Anthony_Quayle

Anthony Quayle

Anthony Quayle

British actor, director (1913–1989)

Sir John Anthony Quayle CBE (7 September 1913 – 20 October 1989) was a British actor, theatre director and novelist. He was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his supporting role as Thomas Wolsey in the film Anne of the Thousand Days (1969). He also played important roles in such major studio productions as The Guns of Navarone (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Operation Crossbow (1965), QB VII (1974) and The Eagle Has Landed (1976). Quayle was knighted in the 1985 New Years Honours List.

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Early life

Quayle was born on 7 September 1913 at 2 Delamere Road, Ainsdale,[1] Southport, Lancashire, to solicitor Arthur Quayle, of a Manx family, and Esther Kate Quayle (née Overton).[3]

He was educated at Abberley Hall School, a preparatory school in Abberley, Worcestershire, and at Rugby School, then an all-boys independent boarding school. He trained for one year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. His first professional stage appearance was in The Ghost Train at the Q Theatre, while on holiday from RADA. After appearing in music hall, he joined the Old Vic in 1932.[3]

Second World War service

During the Second World War, he served in the Royal Artillery, British Army.[3] Having joined as a gunner (i.e. private), he attended the 70th Coast Defence Training Regiment and was commissioned as a second lieutenant on 7 January 1940.[4] He was made one of the area commanders of the Auxiliary Units in Northumberland.[5][6]

Later he joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and served as a liaison officer with the partisans in Albania. Reportedly, his service with the SOE seriously affected him, and he never felt comfortable talking about it. He described his experiences in a fictional form in Eight Hours from England.[7]

He was an aide to the Governor of Gibraltar at the time of the air crash of General Władysław Sikorski's aircraft on 4 July 1943.[8] He wrote of his Gibraltar experience in his second novel On Such a Night, published by Heinemann.

By the end of the war, he held the rank of temporary major.[9] In May 1946, it was published that he had been mentioned in despatches "in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the Mediterranean Theatre".[9]

Career

Theatre

From 1948 to 1956 Quayle directed at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and laid the foundations for the creation of the Royal Shakespeare Company. His own Shakespearian roles included Falstaff, Othello, Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, Henry VIII and Aaron in Titus Andronicus with Laurence Olivier; he played Mosca in Ben Jonson's Volpone; and he also appeared in contemporary plays. He played the role of Moses in Christopher Fry's play The Firstborn, in a production starring opposite Katharine Cornell.[10] He also made an LP with Cornell, in which he played the role of poet Robert Browning in The Barretts of Wimpole Street.[11]

Quayle made his Broadway debut in The Country Wife in 1936. Thirty-four years later, he won critical acclaim for his starring role in the highly successful Anthony Shaffer play Sleuth, which earned him a Drama Desk Award.

Quayle was artist-in-residence at the University of Tennessee in the mid-70s. He came to Knoxville in spring 1974, through a partnership with the Kennedy Center, starring in Henry Denker's The Headhunters, which rehearsed and opened at the Clarence Brown Theatre and then moved on to the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theatre. Quayle was appointed as professor in theatre in 1974. He taught classes as an artist in residence and served as artistic director of the Clarence Brown Company—a professional theatre company in residence at UT. He played in Everyman the same year.

In 1984, he founded Compass Theatre Company, that he inaugurated with a tour of The Clandestine Marriage, directing and playing the part of Lord Ogleby. This production had a run at the Albery Theatre, London. With the same company he subsequently toured with a number of other plays, including Saint Joan, Dandy Dick and King Lear with himself in the title role.

Sherry barrel signed by Anthony Quayle

Film and Television

His first film role was an uncredited brief appearance as an Italian wigmaker in Pygmalion (1938) – subsequent film roles included parts in Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Battle of the River Plate (both 1956), Ice Cold in Alex (1958), Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959), The Guns of Navarone (1961), H.M.S. Defiant, David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (both 1962) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Cardinal Wolsey in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969).

Often cast as the decent British officer, Quayle drew upon his own wartime experiences, bringing a degree of authenticity to the parts absent from the performances of some non-combatant stars. One of his best friends from his days at the Old Vic was fellow actor Alec Guinness, who appeared in several films with him. He was also a close friend of Jack Hawkins and Jack Gwillim; all four actors appeared in Lawrence of Arabia.

Television appearances include the Armchair Theatre episode "The Scent of Fear" (1959) for ITV, the title role in the drama series Strange Report (ITC, 1969) and as French General Villers in the television film adaptation of The Bourne Identity (1988). He starred in the miniseries Masada (1981) as Rubrius Gallius. Also he narrated the BBC drama serial The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), and the acclaimed aviation documentary series Reaching for the Skies (1988). Quayle also starred in the 'Last Bottle in The World' episode of Tales of the Unexpected (TV series)

Personal life

Quayle married twice. His first wife was the actress Hermione Hannen (1913–1983), to whom he was married from 1935 to 1941. In 1947, he married American-born actress Dorothy Hyson (1914–1996), known as "Dot" to family and friends.[8] He and Dorothy had two daughters, Jenny and Rosanna, and a son, Christopher.

Quayle died at his home in Chelsea from liver cancer on 20 October 1989.[12]

Awards and honours

Awards (nominations)
Awards (won)
Honours

Quayle was mentioned in despatches during the Second World War.[9] He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1952 Birthday Honours.[13] He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 1985 New Year Honours for services to the Theatre,[14] and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 5 March 1985.[15]

Filmography

Film

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Television

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Books

Quayle authored two novels and an autobiography.

The first novel is a semi-fictional account of his war service with the S.O.E. in Albania.

References

  1. [1]
    Ainsdale became part of the County Borough of Southport in 1912
  2. [2]
    Before 1 April 1974 Southport was part of Lancashire
  3. [3]
    "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39947. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. [4]
    "No. 34768". The London Gazette (Supplement). 5 January 1940. pp. 146–148.
  5. [5]
    Auxiliary Units were the "stay-behind forces" put in place in UK in case of a German invasion
  6. [6]
    "Auxunits in Northumberland". Evening Chronicle. Newcastle upon Tyne. 24 April 1968. Retrieved 15 April 2013.
  7. [7]
    Quayle, Anthony (1945). Eight Hours from England. London: Heinemann.
  8. [8]
    Collins, Glenn (21 October 1989). "Sir Anthony Quayle, British Actor And Theater Director, Dies at 76". The New York Times. p. 10 Sec. 1.
  9. [9]
    "No. 37575". The London Gazette (Supplement). 21 May 1946. pp. 2443–2447.
  10. [10]
    Mosel, Tad (1978). Leading Lady: The World and Theatre of Katharine Cornell. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0316585378.
  11. [11]
    Caedmon Publishers, TC-1071 (1957)
  12. [12]
    "Quayle tough guy on and off screen", The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 October 1989, p. 5.
  13. [13]
    "No. 39555". The London Gazette (Supplement). 5 June 1952. p. 3007.
  14. [14]
    "No. 49969". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 1984. p. 2.
  15. [15]
    "No. 50078". The London Gazette. 29 March 1985. p. 4500.

Further reading

  • Information on Quayle's war experience taken from Howarth, Patrick (1980). Undercover. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7100-0573-3. Howarth was an early member of SOE's HQ.
  • The Wildest Province: SOE in the Land of the Eagle (2008), by Roderick Bailey, London: Cape.
  • His autobiography: Time to Speak (1990)
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