John McCallum was born in 1918 in Brisbane, Australia. He came to London to study at RADA. He returned to Australia at the outbreak of World War Two to serve in the military. He resumed his career on the sage and then came back to England and acted on film. He met his wife Googie Withers while making “It Always Rains on Sundays” in 1947. Other films of note include “The Root of All Evil”, ” The Women in Question”, “Trouble in the Glen” and “Port of Escape”. In 1958 he and Googie Withers settled back in Australia and he became a very successful producer for film, television and theatre. he and his wife continued to act together on stage in the UK, Australia and in New York until they they were well into their eighties. He died in 2010.
His “Guardian” obituary by Dennis Barker:
The ruggedly handsome Australian actor John McCallum, who has died aged 91, enhanced the golden era of postwar British cinema with his extrovert muscularity. He starred in films such as The Loves of Joanna Godden and It Always Rains On Sunday (both 1947), then returned to Australia with his wife and frequent co-star, Googie Withers, to become an impresario in theatre, film and television. His TV hits included the popular series Skippy (1966-68), developed with the producer Lee Robinson, which followed the escapades of a daredevil kangaroo which McCallum had first named Hoppy. More than 90 episodes were filmed, and the series became one of the best known Australian TV exports.
McCallum’s Scottish grandparents emigrated as farmers but edged their son into the role of a church organist in Brisbane. His father moved on to concert management and built the 3,000-seat Cremorne theatre in Brisbane, where he staged his own music and theatre productions. John was born in Brisbane on the opening night of a comedy produced by his father, prompting a friend’s telegram the next day, congratulating the family on “two howling successes”.
His mother, Lillian, from whom he said he inherited the dramatic side of his nature, was footloose between Australia and Britain. John was schooled in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, then returned to Australia, where he studied at Knox grammar school in Sydney and the Church of England grammar school in Brisbane. He made his stage debut, as Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII, at the Cremorne in 1934. He was back in England by the late 1930s, studying at Rada, appearing in rep and at the Stratford-on-Avon Festival theatre.
After serving with the Australian Infantry Force in the second world war, he began a dozen fruitful years in British films. He met Withers on the film The Loves of Joanna Godden. (Upon being told the name of her leading man, Withers sent a cable to the production company, demanding: “Who the hell’s John McCallum?”) His most memorable picture was It Always Rains On Sunday, in which he was cast as a murderer on the run who exploits a previous love (Withers), who is now married. Set in the East End of London, the film had a grey grimness unusual in the productions of Ealing studios. McCallum had walked the streets of the East End to get the accent right.
Withers and McCallum married in 1948 and proceeded to star together in several films, including Traveller’s Joy (1949), Derby Day (1952), Devil On Horseback (1954) and Port of Escape (1956). By 1958, a far less quick-witted man could have read the writing on the wall: the British film industry, which had given McCallum and Withers a nice house alongside a golf course at Denham, Buckinghamshire, and the stimulus of working on more than one film at a time, was being killed off by TV. After exploratory tours of Australia with his wife, McCallum moved to Melbourne to run the production arm of the JC Williamson theatre management company.
He enjoyed successes, including My Fair Lady, as well as lean periods at Williamson, then moved into independent production of films, plays and TV series, chiefly for the Australian market. He became chairman and executive producer of Fauna Films in 1967, enjoying success with Skippy, the adventure series Barrier Reef (1970) and the detective show Boney (1971-72). He kept his connection with England by occasional stage appearances, including a role opposite Ingrid Bergman in The Constant Wife at the Albery Theatre in London in 1973-74, and with Withers in The Circle at Chichester Festival Theatre and then the Haymarket in London in 1976. A memoir, Life With Googie, was published in 1979.
The only play he wrote as well as produced, As It’s Played Today (1974), a political satire, folded after only a few weeks at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne. President of the Australian Film Council in 1971-72, McCallum was appointed CBE in 1971 and made an officer of the Order of Australia in 1992.
He is survived by Withers and their children, Nicholas, Joanna and Amanda.
• John Neil McCallum, actor, born 14 March 1918; died 3 February 2010
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Shaun Dooley was born in 1974 in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. He was featured in “Coronation Street” in 1997. His films include “Shackleton” and “Salvage”. He recently featured in the series “South Riding”.
His “Wikipedia” e
Dooley was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. He studied at the Arden School of Theatre in Manchester between 1992 and 1995. Dooley’s first acting role was as Shaun in Groove on a Stanley Knife in 1997. He later played Ritchie Fitzgerald in Coronation Street from 1997 until 1998. He also appeared occasionally in EastEnders as Tom Stuart between 2001 and 2004 until he was replaced during his filming of The Street. He also had a role in P.O.W. alongside Joe Absolom. Dooley played Peter Harper in BBC drama series The Street.[1] He also featured in the 2007 television docudrama Diana: Last Days of a Princess. Dooley portrayed Kieran in the British horror film Salvage.[2] He portrayed police inspector Dick Alderman in all three parts of the Red Riding trilogy.
In 2008, Dooley played Liam in the BBC miniseries Apparitions. In 2009, Dooley played the lead in HighTide’s acclaimed production of Stovepipe at the West 12 Shopping Centre in Shepherd’s Bush. In 2010, he appeared in BBC One’s Five Days and in ITV’s Married Single Other. In September 2010, he appeared as Derek Bennett in the BBC Four drama The Road to Coronation Street, as well as in “Gently Evil”, an episode of the BBC One detective serialInspector George Gently. On 9 March 2012 Dooley appeared as Pete Garvey in an episode of hit ITV comedy Benidorm, as the brother of long term character Mick Garvey, Pete is in Benidorm with his father for his stag party. In 2011 he appeared in the BBC dramas Exile, alongside John Simm, and Great Expectations. He also starred as Malcolm McNair in the 2011 horror film, The Awakening, alongside Dominic West and Imelda Staunton. He also narrated the BBC series ‘Our War’ a documentary on the war in Afghanistan as seen by the British Army soldiers (second series 2012). Dooley narrated ‘Space Dive’, a documentary shown by the BBC on the record-breaking skydive by Felix Baumgartner in October 2012.
Dooley has also starred in films such as Eden Lake (Celador Films) and The Woman in Black (Hammer Films). In 2012, Dooley joined the cast of Misfits, playing the role of Greg, a probation worker with anger issues. Later in 2012, he appeared in Offender, portraying the role of a corrupt prison officer, Nash. In 2013, Dooley played the part of Sir Robert Brackenbury in the BBC historical drama The White Queen. In 2014, Dooley played Jim Fenchurch in The Game.
Harriet Walter was born in London in 1950. Sie is a niece of Christopher Lee. She trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She has has a steller stage career with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She starred in London’s West End with Julie Christie and Leigh Lawson in Harold Pinter’s “Old Times”. Her television work includes “The Price and currently “Law & Order UK”. Her film work includes “Reflections” in 1984, “Bright Young Things” and “The Young Victoria”. Harriet Walter was made a Dame in the Queen’s New Year’s List in 2011.
TCM Overview:
British actress Dame Harriet Walter, DBE, enjoyed an acclaimed four-decade career on the English and American stage, netting a Tony nomination in 2009 for “Mary Stuart,” while also bringing her commanding presence to numerous film and television roles, including “Sense and Sensibility” (1995), “Babel” (2006) and “Law and Order: UK” (ITV 2009- ). The London native began her theater career in the 1970s while also making sporadic appearances on UK TV. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1980, which provided her with numerous stellar showcases in classical and modern drama, while her television career blossomed in the 1980s with “A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery” (BBC/WGBH, 1987), among other shows. Walterâ¿¿s long and storied stage career led to increased film roles in the 1990s and 2000s, as well as the Tony nod in 2009 and two honors from Buckingham Palace, including her DBE in 2011. Walterâ¿¿s profile continued to rise in the 2010s with appearances on “Downton Abbey” (ITV 2010- ) and “The Assets” (ABC 2014), which underscored her status as one of Englandâ¿¿s most respected acting talents.
Born Harriet Mary Walter in London, England on September 24, 1950, she was inspired to pursue a career as an actress at the age of nine after seeing a performance by child star Hayley Mills. She attended the Cranbourne Chase School, a prestigious girlsâ¿¿ boarding school, until she was forced to leave at the age of 13 due to her parentsâ¿¿ divorce. The split left her so psychologically distraught that she required medical attention for a period, after which she poured her energy into acting. Walter initially turned down an offer to study at Oxbridge, only to be rejected by to five different drama schools before earning an acceptance from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After graduation, Walter worked regularly on the British stage scene for several companies, including the Dukeâ¿¿s Playhouse in Lancaster. Her screen career began in television dramas in the early 1970s, with her feature film debut coming in 1981 with “The French Lieutenantâ¿¿s Woman,” though her scenes were deleted prior to the pictureâ¿¿s theatrical release. In 1980, Walter began her long professional relationship with The Royal Shakespeare Company, which made her an associate artist in 1987. The following year, she won an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a trio of productions for the Company, including “Three Sisters” and “Twelfth Night.”
During this period, she also enjoyed high-profile turns on UK TV productions like “The Price” (Channel 4 1985) and as Harriet Vane, mystery novelist Dorothy L. Sayersâ¿¿ author-turned-amateur sleuth, on “A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery.” Walter continued to balance stage work with appearances in films into the 1990s and 2000s, most notably in “Sense and Sensibility” (1995) with Emma Thompson, the Oscar-nominated “Babel” (2006) and “The Young Victoria” (2009). On television, she continued to tackled demanding roles, including Lady Macbeth opposite Antony Sher in a 2001 filmed version of “Macbeth” with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and an key uncredited turn as an informant in a 2004 episode of the spy series “MI-5” (BBC 2002-2011). In 2009, she began a lengthy run as a detective on the popular “Law & Order: UK,” the same year she earned a Tony nomination as Queen Elizabeth in the acclaimed Broadway production of “Mary Stuart.” Two years later, Walter was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her long service to the arts in England. She continued to impress viewers and critics alike with turns on “Downton Abbey” (ITV/PBS 2010- ) and as Brutus in director Phyllida Lloydâ¿¿s 2013 production of “Julius Caesar,” in which the male characters were all performed by actresses. The following year, she made her American television debut in “The Assets” (ABC 2014) as famed CIA officer Jeanne Vertefeuille, who helped to uncover spy Aldrich Ames. In addition to acting, Walter authored three books on acting while also maintaining a popular public speaking career on the challenges faced by older actresses.
The above TCM Overview can also be accessed online here.
Dominic Monaghan was born in Berlish of British parents in 1976. He first came to public attention as Jeffrey the teenage private detective in “Hetty Wainthorpe” starring Patricia Routledge. This wonderful series was set in the North of England and concerned a lady pensioner and her teenage assistant who solve mysteries and petty crimes. The series ran from 1996 to 1998. He gained further prominence for his roles in “Lord of the Rings” and in the series “Flash Forward” and “Lost”.
IMDB entry:
Dominic Monaghan is best known for his role in the movie adaptations of “Lord of the Rings”. Before that he became known in England for his role in the British television drama Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (1996). He was studying English Literature, Drama and Geography at Sixth Form College when he was offered the co-starring role in the series, which ran for four seasons. His other television credits include This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper (2000) and a leading role in Monsignor Renard (2000), a series starring John Thaw.
On the stage Monaghan has performed in the world premiere UK production of The Resurrectionists, Whale and Annie and Fanny from Bolton to Rome. Since watching Star Wars when he was six years old, Dominic has been consumed by films. His other obsessions include writing, music, fashion, playing/watching soccer and surfing. Utilizing his writing skills, he and LOTR co-star Billy Boyd are collaborating on a script.
Born and raised in Berlin, Monaghan and his family moved to England when he was twelve. In addition to speaking fluent German, he has a knack at impersonations and accents. He frequently returns to his hometown of Manchester, England.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
This above entry can be accessed also online at IMDB here.
Isobel Black was born in Edinburgh in 1943. She is a heroine of Hammer Horror Films “The Kiss of the Vampire” in 1963 and eight years later “Twins of Evil”. She was alo featured in “10 Rillington Place”. Her father is the famous scriptwriter Ian Stuart Black.
From the British Film Forum:In a interview with Little Shoppe of Horrors in 1990 about the making of Kiss of the Vampire she recalled her time at Hammer’s Bray Studios with affection and how much of a family atmosphere existed. She also mentioned that the mechanical bats used during the climax of the film really hurt because the wires from which they were operated cut through the actors’ clothes. Some of the screams heard were actually quite real, she remembered.
Isobel Black’s family were firmly established within the entertainment business. She had started acting when she was 15, appearing in episodes of The Invisible Man and Sir Francis Drake, both creations of Sir Lew Grade’s television production company ITC.
Her Father was also script editor on both series. Whilst taking her A levels she had appeared as Miranda in Shakespeare’s The Tempest at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. Undoubtedly the family influence was at work here as the producer, Robert Atkins, was also a friend of the family. Isobel clearly made the most of the opportunity and gained valuable experience. Over the next ten years, although becoming a familiar face on British Television, she was not yet notably prominent. However, guesting three times on David Jacob’s BBC programme Juke Box Jury, soon established her as a pretty and recognisable TV personality.
During this busy period she also made guest appearances in the Likely Lads, episodes of Danger Man, Adam Adamant and The Avengers. In 1962 it was a regular role in the ITV hospital drama Emergency Ward 10 as Lucy Marsden that brought her to Hammer’s attention. In 1967 she landed the part for which she is perhaps most well known, that of Eileen O’Rourke, the efficient Public Relations Officer in the fourth series of the BBC’s The Troubleshooters, chronicling the fictional, personal and business conflicts of the high powered International Oil Company MOGUL. A contemporary interview of the time highlighted her success and the desire she had to extend the small amount of work she’d done in feature films: “I loved getting up at 5-30 and driving to Pinewood. And it’s a pleasure to keep a character in your mind for three months”.
This is a referral to her appearance in Morecambe and Wises’s third and rather fated last film, The Magnificent Two, where Isobel played the South American peasant revolutionary, Juanita, in what the illustrious “Films and Filming” magazine at the time described as one of the most violent and unfunny films of 1967. Clearly this didn’t trouble Isobel, as she self evidently has a wonderful time. Early on in her career she was worried about whether people would put down any success she achieved to her parents’ influence within the business. And although her parents offered constructive criticism, they were not actively encouraging, insisting that she had to make it on her own. It turned out that she had some natural ability and without any formal drama training entered the Manchester repertory company after having only one audition. Six months later she’d moved to London, had got herself an agent, bought a car, and was living in a house boat on the Thames. Acting had become her occupation, and she was earning her keep. Interestingly and assuredly she commented later: “If you are competent, adaptable and enjoy your work, it seems to come. I’ve been lucky and always optimistic. I just know things in life work out”.
Whilst making The Troubleshooters she had met director/producer James Gatward. The couple were married in September 1969 in Sussex where at the time, Isobel’s family home was situated. It appears that there were feelings of mutual respect and admiration between Father and son-in law. According to Ian Stuart Black it had always been likely that his daughter would marry one of many suitors from within the profession. More TV personality work came in 1970, twice appearing in the BBC’s Call my Bluff, the obscure words game show, hosted by Robert Robinson.
There were also two more film appearances. Firstly in Richard Fleischer’s 10 Rillington Place, the story of notorious mass murderer Reginald John Christie which starred Richard Attenborough, John Hurt and Judy Geeson. Isobel played Alice,the best friend of Judy Geeson’s character Muriel Evans, one of Christie’s victims. Although not a small part, she was not called on for anything too dramatic, and appeared to stand aside of the main leads, acting mainly as a catalyst to the arguments between John Hurt’s and Judy Geeson’s central roles as the fatal couple.
In Twins of Evil, her second Hammer Film, a sexually exploitative and enjoyable tale combining witch hunting and vampirism, she was the rather ineffectual Ingrid Hoffer, a village school mistress and sister to the film’s apparent hero David Warbeck. This was a weak part, where she did little but support the narrative. Her sudden and very dramatic exit as a blood drained corpse bundled in by Peter Cushing’s Gustav Weil during a school music lesson is the most shocking scene in the whole film.
Television work continued throughout 1970, guest starring in two episodes of ITC’s Department S and three parts of the cult children’s TV series Ace of Wands. In another children’s programme, Redgauntlet, based on the novel by Sir Walter Scott and scripted by her Father, Isobel played the mysterious Greenmantle.
Featured on the cover of the TV Times magazine her picture advertised the programme as raising the ghost of Bonnie Prince Charlie. She also wrote the short feature article for the magazine.
Later in the year, the popular Mystery and Imagination franchise, now running to its 4th series had been overhauled by Thames television. One episode, based on Bram Stoker’s “Jewel of the Seven Stars”, was entitled “The Curse of the Mummy” and featured Isobel in a dual role as a re-carnation of an ancient Egyptian Princess. Co-incidentally Hammer were also producing their own version of the same story. Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb was directed by Seth Holt (who died during the production) and starred Valerie Leon.
There is no question about which rendition was superior. Isobel’s greatest difficulty it appears was dealing with the gold paint applied to her face, as she commented in a contemporary article, she had always had a dry and sensitive skin. The other problem was trying unsuccessfully to avoid the microphone boom which routinely appeared within the camera frame. There is also a suggestion that she was hopelessly mis-cast.
During the 70s she took a break from acting to start a family. She also took the opportunity to travel extensively with her Husband and Father, as they set up a number of television productions, picking up investment as they moved from one country to another, India, Australia and America among them. Occasionally Isobel would turn up as one of the cast members. By this time she had also given birth to three daughters, all of whom had travelled around the world with her before (as she put it) they’d even been on a London bus. She remained closely associated with her husband’s productions on returning to acting in the 1980’s. One of these was TVS’s The Brief, a 13 part court room drama series of political intrigue and romance. By all accounts it was a fairly forgettable TV experience. In 1984 she acted as co-narrator on a series of documentaries made for Scottish Television by Channel 4, called Scotland’s Story, based on Tom Steel’s acclaimed book of the same name.
As her career began to wind down, she played Aunt Jane in Television South’s successful adaptation of Enid Blyton’s Castle of Adventure in 1990. She stopped acting later in the year, when she co-starred in a failed sit-com for the BBC called Tygo Road.It lasted only 6 episodes.
Finally after a long gap in 2004 she contributed to a BBC radio 4 broadcast about the RNLI in Scotland. She is now most likely to be enjoying retirement and family life, living in the quiet rural setting of the Hampshire Countryside.
Tony Scannell was born in 1945 in Kinsale, Co. Cork. His father was a reknowned Irish professional football player. Tony Scannell is best known for his performance as DS Roachin the long running “The Bill”. He made his TV debut in “Little Lord Fauntleroy” in 19776. His film credits onclude “Flash Gordon”, “At the Fun of the Fair” and “Point of View”.
The actor Tony Scannell, who has died aged 74, will be best remembered as the fiery maverick DS Ted Roach in the long-running television series The Bill, debuting in its second episode in 1984. During his stint the programme metamorphosed from a one-hour post-watershed series to a twice- then thrice-weekly year-round fixture of ITV’s primetime schedule, regularly pulling in more than 15 million viewers.
The Bill was a deliberately unglamorous depiction of British policing, portraying its officers as ordinary, flawed individuals. Roach was a hard-nut cop of the old school – a dogged investigator unafraid to bend the rules. Scannell’s performance was extremely watchable, making the detective a dyspeptic, spiky but likable tough guy, delivering his dialogue with a splenetic energy and jabbing finger, his sharp copper’s instinct often battling the effects of the previous night’s whisky intake.Advertisement
Roach’s testy relationship with the top brass matched Scannell’s own with the programme’s producers, and he left in 1993. His final episode provided an apposite departure involving fisticuffs, a clandestine romantic assignation, drinking on duty, and the culmination of his long-running feud with the by-the-book Inspector Monroe (Colin Tarrant). Ordered to apologise for thumping his nemesis, Ted refused and quit, storming out with a snarled lament about the changing face of the force.
Scannell’s authentic, committed turn made Roach a popular character and he reprised the role for two episodes in 2000 before being killed off in 2004, setting in motion a storyline for three ex-colleagues.
Born in Kinsale, County Cork, Tony was the eldest of the five children of Tommy Scannell, a professional footballer who was once capped for Ireland, and his wife, Peggy (nee O’Donovan). When Tony was five his father signed as a goalkeeper for Southend United, and the family moved to England as a result. However, Tony stayed behind in Cork to live with his grandmother so that he could be educated at the local Presentation Brothers college. After school he served briefly as an apprentice toolmaker before moving to England at the age of 15 to rejoin his family, who were by then living in Folkestone in Kent.
There he worked variously as a TV salesman, a singing bingo caller and a deckchair attendant before a five-year stint with the Royal Air Force, serving as a reconnaissance photographer in Cyprus. He became a radio disc jockey for the British Forces Broadcasting Service there, and helped out backstage at the camp’s theatre group in order to avoid guard duty. When he left the forces that experience, along with the encouragement of future Bill co-star Larry Dann, secured Scannell employment as an assistant stage manager at the Cambridge Arts theatre in 1968.
He trained at the East 15 Acting School in Loughton, Essex, and immediately upon graduating played Elyot in Jack Watling’s showcase production of Private Lives (Frinton, 1974). He then joined Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, appearing at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, in, among other productions, Dracula (1974) and Bloody Mary (1975). He toured in Happy as a Sandbag (as Max Miller and Winston Churchill, 1977) and Hull Truck’s The New Garbo (1978), and performed in Four Weeks in the City for the National Theatre (Cottesloe, 1978).
He made his TV debut in 1976 and played small roles in Enemy at the Door (1978), The Professionals (1979) and the film Flash Gordon (1980) before getting better parts in Armchair Thriller (The Circe Complex, 1980), Strangers (1981) and The Gentle Touch (1981). When the call came to audition for The Bill he was working as a salvage diver.
In later years he was a regular in the Channel 5 soap opera Family Affairs (as the conman Eddie Harris, 1997-99), made a good account of himself as Tony Booth – opposite Sue Johnston’s Pat Phoenix – in the TV movie The Things You Do for Love: Against the Odds (1998), displayed knowing comic timing in Charlie Brooker’s Unnovations (2001), guested in Waking the Dead (2007) and starred in the film The Haunting of Harry Payne (also known as Evil Never Dies, 2014). He made his West End debut in Wait Until Dark (Garrick theatre, 2003) and became a regular in pantomime (Abanazer a speciality).
No stranger to tabloid intrusion, and despite being declared bankrupt in 2002, he had few regrets – he said he enjoyed the celebrity life to the full even if he had not always known how to handle it. He met the actor Agnes Lillis during a 1993 production of An Evening with Gary Lineker at the Jersey Opera House – she introduced him to Buddhism and he became a member of the Buddhist movement SGI-UK. This, and settling with Agnes to enjoy a quiet family life in Suffolk in 1995, gave him a contentment that had eluded him in his hedonistic days. They formed a theatre company – Eastbound – which performed short tours of local theatres and taught adult acting evening classes at the Seagull theatre in Lowestoft.
He is survived by Agnes and their children, Tom and Sophie, and by a daughter, Julya, from a relationship with Penny Ansell, and a son, Sean, from his 1971 marriage to Melanie Self, which ended in divorce.
• Thomas Anthony Scannell, actor, born 14 August 1945; died 26 May 2020
June Laverick was born in 1931, Redcar, North Yorkshire and is a retired English film, television and stage actress. She was once described as “a popular lightweight leading actress of the day” and is probably best remembered as the fictional wife of Dickie Henderson in The Dickie Henderson Show.
Before June was born her parents ran a public house in Bishop Auckland but then returned to Redcar to run The Royal Hotel on the sea front near Redcar Pier. In 1931, Laverick was born in Laburnum Road, Redcar.[4] In her youth June attended White House school and ballet school. She determined at an early age that she wanted a career in light entertainment.
She followed an acting career in theatre, film and television and after retiring from acting in her 30s June moved back to Redcar.
In the 1950s June worked in the theatre in musicals, comedies and revues, and had a variety of film roles contracted to the Rank Organisation. She was a member of The Company of Youth, the Rank Organisation’s acting school often referred to as “The Charm School” and was often photographed for the front covers of cinema magazines and for publicity shots.
After the Dickie Henderson Show June retired from acting to be replaced by Isla Blair in the next series A Present for Dickie (1969–1970). In 1970 June came back to appear in the last episode.
Laurence Oliver was born in 1907 in Dorking, Surrey. He acted with the Old Vic and made his film debut in 1930 with “Too Many Crooks”. In 1931 he spent a brief time in Hollywood where he made “Westward Passage” among others. By 1933 he was back pursuing his career in Britain. He venture back to Hollywood in 1938 to make “Wuthering Heights”, “Rebecca”, “Lady Hamilton and “Pride and Prejudice”. During World War Two he returned to Britain to enlist. His career soared to new heights with his “Hamlet” and he had a very prolific career on stage and screen both in Britain and the U.S. until shortly before his death in 1989.
TCM Overview:
He was by wide consensus the greatest actor of the 20th century. In an age when the “legitimate” theater held firm to primacy over motion pictures, and classical theater over modern, Laurence Olivier crossed seamlessly between both, even bridging the gap between popular culture and the Shakespearean and classic drama canon of which he was master. His official, glamorized coupling with multiple Oscar-winner Vivien Leigh – “the King and Queen of the theater,” as contemporary Sir John Gielgud once dubbed them – proved far darker than the fairy tale advertised to the public, even as countless rumors swirled around his eclectic extracurricular relationships. His legacy as the definitive Heathcliff and Hamlet, his acclaim even a generation later as the vengeful cuckold in “Sleuth” (1972) and a ruthless Nazi doctor in “Marathon Man” (1976), would see him earn 14 Oscar nominations, three statues, five Emmys out of nine nominations, two British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards out of 10 nominations – only a few indicators of his titanic impact on his craft and indeed on Western culture.
He was born Laurence Kerr Olivier on May 22, 1907 in Dorking, Surrey, England, the third child of Agnes and Rev. Gerard Olivier – she a warm and doting woman, he an austere and stolid High Anglican minister. Gerard soon moved the family to the bleaker urban scape of London to minister its Dickensian slums, though his considerable inheritance afforded “Larry” a series of parochial schools, including All Saints Church’s “choir school,” which began refining his penchant for the arts, and saw him play Brutus in “Julius Caesar” at age 10. He would be devastated two years later when his mother died of a brain tumor. In 1922, the school company staged its version of “The Taming of the Shrew” at a Stratford-on-Avon Shakespeare birthday festival, with Olivier drawing mainstream raves for his shrewish Katharina (in true Shakespearean drag). He next attended St. Edward’s in Oxford, continued to display thespian talent and, upon graduation, his father advised he pursue a theatrical career.
2654222 Poster for \’The Beggar’s Opera\’ film, starring Laurence Olivier as MacHeath the Highwayman, 1953 (colour litho) by British School, (20th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: Laurence Olivier (22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989), English actor of stage and screen.); Peter Newark Pictures; British, it is possible that some works by this artist may be protected by third party rights in some territories.
At 17, he won a scholarship to the Central School of Speech and Drama, but soon began a two-year stint with the Birmingham Repertory Company. There, he met fellow thespians Peggy Ashcroft, Ralph Richardson and Jill Esmond, with whom he became enamored. They would all graduate to London’s West End theater district. Soon Olivier became a hot commodity, as evidenced by his lead in a garish, overambitious stage production of the French Foreign Legion adventure “Beau Geste.” In 1929, he crossed the Atlantic to make his Broadway debut in “Murder on the Second Floor,” reuniting with Esmond, who, upon his arrival, immediately agreed to his marriage proposal. They would marry in 1930. Also that year, Olivier scored a role in a new play, “Private Lives,” by playwright Noel Coward, who, by various accounts, either successfully or unsuccessfully proffered a sexual dalliance with Olivier, at any rate inaugurating a lifelong friendship. Esmond joined the play’s cast for an early 1931 Broadway run, which caught the attention of American film studios.
They lured the couple to Los Angeles, but Olivier’s three initial movies for RKO – he liked only “Westward Passage” (1932) – did little to set the box office afire. The couple returned to the U.K., where they made their only movie together, “No Funny Business” (1933). MGM would lure him back to Los Angeles, with a one-off project opposite Greta Garbo, but the studio’s grand dame intimidated and took an instant dislike to the newcomer so MGM fired him. Humiliated, Olivier returned to London and the stage with a string of hits, becoming a producer for the first time with the play “Golden Arrow,” co-starring his young Irish discovery Greer Garson, and in a 1935 staging of “Romeo and Juliet” with Gielgud that would run an unheard-of six months. Olivier and Gielgud would take on the unique task of alternating on the Romeo and Mercutio parts. Olivier wowed critics, eschewing the formal, lyrical approach to the Bard by playing Romeo with naturalistic, hormonal verve, which may have spilled over to a physical relationship with his Juliet, Peggy Ashcroft. But at this same time, he became a singular attraction to a young actress who had made it to the West End herself under the name Vivien Leigh.
Leigh, already married and a mother, famously pronounced she would one day marry Olivier, and Olivier himself later claimed that after seeing her breakthrough play “Mask of Virtue,” he experienced “an attraction of the most perturbing nature I have ever encountered.” They starred together in film producer Alexander Korda’s “Fire Over England” (1936), with Olivier playing an agent of Queen Elizabeth on a mission to Spain and Leigh portraying one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting and his lover, which, as their fervent on-screen embraces betrayed, they had become in real life. Leigh aspired to Olivier’s mastery of classic theater. As the relationship intensified, she eventually picked up his famous fluency in unfettered blue language. Olivier’s persistent religious guilt complicated things, as did Esmond’s recent pregnancy, soon to bear a son, Tarquin – though she remained publicly amicable with both of them. In 1937, Olivier joined the venerable Old Vic theater as a featured star, beginning the year in its production of “Hamlet,” even as he managed to arrange the first tandem projects for himself and his lover: a staging of “Hamlet at Denmark’s Elsinore Castle in the summer, and a film, “Twenty-One Days” (1940), with the two playing lovers on the lam after he accidentally kills her estranged husband. Neither liked the latter, shelving it for three years, but at the end of the production, as news spread of Hollywood’s adaptation of the blockbuster novel Gone With the Wind, she famously prophesied she would play its protagonist, Scarlett O’Hara. Leigh and Olivier soon fessed up to and separated from their respective partners and, after his rare comedic turn with Merle Oberon and Ralph Richardson in “The Divorce of Lady X” (1938), he and Leigh headed to Hollywood – she to fulfill her prophecy and he to finally break through the film barrier as a romantic heartthrob.
It would be Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights” (1939), adapted for film by indie producer Samuel Goldwyn and director William Wyler, that made Olivier a household name across the Atlantic. He played Heathcliff, one-time stable boy spurned for his low breeding by his first love, Cathy (Merle Oberon), who returns years later as a successful, brooding man with his heart hard and set on revenge against his lost love and anyone who had mistreated him in the past. He would credit director William Wyler with teaching him the toned-down nuances of screen versus stage acting, turning in his first Oscar-nominated performance. At the same time, Leigh won Best Actress as Scarlett O’Hara for her work in “Gone with the Wind.” In 1940, their respective spouses agreed to divorce and to the delight of fans, Leigh and Olivier wed. Olivier would rack up two more hits: “Pride and Prejudice,” reuniting him with protégée Greer Garson in the film adaptation of Jane Austen’s witty Victorian parlor romance; and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rebecca,” which had him as a sullen aristocrat with a new wife (Joan Fontaine) driven to dredge up the mysterious fate of his first spouse while confined to his gothic mansion. Olivier’s disquieted, simmering performance drew yet another Oscar nomination.
Olivier and Leigh returned to Britain to do another tandem picture for Korda, “That Hamilton Woman” (1941), which cast her as an unhappily married socialite and him as the British naval hero Horatio Nelson, which chronicled their illicit romance which became the great scandal of its time. Commissioned by the British government, he next mounted his most ambitious production, a Technicolor version of Shakespeare’s “Henry V” (1944). He produced, directed and starred in the critically acclaimed film, and his delivery of the famed St. Crispin’s Day speech became a rallying cry for the country’s ongoing war effort. The film’s 1946 U.S. release would earn him Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Picture, and though he won neither, his top-to-bottom helming of the project would earn him an honorary Academy Award in 1947. Also that year, King George VI knighted Olivier, making the couple “Sir Laurence and Lady Olivier.”
Despite the fairy tale mystique surrounding the legendary couple, all was not well in their household. Leigh increasingly suffered violent tantrums that she would not remember afterward, and to make matters worse, during production of “Caesar and Cleopatra” (1945) she suffered a miscarriage. Tuberculosis compounded her physical and mental health issues; she grew distant and jealous of Olivier’s successes and paranoid about his affairs, both imagined and real, at one point telling him matter-of-factly she was no longer in love with him. Seeking respite, Olivier strayed with any number of rumored partners even as he enabled her own long-term affair with actor Peter Finch, whom he hired for the Old Vic company after its 1948 tour of Australia. That year, he made history with his big-budget Shakespearean film adaptation of “Hamlet” (1948), in which he became the first director to direct himself to a Best Actor Oscar.
The Oliviers continued their stage collaborations; notably he directed her in the 1949 West End production of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire.” He settled into a kind of caregiver role for his manic-depressive, bipolar wife, arranging a project of his own, the Wyler-helmed illicit-love tragedy “Carrie” (1952), to travel with her while she made “Streetcar” (1952) in Hollywood. Her co-star Marlon Brando later wrote he eschewed a tryst with Leigh out of respect for Olivier, but oddly, David Niven claimed in his autobiography that he witnessed Brando kissing Olivierat the couple’s mansion. (Though long a subject of rumor and controversy, Olivier’s third wife, Joan Plowright, would acknowledge his libertinism and bisexuality in a 2006 radio interview). Leigh was back with Finch in Ceylon in 1953 for the film “Elephant Walk” (1952) when she suffered a full-blown break, causing her to be hospitalized and be given a lifelong regimen of electroshock therapy, which would render her even more alien to Olivier.
He earned another Oscar nomination for his villainous “Richard III” (1955), and followed it up with a Marilyn Monroe mismatched-pair fantasy, “The Prince and the Showgirl” (1957), which he also directed. Meanwhile, he had commissioned West End enfant terrible John Osborne to write him a drama that could contemporize his own image. Osborne produced “The Entertainer,” which had Olivier as an unpleasant, archaic song-and-dance man still working Britain’s crumbling dance-halls, metaphorical of an Imperial society in decay. He began a relationship with his onstage daughter, Joan Plowright. She would star with him in the 1960 film adaptation, which would earn Olivier yet another Best Actor Oscar nomination. He and Leigh would divorce that year, leading to Olivier and Plowright marrying in 1961. With the dissolution of the Old Vic company in 1962, he would soon oversee another regeneration called the National Theatre Company, with Olivier serving as its first director. Under his tenure, it would nurture a new generation of talent, including Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi, Alan Bates and Anthony Hopkins. The National’s production of “Othello” would become the 1965 film, for which Olivier and his three co-stars would all win Oscar nominations.
Olivier continued to be selective with film in the 1960s. His leading roles became less frequent but affecting, as with “Term of Trial” (1962), in which he gave a heartbreaking performance as a high school teacher whose life is turned upside down when a spurned student accuses him of seducing her; and his understatedly cool detective in “Bunny Lake is Missing” (1965). Olivier had also begun taking film-stealing supporting roles, in which he often played villains. He played Johnny Burgoyne, the dashing nemesis of the colonials Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster in George Bernard Shaw’s Revolutionary War drama “The Devil’s Disciple,” (1959); thwarted Douglas again as the scheming, draconian general Crassus in Stanley Kubrick’s epic “Spartacus” (1960); an Islamic would-be messiah in “Khartoum” (1966); a Soviet premier in “Shoes of the Fisherman” (1968); and, later, as the nefarious Dr. Moriarty in the revisionist Sherlock Holmes adventure “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution” (1976).
The late 1960s would begin a series of health crises for Olivier, starting with treatment of prostate cancer, but he would nevertheless be prolific in bringing the stage to mass media in the 1970s. He oversaw the translation of the National’s productions of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” (co-starring Plowright) into a theatrical film and Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” (1973) into a TV-movie for broadcast on ITV in the U.K. and ABC in the U.S, earning him an Emmy. However, he relinquished helm of the theater soon thereafter amid some contention with its board, just a few years before the company moved into the new Olivier Theater. In 1974, he barely survived the onset of the muscle disease dermatopolymyositis, but returned the next year with the TV-movie “Love Among the Ruins” (ABC, 1975), playing a barrister charged with defending a woman he fell in love with years ago, both now in their twilight years. Both he and Katherine Hepburn won Best Actor Emmys for a “special” broadcast. He would also bring Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and William Inge’s “Come Back, Little Sheba” to NBC in 1976 and 1977, respectively.
Laurence Oliver
His selective, age-adjusted cinematic outings brought continued accolades, notably three more Oscar nominations for his manipulative cuckolded husband in the cat-and-mouse thriller “Sleuth;” ice-blooded Nazi dentist, famously torturing Dustin Hoffman via check-up in “Marathon Man” (1976); and as a dry, unflappable Nazi hunter in “The Boys from Brazil” (1978). He received a second honorary Oscar the following year for his body of work. He also stood out as an old pickpocket shepherding the two smitten adolescents in Venice in “A Little Romance” (1979) and as the vampire hunter Van Helsing in the 1979 remake of “Dracula.” His work as Neil Diamond’s orthodox Jewish father in the remake of “The Jazz Singer” (1980), however, was viewed as overwrought and mawkish. He won another BAFTA Best Actor nomination for “A Voyage Round My Father” (1983) opposite Alan Bates, and won yet another Emmy that year for his turn as “King Lear” (ABC). Worried about his estate, he peppered his later years’ work with glorified cameos – some in projects he knew to be awful, as with “Inchon” (1981) and “Clash of the Titans” (1981), but others in higher-quality fare like “The Bounty” (1985). In 1984, the top awards for British theatrical awards were renamed the Laurence Olivier Awards. His infirmities became evident during the March 1985 Academy Awards telecast, when he capped the evening presenting the Best Picture Oscar, but inadvertently sidestepped the tradition of running down the nominees first and simply stated the winner, “Amadeus.” He appeared in the “Entertainer”-reminiscent Granada TV series “Lost Empires” (PBS, 1987) about the decline of U.K. vaudeville, for which he earned his last Emmy nomination, then made a final cameo as an old soldier in Derek Jarman’s stylistic “War Requiem” (1989). He died on July 11, 1989, at his home in Steyning, West Sussex. His burial at Westminster would rival British state funerals, televised nationally throughout the U.K.
