Birth name Paul Leroy Robeson NationalityUSA Birth 8 april 1898 at Princeton (USA) Death 23 january 1976 (at 77 years) at Philadelphia (USA) Awards Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
Paul Leroy Robeson (/ˈroʊbsən/; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American singer and actor who became involved with the Civil Rights Movement. At Rutgers College, he was an outstanding football player, then had an international career in singing, with a distinctive, powerful, deep bass voice, as well as acting in theater and movies. He became politically involved in response to the Spanish Civil War, fascism, and social injustices. His advocacy of anti-imperialism, affiliation with communism, and criticism of the United States government caused him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Ill health forced him into retirement from his career. He remained until his death an advocate of the political stances he took.
Robeson won an academic scholarship to Rutgers College, where he became a football All-American and the class valedictorian. He received his LL.B. from Columbia Law School, while playing in the National Football League (NFL). At Columbia, he sang and acted in off-campus productions; and, after graduating, he became a participant in the Harlem Renaissance with performances in The Emperor Jones and All God's Chillun Got Wings. Robeson initiated his international artistic résumé with a theatrical role in Great Britain, settling in London for the next several years with his wife Essie.
Robeson next appeared as Othello at the Savoy Theatre before becoming an international cinema star through roles in Show Boat and Sanders of the River. He became increasingly attuned towards the sufferings of other cultures and peoples. Acting against advice, which warned of his economic ruin if he became politically active, he set aside his theatrical career to advocate the cause of the Republican forces of the Spanish Civil War. He then became active in the Council on African Affairs (CAA).
During World War II, he supported America's war efforts and won accolades for his portrayal of Othello on Broadway. However, his history of supporting pro-Soviet policies brought scrutiny from the FBI. After the war ended, the CAA was placed on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations and Robeson was investigated during the age of McCarthyism. Due to his decision not to recant his public advocacy of pro-Soviet policies, he was denied a passport by the U.S. State Department, and his income, consequently, plummeted. He moved to Harlem and published a periodical critical of United States policies. His right to travel was eventually restored by the 1958 United States Supreme Court decision, Kent v. Dulles, but his health broke down. He retired and he lived out the remaining years of his life privately in Philadelphia.
, 1h30 Directed byJoris Ivens, Robert Ménégoz GenresDocumentary ActorsPaul Robeson Roles Voice of Singer Rating66% Les mouvements ouvriers qui se développent le long de six grands fleuves : Mississippi, Amazone, Gange, Nil, Yangzi Jiang et Volga.
, 1h16 Directed byPen Tennyson OriginUnited-kingdom GenresDrama ActorsPaul Robeson, Edward Chapman, Simon Lack, Edward Rigby, Clifford Evans, George Merritt Roles David Goliath Rating66% David Goliath, a Black American, arrives in Wales and wins the respect of the very musically oriented Welsh people through his singing. He shares the hardships of their lives, and becomes a working-class hero as he helps to better their working conditions and ultimately, during a mining accident, sacrifices his life to save fellow miners.
, 1h25 Directed byJames Elder Wills OriginUnited-kingdom GenresDrama, Musical ThemesMusical films ActorsPaul Robeson, Elisabeth Welch, Roy Emerton, James Hayter, Joyce Kennedy, Dino Galvani Roles Joe Rating59% Big Fella is set on the docks and streets of Marseilles. Paul Robeson stars in the leading role, as a street-wise but honest dockworker who struggles with deep issues of integrity and human values. Elisabeth Welch plays opposite him as a café singer in love with him. Robeson’s wife, Eslanda Robeson, appears as the café owner.
, 1h17 Directed byThornton Freeland OriginUnited-kingdom GenresDrama, Adventure ThemesFilms set in Africa ActorsPaul Robeson, Henry Wilcoxon, Wallace Ford, John Laurie, James Carew, Peter Gawthorne Roles Cpl. Jericho Jackson Rating61% The epic film begins as a World War I American troop ship is torpedoed, and many soldiers are trapped below the deck. Robeson plays Jericho Jackson, a medical student drafted into the war. Jericho heroically saves the trapped men, in defiance of his superior’s orders to abandon ship, but he accidentally kills the officer in the melee. Despite his heroism, Jericho is court-martialed for refusing an order. Embittered, he escapes, and an officer named Captain Mack is held responsible for his escape and court-martialed.
The advance publicity booklet on the film when it was entitled "Africa Sings", touted it as showing "what the white man achieved for himself" and "what he has done for he natives." "Africa Sings" was one of the first documentary films from South Africa to take a look at the lives of South Africans of all races. There are images of location life, schools and colleges, and a cross-section of occupations, from mine-workers to road-gangs, school-teachers to house- servants, waiters to cane-cutters. Mainstream reviewers gave the documentary a tepid response; the London Daily Worker thought it was too bland to serve a staunch liberationist purpose.
, 1h53 Directed byJames Whale OriginUSA GenresDrama, Comedy, Musical theatre, Musical, Romance ThemesFilms about music and musicians, Musical films, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals ActorsIrene Dunne, Allan Jones, Charles Winninger, Paul Robeson, Helen Morgan, Helen Westley Roles Joe Rating73% The musical's story spans about forty years, from the late 1880s to the late 1920s. Magnolia Hawks is an eighteen-year-old on her family's show boat, the Cotton Palace which travels the Mississippi River putting on shows. She meets Gaylord Ravenal, a charming gambler, falls in love with him, and eventually marries him. Together with their baby daughter, the couple leaves the boat and moves to Chicago, where they live off Gaylord's gambling winnings. After about ten years, he experiences an especially bad losing streak and leaves Magnolia, out of a sense of guilt that he is ruining her life because of his losses. Magnolia is forced to bring up her young daughter alone. In a parallel plot, Julie LaVerne (the show boat's leading actress, who is part African-American, but "passing" as white) is forced to leave the boat because of her background, taking Steve Baker (her white husband, to whom, under the state's law, she is illegally married) with her. Julie is eventually also abandoned by her husband, and she becomes an alcoholic. Magnolia's becomes a success on the stage in Chicago. Twenty-three years later Magnolia and Ravenal are reunited at the theater in which Kim, their daughter, is appearing in her first Broadway starring role.
, 1h20 Directed byJames Elder Wills OriginUnited-kingdom GenresDrama, Musical ThemesFilms set in Africa ActorsPaul Robeson, Elisabeth Welch, Esmé Percy, Robert Adams, Ronald Simpson, George Mozart Roles John 'Johnny' Zinga Rating63% The first part of the film's story takes place in the year 1700 on an island called Casanga off the west coast of Africa. The island has not yet attracted the attention of the slave traders on the mainland, but its people are suffering fierce oppression under their hereditary queen Zinga - a tyrant, despot, and mistress of cruelty.