DOCTOR’S DEGREE CONFERRED ON FAMOUS CLOWN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18629, 5 December 1928, Page 7

DOCTOR’S DEGREE CONFERRED ON FAMOUS CLOWN.

FUNNIEST CHARACTER ON STAGE FOR YEARS. (Special to the “Star.”) \ lEXNA, September 1. A message from Budapest states that the Philosophical Faculty of Budapest University yesterday bestowed the degree of doctor on the famous clown, Grock. Twenty years ago Grock was an instructor in the family of Count Bethlen, the present Hungarian Premier. Grock, Doctor of Philosophv, seems incredible to the British public, who still remember the great French clown as the funniest character seen on the music-hall stage for years, but to his intimates, Adrian Wettach, Ph.D., does not seem so strange.

For Grock really is a philosopher. ITe is the typical comedian of the novels: a very thoughtful, almost morose man off the stage.

Grock has something of the artistic temperament, for he is a great musician, as well as a great comedian. Curiously enough, Grock does not conform with the other conceptions of the artist. In the first place, he is a wonderful man of business. In the second, he believes in publicity, and knows how to gain it. The prima donna may flounce around her dressing-room and refuse to be interviewed. Grock receives newspaper men with open arms and entertains them charmingly, even though he may be in the throes of putting a new act on the stage. To the theatregoer Grock is a mystery. That clown’s face and false bald pate entirely conceal his own handsome, sad features, and his finelyshaped head; so that at the stage door he can pass and repass without being recognised. When he is on tour, or on a voyage, he travels tinder his real name, and avoids the handshakes that most performers welcome.

Grock loves England and the British public, but he will never appear on our stage again because of what he considers the unfair levy of income-tax on foreign artists. Nevertheless, he was delighted when he was about to appear in his first film because English people would be able to see him again. Though -he did all his work in mime in English theatres, he has had long talking parts in F'rench revues, and invariably sings one or two verses in English. He talks English with a slight American accent, caused by learning English from one of his earliest partners, who was an American. It was announced recently that Grock was retiring from the stage. France made quite a habit of conferring the Palmes Academiques on famous clowns. Little Tich was the first to be honoured with the purple ribbon, then the Fratellini Brothers, and, last year, Coco, the popular clown of the Cirque de Paris, was honoured in the