Joe Robinson

Joe Robinson was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1927 and comes froma family of wrestlers. He made his film debut in 1955 in “A Kid for Two Farthings” as Diana Dors’s boyfriend.His other films include “The Lonelieness of the Long Distance Runner”, “Carry On Regardless” andin 1971 “Diamonds Are Forever”.

His IMDB entry:

Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1927 (not 1929 as some references give) Joe Robinson came from a famous family of wrestlers. Both his father Joseph Robinson Senior and grandfather John were world champions. Following in their footsteps Joe Junior won the wrestling European Heavyweight Championship in 1952, beating Axel Cadier in London. At that time he was billed as Tiger Joe Robinson. He was also interested in acting and studied at R.A.D.A. After injuring his back wrestling in Paris, Joe decided to concentrate on acting, and after a few bit parts in films his first leading role came in the keep-fit documentary Fit as a fiddle (1952). He also played Harry “Muscles” Green in the musical Wish You Were Here (1952) on the West End stage. His most memorable film role was in A Kid For Two Farthings (1955) in which he wrestled Primo Carnera. Like most muscular actors he was invited to Rome in 1960 where he appeared in five Italian epics. At the same time, Joe and his younger brother Doug Robinson became popular stunt arrangers, particularly on the James Bond films. Joe and Doug, together with Honor Blackman co-authored the book “Honor Blackman’s Book of Self-Defence” published by Andre Deutsch in 1965. Joe was also a judo champion and black belt at karate, and opened a martial arts centre in Brighton where he is now retired.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Marshall

The above IMDB entry can be accessed online here.

He died in Brighton in 2017 at the age of 90.

Joe Robinson’s obituary in The Times in 2017.

Saturday July 15 2017, 12.01am BST, The Times

Joe Robinson with Diana Dors in A Kid for Two Farthings (1955)ALAMY

With his grandfather and father both wrestling champions, it was always likely that the 6ft 2in Joe Robinson would follow them on to the mat.

Born in Newcastle in 1927, one of eight children, as a child he went to South Africa, where his father ran a gymnasium. As he grew up Robinson would help to keep the gym clean and, encouraged by his father, would take part in amateur wrestling and body-building contests.

Initially there were visits to England and he enrolled at Rada at the same time as beginning a career as a professional wrestler. He appeared in Levenshulme in October 1948 against Ron McLarty and then, settling in London, after 1950 he worked mainly for the soi-disant “Blue Blood of the Mat”, the promoter Sir Atholl Oakeley. When the then European heavyweight champion Bert Assirati left for a tour of the Far East in 1951, Oakeley promoted what he saw as a tournament for the vacant title. In it Robinson met the Spaniard Gonzales the Gorilla, billed as The Apeman, and in later years Robinson would say that when the referee told him to shake hands he refused to do so until Gonzales spoke, confirming he was human.

In the title match Robinson defeated Axel Cadier, the Swede who had won the gold medal in light heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestling at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. A crowd-pleasing blue-eye, whose speciality was a flying drop-kick, Robinson continued to work for Oakeley until the latter retired. He was nicknamed Tiger after being pictured posing on a tiger-skin rug. However, in the days when the so called hard-holds from which it was difficult and painful to escape were the norm, he was not generally regarded as an uncompromisingly hard shooter and in turn was forced to retire after he sustained a serious neck injury in a Paris ring.

His first film appearance was in a keep-fit documentary, Fit as a Fiddle, in 1952 and the next year he appeared on the West End stage as the holiday camp sports director Harry “Muscles” Green in the British production of the musical Wish You Were Here. During the run, when fellow actor Christopher Hewett was knocked unconscious after being thrown into the onstage swimming pool, Robinson realised what had happened and dived in to rescue him.

He went on to play the wrestler Charles in the Old Vic’s 1959 production of As You Like It, which starred Maggie Smith and Barbara Jefford, and the next year appeared with the comedian Terry-Thomas in the farce It’s In The Bag.

Robinson with Terry-Thomas in It’s In The Bag

He had signed a five-year contract with Sir Alexander Korda’s London Films and starred as body builder Sam with Diana Dors in A Kid for Two Farthings (1955). Originally the backers had wanted Kenneth More to play Sam, but the director Carol Reed insisted on Robinson. The film, with regular shots of Sam (who cannot buy a ring for his longstanding fiancée and who may even be in the closet) in a singlet flexing, had considerable homo-erotic undertones and Robinson unwittingly became a gay icon. Dors said she thought Robinson looked like Burt Lancaster. In his turn Robinson said that he thought kissing her on screen was one of the most exciting things he did in his life.

The next year he was invited to the Cannes Film Festival, where the film was shown as the British entry and where he gave a demonstration of judo on the beach and Gene Kelly joined him. Now mixing with the stars, he met his hero Errol Flynn, with whom he later played a part in The Master of Ballantrae, as well as Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and Frank Sinatra, who made him spaghetti. Something of a ladies’ man, it was at Cannes he said he danced with Esther Williams, Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner and Brigitte Bardot on the same night. A tireless raconteur, his family assumed his accounts of his exploits had been somewhat coloured, until his stories turned out to be true.

His second wife, Annie, would not believe he met Marlene Dietrich until, years later, they were dining in the same restaurant in Brighton. When he stood up Dietrich called out: “Joe, what are you doing here?”

In 1956 he declined an offer to feature as Rank’s Gongman and, more seriously, on Reed’s advice, turned down a part in Alexander the Great (1956), which would star Richard Burton. In 2004 Robinson admitted: “I thought I was a big star and success went to my head.” During the fallow periods he appeared as the cowardly boxer managed by Freddie Mills in Carry on Regardless and in television shows such as The Saint, The Avengers and an episode of Hancock’s Half Hour, in which he is too shy to enter a body-building contest until the very end.

The 1960s were the heyday of Italian sword-and-sandals movies and with his 50in chest he regularly appeared in films, including the biblical epic Barabbas. Robinson was often uncredited or as a “Bearded Gladiator” or “Tall Soldier”, but in 1961 he starred as the title character opposite the Japanese actress Yoko Tani in Ursus and the Tartar Princess. Two years he later would have joined Johnny Weissmuller and Lex Barker among the actors who have played Tarzan, but for the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs objecting that this was an unauthorised use of the name. So before the film was released Tarzan became Thaur. Back in England he was in the rather more prestigious The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, which starred Tom Courtenay.“

Meanwhile, he and his brother Douglas, both good stuntmen and stunt arrangers, ran a gymnasium in Old Compton Street in Soho, teaching actors how to fall and avoid injuries in action sequences, as well as instructing them in judo. Their pupils included Sean Connery, Brian Blessed, Peter Bowles and Honor Blackman, and the brothers collaborated with her to create Honor Blackman’s Book of Self Defence.

In 1963 Robinson had hoped to get the part of Grant, the Russian killer in the second James Bond film, From Russia with Love, but it went to Robert Shaw. Robinson believed it was because he was Connery’s golfing partner and that Connery felt bad about it. In 1971 Robinson did, however, get the part of the diamond smuggler Peter Franks in Diamonds are Forever and Connery managed to get his fee raised from £2,000 to £9,000. His fight, which he staged in a lift with Connery and in which he is getting the better of Bond until he is doused with foam from a fire extinguisher and then thrown six floors down, is regarded as one the best of the Bond fight sequences. He would tell the story of how when he landed he found the beautiful Jill St John was bending over him and he could not help but open an eye. “Joe, you’re dead,” said Connery. Robinson was often fêted at Bond fan reunions.

Always devoted to martial arts, and profiting from the kung fu films of the time, he opened a martial arts dojo in Brighton. The centre ran for 20 years and one early pupil was Brian Jacks, who became Britain’s first judoka to win a medal at a world championship. Robinson also taught at Roedean and other schools across Sussex. He was not good at saying no to work, his daughter Kate recalled. “If someone wanted a lesson at ten o’clock at night off he would go to give it.”

A popular and warm man always willing to pose for photographs and sign autographs, Robinson toured the world in retirement, attending trade fairs and conferences. For some reason he was often shy about his age. “I was born the same day as Clint Eastwood [but three years earlier] and I’m younger than Roger Moore,” he said in 2004.

While visiting relations in South Africa, in his seventies, he was attacked by half a dozen muggers armed with a baseball bat and knives on a street corner. He broke the arm of the first with a judo throw, drop-kicked another and, as they scattered, he “then ran like hell”. He later admitted that he had suffered a good deal of trauma. “I used to wake up screaming.”

He married twice, the first time when young and then in 1961 to the model Annie Alliston. They separated, but remained friends and she visited him in hospital with their daughter Kate shortly before he died. He is survived by her and his four children, Joe and Lisa from his first marriage and, with Annie, Kate and Polly Hardy-Stewart, who became British women’s judo champion in 1990. Of his 11 grandchildren, Kyra is an IBJIF jiu-jitsu champion, while Phoebe is a fitness model and stuntwoman. She recently appeared in Wonder Woman. Not surprisingly, he felt rather proud of her for that.

“Tiger” Joe Robinson, wrestler and actor, was born on May 31, 1927. He died after a short illness on July 3, 2017.

Veronica Carlson. Wikipedia

Veronica Carlson was born in Yorkshire in 1944. She is best known as one of the beautiful heroines of the Hammer Horror films, these include “Dracula Has Risen From the Grave” in

Striking, pale complexioned, blonde English actress who is best known as the female lead of several late 1960s Hammer horror films. These roles include as the hapless Maria being terrorized by fanged Christopher Lee in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), brutalized by the evil Peter Cushing in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) and chased by monster David Prowse in The Horror of Frankenstein (1970).

After her brief career in a handful of Hammer films, Carlson’s star faded as quickly as it had risen, however she had assured herself a place in horror film history as one of the stunning women that graced the screen during Hammer’s wonderful renaissance of the horror genre. Ms Carlson died in 2022 aged 77. she is survived by her husband, three children and seven grandchildren.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: firehouse44@hotmail.com

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

1968, “Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed” and “”The Horror of Frankenstein”. She now lives with her family in South Carolina.

Her IMDB entry:

The Times obituary

Veronica Carlson had only had one supporting role when she was cast in the Hammer horror movie Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed opposite Peter Cushing. She turned up to shoot her first scene just in time to hear Cushing and Terence Fisher, the director, discussing her imminent screen death. “He said: ‘How do you want to kill her, Peter?’ And Peter was saying: ‘I’ve given that a lot of thought, Terry.’ And then he proceeded to tell Terry how he wanted to kill me. I kept trying to interject. It was like I wasn’t there. It was like listening to a bedtime story of how they were going to kill me.”

The cold-blooded nature of the conversation and chilling mood of the scene contrasted with the warm atmosphere of the Hammer movie-making experience for the statuesque blonde actress, who was almost completely inexperienced, having had only a handful of uncredited bit parts before she landed her first job at the famous studio. “The whole beauty of Hammer was that it was like a big family,” she said. “You were cherished.” So much so that after the filming of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Cushing wrote Carlson’s parents a “beautiful” letter, complimenting her on her performance.

The two actors had bonded over the shared trauma of being forced to film a last-minute rape scene, which had been ordered by “the higher-ups, the distributors” who feared that there was not enough sex in the film to entice people into the cinemas. Nobody in the crew was happy about the new scene, least of all Carlson, who had a no-nudity clause in her contract. Indeed, she and Cushing were quite distressed about it.

Carlson in 1969

He clasped her hands and told her to remember that it was not him in the scene but his character. “Peter said: ‘Darling, I don’t like this any more than you do.’ We worked out how to do it, between us. They wanted him to strip me, to take hold of my neckline and tear it down to my waist, you see. Peter said: ‘I’m not going to do this.’ After we shot the scene, Peter just held me. I was trembling and he was trembling. We were both so upset. We just stayed there, very, very still until we composed ourselves and then we got up and walked out. It was the only time that I felt such a sombre atmosphere on a Hammer film.”

She was born Veronica Mary Glazier in Emley, West Yorkshire, in 1944. Her mother, Edith (née Allatt) was a housemaid when she met her father, William Glazier, an RAF officer. After the Second World War, the family moved around but spent a few years in Norfolk, where she and her younger sister, Elizabeth, attended Thetford Girls’ School. Eventually, they moved to High Wycombe, while her father worked for the Ministry of Defence. “It was,” she later said, “a very strict upbringing.”

When the young woman was 16, one of her teachers “rescued” her by telling her mother that she had a gift and should go to art college. “It was wonderful for me,” she said.

It was while she was studying art at High Wycombe College of Technology and Design that she caught the acting bug, and appeared in college revues and operettas. She was still a student when, in 1967, she auditioned for the Morecambe and Wise film The Magnificent Two. She had heard that they needed a girl who could do judo and she had mastered the basics, so she headed to Pinewood, dressed in trousers and a sweater, only to find that every other girl was wearing a bikini.

She was about to withdraw from the audition when the producer called her name and asked her to show them what she could do. “And there was a girl dressed as a bona fide judo person so, knowing some judo moves, I threw her over my head and I got the job!”

Her first speaking part was in her debut Hammer movie, Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968), in which she played a clergyman’s niece who is bitten by the vampire count, played by Christopher Lee. She became known as the English rose of the group of buxom young actresses who regularly appeared in the popular horror films.

Jane Carr was born in Essex in 1950. She has two classic film performances to her credit. In 1968 she was the gullable Mary McGregor under the spell of Maggie Smith in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and then in 1970 in “Something for Everyone” as the daughter of Angela Lansbury. She was also hilarious in 1977 on the stage in “Once A Catholic” in London’s West End. Jane Carr moved to the U.S. and starred in the television series “Dear John” and in “Curb Your Enthusiasm”.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

Since the late 1980s, American audiences have embraced the “veddy British” talents of character actress Jane Carr — she with the close-set eyes, lilting voice, trowel jaw and bubbly disposition. It helps, of course, having natural comedic timing and the necessary vocal skills to be in constant demand.

She was born Ellen Jane Carr on August 13, 1950, in Loughton, Essex. The daughter of Patrick Carr, a steel erector, and Gwendoline Rose (née Clark), a postal employee, an innate gift for performing was discovered early on by a teacher. As a result, she took acting classes at the Arts Educational School and Corona Stage School, both in London.

Jane made her stage debut at age 14 in a production of “The Spider’s Web”, then went on to appear as the impressionable, ill-fated student “Mary McGregor” in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”, starring Vanessa Redgrave at the Wyndham’s Theatre in 1966. Earning smashing reviews, Jane recreated her shy, stuttering misfit with a delicate mixture of pathos and poignancy in the film version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), this time with Oscar-winning Maggie Smith at the helm as the dangerously influential schoolteacher. A year later, Jane displayed just how extensive her range is projecting devilish menace and merriment in the little known but excellent cult black comedySomething for Everyone (1970), which became a cinematic highlight in the careers of both Michael York and Angela Lansbury, as well.

In the early 70s, Jane made fine use of her prim, “plain Jane” looks for comic effect on several British TV series and in guest appearances. Loftier moments came with the superb series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971) and a production of Daphne Laureola (1978), that starred esteemed acting couple Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright.

Never far from the stage, Jane appeared in “Spring Awakening” in 1974 and earned a 1977 Laurence Olivier nomination for her work in “Once a Catholic”. In 1978, she became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and added a solid body of classics to her theatrical resumé, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (Olivier nomination), “The Tempest”, “As You Like It”, “Much Ado About Nothing”, “The Merchant of Venice” (withAlec Guinness) and “The Merry Wives of Windsor”. She also reconnected with her “Jean Brodie” co-star Maggie Smith in a production of “The Way of the World” in 1985.

It was not until 1986 that Jane came to the States playing multiple key roles in the epic RSC revival of “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” on Broadway. When the touring company returned to England, Jane elected to stay in Los Angeles. The following year, she married Chicago-born actor Mark Arnott. They have a son, Dash Arnott (aka Dashiel James Arnott).

Jane proceeded to develop an American fanbase after being cast in the role of warm and fizzy Louise Mercer in the sitcom Dear John (1988), which lasted four seasons. With her chirpy British tones, she also managed to carve a career for herself in animated voicework. While she continues to appear occasionally on TV and in films, she hasn’t found quite the showcase she did with Dear John (1988), but has enhanced a number of such off-kiltered shows as Curb Your Enthusiasm (1999) and Monk (2002) with her unique brand of comedy.

Recent plays have included “The Cider House Rules”, “Noises Off”, “Blithe Spirit” (as “Madame Arcati”), “Habeas Corpus” and David Hare‘s “Stuff Happens (as “First Lady Laura Bush” opposite Keith Carradine‘s bemused “President Bush”). Jane’s latest venture on Broadway has been as “Mrs. Brill” in the musical, “Mary Poppins”.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Frank Lawton was born in 1904 in London. His career was mainly in Britain but he did go to Hollywood to play the young adult David in George Cukor’s “David Copperfield” opposite Maureen O’Sullivan in 1935. His other films include “The Mill on the Floss”, “The Four Just Men” and “Went the Day Well” in 1942. He was long married to the actress Evelyn Laye. Frank Lawton died in London in 1969.

The Devil Doll, poster, Frank Lawton, Maureen O’Sullivan, 1936. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

Mark Strong. TCM Overview.

Mark Strong is one of the best of film actors currently on the screen. He is also one of the busiest and it is hoped that he would soon be in leading man roles. He was born in 1963 in London to an Italian father and an Austrian mother. He studied at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

He first came to prominence in the third of the “Prime Suspect” series with Helen Mirren. In 1996 he was in the superb TV drama “Our Friends From the North” with Gina McKee, Daniel Craig and Christopher Eccleston. His film roles include “Century” in 1993, “Fever Pitch”, “The Long Firm”, “Low Winter Sun”, “RocknRolla”, “Body of Lies”, “Sherlock Holmes” and “Robin Hood”. He is an actor to watch.

TCM Overview:

Austere yet handsome, Mark Strong’s chameleon-like talents made him a hugely sought-after villain in both big-budget action and independent films after a lengthy career in his native England. He gave good bad guy in Guy Ritchie’s “Revolver” (2005), the dramatic thriller “Syriana” (2005), and Matthew Vaughnâ’s fantasy “Stardust” (2007). Strong played the heavy in the comedy “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” (2008) before reuniting twice with Ritchie to anchor “RocknRolla” (2008) and essay the satanic Lord Blackwood in the Robert Downey, Jr./Jude Law hit adventure, “Sherlock Holmes” (2009).

Continuing to work with a laundry list of great film directors, Strong worked twice under the direction of Ridley Scott as the Jordanian Head of Intelligence in “Body of Lies” (2008), and then wreaked further havoc as Godfrey opposite Russell Crowe in “Robin Hood” (2010). Also that year, Strong scared a younger audience as the mob boss in the kids-turned-superheroes hit “Kick-Ass” (2010). With an admitted penchant for playing his deliciously evil roles to the hilt, Strong counted greats such as Sir Ian McKellen among his many fans. Going bad only ended up being a good thing for this talented actor.

Marco Giuseppe Salussolia was born Aug. 30, 1963 in London, England to a teenage Austrian mother and an Italian father who walked out the family shortly afterwards. Strong’s mother changed his last name to help her son better fit in with his peers. At age five, Strong who spoke both English and German was sent away to a state-funded boarding school in Surrey, as his single mother found it difficult to handle some of his behaviors. Though he desperately missed home, Strong thrived in his new environment and occupied his alone time with much reflection and people-watching. He became adept at solo travel and music, singing lead in a noisy punk bank called Private Party. Strong performed in one play, but found that it held little luster for him.

After he graduated, he headed to Munich to study law, but bailed after a year and returned to London. He happened upon drama courses at Royal Holloway, where he earned a degree, and which led to post-grad work at the Bristol Old Vic Theater School.

Strong spent the next eight years on stage and carved out a significant career with high-profile parts in productions of “The Iceman Cometh” with Kevin Spacey, David Mamet’s “Speed the Plow” in the West End, and Sam Mendes’s “Twelfth Night,” for which he was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role.

In 1989, Strong began work on television in a variety of guest-spots, which included an installment of the highly regarded crime-drama series “Prime Suspect 3” (ITV, 1993), as an inspector opposite Helen Mirren’s formidable Jane Tennison.

The actor won more notice on the BAFTA-winning, “Our Friends in the North” (BBC, 1996), as Tosker, whose get-rich-quick schemes invariably fail. Strong brought an earthly strength to his role as Mr. Knightley opposite Kate Beckinsale in the televised adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma” (ITV, 1996), and was the sports-obsessed best friend to Colin Firth in the big screen romantic comedy set against the world of soccer in “Fever Pitch” (1997).

Strong also became a fixture on television, resuming his character Larry Hall now promoted to Detective Chief Superintendent on “Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness” (ITV, 2003), that he was gifted with a career-changing role on the four-part crime-drama series “The Long Firm” (BBC, 2004). Strong played East End gangster Harry Starks, who had no qualms about silencing enemies with a white-hot poker down the throat. Strong, however, had to convince both the writer and director that he could plumb the darker waters Starks occupied. In doing so, he won the 2005 Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Actor, and was also nominated for the 2005 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor.

Deciding to focus on film over television, Strong perfected his menace with Guy Ritchie’s crime thriller “Revolver” (2005), where he was the steely sharp assassin Sorter, and then inhabited the Lebanese-Muslim Mussawi in the thrill-ride look at international corruption within the oil industry in “Syriana” (2005), opposite George Clooney. In the Ridley and Tony Scott-produced medieval romantic legend “Tristan & Isolde” (2006),

Strong was the murderous, power seeking Lord Wictred, and in the action fantasy “Stardust” (2007) directed by Matthew Vaughn, the actor played a cruel prince in pursuit of both the throne and immortality. In “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” (2008), Strong was a controlling 1930s nightclub owner addicted to cocaine, and in “RocknRolla” (2008), he played a gangster.

He was nominated for the 2009 British Supporting Actor of the Year by the London Critics Circle Film Awards for the dramatic thriller “Body of Lies” (2008). Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and Russell Crowe, the spy film featured Strong as Hani Salaam, the deceptive head of Jordanian General Intelligence Department.

Buoyed by successful, versatile portrayals, the demand for Strong in bigger and meatier fare saw the actor as both ambitious and malicious as Sir John Conroy, advisor to the Queen in the highly touted historical drama “Young Victoria” (2009).

Strong was a standout in his third pairing with Ritchie in the action-mystery “Sherlock Holmes” (2009), based on the tale of the famous detective. Opposite Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law, Strong played the main antagonist, the aristocratic Satanist and serial killer, Lord Blackwood, and was universally praised as a convincing and creepy villain that gave the film its only dark edge.

Strong kept with the sinister, but moved to a new genre with the kid-powered yet surprisingly violent action-comedy “Kick-Ass” (2010), based on the comic book of the same name. The critically and commercially successful film a re-team with director Vaughn featured Strong as the main heavy, Frank D’Amico, a Mafioso, whose facade of respectability was crushed by an adult and two children dressed like superheroes intent on justice.

With “Sherlock” under his belt, Strong tackled another English legend this time, “Robin Hood” (2010), as directed by Ridley Scott and embodied by Russell Crowe, with Cate Blanchett onboard as Maid Marian. This retelling of the myth of Sherwood Forest featured Strong once again as the antagonist, Anglo-French double agent, Sir Godfrey, henchman to the ruthless King John (Kevin Durand).

This was followed by key roles in the well-received espionage story “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (2011) and Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama bin Laden story “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012). Unfortunately, Strong also co-starred in the notorious science fiction flop “John Carter” (2012) during this time. In 2013, Strong landed his first major role in American television, playing Detroit policeman Frank Agnew in the corruption drama “Low Winter Sun” (AMC 2013- )

By J.F. Pryor

The above TCM Overview can also be accessed online here.

Low Winter Sun 1 Sheet – Low Winter Sun _ Season 1 _ Keyart – Courtesy of AMC

Georgina Hale. IMDB.

Georgina Hale was born in 1943 in Ilford, Essex. She began acting in British television in the mid 1960’s. Ken Russell recognised her talents and cast her in 1971 in “The Devils”, “The Boyfriend”, “Mahler” and “Liztomania”. She has also starred with Alan Bates in “Butley” by Simon Gray. She is currently in the populat television series “Hollyoaks”. Georgina Hale is one of my favourite actresses.

Her IMDB biography:

Georgina Hale is an accomplished stage actress who has made many memorable forays in cinema. Most notably in the films of Ken Russell including her performance as Alma Mahler, in a wonderful and visually rich biopic on the composer Mahler (1974) which she won a BAFTA (British Academy Award) for. Two other standout performances were in Russell’s notorious The Devils (1971) and the Twiggy musical The Boyfriend in which she deliciously plays Fay, camping it up, in a backstage lesbian sub plot. She has made in-joke cameos in two further Russell films: Lisztomania (1975) and Valentino (1977).

Unfortunately roles were not forthcoming after her BAFTA win (who knows why?) and she made some pretty bad movie choices such as the film version of the tacky Joan Collinsnovel The World Is Full of Married Men (1979) and McVicar (1980) as well as the occasional stunner such as Butley (1974), written by playwright Simon Gray. Georgina has appeared in many of Gray’s stage plays (many have been filmed for British television with her starring) along side Alan Bates and Glenda Jackson and continues to work in British theatre. Georgina has made many appearances as guest star in television series including: Upstairs, Downstairs (1971), The Protectors (1972), Ladykillers (1980), Minder(1979), Boon (1986), One Foot in the Grave (1990), Murder Most Horrid (1991), The Vicar of Dibley (1994), three episodes of Doctor Who (1963) and many many more.

She has starred in two television series: Budgie (1971), a successful series in the seventies, and in the early nineties a cult children’s series based around a witch like figure called T-Bag. Most recently she has appeared in a comic role in Preaching to the Perverted (1997) in which her character points out that sometimes one has to debase one’s self to further one’s career. This film may not further her career (at age 55 she does a Sharon Stoneunder-table leg trick) but it will add to her growing reputation as one of the UK’s favorite cult actresses.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: strangeboy76@hotmail.com

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

Sadly Georgina Hale died in January in 2024 at the age of 80.

The 39 Steps, poster, Kenneth More on UK poster art, 1959. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

Quote from David Shipman in “The Great Movie Stars – The International Years” (1972):

“Kenneth More was THE big British star of the 50’s. e might be claimed to be the last solely British star. With the 60s, Hollywood took over the British production fiel, in some ears financing as much as 90% of production. British players became internation. Maybe More was the right person for the role. He said once – “I seem fated to be either the stiff upper lip war hero or the hearty back slapping beer drinking idot”, the typical Englishman in fact.”

Kenneth More was one of the most beloved British film actors of the 1950’s. He was born in 1914 in Gerrard’s Cross. Hewas assistant stage manager at the famous Windmill Theatre before becoming an actor. He had small supporting parts from the alte 1940’s and then in 1953 scored an enormous hit with the classic “Genevieve” with Kay Kendall, Dinah Sheridan and John Gregson. He starred in “Doctor in the House” with Dirk Bogarde, “The Deep Blue Sea” with Vivien Leigh, “Reach for the Sky” as was hero Douglas Bader, “A Night to Remember”, “North-West Frontier” with Lauren Bacall and “Sink the Bismarck” with Dana Wynter. In the 1960’s his movie career suddenly declined but he went on to star in the theatre with great success and then had a television triumph in “The Forsyte Saga” in 1967 with Nyree Dawn Porter. Sadly illness curtailed his later career. Kenneth More died in 1982. His wife was the actress Angela Douglas.

His IMDB entry:

Affable, bright and breezy Kenneth More epitomised the traditional English virtues of fortitude and fun. At the height of his fame in the 1950s he was Britain’s most popular film star and had appeared in a string of box office hits including Genevieve (1953),Doctor in the House (1954), Reach for the Sky (1956) and A Night to Remember (1958).

Later in his career, when the film industry declined, he turned his talents to television where his interpretations of Jolyon in BBC’s The Forsyte Saga (1967) and the title role inFather Brown (1974) made him a household name all over again.

More was a shrewd man when it came to the business of acting. He knew his limitations and what roles suited him. When the director Sir Peter Hall once suggested that he play Claudius to Albert Finney’s Hamlet at the Royal National Theatre, More declined saying “One part of me would like to, but the other part said that there were so many great Shakespearian actors who could have done it better. I stick to the roles I can play better than them.”

Born in Gerrards Cross in 1914 More’s early grounding was in variety and legitimate theatre in the UK. On screen, like many leading men in the 1950s such as John Mills and Jack Hawkins, he seemed to spend most of the decade in uniform. When he read Reach for the Sky, the biography of the legless wartime pilot Douglas Bader, he was desperate to play the role, even though it was earmarked for Richard Burton. “I knew I was the only actor who could play the part properly” he said. “Most parts that can be played by one actor can equally well be played by another, but not this. Bader’s philosophy was my philosophy. His whole attitude to life was mine.”

Films such as North West Frontier (1959) and Sink the Bismarck! (1960) kept More at the top although his favourite role was as the down at heel actor in Loss of Innocence(1961). His private life was colourful and he was rarely out of the newspaper headlines. He was married three times, lastly to the actress Angela Douglas, whom he met whilst filming Some People (1962) with her. His drinking companions were the hellraisers Trevor Howard and Jack Hawkins. Noel Coward once tried to seduce him in a bedroom but More gasped “Oh, Mr Coward, sir – I could never have an affair with you, because you remind me of my father!”

Asked to sum up his enduring appeal More said “A film like Genevieve to my contemporaries is not a film made years ago, but last week or last year. They see me as I was then, not as I am now. I am the reassurance that they have not changed. In an upside down world, with all the rules being rewritten as the game goes on and spectators invading the pitch, it is good to feel that some things and some people seem to stay just as they were.”

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Patrick Newley

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

Murray Melvin was born in 1932 in London. He acted with Joan Littlewood’s theatre company and in 1958 was in Brendan Behan’s “The Hostage”. In 1961 he starred in Shelagh Delaney’s “A Taste of Honey” with Rita Tushingham and Dora Bryan directed by Tony Richardson. His cinema highlights also include “The Devils”, “Alfie”, “The Boyfriend” with Twiggy and Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon” with Ryan O’Neal in 1975. It was good to see him recently in the film of the musical “The Phantom of the Opera”. Murray Melvin was in the very first episode of the cult TV series “The Avengers”.

TCM Overview:

Narrow-faced, slender, haughty-looking character player, best known for his Cannes award-winning performance as Rita Tushingham’s sympathetic gay friend in Tony Richardson’s adaptation of Shelagh Delaney’s “angry young woman” drama, “A Taste of Honey” (1961). A prolific theater actor–he originated the “Honey” role on the stage–Melvin has appeared in several films, including three by director Peter Medak: “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg” (1970), “The Krays” (1990) and “Let Him Have It” (1991).

The Times obituary in 2023:

Murray Melvin obituary

Actor who emerged at Theatre Workshop and broke down barriers as Jo’s gay friend in A Taste of Honey

Murray Melvin liked to claim that gay pride began on the day in 1958 when he appeared on stage with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop company in A Taste of Honey.

Melvin played the gay art student Geoffrey in Shelagh Delaney’s ground-breaking play and after a West End run, reprised the role in Tony Richardson’s 1961 film opposite Rita Tushingham, playing the single mother with a mixed-race baby whom Geoffrey befriends. His sensitive, sympathetic portrayal won him the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor.

If it would be unfair to say it was the high tide of a long and varied career in which he appeared in such films as Alfie, The Boy Friend, Barry Lyndon and the 2004 film adaptation of The Phantom Of The Opera, it was the role of which he was most proud and in which he felt he had “made a difference”.

Melvin with Michael Caine in Alfie, 1966

Although the fact that his character was gay was never specifically mentioned in the play or film adaptation, Melvin’s portrayal was unambiguous. “Homosexuality was still against the law, punishable by a prison sentence so there had to be this fine line,” explained Melvin, who was himself gay. “Looking back I think how daring I was to go out and perform that. It broke barriers.”

His memory of the first night at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, before the play transferred to the West End and to film, lived with him all his life. When he took the curtain call with Frances Cuka, who played the single mother Jo, he did not know how the audience would react.

“When we ran on there was a roar and we got hold of each other’s hands because for a moment, we thought it was anti,” he recalled. “And then we realised that they were standing and cheering.

“I always say I was the start of gay pride. I was gay pride of 1958. It’s all down to me, honey. It was on my shoulders and I’m very proud of it.”

Melvin in A Taste Of Honey in 1961

If A Taste Of Honey changed Melvin’s life, it had a similar effect on others too. Over the years he was often approached by people who told him: “When I saw that, you changed my life. You made it possible for me.”

A tall and rather soulful presence with delicate features, Melvin had arrived at Theatre Workshop with little training and although his formal title was “assistant stage director” by his own admission it meant that he made the tea and swept the floor.

When he joined, the company — which also included Barbara Windsor, Victor Spinetti and briefly Michael Caine — was struggling to survive. Several of the actors lived in the theatre and, to save money, there was no heating.

Melvin landed his first stage role in A Taste Of Honey when during a read-through of the first draft of the script he was in the kitchen as usual putting the kettle on and Littlewood joined him. She started drying up the cups and asked Melvin what he thought of “the boy” in the play. “He drives me mad!”, he told her and suggested that the character needed to stop being such a wimp.

“Pity, because I was going to ask you to play him,” she replied and put the tea cloth down and walked out. He thought he had just talked himself out of his first role, but Littlewood was impressed by his passion and gave him the part.

He went on to become a Theatre Workshop stalwart, appearing in Littlewood’s production of Oh, What a Lovely War! which transferred to the West End and Broadway.

Melvin liked working for mavericks. If Littlewood was one, another was Ken Russell, whom he first worked for on the television films, The Diary of a Nobodyand Isadora Duncan, before playing Father Mignon in Russell’s historical drama The Devils (1971), alongside Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave.

In Russell’s The Boy Friend that same year, he tap-danced his way through a spectacular solo number dressed as a French officer. He played Berlioz in Lisztomania and a French lawyer in Prisoner of Honour (1991) about the Dreyfus case. He and Russell remained close friends until the director’s death in 2011.

Stanley Kubrick was also a maverick of sorts, not least in his obsessive perfectionism. “Every shot was a Gainsborough,” Melvin recalled after appearing in his 1975 film, Barry Lyndon.

As the Rev Samuel Runt, he had a long speech opposite the Irish actress, Marie Kean. Through nerves he stumbled in the first few takes, but after take 57 he told the director he had had enough. “Do you want a break?” Kubrick asked. They took one, and when they resumed there were 20 more takes before the director was satisfied.

Murray Melvin was born in 1932 in St Pancras, London, the son of Maisie (née Driscoll) and Hugh Melvin, an RAF officer. He left school at 14 but not before he had risen to become head boy, an honour he attributed to “clean fingernails and well-combed hair” rather than any academic prowess.

He started work as an office boy with a travel agent and then became an import and export clerk in a shipping office, until he was sacked for misdirecting goods.

After the war his parents founded a youth club in Hampstead, where Murray became an enthusiastic amateur thespian until he was forced to spend two desperately unhappy years doing his National Service in the RAF. On his return to civilian life he became a clerk at the Air Ministry’s sports board, another appointment he attributed to his immaculate grooming for he had no interest in sport and even less aptitude for it.

He enrolled in drama, mime and ballet evening classes at the City Literary Institute and auditioned for Theatre Workshop during his lunch hour. Asked to create a character he knew from life, he impersonated his rotund and pompous boss at the sports board. When he announced that he had to return that afternoon to work for the character he had just mimicked, Littlewood turned to her general manager Gerry Raffles and told him, “The poor little bugger, we must get him away from there.”

His theatre work brought him to the attention of the film director Lewis Gilbert, who cast him opposite Dirk Bogarde and Alec Guinness in the naval epic HMS Defiant and as the best friend of Michael Caine’s titular character in Alfie.

Melvin later became a director himself on two operas by Peter Maxwell Davies and at the other end of the cultural spectrum he directed pantomimes by Graeme Garden.

He was seldom out of work and notable appearances into the 21st century included playing the opera composer Reyer in The Phantom Of The Opera and the villainously sinister Bilis Manger in the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood.

Yet it was his days with Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop that defined him. “It was hell working for Joan,” he recalled. “But you accepted it because you’d find out things about yourself that you never knew.”

He led the successful campaign to erect a statue of her in east London, became the official archivist of the Theatre Royal and published histories of the theatre and of Littlewood’s company.

Her Theatre Workshop, he wrote, was nothing less than “the Trojan horse that brought modern theatre into Britain

Mary Peach

Mary Peach is a South African-born British film and television actress who was born on October 20, 1934, in Durban, South Africa. She is known for her roles in films such as Cutthroat Island (1995), Scrooge (1970), and The Projected Man (1966). She has also appeared in numerous British films and television series over the years, including A Gathering of Eagles (1963) which was made in Hollywood opposite Rock Hudson and Rod Taylor and the BBC adaptation of The Three Musketeers (1966). Peach was married to film producer Thomas Clyde from 1961 until their divorce, and they had two children together. She later married screenwriter and director Jimmy Sangster in 1995, and remained married to him until his death in 2011. Peach was also considered for the role of Steed’s new assistant in The Avengers (1961) after Diana Rigg left the show

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The Times obituary in 2023:

Murray Melvin obituary

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