Robert Adams (actor)

Robert Adams (1902 – 1965) was a British Guyanese actor of stage and screen. He was the founder and director of the Negro Repertory Arts Theatre, one of the first professional black theatre companies in Britain, and became Britain's first black television actor when he appeared in '' Theatre Parade: Scenes From Hassan'' on BBC TV in 1937. He was also the first Black actor to play a Shakespearian role on television (the Prince of Morocco in ''The Merchant of Venice''), in 1947.Sarita Malik
''Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian Images on Television''
Sage, 2002; "The early phase of drama with a black presence", p. 135, and note 2.

Education and early career

(Wilfred) Robert Adams,
The William Roberts Society. the son of a boat builder, was born in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana). In 1920, he won a scholarship to Jamaica's Mico Teachers' College, from which he graduated with honours. He worked as a teacher in British Guiana, while producing and acting in amateur stage productions. Stephen Bourne
''Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television''
London: Continuum, 2001; chapter 7, "Robert Adams and Orlando Martins: Men of Two Worlds", pp. 72–6. He went to England in the 1920s to study law and music, as well as to try to make it as a professional actor, and to fund his studies he worked as a labourer and as a wrestler, known as "The Black Eagle", eventually becoming heavyweight champion of the British Empire.Nancy Cunard
"Stevedore in London"
''The Crisis'', August 1935. In 1931, he was a founding member of Harold Moody's League of Coloured Peoples.

Acting career

Adams began appearing as a film extra in 1934, and had roles in films including ''Midshipman Easy'' (1935), ''Song of Freedom'' in 1936 – together with Paul Robeson – and ''King Solomon's Mines'' (1937). He also featured in '' Old Bones of the River'' (1938), worked as Robeson's stunt double in 1940's ''The Proud Valley'', was in a 1941 Colonial Film Unit production entitled '' An African in London'', and played the role of a Nubian slave in '' Caesar and Cleopatra'' (1945). The following year, when Adams starred in '' Men of Two Worlds'', it was hailed by critics as a "ground-breaking film".

On the stage, Adams' first role was in 1935 at the Embassy Theatre in ''Stevedore'', in which Robeson played the hero and which was enthusiastically reviewed by Nancy Cunard in ''The Crisis'': "This production of ''Stevedore'' has brought to light a fine new personality, on the stage for the first time: Robert Adams, Negro of British Guiana, well known otherwise as 'Black Eagle,' wrestler. He plays 'Blacksnake.' An extraordinarily fine, a natural-born actor, who should without fail find other good parts and work on the screen as well, for even a merely intelligent producer – but I wish him the best, Sergei Eisenstein."

Another early role was as Jean-Jacques Dessalines in the 1936 play '' Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History'' by C. L. R. James, again alongside Robeson and also other notable actors including Orlando Martins and Harry Andrews. Adams went on to take the lead in a television adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's ''The Emperor Jones''. The role of Brutus Jones, a Pullman porter who becomes the ruler of a Caribbean island, had already been played by Robeson on stage and screen. The BBC
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