CRICKETER 72 YEARS OLD AS FILM STAR

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 24 August 1935, Page 14

CRICKETER 72 YEARS OLD AS FILM STAR

Aubrey Smith Travels 3000 Miles to See Africans in England

A little story from the London “Daily Express” of June 26 deals with the 72-year-old cricketer who in his days of youth captained Shrewsbury and Lillywhite’s cricket team in Australia in 1887-8. Aubrey Smith also captained Sussex and played for Cambridge University in 1882-1885. The England team he led to Australia played three matches with New South Wales on the Association Ground, losing two and winning one. In the winning match he top scored with 69. H. Moses present chairman of the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust, made 78 not out and 68 for New South Wales, whose totals were 149 and 168. H.M. was a champion. The “Daily Express” story, written by Paid Holt, the film correspondent, runs thus: In five years C, Aubrey Smith. Hollywood’s best-known Englishman, has played in 36 talkies (ho was the major in “Bengal Lancer”), amassed a fortune as the highest-paid freelance actor in the colony—and started 10 cricket teams out there. Last night he came home to London, travelling 3000 miles— To see the South Africans play England : To welcome the arrival of his first grandchild, expected by CommandeT and Mrs Cobb, of Greenwich, the first week in July : and To play the part of colonel in Gaumont’s film of Kipling’s “Soldiers Three. ’ ’ Which seems aplenty. But he also has a simple solution of the body-line problem.

“I wrote to ‘Plum’ Warner a year ago, and told him there was only one thing to do: Put a white line across the pitch seven yards from the popping crease. If a bowler pitches short of that on the leg-side give it a noball. That’d stop ’em—they wouldn’t give runs away. “There’s nothing wrong about bodyline, nor is it new : I started—l can’t tell you exactly—in 1882. That was when I first saw a. batsman walking into the pitch of the ball to play iti to leg.” WAY OUT WEST. Way out in California, whpro the cowboys ride and the film stars ride in luxury automobiles, Aubrey Smith has found a little paradise on earthUp in a secluded valley, with a. fortymile vista any way you look, he has built an English cottage with a weathervane. The weathervane consists of a cricket bat, a ball, and three stumps. That is his reminder that once, when ho captained Sussex and they called him Riound-the-Corner Smith, he was a cricketer. He still plays. Every Sunday he takes a team, which consists of Desmond Roberts, Boris Karloff, Nigel Bruce, Pat Somerset, and A. N. Others a hundred miles through California to get a game. “Going back? Of course, I’m going back. It’s a paradise on earth, . I tell you. But I want to see young Vincent play for the South Africans. “I played with his father. A great cricketer. . ,