Max Adrian
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| Max Adrian | |
| Birth name | Max Bor |
| Born | November 1, 1903 Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Ireland (pre-partition) UK |
| Died | January 19, 1973 Shamley Green, England, UK |
| Other name(s) | Max Cavendish |
| Notable roles | Frederick Delius in Song of Summer |
Max Adrian (1 November 1903–19 January 1973) was a British stage, film and television actor.
He was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. He was born simply Max Bor, and is sometimes credited as Max Cavendish. He was educated at the Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, whose past pupils also included Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett.
Firstly a stage actor, he began his career as a chorus boy at a silent moving-picture house, coming on as part of the chorus line while the reels were being changed. After a few walk-ons, he decided to become an actor and in 1930, joined the weekly rep in Northampton where he took some forty roles a year. After some experience in the West End, he toured in an early Terence Rattigan comedy, First Episode (1934), which transferred to New York. He then joined a classical repertory company in London where he appeared in Shakespeare and Shaw.
Adrian joined the Old Vic company in 1939, playing the Dauphin in Shaw's Saint Joan, and John Gielgud's company at the Haymarket Theatre (1944–5) as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Osric in Hamlet. He also appeared in several revues, including Airs on a Shoestring (1953), which ran for almost two years at the Royal Court Theatre in London and subsequently went on tour. Its contributors included Michael Flanders, Donald Swann, and Joyce Grenfell, while the producer was Laurier Lister, who became Adrian's lifelong partner.
In 1960, he joined Peter Hall's newly-formed Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Stratford-upon-Avon together with such actors as Peggy Ashcroft, Peter O'Toole, and Diana Rigg. He played Jaques in As You Like It, Feste in Twelfth Night, Pandarus in Troilus and Cressida and Father Barré in The Devils as well as a range of smaller parts.
Adrian was one of the original members of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company at the Old Vic from 1963, and appeared as Polonius in the opening production of Hamlet in which Peter O'Toole played the Prince. He went on to appear in Uncle Vanya, Saint Joan, The Master Builder and The Recruiting Officer.
In the late 1960s, Adrian toured as George Bernard Shaw in the one-man presentation By George and originated the role of Pangloss in Leonard Bernstein's Candide on Broadway.
His first film was in 1934. He appeared in several British films in the 1940s, before playing the Dauphin in the Laurence Olivier production of Henry V (1944). He also appeared in The Deadly Affair (1966) and several Ken Russell films The Music Lovers (1970), The Boy Friend (1971) and The Devils (1971) and, on television, in the acclaimed awarding-winning 1968 Omnibus documentary, Song of Summer, as the blind composer Frederick Delius.
His other television work included Senator Ludicrus Sextus in the first season of Up Pompeii! (1969), Fagin in the 1962 dramatisation of Oliver Twist, and parts in The Baron, Adam Adamant Lives!, and Perry Mason. He also appeared in the Doctor Who story The Myth Makers as King Priam.
Adrian died from a heart attack at his home, Smarkham Orchard, Shamley Green, near Guildford, Surrey, after returning from the television studios where he had been recording Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle for the BBC.
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adrian, Max |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bor, Max (real name); Cavendish, Max |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Northern Irish actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1 November 1903 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 19, 1973 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Wilford, England |
