SIR BENJAMIN FULLER

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12116, 18 April 1925, Page 11

SIR BENJAMIN FULLER

ENCOURAGING AUSTRALIAN TALENT The land of opportunity! Why, Australia! Thirty years ago a first-class waiter and musician on board the s.s. Austral put off his white coat of servitude for the last time, drew bis pay, and set foot on Australia. He has stepped on and off many Australian quays since then, but always bought his own ticket, reads a recent interview with Sir Benjamin Fuller.

On his arrival here in the beginning of this year, the steamer fares for himself and family ran him into nine hundred pounds. And the bluff, brusque, breezy little Londoner, except for thirty years' learning of life, is much the same man as he was thirty yeajs ago. His father was a vaudevillist and saw Australia first through Hiscock's Minstrels-

And just a jest here: Many years afterwards brother John saw a long, sad-faced youth lounge past the doorkeeper of one of his New Zealand shows as ir the place belonged to him.

"See that fellow blow in there/' he asked. Ben, "who is he? He doesn't have to give the high sign or something just to prove he’s real.” "No* not him. Why, Johnny, that fellow's father brought your father out to Australia. If you did the right thing you'd go and kiss him.” "Gee whiz,” observed John, "another Captain Cook/' The dead-head was Fred Hiscocks, junior, then cartoonist on a New Zealand weekly, and now occupying

a like position on the London "Evening News.” In two years the Fullers were •working New Zealand and working themselves also. The youthful Ben was singer, dancer,, scene-shifter, property man, stage or front-of-the-liouse manager, treasurer, billposter, publicity man, und concert manager. Ilard work keeps a man healthy and makes him wealthy. He has to be wise to start with, or he wouldn’t have the sense to see that hard work ia the master key to success. Sir Benjamin is the doyen of Australian theatrical managers. Eight and twenty years of it and good for as many more "Our first appearance here was at. the Royal Standard, in Castleifeagh street, with a vaudeville show. The plague came along, tho district was declared an infected area, and we tore back to New Zealand. In 1912 we were back, having absorbed the Brennan Circuit, and we aro here to stay. The St. James Theatre and Roof Garden is to bo the biggest thing in Australasia, and there well carry on the Harry Rickards tradition of popular prices and shows that entertain. Big turns, where one has to pay chiefly for an established reputation, make little appeal to us. "Give the young people a chance—-if they can give an entertaining turn, that's all I want. Elighty-five per cent, of my players are Australians, 5 per cent, are people who happen to ha%*e drifted here with an acceptable turn, and the other 19 per cent, are imported. "How did I get knighted? "Well, the London 'Gazette' said it was for benevolence, and for my assistance to education of the young idea, but I expect you would say it was because I tried to be a good Australian/'