Robert Adams

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 the world'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.

Education and early career (Wilfred) Robert Adams, 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. 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. In 1931, he was a founding member of Harold Moody's League of Coloured Peoples. and Adams became the first black actor to play a leading dramatic role on television; another BBC appearance that year was in W. B. Yeats' 1907 play Deirdre.

After Robeson returned to the United States at the outbreak of the Second World War, Adams became Britain's leading black actor, and would continue acting on television in the 1940s and 1950s.

In 1944, Adams founded the Negro Arts Movement.

Filmography