SHAW FOR AMERICA

Taranaki Daily News, 11 January 1933, Page 6

SHAW FOR AMERICA

FIVE MINUTES’ VISIT.

FOOTPRINT FOR ADORING.

Mary Lawton, former actress, has returned to New York from London, where she had a long interview with George Bernard Shaw just before sailing. Miss Lawton’s friendship with the veteran playwright began ,in the spring of 1914 when he sent her to New York to play the leading role in his:play» “The Philanderer,” says the New York Times. “Since that time,”/she said, “I have made a point of visiting him at least once', if not' oftener, each year, when he talks on all kinds of subjects. This time his principal topic was his forthcoming voyage around the world. “I asked him about the report that he will visit America when his ship touches at San Francisco, and he replied with a smile: — o ‘Yes. I will, place my right toe, and maybe my heel, or possibly my whole right'foot on the shore of America so that the forty-seven ‘millions and all the other millions in that country can rush there' and worship the footprint I shall leave in the sand,. But I will not go, on shore anywhere in the United States. “When. I , asked G.B.S. how long he intended, to rest his right foot upon American soil he replied in emphatic tones: ‘Five minutes and hot one second more.’ - .

“Then I asked why he was so em-phatic-in his refusal to visit America, even when he was on board a ship in one/ of. its- finest harbours, and he replied, as he had done before, ‘I am too old. for all the attention and adulation, all the love and kisses, that would be lavished, upon me and would be wasted on me at 76.’ .

“He makes a joke always of his refusal to visit this country,” Miss Lawton added, “but I believe there is some reason he has never divulged. “I asked him what he thought of the result of the Presidential election, and he answered that it did not matter, over ■ there, who was President of the' United States as no one was interested in the matter.

“Mr. Shaw said that the cost of putting on plays to-day is so colossal that only a few of the greatest attractions could be kept on for any length of time. ‘“lt does not matter to-day,’ he said, ‘whether a play is good or bad. It, is the payment at the box office which decides the question. If he does not draw, then it must come off, as the overhead expenses are too heavy to keep a play running which does not pay in the hope that it may pick up later on. My play “Too True to Be Good” had a short run in London for that reason. Ten years ago it would have done well, when the expenses of operating a Aieatre Were small compared with what they are to-day.’ “Mr. Shaw looked the picture of health,” Miss Lawton continued. “His hair and beard are white, but his cheeks are rosy, and he is very robust for a man of 76, which shows, what living on vegetables, without tobacco, beer, spirits, or wine may sometimes do for one.

“He usually wears . a brownish-grey tweed suit, with thick-soled brown shoes and looks like a prosperous country squire. He spends five days a week in the country, and comes to his flat in Whitehall Court, London, from Thursday till Saturday.

“He gave me one of his recent photographs, and wrote on the back, ‘My dear Mary, if you must collect autographs, collect those signed at the foot of cheques.’ ”