Kenneth Griffith
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Kenneth Griffith (October 12, 1921 – June 25, 2006) was a Welsh actor and documentary film-maker.
Born in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales, he served in the Royal Air Force during World War II.
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[edit] Acting career
Griffith gained stage experience with the Old Vic and in repertory. In 1941, he made his debut in the first of more than 80 films in which he principally played character roles.
He can be spotted in many British films between the 1940s and 1980s, notably as the wireless operator Jack Phillips on board the Titanic in A Night to Remember, in the crime caper Track the Man Down, and especially in the comedies of the Boulting brothers, including Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right Jack (1959). He also portrayed the homosexual medic Whitey in The Wild Geese (1978).
His work on sixties TV programme The Prisoner is much appreciated by its fans, because of his appearances in the episodes The Girl Who Was Death and Fall Out. He has appeared in episodes of Minder. More recent cinemagoers may have seen him as a "mad old man" in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), as Reverend Jones in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995), and as the Minister in Very Annie Mary (2001).
[edit] Documentary maker
In middle age, Griffith became a supporter of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In 1973 Griffith made a documentary film about the life and death of Irish military/political leader Michael Collins entitled Hang up your Brightest Colours (which is a line taken from a letter from George Bernard Shaw to one of Collins' sisters after his death) for ATV.
He also contributed to a documentary interviewing then-surviving (now all deceased) IRA guerrillas from the 1920s: Maire Comerford, Joseph Sweeney, Sean Kavanagh, John O'Sullivan, Brigid Thornton, Sean Harling, Martin Walton, David Nelligan (or Neligan) and Tom Barry, titled Curious Journey.
Griffith's very sympathetic portrayal caused some concern given the state of tension in Northern Ireland and ATV boss Sir Lew Grade decided to withdraw the film, which was not released publicly until 1994. Although the info was removed from IMDb, the story on Griffith and his Irish republican sympathies was published in the 15 November, 1997 edition of the Irish Post (est. 1970) as Beating the censor, written by Martin Doyle.
Griffith made some documentaries which are said to have shown an anti-imperialist stance. He was a supporter of the Boers in South Africa.
He made a BBC2 TV documentary on the teenage runner Zola Budd which purported to reveal injustices done to her by left-wing demonstrators and organisations during a tour of England in 1988.
[edit] Personal life
Thrice-married Protestant Griffith named his home in Islington, London, "Michael Collins House". He "proudly" displayed on his wall a death threat from the Ulster Volunteer Force (Northern Irish loyalists) "flanked on one side by a friendlier letter from Gerry Adams". He also had a bust of Clive of India on display in the living room.
Kenneth was always curious about the Christian faith and greatly impressed by Christ. His sorties into religion brought him to visit C of E, St Helens, Bishopsgate as well as Plymouth Brethren in Plumstead Common - where he was a regular attender. At his first appearance at the Brethren Meeting Room he announced he was an agnostic, to which an elder replied with the question, 'Why do you like to be known by a Greek word? Would you like to know the Latin translation?' 'Yes of course!' 'It is ignoramus!' Ken then accepted a luncheon invitation which became a regular event after meetings. He never allowed the elder to forget his rudeness and signed the visitors book 'ignoramus'. Kenneth had plenty to say on matters religious and wrote an article in The Oldie on "The Joy of Sects".
Griffith died peacefully at his north London home on June 25, 2006, and was buried in the churchyard at Penally, within sight of his grandparent's house, where he grew up.
