FAME IN A NIGHT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 986, 31 May 1930, Page 26

FAME IN A NIGHT

How the Theatre Nearly

Lost an Actor

Only a few weeks ago, Jack Lambert, tbe amateur actor of the Ardrossan and Saltcoats players, gave up his life-long ambition of taking up tbe stage as a profession. Then, while he was sitting in the office of his father in Ardrossan he received a telegram from Basil Foster offering him a leading part in “A Song of Sixpence,” the Scottish comedy by lan Hay and Guy Bolton, now playing at Daly’s Theatre. So Jack Lambert packed his bag and took the first train across the border. He woke up in London the following morning to find himself famous, and his performance hailed by the critics as one of the big hits of the play. “I first played professionally in London,” he told a newspaper man, “when Sir Nigel Playfair presented the Ardrossan players at the Lyric, Hammersmith, in ‘The Old Lady Shows Her .Medals.’ “For two years I have been wasting my time between business and amateur theatricals. One interfered with the other.” “So I made up my mind to study for civil engineering. But when Mr. Foster’s telegram arrived I left at ouce. “Now I am going to devote myself to a stage career. Ever since I first appeared with a boys’ nigger minstrel troupe it has been my main ambition. Now I think my big chance has come.” Mr. Lambert was a member of the Ardrossan Players’ company when it carried off the Howard de Walden Cup for the best amateur production in Great Britain and the Belasco Cup in America.