James Laurenson was born in Marton, New Zealand in 1940. He came to Britain in his early twenties. “Women in Love” in 1969 was his first film. Among his other films are “The Magic Christian”, “Assault”, “Pink Floyd: The Wall” .
TCM Overview:
James Laurenson was a prolific actor who created a name for himself largely on the big screen. Laurenson’s acting career began mostly with his roles in various films, such as the Alan Bates dramatic adaptation “Women in Love” (1969), the crime picture “Assault” (1971) with Suzy Kendall and “Pink Floyd The Wall” (1982) with Bob Geldof. He also appeared in “Heartbreakers” (1984). He also was featured in the miniseries “Turn of the Screw” (1973-74). His film career continued throughout the eighties and the nineties in productions like “The Man Inside” (1990) and the thriller “A House in the Hills” (1993) with Michael Madsen. He also landed a role in the miniseries “The Bourne Identity” (1987-88). He also appeared in the TV special “Project: Tin Man” (ABC, 1989-1990). Recently, he tackled roles in the thriller “Three Blind Mice” (2003) with Edward Furlong, the Kevin McKidd drama “AfterLife” (2004) and the Anne Hathaway dramatic adaptation “One Day” (2011). He also appeared in the Sam Claflin drama “The Riot Club” (2015). He also had a part in the TV miniseries “The Hollow Crown” (2012-). Most recently, Laurenson acted on “The Widower” (PBS, 2015-).
The above TCM Overview can also be accessed online here.
Finlay Currie was a terrific Scottish character actor in British and U.S. films from the thirties right through to the sixties. He was born in Edinburh in 1878. He and his Maude Courtney had a vaudeville act and they toured the U.S. with their revue in the 1890’s. His first film was “The Old Man” in 1932. His film career highlights include “The Edge of the World” in 1937, “49th Parallel”, “Thunder Rock” and “I Know Where I’m Going”. He gave a wonderful performance in David Lean’s verision of “Great Expectations” as Magwitch in 1946. He went to Hollywood in the early 1950’s and made such films as “People Will Talk” with Cary Grant and Jeanne Crain, “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “Treasure of the Golden Condor”. Back in Britain in his eighties he was featured in “Billy Liarin 1963 “, “The Battle of the Villa Fiorita” and “Bunny Lake is Missing”. He died in 1968 at the age of 90.
IMDB Entry:
Scottish-born Finlay Currie was a former church organist and choirmaster who made his stage debut at 20 years of age. It took him 34 more years before making his first film, but he worked steadily for another 30 years after that. Although he was a large, imposing figure, with a rich, deep voice and somewhat authoritarian demeanor, he was seldom cast in villainous parts. He received great acclaim for his role as Magwitch inGreat Expectations (1946), and one of his best remembered roles was as Shunderson,Cary Grant‘s devoted servant with a secret past, in People Will Talk (1951). Later in life he became a much respected antiques dealer, specializing in coins and precious metals. He died in England at age 90.
Max Bygraves was born in London in 1922. His father was a professional boxer. He became a singer and entertainer and in the early 50’s he began having Top Ten hits in Britain. He made films such as “Charlie Moon” , “A Cry from the Streets”, “Bobbikins” and “Spare the Rod”. When he retired he lived with his family in Australia. He died in August 2012.
His “Guardian” obituary by Dennis Barker:
Max Bygraves, who has died aged 89 after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, was an all-round entertainer: a mischievously smiling raconteur, a full-throated and sentimental singer, a television host and a reluctant gameshow compere (his two years with Family Fortunes in the mid-1980s convinced him it was not his medium).
He always kept the persona of a cheerful cockney stevedore, smart-alecky but good-natured, with a reassuringly imposing presence and the sort of innocent bawdiness that would not upset anyone. The persona was entirely suited to the voice suggesting syrup-soaked gravel, the expansive arm gestures and the chummily unemphatic manner that absolved jokes that in another mouth might have been offensive.
He was born Walter William Bygraves into a large family in Rotherhithe, south-east London, to Henry Bygraves, a prizefighter who became a docker, and his wife, Lilian. The family lived in a two-room flat and money could be scarce. “The hand-me-downs were never handed down because we wore them till they were threadbare,” Bygraves wrote in a memoir. Henry tended to fend off his young son’s questions about life and sex with jokes. When, in early adolescence, the boy asked him why hair was beginning to grow on his body, his father told him it was God’s punishment for his misdeeds: “You’re turning into a coconut.”
As he grew to his full commanding height, a dignified and humorous self-confidence became Bygraves’s hallmark. He attended St Joseph’s school, Rotherhithe, and sang with his school choir at Westminster Cathedral. When his father dressed him up in an old army cap, gave him a broom for a rifle and got him to sing a popular song in front of an audience of dockers, the collection for him was large enough to encourage the thought of a career in show business.
However, after leaving school at the age of 14, he went into an advertising agency, WS Crawford, as a messenger boy, ferrying copy to newspapers and popping into the Holborn Empire to see variety acts whenever he could afford it. When the advertising industry slumped at the beginning of the second world war, he got a job as a carpenter’s apprentice and built air-raid shelters. After being blown off a roof he was repairing during an air raid, he decided to volunteer for the RAF in 1940 and served as an airframe fitter for five years and. He met a sergeant in the WAAF, Blossom Murray, and they married in 1942. Together, they had three children, Christine, Anthony and Maxine.
Stationed near Kew, Bygraves started entertaining the troops and performed in pubs, doing impressions of Frank Sinatra, the Inkspots and Max Miller (earning him the nickname Max, which he kept). By the time the war ended, he had resolved to turn professional. At the Grand theatre, Clapham, he was spotted by the agent Gordon Norval, who got him six weeks’ work.
Further engagements followed but the going was tough. Despite their love of Britain, he and Blossom had just decided to emigrate to Australia when a letter arrived from the BBC asking him to repeat the audition act he had recently given. This earned him an appearance in the radio series They’re Out, which featured other demobbed entertainers such asSpike Milligan, Jimmy Edwards, Frankie Howerd, Harry Secombe and Benny Hill. In 1946 he did a touring revue, For the Fun of It, with Howerd. He then made his first films, Bless ’em All and Skimpy in the Navy (both 1949), and had another radio hit in the 1950s, performing in the comedyEducating Archie, written by Eric Sykes. He made a handful of films in that decade, taking the title role in Charley Moon (1956), in which he performed his single Out of Town, and appearing in Lewis Gilbert’s social drama A Cry from the Streets (1958).
Meanwhile, the London Palladium had become something like his professional home. He made his debut there in 1950, after he was seen at the Finsbury Park Empire by the leading impresario Val Parnell and was asked to stand in for the comedian Ted Ray at the Palladium. He appeared in 14 shows there over a period of 10 years and eventually starred in 19 Royal Variety Performances. After the first of these, in 1950, Judy Garland asked him to appear with her at the Palace theatre in New York where, wrongly, he did not expect his cockney humour to register.
Bygraves was naturally laidback and worked on perfecting the art of unforced pace on stage. After a confusion of props had hindered one of his shows, he took a single chair, with its back to the audience, and sat facing the crowd in a relaxed manner. His gags went over better than ever; from then on, his delivery was always apparently casual. He regarded his catchphrases as better value than a press agent, and lines such as “A good idea, son” and “I wanna tell you a story” became national property.
Like many variety big earners, Bygraves was sometimes taken for a ride but he also made some shrewd business decisions. His company Lakeview Music bought the rights to Lionel Bart’s musical Oliver! for £350 and Bygraves made a fortune when he sold them on for £250,000. In 1960, he released his version of one of the musical’s numbers, Consider Yourself. In the 50s, he had reached the Top 5 with the singles Meet Me on the Corner, You Need Hands/Tulips from Amsterdam and Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be. Often nostalgic or comedic in tone (such as You’re a Pink Toothbrush), Bygraves’s recordings were also released in a series of crowd-pleasing “singalong” albums. He picked up 31 gold discs in total and was appointed OBE in 1983.
Leslie A MacDonnell presents Max Bygraves in a new happy go lucky revue Meet Me on the Corner with Tony Fayne, Sid Millward, Wally Stewart and The Nitwits, Janet Richmond, Vera Cody’s Goldie, Neil & Pat Delrina, ‘Meet Me on the Corner’ Boys & Girls and Bob & Marion Knoyot. Produced by Stanley Willis-Croft. Gala Performance Monday April 11th at 8:15pm subsequently twice nightly 6:15 & 8:30pm for 3 weeks. Closed Good Friday.
Bygraves published a novel, The Milkman’s on His Way, in 1977. His autobiography, I Wanna Tell You a Story, appeared the previous year, and further memoirs followed, including After Thoughts (1989), Max Bygraves: In His Own Words (1997) and Stars in My Eyes: A Life in Show Business (2002). In his later years he settled into a routine of overseas shows, especially in South Africa, which he had often visited before the end of apartheid, protesting that an entertainer should not concern himself with politics. Personally, he was generous to family, friends and old associates and worked for theatre charities. He relocated to Australia from Poole, Dorset, several years ago.
Blossom died in 2011. Bygraves is survived by his children and several grandchildren.
• Max (Walter William) Bygraves, entertainer, born 16 October 1922; died 31 August 2012
His “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here
A blonde actress with fine-boned, patrician features and a cool stately presence, Patricia Hodge remains best known outside the British Isles as the straying wife of book editor Ben Kingsley whose dalliance with literary agent Jeremy Irons is told in reverse order in the film version of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” (1983). Discerning television viewers will recall the stage-trained performer in several memorable productions, many shown in the USA on either PBS or A&E. She portrayed aristocrats in both “Edward and Mrs. Simpson” (1978) and “The Death of the Heart” (1987). Hodge may be best known to mystery buffs for her characterization of barrister Philida Erskine-Brown on the PBS courtroom series, “Rumpole of the Bailey” and as independent TV newscaster/detective Jemima Shore in the TV adaptations of Antonia Fraser’s popular novels. In 1987, she delivered a riveting performance as a glamorous novelist in the excellent BBC TV presentation of Fay Weldon’s “The Life and Loves of a She Devil” and five years later triumphed in another Weldon adaptation, “The Cloning of Joanna May.” More recently, Hodge has been concentrating her energies on the stage, returning to her roots in musical theater with an acclaimed turn a
John Hannah was born in East Kilbride, Scotland in 1962. He studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. In 1994 he was noticed by the public in “Four Weddings and a Funeral”. He starred in “The Mummy” and it’s sequel. On television he has starred in police dramas such as “McCallum”, “Rebus” and “New Street Law”.
Jeremy Kemp was born in 1935 in Chesterfield in Derbyshire. He studied in London at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He first came to the attention of the public in the popular TV series “Z Cars” in Britain. He made his film debut in 1965 in “Dr Terror’s House of Horrors”. The following year he had a major role with George Peppard and James Mason in “The Blue Max”. He also starred in “Operation Crossbow”. His other films include “The Strange Affair” with Michael York and Assignment K” with Stephen Boyd. He has acted in Hollywood in many of the popular television drama such as “Hart to Hart”, “Winds of War, “War & Remberance”,”The Fall Guy” and “Murder She Wrote”.
A commentary on Jeremy Kemp on the British Film Forum can be accessed here.
The actor Jeremy Kemp, who has died aged 84, was in at the beginning of a piece of TV history when he appeared in the original cast of Z Cars as PC Bob Steele. While Dixon of Dock Green depicted a homely image of the police, Troy Kennedy Martin’s creation was a warts-and-all portrayal of the members of a new crime division set up in the fictional Liverpool suburb of Newtown, with mobile officers in patrol cars Z Victor One and Z Victor Two, and in its early days broadcast live.
In the first episode, directed by John McGrath, Steele was seen at home having lunch with his friend and partner in Z Victor Two, PC Bert Lynch (played by James Ellis). A stain on the wall was explained as the previous night’s hot-pot flung by Steele’s wife, Janey (Dorothy White), during an argument – while she sported a black eye. Steele and Lynch were two of a group of officers selected by DI Charlie Barlow (Stratford Johns) and DS John Watt (Frank Windsor) to tackle a new wave of crime on Britain’s burgeoning housing estates. The others were constables Fancy Smith (Brian Blessed) and Jock Weir (Joseph Brady).
In 1963, less than halfway through the second series, Kemp left the programme for fear of typecasting, also saying that he hated wearing the police uniform. He later gained direct experience of the harsh side of life in the force when, he claimed, he was beaten up in a police cell, but was himself charged with assaulting one of the officers. “I reported a drinking club to the police for not having a proper licence,” he told the Sun in 1985. “What I did not realise was that the club was paying £50 a week protection money.” He was conditionally discharged for a year after being found guilty of assaulting a police sergeant in 1966 by throwing a beaker of water into his face.
After Z Cars, the craggy-faced Kemp took many character roles on TV and in films. With his 6ft 2in stature and a military bearing, he was often cast as earls, doctors or army officers, such as Brigadier General Armin von Roon in the mini-series The Winds of War (1983) and its sequel, War and Remembrance (1988-89). This fictional officer in the German high command was created by Herman Wouk in the original novels as a device for relaying important facts and tying the story together. He is wounded in an assassination attempt on Hitler and watches the Führer’s gradual decline.
Kemp was also one of the original cast who returned to Z Cars in 1978 for its final episode, written again by Kennedy Martin and directed by McGrath. Kemp played a vagrant, while Blessed was seen simply as a member of the public and Brady was credited as a Scotsman. Ellis had completed the full, 16-year run, with his character by then an inspector.
Born near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, with the name Edmund Jeremy James Walker, the future actor was the son of Elsa (nee Kemp) and Edmund Walker, an engineer from a family of landed gentry who had owned estates in Yorkshire. He started his national service with the Gordon Highlanders and ended up as a lieutenant in the Black Watch before training as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama (1955-58), taking his own second name and mother’s maiden name professionally.
Winning a bursary for drama students named after the actor Carleton Hobbs, in 1958 Kemp gained a contract with the BBC’s radio drama company. He made his television debut that year as a police constable in The Frog, a Sunday-Night Theatre production based on Ian Hay’s play. Michael Caine, who also played a constable, later turned down the role taken by Kemp in Z Cars.
The police series helped to bring him film roles. The director Michael Anderson auditioned him for a small part in the spy drama Operation Crossbow (1965), alongside stars including Sophia Loren, John Mills and Trevor Howard, but was so impressed by “the range of his personality” that he catapulted him to a billing above the title.
Complete with moustache and upper-class accent, Kemp played a British agent. A year later, he was in The Blue Max as Lt Willi von Klugermann, the first world war German fighter pilot taking George Peppard under his wing.
Kemp was also seen as Jerry Drake in Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965), the coach of an Indigenous Australian marathon runner in the Olympic drama The Games (1970), Duke Michael in The Prisoner of Zenda (1979) and an East German general in the spy spoof Top Secret! (1984).
On television, he played the Nazi hunter Luke Childs in Contract to Kill (1965), Sqn Ldr Tony Shaw, a captured fighter pilot, in the second series (1974) of Colditz, the British undercover agent Geoffrey Moore in The Rhinemann Exchange (1977), the Duke of Norfolk in Henry VIII (1979), Leontes in The Winter’s Tale (1981), General Gates in George Washington (1984) and Jack Slipper, chasing Ronnie Biggs, in The Great Paper Chase (1988), over which the real-life detective successfully sued the BBC.
After two seasons appearing in the classics at the Old Vic theatre (1958-60), Kemp’s stage roles included Aston in The Caretaker (Mermaid, 1972) and Buckingham in Richard III (Olivier theatre, 1979). His final screen credit came as Hissah Zul in the TV series Conan (1997-98), about the mythical barbarian.
He had a particular interest in birds, and liked to visit the London Wetland Centre in Barnes, south-west London. At various times he lived in Britain and California with his American partner, Christopher Harter. She predeceased him, and he suffered from considerable ill health in later years.
He is survived by two sisters, Gill and Jan.
• Jeremy Kemp (Edmund Jeremy James Walker), actor, born 3 January 1935; died 19 July 2019
Ian Shaw was born in 1969 in London. He is the son of the late Mary Ure and Robert Shaw whom he strongly resembles. His film credits include “Moondance” in 1995, “The Boys from County Clare” and “The Contract”. On televsion he has starred in “Sharpe” with Sean Bean.
Although Tsai Chin was born in China in 1936, virtually all her career has been in the UK and more recently in the USA. She studied at RADA in 1951. She played the part of “Liat” in a West End production of “South Pacific” and had the title part on stage in “The World of Suzie Wong” opposite Gary Raymond. On film she played Lin Tang the eveil daughter of Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) in the Fu Manchu films. She also featured in “You Only Live Twice” and “The Virgin Soldiers”. In Hollywood she had a leading role in “The Joy Luck Club” with other Asian actresses such as France Nuyen and Lisa Lu. Her most recent film is “Year of the Fish” released in 2007.
TCM Overview:
Daughter of a famous actor long with the Peking Opera, Tsai Chin was educated at England’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and soon thereafter played the title role in the West End production of “The World of Suzie Wong.” She also made an auspicious film debut as Ingrid Bergman’s adopted daughter in the touching biopic, “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness” (1958). Through the 1960s, she was cast in decorative, small roles in films ranging from “Blow Up” (1966) to “You Only Live Twice” (1967), achieving her greatest recognition for the five films she made with Christopher Lee in which she played the villainous and inscrutable daughter of his equally treacherous Fu Manchu, beginning with 1965’s “The Face of Fu Manchu.” Tsai Chin did better onstage during the 70s and 80s and even returned to her native land to considerable acclaim when she taught and directed at Beijing’s Central Academy of Dramatic Art. She returned to feature films after a long absence to play one of four mothers who bond with their daughters over mah-jongg in Wayne Wang’s “The Joy Luck Club” (1993).
Her IMDB entry:
Tsai Chin, pinyin Zhou Caiqin is an actor, director, teacher and author, best known in America for her film role as Auntie Lindo in The Joy Luck Club. The third daughter of Zhou Xinfang, China’s great actor in the last century, she was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art London (first Chinese student) and later earned a Master Degree at Tufts University, Boston. Her career spans more than five decades working in UK, USA and recently in China. She starred on stage on both sides of the atlantic, (a first for a Chinese actor) in London’s West End,The World of Susie Wong and on Broadway, Golden Child; played the two most powerful women of 20th century China; for television, in The Subject of Struggle; for stage Memories of Madame Mao; was twice in Bond films, as Bond girl in You Only Live Twice, and later in Casino Royale. Her single The Ding Dong Song recorded for Decca was top of the charts in Asia. She was the first to be invited to teach acting in China after the Cultural Revolution when universities re-opened. She is now celebrated in China for her portrayal of Jia Mu in the recent TV drama series, The Dream of The Red Chamber. Her international best-selling autobiography, Daughter of Shanghai is to be a stage play by David Henry Hwang which will be produced by the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Perfoming Arts in Beverly Hills.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Tsai Chin (submitted by Donald Spradlin, Manager)
Decoy, poster, (clockwise from top): Jean Gillie, Edward Norris, Sheldon Leonard, Marjorie Woodworth, Robert Armstrong, Herbert Rudley, 1946. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
Jean Gillie is beloved of film noir buffs for one film “Decoy”. She was born in 1915 in London. She began her career in quota quickies in the UK during the 1930’s. Jack Buchanan cast her in the 1936 film “This’ll Make You Whistle”. In 1943 she was featured in “The Gentle Sex”. During the Second World War she met the American film director Jack Bernhard in London and at War’s end went back to the United States with him. “Decoy” in 1946 was her penultimate film. It is rightly regarded as a classic and thankfully it is now available on DVD. In 1947 she made “The Macomber Affair” with Greyory Peck and Joan Bennett. After the breakdown of her marriage she returned to England. She died of pneumonia at the age of 33 in 1949.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Great Britain’s killer answer to Hollywood’s femme fatale Ann Savage, sultry-eyed, long-maned beauty Jean Gillie had a modest, lightweight career in her homeland before coming to the States and impressing American audiences in one classic film noir. Had the film been released by a major studio, her career might have turned out differently. But, like Savage, it wasn’t and she make it out of the “B” class tier and quickly lost favor. With her early death, it pretty much clinched her almost total anonymity today.
Born Jean Mabel Coomber, on October 14, 1915, in Kensington, England, she initially appeared on stage in 1932 before debuting on film in the musical comedy His Majesty and Co (1935). Musical hall star Jack Buchanan was impressed by her smoldering beauty and comedic flair and cast her in a small role in his movie Brewster’s Millions (1935), then brought her a couple of years later for his a few of his other showcases — This’ll Make You Whistle (1936) Sweet Devil (1938) and The Middle Watch (1940).
She met Bernhard while he was stationed in England during WWII and married him in May of 1944. After his discharge, he took her back to his native America with the idea of shaping her into a Hollywood star. He produced and directed Decoy (1946) and cast her as vile Margot Shelby who, before the last reel, runs a car over Edward Norris, stealsHerbert Rudley from his lady love in order to save her just-executed boy friend; and nearly does in Sheldon Leonard before getting her just desserts.
Had this cult film noir been released by a major studio instead of “Poverty Row” Pathe, Jean could have rivaled Barbara Stanwyck in later years. Following Decoy (1946), Jean won a second femme role in the film The Macomber Affair (1947) starring Gregory Peckand Joan Bennett but it was Bennett who earned the accolades playing the “bad girl” in this dramatic romantic triangle that included Robert Preston.
By this time Jean’s marriage to Bernhard fell apart and the couple divorced in 1947. Gillie decided to return to England a year later but, before she had the time to revive her British stage/film career, died of pneumonia at age 33 on February 19, 1949.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
