ARTIST'S FAREWELL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 6

ARTIST'S FAREWELL.

MISS ELLA SHIELDS.

IMPRESSIONS OF DOMINION. With the traditional silver horseshoe and tattered garter adorning the frame of her dressing room mirror, Miss Ella Shields, who last evening bade Auckland farewell, is every inch the typical theatrical 6tar. Many years of trouping have done little toward bending those straight shoulders or dimming the Hashing eyes. Although she had only just completed a performance a few minutes, before, sho talked to her" interviewer animatedly on a wide variety of subjects. The popular creator of "Burlington Bertie" is just as delightful in real life as she is on the stage, where her personality has so often carried ' her to success.

Miss Shields has the warmest appreciation of the standard to which understanding of theatrical art has developed in the Dominion. She has gained this, sho will tell you, not only from the plaudits resounding across the footlights, but by sitting among an audience and listening to its remarks. A good line, a clever situation or scene will never miss its point. She had found Auckland particularly warm-hearted, and would always remember the city and its many attractions with fond feelings. One of the treats yet in store for her, said Miss Shields, was a leisurely visit to Kotorua and the Waitomo Caves. She had had 0110 glimpse of the latter, and had thought that they were the finest glow worm caves sho had ever seen. Miss Shields has with her a portable | cinematograph machine, per medium of which sho intends to take away more than mere memories of New Zealand.

The Maori racc has earned the warmest respect and sympathy of the popular artist. "The tribes should be placed on largo reservations, like the American Indians, amid tlieir ancient surroundings," sho said. "They would then continue to develop along natural lines, while absorbing only the best of the whito man's culture. Classification of tlio race would be necessary, but such a plan is the only practical method of prolonging an ancient race of people, whose tradition pales into insignificance that of the white man who displaced it."

Miss Shields has opinions, too, on the subjects of international war debts, which sho suggests should he abolished gradually. The friendly talks between Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald" and Mr. Roosevelt—"two of the most determined fighters for world peace" —would do an immense amount, she said, to set this

movement going. It is ten years since Auckland saw Miss Ella Shields, and this year she has been welcomed back for a five weeks' season, with a return season of a fortnight. Her plans include departure from New Zealand early in May, a, leisurely trip to the Great Barrier Reef, then homo to England, via Manila, Hongkong Shanghai, America and Canada. Sho"will shortly attempt that difficult adventure of retiring from the. stage, after which sho hopes once moro to visit New Zealand for a real holiday.