Robert Helpmann: A Servant of Art, by Anna Bemrose; University of Queensland Press, 2008, $49.95.  To be conceited is permissible only for personages with a substantial amount of truth behind their conceits, and Robert Murray Helpmann (born in 1909 with just one final n, to which he added a second one around 1933, presumably to suggest a touch of internationality) is unquestionably one of them. This book about this distinguished multi-artist born in Mount Gambier traces his phenomenal rise on various steps of the cultural ladder. It outlines these steps pragmatically after the comprehensive research which gained Anna Bemrose her…