LATE OSCAR ASCHE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 30 November 1938, Page 8

LATE OSCAR ASCHE

I B.v Air Mail—Own Correspondent! LONDON, 3rd November. Those who knew the late Mr Oscar Asche intimately were less surprised than the average playgoer to find that his estate amounts to £2O 16s 4d. This very capable and in many ways gifted actor was an enthusiastic sportsman, and what he won on the theatrical swings he lost on the racecourse roundabouts. He made nearly a quarter of million out of Chu Chin Chow alone, but lacked his wife’s gift of not squandering his fortune. Chu Chin Chow is still recalled with bated breath by theatrical producers as London’s allin record run. As a matter of fact it ran longer than the Great War lasted —four years and eleven months!— but its immense success was undoubtedly less artistic or dramatic than opportune. Chu Chin Chow just suited the popular craving in entertainment during the harrowing ordeal of Armaggedon, when people desired not to think, but to be taken out of themselves by tuneful colourful and nymphful distraction. Most of Oscar Asche’s fortune went to the bookmakers’ sustentation fund.