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Celebrities who appeared at the KentonTheatre No.8 Robert Newton |
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Written by Bill Port
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Robert Newton - Actor (1905 - 1956)
 In late August 1939, Sidney Foster, the leaseholder of the New Playhouse Theatre (as the Kenton was then known), was considering whether he had done the right thing in importing a group of actors to be his repertory company. He had named them the Henley Players (no connection with the presently active and prominent group of the same name) and had arrange with director William Heaven that their first production would be Yellow Sands, a play by Eden Phillpotts and his daughter Adelaide. The opening night would be 28th August. A film had recently been made of Yellow Sands and Foster was concerned that the release of the film might have a serious effect on the takings for the following week. The film had a cast of top flight actors, including Marie Tempest, Wilfred Lawson, Robert Newton and Patrick Barr, and he expected it to be very popular. One can hardly imagine his surprise and delight when Robert Newton walked into the theatre and volunteered to play, on stage, the part of Joe Varwell which he had played in the film. It did not take Foster long to sort out the details and the play was an outstanding success. The Henley Standard critic wrote " Robert Newton's performance is the finest seen in Henley and should not be missed." The play closed, to great celebrations, on Saturday September 2nd. War was declared the next day and the Henley Players' brilliant opening performance was lost in the confusion of World War Two. Robert Newton was born in Shaftesbury, the son of landscape painter Algernon Newton R.A.. He was educated at St Bartholomew's School in Newbury and began his acting career at the age of sixteen at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1921. He was soon playing in the West End in Bitter Sweet and Private Lives and as Horatio to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. He made many films, mostly in comedy parts, but it was in 1950 that he played Long John Silver in Treasure Island - the film for which he has become best known. His film career and his life were cut short by chronic alcoholism and he died from a heart attack in Beverly Hills, California in 1956.
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