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{rohb'-suhn}
The son of a former slave, American black actor and bass-baritone
Paul Robeson, b. Princeton, N.J., Apr. 9, 1898, d. Jan. 23,
1976, was one of the most distinguished Americans of the 20th
century. After graduating with Phi Beta Kappa honors from
Rutgers University, where he twice received All-American football
awards, he attended Columbia Law School and practiced law
briefly before turning to the theater.
Robeson's performances in Eugene O'Neill's plays during the
early 1920s established him as a brilliant actor, and for
two decades he was hailed as one of the greatest bass-baritones
in the world. In the course of his many travels abroad, he
was greatly lionized. He played the title role in the 1943
Broadway production of Othello, which ran a record 296 performances.
His acting in that play earned him, in 1944, the Academy of
Arts and Letters' Gold Medal for best diction in the American
theater and the Donaldson Award for best actor.
Robeson championed the cause of the oppressed throughout his
life, insisting that as an artist he had no choice but to
do so. A trip to the Soviet Union early in his career had
made him a lifelong friend of the USSR, which in 1952 awarded
him the Stalin Peace Prize. Following World War II, when he
took an uncompromising stand against segregation and lynching
in the United States and advocated friendship with the Soviet
Union, a long, intense campaign was mounted against him. Thereafter
he was unable to earn a living as an artist in the United
States and was also denied a passport. Finally in 1958 he
was allowed to go to Great Britain. He returned in 1963 in
ill health and spent the last years of his life in seclusion.
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