immediately endanger Robeson’s role in Show Boat, since Britain was outside Equity’s jurisdiction, but in early October, Dudley Reagan applied for an injunction in London to restrain Robeson from continuing in the cast. Stage stars packed the courtroom to hear Sir Alfred Butt declare that without Robeson’s services the musical might have to close, and to applaud Mr. Justice Maugham’s reasoning that if Reagan was granted an injunction “there might be no play started by the plaintiff,” making its only practical effect “to drive the defendant out of employment.” Accordingly, he refused Reagan’s application, though adding that Robeson might still be liable for damages. The following summer (1929), Robeson settled with Reagan out of court. The principals and their lawyers conferred in London, and Reagan accepted payment of sixteen hundred pounds (eight thousand dollars) to be paid in three installments over a six-month period as discharging in full all Robeson’s obligations to her. Equity promptly lifted his suspension. “We wanted to avoid a suit here in England,” Essie sarcastically wrote Carlo and Fania in explanation of the expensive settlement, “because of Paul’s ‘noble’ reputation!”22

  The Robesons felt comfortable in England: London’s central location made the Continent accessible for concert work, and the English adored Paul. Ethel Mannin, an English writer who interviewed him at the end of the decade, reacted in a characteristic way: “There is a quality of utter sincerity about him … [a] complete lack of affectation and self-consciousness”—that is where “the tremendous charm of his personality lies. He is completely unassuming.” Mannin thought Essie very different from Paul, but had kind words for her as well: “… she has animation, he has repose; she is voluble, he is quiet; she is brisk, he is retiring. She is a brilliantly clever woman … her expression [is] animated and cheerful, whereas his face in repose is a little melancholy.”23

  Thus admired, the Robesons decided for the time being to remain in England. Essie collected Ma Goode and Paul, Jr., from the States in September 1928, and they rented a splendid late-Victorian house on Carlton Hill in St. John’s Wood from the Countess des Boulletts. It came complete with silver, linen, and servants (cook, maid, gardener) for “an absurdly small” sum, and, to celebrate, they gave a party for the Van Vechtens, who were in London on a visit. The guests included Fred and Adele Astaire, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Alfred Knopf, Layton and Johnstone, Harold Browning of the Harmony Kings, Alberta Hunter, John Payne, Leslie Hutchinson, Lady Ravensdale, Lady Laski, Lord Beaverbrook, Cathleen Nesbitt, Athene Seyler, Constance Collier, Ivor Novello, and Hugh Walpole. In the States, the black paper the Chicago Defender put an elaborate description of the party on page one. Van Vechten described the event and the Robesons’ house in a letter to Gertrude Stein: “… there are cockney servants and in the dining room large oil paintings of turks. Elsewhere whatnots, porcelain, glass and various knick-knacks. The party was lovely. There was a great deal of food and much champagne.… Paul sang and was a lamb. It was their first party and a great success. I think you should come to London to go to a party at Paul’s. And I’m sure he would give one for you.” Hugh Walpole wrote the next day to thank Essie for a “delightful party.… Every one radiated happiness!” and, on his way back to the States, Van Vechten dropped her a note to say (somewhat cryptically), “I think you are wise to be so happy and I am delighted that everything is going as well as it is. And hope it will be still better.… It was grand seeing you and you were wonderful to us—and let’s all go on being wonderful to each other.”24

  News of the Robesons’ lifestyle spread. A few weeks after their party, a registered letter from Otto Kahn arrived for Paul, inquiring about his plans for repaying the five thousand dollars he had borrowed in the summer of 1925. At the time Robeson had secured the loan with his five-thousand-dollar life-insurance policy, but had then missed making a premium payment, forcing Kahn to step in to prevent the policy from lapsing. Essie had assured Kahn in 1925 that they “could easily repay” the loan at the end of two years and had formally agreed to a series of step payments (two thousand dollars after the first year, three thousand after the second). But three years had now passed without Kahn’s receiving a penny—although he was simultaneously receiving (courtesy of the periodic packets of reviews that Essie herself sent him) continuing news of Robeson’s triumphs. On getting Kahn’s registered letter, Essie cabled him, “Greatly regret delay. Posted letter today containing full details.”25

  The following day she wrote him that Paul was “very angry with me because he thought I had written ages ago,” and she proceeded, in a
lengthy letter, to itemize the tribulations and expenses that had kept them from meeting their obligations. Though Paul was getting a healthy six hundred dollars a week salary in Show Boat, fifty of that went to an agent and one hundred twenty to British income tax. The furnished house ate up another fifty dollars per week, and a hired Daimler cost an additional thirty-five—necessary because Paul was susceptible to colds and they had found taxis “very cold and drafty, very bumpy, and on foggy and rainy nights” unattainable, while the underground and the buses were “impossible” because “always full of people with colds, sneezing.” Running expenses on the house came to another seventy-five dollars a week (heating and food being the major items), and the cost of keeping Ma Goode and Paul, Jr., on Martha’s Vineyard had eaten up another large sum. Even so, Essie’s apologia continued, she had managed to accumulate a thousand dollars—only to have it used up in the legal fight with Caroline Dudley Reagan.26

  She went on to detail to Kahn the financial and artistic prospects that were about to open up for Paul and which would allow them to repay the loan imminently. She apologized if they had offended Kahn “by our apparent neglect” and assured him they were “very eager to fully justify” his generosity and trust. Kahn responded promptly and graciously (I “willingly accept your explanation”), but within a month he had to pay another lapsed premium on Paul’s life-insurance policy. Eight months after that, Essie wrote again to explain—“By now you must think we are completely impossible”—that the large out-of-court settlement they had been forced to make with Dudley Reagan would mean a further delay in discharging their debt to him. Kahn once more accepted the explanation, but his patience was wearing thin.27