Robert Loraine was born in a period when technology
exploded into a world whose keyword was Progress. Both
he and his lifelong friend Bernard Shaw believed they
were in an evolutionary period of humanity. Born into a
theatrical family, he understood its clashes of
temperament and competition for the attention of the
audience. He was fortunate to be playing in London by
age twenty-one, and secured lead roles two years later.
Thus, it was incomprehensible to his peers when he
volunteered to fight in the Boer War. After his year of
service, he heeded his father's advice: first conquer
London, and then America. He accepted a contract from
Daniel Frohman in New York. Four years of dusty old
plots made him yearn for something new, something he
found in Shaw's Man and Superman. A two year tour in the
role of John Tanner led him to professional and
financial success. The lust for something new also led
him into pioneer aviation. Visualizing the aeroplane's
unlimited potential, he challenged the theory that
flight could only take place in calm weather by flying
through a raging thunderstorm. Ever of a military mind,
he also demonstrated the machine's capacity for scouting
in military maneuvers. With political stormclouds
closing in again in 1914, Robert volunteered six days
before his country declared war on Germany. Dispatched
to the Royal Flying Corps, he served all four years of
the war, rose to the highest rank of any civilian, and
was gravely wounded twice. Robert married at age
forty-five, but the compromises of domesticity did not
come easily to him. His young wife, Winifred, suffered
through the downward spiral of an aging actor. The 1930s
brought the Great Depression and he returned to the
United States, attempting to make money on Broadway or
in Hollywood. When he finally returned to England in
November, 1935, he died two days before Christmas.
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