MAORI FAREWELL SONG

Otago Daily Times, 8 July 1947, Page 5

MAORI FAREWELL SONG

ADOPTED BY GRACIE FIELDS SIGNATURE TUNE FOR RADIO • PROGRAMMES Special Correspondent Rec._ 9 p.m. LONDON, July 7. Gr’acie Fields, who is shortly due to return to British broadcasting after an interval of several years, will use

the Maori farewell song “E Pari Ra,” which she learned during her visit to New Zealand, as her signature tune. She said that she first heard the tune when a Wellington taxi driver hummed it as he was driving her to see the Prime. Minister, Mr Fraser. Miss Fields will commence a new series of broadcast programmes under the title “ Gracie’s Working Party,” on Julyj23. . She admits that owing to her long absence from th e British entertainment scene she is not sure of her reception. The National Theatre Association has criticised the 8.8.C.’s decision to bring Miss Fields back to broadcasting on the grounds that she is no longer of British nationality owing to her marriage in 1940 to Monty Banks, who was then of Italian nationality, . Several months after the marriage, Monty Banks was granted American nationality, and if the marriage had been delayed till then, his wife, under British law, would still be considered a British citizen. Miss Fields has since refused to apply for American citizenship. Banks, who is travelling in Italy, is not coming to Britain with his wife.