British Actors Archives - Page 36 of 129

Louis Hayward

TCM Overview:

Suavely handsome, often tongue-in-cheek leading man of the 1930s and 40s who began his career with a provincial theater company in England. Hayward came to Hollywood in the mid-30s and quickly established a second-rank level of stardom which lasted until the mid-50s. He more than held his own in a wide variety of films; his light touch with cynical, witty banter suited him well in drawing room comedies and romantic dramas (“The Flame Within” 1935, “The Rage of Paris” 1938, “Dance Girl Dance” 1940), but he regularly appeared in detective films and adventures as well. Often cast as somewhat roguish playboys, Hayward played the leading role in Rene Clair’s sterling adaptation of Agatha Christie’s mystery “And Then There Were None” (1945) and was fine in dual roles James Whale’s stylish version of “The Man in the Iron Mask” (1939).

The latter film prefigured the later contours of Hayward’s film career, as his athletic, romantic dash led him to be cast in many medium-budgeted swashbucklers, four of which (including “Fortunes of Captain Blood” 1950 and “The Lady in the Iron Mask” 1952, recalling his earlier triumph) teamed him with Patricia Medina. Hayward was married for a time to Ida Lupino, with whom he co-starred in the Gothic melodrama “Ladies in Retirement” (1941).

Los Angeles Times obituary in 1985:

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Louis Hayward, whose debonair charm and athletic good looks made him one of Hollywood’s most successful swashbuckling heroes of the 1930s and ‘40s, died Thursday at Desert Hospital in Palm Springs.

He was 75 and had spent the last year of his life in a battle against cancer, which he attributed to having smoked three packs of cigarettes a day for more than half a century.

A lifelong performer (“I did a Charlie Chaplin imitation for my mother when I was 6 and never really got over it,” he told friends), Hayward scored his first major screen success with the 1939 film, “The Man in the Iron Mask,” and spent the next decade starring in such adventure films as “The Son of Monte Cristo,” “The Saint in New York,” “The Black Arrow” and “Fortunes of Captain Blood.”

“I also did rather creditable acting jobs as the rotten seed in ‘My Son, My Son,’ and the villainous charmer in ‘Ladies in Retirement,’ ” he said ruefully. “But nobody really cared. They just handed me another sword and doublet and said ‘Smile!’ ”

Born March 19, 1909, in Johannesburg, South Africa, a few weeks after his mining engineer father was killed in an accident, Hayward was taken first to England and then to France, where he attended a number of schools under his real name, Seafield Grant.

He received early training in legitimate theater, appeared for a time with a touring company playing the provinces in England and then took over a small nightclub in London.

“Which is where my career really began,” he said. “Noel Coward came in one night; I managed to talk to him for a time and wound up wriggling into a small part in a West End company doing ‘Dracula.’ ”

He followed with roles in “The Vinegar Tree,” “Another Language” and “Conversation Piece” before going to New York, where a chance acquaintance with Alfred Lunt led to a role in the Broadway play, “Point Valaine,” for which he won the 1934 New York Critics Award.

His first Hollywood efforts in “The Flame Within” and “A Feather in Her Hat” were moderately successful, moderately well-received and almost instantly forgotten.

But then came the 1936 role of Denis Moore in “Anthony Adverse,” and studio officials began talking about stardom.

The dual role of Louis XIV and Philippe in “The Man in the Iron Mask” established Hayward as a swashbuckler and was followed by major roles in “And Then There Were None,” “The Duke of West Point” and similar vehicles.

Hayward, who had become a naturalized U.S. citizen the day before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, served three years in the Marine Corps during World War II, winning the Bronze Star for filming the battle of Tarawa under fire.

Formed Own Company

Returning to films after the war, he formed his own film company and was one of the first stars to demand and get a percentage of the profits from his pictures, which included “Repeat Performance,” “The Son of Dr. Jekyll,” “Lady in the Iron Mask,” “The Saint’s Girl Friday,” “Duffy of San Quentin” and “The Lone Wolf,” which he subsequently turned into a television series, playing the starring role in 78 episodes in the 1960s.

Hayward left Hollywood in the late 1950s to appear in a British television series, “The Pursuers,” returning for television appearances in “Studio One” and “Climax” anthology shows and returning to the stage as King Arthur, opposite Kathryn Grayson, in a Los Angeles Civic Light Opera production of “Camelot” in 1963.

His first two marriages, to actress Ida Lupino and to socialite Margaret Morrow, ended in divorce.

Hayward, who had lived in Palm Springs for the last 15 years, is survived by his wife, June, and a son, Dana. At his request, a family spokesman said, no funeral was planned.

news

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

An air of almost smug disdain would hang over his characters like a grey cloud. Yet he could end being a ray of sunshine with that cloud. Stage or screen, comedy or drama, playing butler or Lord Commander, Englishman Cecil Parker was born in 1897 and took an avid interest in performing following his discharge from World War I military service. Making his professional stage bow in 1922, he appeared in London’s West End three years later and by the advent of sound could be found on film. Not surprisingly he fitted the support mold perfectly with his raspy, well-bred tones and stuffed-shirt personality, but by the late 40s he was actually toying with post-war character stardom with top-billed roles. Such films as Captain Boycott (1947), The Weaker Sex (1948) and The Amazing Mr. Beecham (1949), Tony Draws a Horse (1950) and I Believe in You (1952) demonstrated his talent and command. However, soon he started gaining in the stomach area and losing in the hair department, so he fell away again to the secondary ranks. His assisting men of power, position and influence are probably most recognized in the droll, classic films of Sir Alec Guiness, which include The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Detective (1954), The Ladykillers (1955). Parker could be humorously beleaguered or remotely pernicious and as the years wore on, found himself more and more in film comedy than anything else, often giving lift to such dry fare as Indiscreet (1958) and the farce-like slapstick of The Pure Hell of St. Trinian’s (1960) and Carry on Jack (1963). Parker died in 1971.

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

Cecil Parker

Adam Benedick’s obituary of Alexander Knox in “The Independent” in 1995:

The air bites keenly at the top of Ibsen’s mountains. It takes stamina on each side of the footlights to make the ascent a success; the atmosphere hums with metaphysics and metaphors. We were riding high at an Edinburgh Festival with the ’69 Theatre Company which had loomed up first at Hammersmith with Brand in 1958, a rare enough piece by Ibsen to stick for generations in the memory; and now 10 years later in the Edinburgh Assembly Hall came another resurrection, Michaell Elliott’s revival of When We Dead Awaken.

t would also, like Brand, end with an avalanche. The things Ibsen expected of his players and designers! Out of the mists of all this gloomy and daring symbolism, emerged the Canadian-Scottish actor Alexander Knox, stern, intense, authoritative, chilling, and supposedly a sculptor.

He was playing with drily persuasive conviction one of Ibsen’s artists rediscovering a soulmate – a sexually insensitive egotist and idealist whose relationship with his uninspiring and disenchanted wife makes way for a reunion with a former model.

She had sat for the ageing sculptor’s masterpiece without inciting his lust. She (Wendy Hiller) could never forgive him. He, the cold, high-principled thinker, was crucially unaware of her needs.

The spectacle, with lesser players, might have been laughable, but Ibsen, given the right director, can be marvellously bracing; and Knox, the stillest and sometimes subtlest of players, had us in his palm as he moved up the menacing mountain towards the inevitable symbol of personal failure – with the bride-like Hiller at his side. It may have been her evening in its dignified evasion of absurdity, but it was Knox who commanded that peninsular stage – Tyrone Guthrie’s famous but tricky invention – to an extent which drove away all irreverent thoughts while he was on it.

He had been powerful before, in his quiet way, on London stages. In Ugo Betti’s The Burnt Flowerbed (Arts, 1955) he had played another Ibsenish character of symbolic and highly imaginative importance; and more strikingly still in Clifford Odets’s Winter Journey (St James’s) he had succeeded Michael Redgrave as the flamboyantly neurotic and drunken American actor trying to make a comeback. Even before the Second World War he was something of a name in London. At the Old Vic he had played opposite Laurence Olivier as Dr McGilp in James Bridie’s The King of Nowhere, in which he had a particular success; and he was in several of Shaw’s later plays like Geneva (1938) and, at Malvern Festival, Good King Charles’s Golden Days.

At the Old Vic he had been noted in Ralph Richardson’s Othello for a “strongly humanised” Brabantio and for Emlyn Williams’s Richard III (as Catesby) he gave “a secret, dour-lipped performance” which left at least one critic guessing. It was however as Snout in Guthrie’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream that Knox’s acting “leapt to life” – “mournful of face with a voice dripping melancholy, and a shy nervous habit of running his hand through his hair and down his side – the very lyricism of woe”.

When a young actor provokes that kind of notice as one of the “rude mechanicals” his future as a comedian might seen assured, but it was not to be in comedy that Knox came to matter, but rather as a serious, even sombre classical actor.

After the outbreak of war he returned to America and was snapped up by Hollywood, again with little scope for comedy but with a gift for playing characters rather older than himself, such as President Woodrow Wilson in Wilson (in a chilling pince-nez), for which he was nominated as best actor of 1945 in the Academy Awards.

He also acted on Broadway, with some distinction, as Baron Tuzenbach in The Three Sisters and in Hollywood and the European cinema gave generally admired performances as professors, psychiatrists, judges, neurotics and other figures of usually grave authority. One of his more memorable screen appearances came opposite Ingrid Bergman in Rossellini’s Europa 51, otherwise entitled No Greater Love; but back in England in the 1950s he had shown his quality in Guthrie’s Henry VIII at the Old Vic. Guthrie had a specific if distorted notion of Wolsey which made it impossible for Knox to be true to Shakespeare, but as several critics recognised, he remained true to his own gifts of passion, bitterness, ribaldry and irony.

Adam Benedick

The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.

Alexander Knox, actor: born Strathroy, Ontario 16 January 1907; married Doris Nolan; died Berwick-upon-Tweed 26 April 1995.

Elizabeth Welch

“Telegraph” obituary from 2003:

Elisabeth Welch, who died yesterday aged 99, was one of the last century’s most polished interpreters of popular song.

She belonged to an elite group of singers who gave definitive shape to the works of the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Noel Coward and the other songwriters of the golden age. Her style was poised, her voice mellow and dignified. She never gave a forced or eccentric reading of a lyric, distorted a melody or misjudged a tempo. Her art was classic.

Some of her peers and contemporaries were more strongly marked by jazz; others refined the intimate art of the supper-club singer. Elisabeth Welch was distinctively a singer of the musical stage, by which she was formed and on which most of her career was spent.

She was born on West 63rd Street, New York City, on February 27 1904. Her mother, who originally came from Leith, Edinburgh, was of Scottish and Irish descent, while her father – the head gardener and coachman on a large estate in New Jersey – was of African American and Native Indian blood. The conflict between strict Baptist beliefs on the paternal side and maternal Episcopalianism proved explosive. When her parents separated, the young Elisabeth stayed with her mother, who was more liberal, though far from lax: when the child learnt When I Get You Alone Tonight, a slightly risque torch-song (We’ll keep the organ playing/ so that folks’ll think we’re praying . . . ) from a Pianola roll, she was beaten for her efforts.

There were other musical influences in her life as well as the Pianola: singing in church choirs and a school production of HMS Pinafore. She also attended the same school as the sister of the great saxophonist, Benny Carter (in 1936 she made the first recording of Carter’s beautiful song When Lights Are Low with Carter himself). In 1921 she saw the ragtime pianist Eubie Blake’s great Shuffle Along, the first all-black musical to reach Broadway.

Elisabeth Welch began as a singer and dancer, appearing in the Broadway musical Runnin’ Wild in 1923, in which she introduced a new dance to the tune of the Charleston. As a chorus girl in Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1928, which starred Adelaide Hall, Ada Ward and “Bojangles” Robinson, she was a success, and made a record of two songs from the show. Soon there were cabaret engagements in Paris and New York, which precipitated a violent rage in her absent father, who fulminated about his “Girlie . . . meeting her doom by going on the boards”. Elisabeth Welch later recalled: “It was terrible. He associated show business with low life, and he thought I would become a whore.”

One can perhaps understand his feelings in view of the circumstances of her appearance in Cole Porter’s New Yorkers in 1931. The famous song Love For Sale caused an immediate scandal because it dealt openly with the subject of prostitution (it was banned from the radio for many years), so after a month the scene in which it was sung was moved to Harlem, and Elisabeth Welch substituted for the original white performer, Kathryn Crawford. Shortly after, she gave an early demonstration of her acute taste by spotting the wonderful As Time Goes By and incorporating it in her cabaret act, a dozen years before it attained immortality in Casablanca.

Her first appearance in London was in an all-black review, Dark Doings, at the Leicester Square Theatre in 1933, in which she introduced Harold Arlen’s magnificently sad Stormy Weather to English audiences.

Dark Doings was not a success, but after it folded Elisabeth Welch was summoned back from New York by the impresario C B Cochrane to appear in Cole Porter’s Nymph Errant, scoring the greatest of all her hits. In a comparatively small role, she regularly stopped the show by performing the song Solomon in a Turkish harem setting (he “had a thousand wives”). It is a blackly humorous piece with a tortuously difficult line. No one ever sang it better, and it was firmly associated with her for the rest of her life.

Porter himself commented that his awkward creation had been “made easy by the tone and pitch of the singer”. Obviously, Elisabeth Welch had the knack of pleasing eminent and demanding composers – years later, when she sang Twentieth Century Blues at the celebrations to mark Coward’s 70th birthday, he remarked that it was the first time he had heard it performed as he had originally imagined it.

After her success in Nymph Errant, Elisabeth Welch settled in England, where she remained for more than half a century and rapidly became a star prominent on stage, radio and film. There was a succession of London shows. In Ivor Novello’s Glamorous Night (1935) she played the part of Cleo Washington, a stowaway whose role, she remembered, had little to do with the rest of the goings-on on stage; nonetheless both the show and her rendition of the song Far Away in Shanty Town were extremely popular. Let’s Raise the Curtain (1936) and It’s in the Bag (1937) followed.

When war broke out she stayed loyal to her adopted country, and spent a season entertaining the troops in Gibraltar in company with John Gielgud, Edith Evans and Michael Wilding. She also toured the Middle East. In 1943 she starred in another Novello piece, Arc de Triomphe, then in Happy and Glorious with Tommy Trinder at the London Palladium (1944-46). Next there was a review at the Globe, Tuppence Coloured, in which she sang Edith Piaf’s song La vie en rose, for the first time in this country – and sang it, daringly for those days, in French.

Tuppence Coloured was succeeded at the Globe by Oranges and Lemons, another review of the intimate type that she herself thought the ideal format for her art.

Elisabeth Welch’s considerable popularity in the 1930s and 1940s was not founded on musicals and reviews alone. The radio show Soft Lights and Sweet Music was an important element in making her a star, and she also appeared in films, starting with Val Gielgud and Eric Maschwitz’s Death at Broadcasting House in 1934. This was followed by two pictures in which she played opposite Paul Robeson: Song of Freedom (1936) and Big Fella (1937). In these films Robeson and Elisabeth Welch broke new ground for black actors, who hitherto had been cast for the most part as comic servants, to please distributors in the southern states who threatened to boycott anything featuring a black person in a non-servile role.

Making Over the Moon (1937), in which she appeared in a Monte Carlo nightclub singing Red Hot Annabelle, she was not impressed by the picture’s star, Merle Oberon, who fired a young assistant for bringing her the wrong pair of gloves. Elisabeth Welch’s first play was No Time for Comedy at the Lyric Theatre with Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer and Diane Wynward.

In the 1950s and 1960s, like many of her contemporaries, Elisabeth Welch entered a period of partial eclipse. But invariably, even when the vehicle or those around her were unworthy, her own performance was gracious and unaffectedly distinguished.

The tide turned in the next two decades. She stopped the show once again in the 1970 musical, Pippin, made new records, and also gave what was perhaps the most startling appearance of her film career in Derek Jarman’s Tempest (1980), at the end of which she sings a typically poised version of Stormy Weather surrounded by a chorus line of leaping, high-stepping sailors. There were those who thought she was the best thing about that controversial interpretation of Shakespeare.

In 1985, returning from the London theatre where she was appearing in Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood, she was beaten unconscious in the street by a mugger, but was back on stage the following day. Also, after decades of absence, she began to re-establish herself in America – her one-woman show, A Time To Start Living, was a success off-Broadway in 1986.

In the same year, the Broadway version of her London hit, Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood, won her a Tony nomination, the New York Times theatre critic Frank Rich declaring, “We must write letters to our congressmen demanding that Miss Welch be detained in the United States forthwith, as a national resource too rare and precious for export.”

In high old age, Elisabeth Welch continued to sing with great aplomb; indeed, although her voice lost some of its range and mobility, recordings from the mid-1980s indicate greater maturity of interpretation than ever. By this stage, in the opinion of many connoisseurs, she had taken over the position, for so long occupied by Mabel Mercer, as the reigning grand dame of the Anglo-American popular song – a fittingly triumphant end to a career that had always combined integrity with distinction.

In 1992 stars gathered at the Lyric Theatre in London to pay tribute to Elisabeth Welch in the Crusaid Concert; she was given an unprecedented five standing ovations. Four years later, at the age of 92, she repaired to a retirement home in west London.

In her teenage years Elizabeth Welch was briefly married to an American musician.

The above “Telegraph” obituary can also be accessed online here.

Craig Douglas

“Wikipedia” entry:

Born a twin, in Newport, Isle of Wight, the former Terence Perkins was employed as a milkman before becoming a professional singer,^[1] and was known to many as the ‘Singing Milkman’. His manager was Bunny Lewis,^[2] who gave him the name Craig Douglas. Lewis saw the name outside a house in Scotland. Douglas said there were a number of Terrys around at the time, and that was one of the reasons his name was changed.

Voted ‘Best New Singer’ in 1959 in the British music magazine, NME,^[3] Douglas went on to record eight cover versions of former American hit songs, in his total of nine Top 40 UK singles. Amongst that tally, Douglas had a Number One single in 1959 with “Only Sixteen”, which easily outsold Sam Cooke‘s original version in the UK. It was recorded at EMI’s Abbey Road studios, with whistling by Mike Sammes, and released through Top Rank records. Douglas had four consecutive Number 9 placings on the UK Singles Chart.^[4]

In 1961 Douglas entered the A Song For Europe contest with his song “The Girl Next Door”, but did not do well. Douglas also starred in the 1962 film It’s Trad, Dad!.^[4]

He topped the bill on the Beatles‘ first major stage show, although their emergence ultimately spelt the end of Douglas’s chart career. His final chart entry came in February 1963, when “Town Crier” flopped at Number 36.

He continues to perform, with bookings at night clubs and on cruise ships.^[2] Until 2010, Douglas toured venues across the UK, including the Medina Theatre on the Isle of Wight. He appeared at the Amersham Rock ‘n’ Roll Club on 11 December 2010, an event in his benefit. John Leyton, Mike Berry and the Flames all took part, while Jet Harris and other celebrities attended. Douglas sang three songs from his wheelchair at the close of the concert. He suffers from a rare condition that affects his legs. Sky News filmed the event.

On 18 April 2011, a rare Douglas recording, saw a limited 7″ vinyl reissue of “Don’t Mind If I Cry”, on the UK-based Spoke Records label.^[5]

Raymond Massey

TCM overview:

Exceptionally tall, with distinctive, unconventional features and a commanding presence, actor Raymond Massey built an impressive career out of playing reassuring authority figures and scheming villains equally well. The Canadian-born actor first honed his craft on the stages of the U.K. for nearly 10 years before venturing across the Atlantic to appear on Broadway as “Hamlet” and in early sound pictures like “The Speckled Band” (1931), in the role of Sherlock Holmes. Massey demonstrated his versatility with venomous characters in films like “The Prisoner of Zenda” (1937) juxtaposed against his career-defining portrayal of the 16th U.S. president in “Abe Lincoln in Illinois” (1940), based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play written with him in mind. Massey became the stuff of Hollywood legend when the aftermath of his divorce from actress Adrianne Allen inspired the beloved Tracy-Hepburn comedy “Adam’s Rib” (1949). As an actor, Massey continually impressed with is ability to make difficult characters sympathetic in such films as “The Fountainhead” (1949), opposite Gary Cooper, and as James Dean’s emotionally unavailable father in “East of Eden” (1955). A younger generation of fans came to appreciate his later work as Richard Chamberlain’s authoritative mentor Dr. Gillespie on “Dr. Kildare” (NBC, 1961-66). Even as his half-century career neared its end, Massey continued to make memorable contributions to such big-budget Hollywood offerings as the Western “Mackenna’s Gold” (1969). One of the first and best examples of a “working actor” in film, Massey never failed to elevate the integrity of any project.

Raymond Hart Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Aug. 30, 1896. He was the son of Ann and Chester Daniel Massey, whose family roots could be traced back to pre-Revolutionary War America. Although Raymond participated in a few school productions while attending the Appleby School in Oakville, Ontario, the assumption was that he would eventually enter into his well-to-do family’s farm equipment business upon completing his education. As a member of the Canadian Officer’s Training Corps while attending the University of Toronto when World War I began, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Canadian Army. Massey served with a field artillery unit at France’s Western Front until he was wounded at Ypres in 1916. Hospitalized for several months and diagnosed with shell shock, he was later sent to the U.S., where he served as an artillery instructor for a time before rejoining the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in 1918 and being sent to Siberia in the wake of the Russian Communist Revolution. While stationed at Vladivostok, Massey was put in charge of entertainment for the troops, for whom he mounted several theatrical productions. In later years, the venerable actor related that it was then that the performing bug truly bit him, once and for all.

Upon being discharged, Massey attended Britain’s Balliol College, Oxford. The stay at Oxford was not a long one, however, and before long he was back home in Canada, where he attempted to make a go of it in the family business. But the thrill of the theater still called to Massey, who, upon the advice of renowned thespian John Drew and after pleading for permission from his patriarchal Methodist father, returned to England to pursue a career on the stage. Eventually the determined actor landed his first professional role in a 1922 production of Eugene O’Neill’s “In the Zone” and from that point forward, there was no looking back. Within four years, Massey was established on the stages of London as both an actor and director, and in less than a decade, he made trip back across the Atlantic for his Broadway debut as the star of a revival of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” in 1931.

Although he had made a pair of brief, uncredited screen appearances two years prior, Massey’s first major film role was as Sherlock Holmes in the mystery “The Speckled Band” (1931), the first talkie to depict the exploits of the great detective. Other leading roles soon came in films like director James Whale’s superb “The Old Dark House” (1932), opposite Boris Karloff. Massey’s imposing features also allowed him to adapt easily to more villainous roles, such as the slithering Chauvelin in “The Scarlet Pimpernel” (1935). Massey had far from abandoned work on the stage, though, appearing on Broadway many times over the next two decades and earning accolades for such portrayals as “Ethan Frome” in 1936. Back on screen, he showed his bad side twice more as Black Michael opposite David Niven’s “The Prisoner of Zenda” (1937) and as the conniving Prince Ghul in the British Empire epic, “The Drum” (1938). At 6’3″ tall, Massey was perfectly suited to play the legendarily lanky commander-in-chief in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play “Abe Lincoln in Illinois” (1938) which was written specifically with the actor in mind by playwright Robert Sherwood.

Massey’s personal life took a decidedly truth-is-stranger-than-fiction turn in 1939 when he and his wife of 10 years, actress Adrianne Allen, entered into divorce proceedings. Massey and Allen were each represented by one-half of the husband and wife legal team of William and Dorothy Whitney. With the divorce finalized, the attorneys quickly divorced each other and went on to marry their respective famous clients – Massey and Allen. The bizarre turn of events later inspired husband and wife screenwriting team of Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin to pen the classic 1949 battle of the sexes comedy “Adam’s Rib,” starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. During their time as a couple, Massey and Allen had two children, Daniel and Anna, both of whom went on to enjoy acting careers of their own.

The following year, Massey reprised his most famous stage persona in the film version of “Abe Lincoln in Illinois” (1940), for which he received an Academy Award nomination. He took on another historical figure that year with a wild-eyed, unsympathetic portrayal of the radical abolitionist John Brown in “Santa Fe Trail” (1940), starring Errol Flynn as Confederate Civil War hero J.E.B. Stuart. Working steadily throughout the war years, Massey took over the role his “Old Dark House” co-star Boris Karloff had originated on stage for director Frank Capra’s film adaptation of the play “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944), then lent his intimidating visage to the role of a stern prosecutor in the Heaven-set sequences of the imaginative Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger fantasy, “A Matter of Life and Death” (1945). Maintaining his ties to the stage, the actor returned to Broadway to play Professor Henry Higgins in the 1945 production of “Pygmalion.”

Other notable work of the period included a performance as General Ezra Mannon – an updated version of Greek King Agamemnon – in “Mourning Becomes Electra” (1947), the screen adaptation of O’Neill’s epic reinterpretation of “The Oresteia,” a trilogy of Greek tragedies by Aeschylus. He was sympathetic as the well-meaning but weak-willed newspaper magnate Gail Wynand in director King Vidor’s adaptation of author Ayn Rand’s treatise on individuality, “The Fountainhead” (1949), starring Gary Cooper as visionary architect Howard Roark. Still at the height of his powers, Massey was excellent years later as the proud and emotionally distant patriarch Adam Trask opposite James Dean in the filmed version of Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” (1955) and delivered a far more balanced portrayal in his second outing as John Brown in the under-appreciated “Seven Angry Men” (1955).

By the second half of the decade, Massey transitioned more predominantly into the burgeoning medium of television, appearing in guest spots on many of the popular anthology series of the day, such as “General Electric Theater” (CBS, 1953-1962). The venerable stage and film star became widely known by a new generation of audience as the gruff but caring Dr. Gillespie on the popular medical-drama “Dr. Kildare” (NBC, 1961-66), featuring a fresh-faced Richard Chamberlain in the title role. Fans of his work as the stern taskmaster Gillespie may not have been surprised when Massey made his personal politics known by actively campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater during the 1964 race against incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson.

Long established as an elder statesman of screens both large and small, Massey continued to appear in projects, albeit with less frequency as the ’60s drew to a close. His final performance in a feature film was as a fortune-hunting preacher in the Gregory Peck Western “Mackenna’s Gold” (1969). This was followed a few years later by his last television appearances in the political-thriller “The President’s Plane is Missing” (ABC, 1973) and the family film “My Darling Daughter’s Anniversary” (ABC, 1973), starring one of his contemporaries, Robert Young. After battling a case of pneumonia for nearly a month, Massey died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles on July 29, 1983, just weeks shy of his 87th birthday. Somewhat overshadowing the sad event was the passing of actor David Niven, Massey’s “Prisoner of Zenda” co-star, who died that same day.

By Bryce Coleman

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Adrienne Posta

“Wikipedia”:

Adrienne Posta (born Adrienne Luanne Poster, 4 March 1948) is an English film and television actress and singer, prominent during the 1960s and 1970s.^[1] She adopted the surname ‘Posta’ in 1966.^[2]^[3] She recorded a number of singles.^[1]^[2] She is now semi-retired and works as a teacher in the Midlands and at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.^[4]Posta is an honorary patron of the Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America.^[5]

Denis Gifford’s “Independent” obituary:

THE FAMOUS Bette Davis film All About Eve might have been named for Eve Boswell, the Fifties pop singer who had so many talents hidden under her pretty and petite physique that one could write a chapter on each. She sang both sweetly and sexily, encouraging her packed audiences not only to sing along but clap along, on and off the beat, but she could also play a classical piano piece to perfection, blow a hearty saxophone, toot a swinging clarinet, clatter a natty tap dance, leg a charming ballet step, record a long-playing selection in nine different languages, and in her retirement years run a school for singers in South Africa. Try that, Spice Girls!

Eve Boswell was born Eva Keleti, in Budapest, in 1924, the only daughter of a professional pair who toured the world with their musical act. Educated in Lausanne, Switzerland, she studied classical piano at the famous Lausanne Academy before joining her parents as a teenager. The act changed its name to the Three Hugos and as such made its debut in a Paris night-club. Young Eva, supposed to play the piano and join in some harmony singing, was so scared she ran off the stage.

When the Second World War was declared in September 1939 the act was on tour in England. Unhappily the family was classified as alien, so, taking a job with the Boswell Circus, they promptly departed for a tour of South Africa. Here Trevor McIntosh, the son of the owner, taught Eve to speak English, and the two fell in love. In time they married.

It was Trevor who encouraged the girl to sing and to change her name to Eve Boswell, after the circus. Soon she could be heard over South African radio singing with Roy Martin and his dance band from the Coconut Grove in Johannesburg. Adrian Foley (Lord Foley), a pianist and composer working in South Africa after the war, liked her voice. Alan Dell, the disc-jockey who was a local radio producer at that time, made some private recordings of her and Foley took them to London to play to prospective publishers.

Geraldo (Gerald Bright), then the top dance band leader, heard them, liked them and sent the girl a telegram offering her three months work. Eve, Trevor and their small son Michael promptly sold up their African homestead and sailed for England. She opened with Geraldo at the Blackpool Winter Gardens on 1 June 1949. At the end of her first week Geraldo cancelled her contract and gave her a new one for a whole year. In the end she stayed with him for more than two years.

Geraldo’s band was a broadcasting favourite (“Hello again – we’re on the radio again!”) and his new singer was heard over many a BBC programme. Two months after her debut date she cut her first record, “Again”, but as was traditional at the time she was billed, not by name, but as “Vocal Refrain”. She suffered this indignity through several recordings, including a romantic version of the comedian Reg Dixon’s signature tune, “Confidentially”, before getting her proper billing in April 1950 with “I Can Dream Can’t I”. (All her records from 1949 to 1959 were on the Parlophone label.)

In July 1950, while Geraldo and his band were playing for holidaymakers aboard the Queen Mary, Boswell returned to South Africa for a working holiday, and also supplied the singing voice for the Hollywood star Vera- Ellen in her British film Happy Go Lovely (1950). Vera-Ellen was a wonderful dancer but hopeless as a singer. This would turn out to be Boswell’s only brush with the cinema, a tragedy considering her prettiness and her talent.

Boswell parted with Geraldo in January 1952 and with her husband as her manager launched herself on a solo career. Her first big success was supporting the comedian Derek Roy in a variety tour of his radio series, Happy Go Lucky. Roy had also begun as a vocalist for Geraldo, and the two recorded a well-sung duet called “Dance Me Loose”. A cover version of an Arthur Godfrey disc, it failed to make the hit parade.

Many radio appearances during this time included The Forces Show, a 60- minute spectacular starring Richard Murdoch and Kenneth Horne – the Much Binding in the Marsh pair – as hosts; Workers’ Playtime, the midday series for factory hands; Henry Hall’s Guest Night; and finally in 1954 her own series, Time To Dream. This was compered by Alan Dell, who had by now come to England to further his own radio career. She also crossed the Channel via recordings to star in a Radio Luxembourg series called Family Album. This featured Philip Green and his Orchestra and was sponsored by Marshall Ward, the catalogue company.

Her first true hit came in August 1952, “Sugar Bush”, with its chorus of “Oh we’re never not gonna go home, we won’t go” and the extra gimmick of the closing chorus being sung in Afrikaans. She was so thrilled with its success that she named her pet poodle Bush, and added her first caption to her variety billing: “Eve Boswell the Bush Girl”. More than a year later, still billed the same way, she appeared in the Royal Variety Performance at the London Coliseum.

She was back double-billed with Derek Roy and supported by the newcomer Tommy Cooper (“TV’s Mad Magician”), in a Southport summer season show, Happy and Glorious (1954), but the continuous work proved too much. Just as an edition of The Forces Show was about to go on the air (Sunday 3 October) she collapsed and a doctor in the house diagnosed nervous exhaustion. Two weeks later she was back on tour and that Christmas made her pantomime debut in Humpty Dumpty at Dudley. Once again Derek Roy and Tommy Cooper were her co-stars.

More variety followed, both in South Africa and England, plus a number of shows for television. These included Hit Parade, Commonwealth Cavalcade, and Off the Record, in which the former bandleader Jack Payne tried to adapt his radio disc-jockey format for television. Her song hits continued with the Afrikaans “Skokiaan” for which she invented a “New Sound”, a combination of low-blown clarinet and vibraphone; and in October 1955 her one and only major hit. This was “Pickin’ a Chicken”, a South African tune with new words composed by Paddy Roberts. Intended as the “B”, to the long-forgotten “Blue Star”, this lively number shot to No 9 on the British hit parade.

In June 1956 she visited America to promote her new release deal with Capitol Records, appearing on radio and television. Returning to open The Big Show at Blackpool Opera House, she co-starred with the American comedians George and Bert Bernard, who mimed to gramophone records dressed up as the Andrews Sisters. She made her entrance in a well-staged circus scene, bursting through a paper hoop and juggling, a hitherto unknown talent that surprised the audience. In fact they didn’t know who she was until she started to sing.

Unhappily another breakdown followed, then the work continued non-stop; pantomimes, summer shows, records, and her first LP, on which she sang 10 songs in nine different languages. It was called Sugar and Spice (1956). One major touring show was Harold Fielding’s Music for the Millions (1957); she appeared with the classical pianists Rawicz and Landauer, the television comic Arthur Haynes, and pop stars Micki and Griff. There were also Sunday concerts including one at the Blackpool Opera House with Johnnie Ray the crying crooner. Nineteen fifty-eight saw her based at Blackpool for a 22-week run of You’ll Be Lucky, supporting the top radio comedian Al Read; the title was his catchphrase. An even longer season, 24 weeks, followed in 1959, this time in Glasgow. She backed the Scots comic Jimmy Logan in Five Past Eight.

Always a globe-trotter, Boswell became the first “English” singer to have her own show on Hungarian television (1960), returning to Scotland for another long run with Jimmy Logan. Yet another new talent amazed her audiences; she and Logan played a duet on the bagpipes.

But with the rock ‘n’ roll revolution of the Sixties Boswell’s multi- talents lacked the simplistic basic beat which it seemed all the teenagers wanted, and gradually, sadly, she faded from public view.

One of her last shows was a guest spot on Granada’s Wheel-tappers & Shunters Social Club in the Seventies, where she soon had an overjoyed audience clapping along with a selection of her past hits. Of course, “Sugar Bush” made a clapping climax. Remarkably and by sheerest chance, the Granada Plus channel re-ran this very programme only a week or so ago; an ideal if slightly premature tribute.

Denis Gifford

Eva Keleti (Eve Boswell), singer: born Budapest 11 May 1924; married three times, first to Trevor McIntosh (one son); died Durban, South Africa 13 August 1998

Eve Boswell

Rachel Gurney

Eric Shorter’s obituary in “The Guardian” in 2001:

Rachel Gurney, who has died aged 81, was one of the most elegant and serene exponents of well-bred femininity and aristocratic assurance on the postwar London stage and in television, in particular as the moneyed Belgravian matriarch, Lady Marjorie Bellamy, in the TV series Upstairs, Downstairs, which lightly examined the English class system.

On the stage, where her career spanned nearly half a century, Kenneth Tynan drew attention to her talent by attacking the West End management. After watching her 1956 performance in Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden, which the Guardian critic Philip Hope-Wallace rated “an English rose of a comedy” and “the acme of perfect drawing-room acting”, Tynan wrote: “Rachel Gurney shows once again how foolish the theatre has been to neglect her.”

Raised in Eton, where her father was a housemaster – her mother, Irene Scharrer, was a concert pianist – Gurney was very much to the manner born. She was often cast in upper-class roles, but used to say that she would have preferred to have played one of the servants: “They are much nicer people.”

Educated at Challoner school, London, she dithered between an academic and a musical future, before settling for the theatre at an early age. Trained at the Webber-Douglas school, she made her debut at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1945, as Leda, in Giraudoux’s Amphitryon 38.

Within a year, she had landed a West End job in The Guinea Pig, appropriately playing a public school house-master’s daughter experimenting with “a scholarship boy of humble parentage”. One critic credited her with “a performance of rare delicacy”. Immediately the play’s long run ended, there was another West End role, that of Lady Katherine, in a 1947 revival of Bridie’s A Sleeping Clergyman.

Since two West End supporting roles in as many years hardly provided a promising young actor with the experience she needed, Gurney joined the Bristol Old Vic, notably playing a baronet’s fiancée in Peter Watling’s Rain On The Just, a play about upper-class families in decline.

Back in the West End in 1949, she was a well-to-do family’s married daughter in Lesley Storm’s drama, Black Chiffon (Westminster), before joining Alec Clunes’s prestigious Arts Theatre Club for a season of Shaw one-acters and Granville-Barker’s The Voysey Inheritance, in which she was the girl whom the young hero finally fancies, when he has sifted the family scandal.

After 18 months in The Chalk Garden came a tour of India and Ceylon, in a Shakespearean recital for the British Council. Then, in 1959, Gurney resumed her aristocratic characterisations by taking over from Celia Johnson as the Countess of Rhyall in that lightest of light comedies, The Grass Is Greener. She followed that with Lady Chiltern, in An Ideal Husband (Piccadilly, 1966), Lady Chavender, in a Dublin festival production of Shaw’s On The Rocks, in which she toured England, and Mrs Darling, in Peter Pan (Palladium, 1975).

In a spate of Shaw revivals in the United States, Gurney then turned up as Mrs Clandon, in You Never Can Tell (1977), Hesione Hushabye, in Heartbreak House, and Lady Britomart, in Major Barbara, as well as Mrs Prentice, in Joe Orton’s What The Butler Saw (1980).

Ever the trouper, in 1989 she toured with Derek Jacobi in Richard II and Richard III. Among her 1990s stage credits were Uncle Vanya (Cottesloe, 1992), and tours of Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking The Code (1992) and Rattigan’s Separate Tables (1993), which reached the West End.

Among Gurney’s television credits since 1950 were Lady Carbury, in the original BBC production of Trollope’s The Way We Live Now, Portrait Of A Lady, Moonstone and Little Sir Nicholas.

Her marriage to the writer Denys Rhodes was dissolved in 1950 after five years. They had a daughter.

· Rachel Gurney Lubbock, actor, born March 5 1920; died November 24 2001

The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.

Collection of Classic Brittish Actors

Louis Hayward

Los Angeles Times obituary in 1985:

Cecil Parker

Alexander Knox

Elizabeth Welch

Craig Douglas

Raymond Massey

Adrienne Posta

Eve Boswell

Rachel Gurney

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