Ralph Richardson

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Ralph Richardson
Ralph Richardson

Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor, one of a group of theatrical knights of the mid-20th century who, though more closely associated with the stage, did their best to make the transition to film.

Contents

[edit] Background

Richardson was born in Cheltenham. When he was a baby, his mother, Lydia Russell, left his father and took him with her to Gloucester, where he was raised in the Roman Catholic faith of his mother (his father and brothers were Quakers). His father supported them with a small allowance. Lydia Richardson wished Ralph to become a priest. Ralph was an altar boy in Brighton, England and was educated by the Xaverian Brothers, but was never particularly religious.

[edit] Career

[edit] Stage

Richardson made his West End début in 1926. Thereafter he became one of the Old Vic Theatre's major stars, one of his early big roles being Caliban to the Prospero of John Gielgud, a professional association that lasted for four decades. Richardson scored additional Old Vic triumphs as Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra, Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, and Bottom in A Midsummer Nights Dream.

At Malvern in 1932, he played Face in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist. In 1933 he played the title role in W. Somerset Maugham's final play Sheppey at Wyndham's Theatre, and became an undisputed West End star in The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1936).

After active service in World War II serving as a Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Richardson joined Laurence Olivier and the director John Burrell as co-director of the Old Vic Theatre, where his notable roles included Falstaff (to Olivier's Hotspur), Bluntschli in Arms and the Man (Olivier as Sergius), Cyrano in Cyrano de Bergerac, and Peer Gynt, in which Olivier took the cameo role of the Button Moulder. Richardson also directed Alec Guinness in Richard II, taking on the role of John of Gaunt in the production when the Old Vic governors insisted that either Richardson or Olivier were contractually obligated to act in all the productions. After he was dismissed at the Old Vic, Richardson appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-on-Avon but had mixed results, with his 1952 performance as Macbeth being the greatest failure of his career. He faired better at the Bristol Old Vic in his appearance as Volpone to Anthony Quayle's Mosca in Ben Jonson's Volpone, in the title role of Timon of Athens in his 1952 return to the Old Vic, and on Broadway in his Tony-nominated role in The Waltz of the Toreadors (1957). He made a misstep in turning down the English language premiere of Waiting for Godot, a decision that he regretted for the remainder of his life.

In 1960s he appeared successfully as Sir Peter Teazle in John Gielgud's production of School for Scandal, as the Father in Six Characters in Search of an Author in London (1963), a return to Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Nights Dream (1964) and the original production of Joe Orton's controversial farce What The Butler Saw in the West End at the Queen's Theatre in 1969 with Stanley Baxter, Coral Browne, and Hayward Morse.

In the 1970s he appeared in the West End (for example in William Douglas-Home's play Lloyd George Knew My Father with Peggy Ashcroft), and with the National Theatre under Peter Hall's direction, where among the classics he played Firs in The Cherry Orchard and the title role in John Gabriel Borkman. He continued his long stage association with John Gielgud, appearing together in two new works, David Storey's Home and Harold Pinter's No Man's Land.

[edit] Radio and Television

From 1954 – 1955 he played the character of Dr. John Watson (mistakenly called 'James' in several episodes) in an American/BBC radio co-production of canonical Sherlock Holmes stories, which starred Gielgud as the famous consulting detective. In the 1960s he played Lord Emsworth on BBC television in dramatisations of P.G.Wodehouse's Blandings Castle stories, with his real-life wife Meriel Forbes playing his domineering sister Connie, and Stanley Holloway as his butler Beach.

[edit] Recordings

Richardson made several spoken word recordings for the Caedmon Audio label in the 1960s. He re-created his role as Cyrano de Bergerac opposite Anna Massey as Roxane, and played the title role in a complete recording of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (play), with a cast that included Anthony Quayle as Brutus, John Mills as Cassius, and Alan Bates as Marc Antony. He also recorded some English Romantic poetry, such as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, for the label.

[edit] Film

His film appearances included The Heiress (his first nomination for an Academy Award), Richard III (playing Buckingham to Olivier's Richard), Our Man in Havana (with Alec Guinness and Noel Coward), O Lucky Man!, Oh! What a Lovely War, Dragonslayer, Tales from the Crypt (as the Crypt Keeper himself) and Time Bandits. His final film appearance was as the sixth Earl of Greystoke in the 1983 movie Greystoke - The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, for which he was again nominated for an Academy Award.

[edit] Music

Richardson recorded the narration for Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, and the superscriptions for Vaughan Williams' Sinfonia Antartica - both with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Prokofiev conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Vaughan Williams by André Previn.

[edit] Awards and honours

Richardson was knighted by King George VI in 1947. In 1963 he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for Long Day's Journey Into Night. He won the BAFTA Award for Best British Actor for The Sound Barrier (1952), and was nominated on another three occasions. He was also nominated for three Tony Awards for his work on the New York stage, for his performances in The Waltz of the Toreadors, Home, and No Man's Land. He received Oscar nominations for The Heiress and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards for The Sound Barrier and Greystoke.

[edit] Family

He was a nephew of the mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson. He was married to the actress Meriel Forbes (a member of the theatrical Forbes-Robertson family).

Sir Ralph Richardson died of a stroke, aged 80, and was interred at Highgate Cemetery.

[edit] Trivia

  • Richardson habitually rode a motorbike even in his seventies. He rode a Norton Dominator and in his later years changed to a BMW.

[edit] Selected filmography

[edit] External links

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