PLAY MUST GO ON.

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19765, 21 December 1935, Page 19 (Supplement)

PLAY MUST GO ON.

MARIE TEMPEST’S ORDEAL, s* APPEARS WHEN HUSBAND ILL. While Marie Tempest, who is 71 years of age, was wanning fresh laurels on the London stage her heart was heating anxiously for the fall of the curtain, when news would come to her of her husband lying ill In Leeds. Miss Tempest's husband, W. Graham Browne, aged 65. was to have appeared with her in her new' play, “ Short Story,” which opened at the Queen’s Theatre, but two weeks previously he fell ill wfith pneumonia while they were both in Leeds, and Miss Tempest had to leave his bedside for her London first-night. “In the world of the theatre one’s personal tragedies must be hidden from the public eye. One has to learn to suffer In secret,” Miss Tempest told a pressman. “Marriage Means Everything.” “No one 'can guess the agony of mind I have endured since my 'beloved husband fell ill. For 27 years we have been constantly together; each parting, however brief, has been pain lo us both. You see, our marriage means just everything to us. I suppose we would be accounted an old-fashioned •couple." She turned her calm white face towards me, then for a moment lost that dignified poise which is so peculiarly hers and covered her brimming eyes with a trembling hand. “ Thank heaven, he is now quite safe," she whispered. “I spoke to my darling on the telephone the moment the curtain fell in the theatre, and he was so happy and excited about the play, and spoke so reassuringly of himself that my dls- , tress fell from me like a cloak. My i husband has really been desperately ill; I had five doctors to attend him. Heart Heavy With Fear. i “ Through these past few weeks I J have compelled myself to do my duty 1 while all the time my heart w r as heavy with fears for my husband. On Sat* urday, when the play began, ‘my thoughts were wath him. And my ; friends, too, thought of him and of the sorrow his illness was causing me. I J had nearly 100 telegrams and mes- j sages in which his name each time was mentioned.” Miss Tempest talked a little of herself and her work. “ I shall never retire,” she said, tapping emphatically on the high polish of her dining-table. “ I shall die In my traoks, and when I die I want my tombstone to be Inscribed, ‘She knew her Job.’ ” J