Lionel Jeffries
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| Lionel Jeffries | |||||||
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| Born | June 10, 1926 Forest Hill, London, England, UK |
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Lionel Charles Jeffries (born June 10, 1926 in Forest Hill, London, England) is a British actor, screenwriter and film director.
[edit] Life and work
He attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wimborne and then trained at RADA after his World War II service, for which he was awarded the Burma Star. He then went into repertory at the David Garrick Theatre, Lichfield for 2 years and appeared in early British television plays.
He built a successful career in British films mainly in comic character roles and as he was prematurely bald he often played characters older than himself. For example, he played the role of father to Caractacus Potts (played by Dick Van Dyke) in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), although Jeffries is actually 6 months younger than Van Dyke. His acting career reached a peak in the 1960s with leading roles in other films like Two-Way Stretch (1960), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), First Men in the Moon (1964) and Camelot (1967).
In the 1970s he turned to writing and directing children's films, including the celebrated 1970 version of The Railway Children. He belongs to the British Catholic Stage Guild, formerly headed by the late actress Patricia Hayes.
His roles in television are far less as it was reported he did not like the medium. However in 1985 he appeared in the Central Television situation-comedy (for ITV) Roll Over Beethoven, alongside Nigel Planer and Liza Goddard. Since then he appeared in a few further television roles.
[edit] Selected films
As actor:
- Stage Fright (1950)
- Will Any Gentleman? (1953)
- The Colditz Story (1955)
- The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
- Bhowani Junction (1956)
- Lust for Life (1956)
- Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957)
- The Vicious Circle (1957)
- Doctor at Large (1957)
- Dunkirk (1958)
- Up the Creek (1958)
- Orders to Kill (1958)
- Law and Disorder (1958)
- The Nun's Story (1959)
- Idle on Parade (1959)
- Two-Way Stretch (1960)
- The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960)
- The Notorious Landlady (1962)
- The Long Ships (1963)
- The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963)
- The Scarlet Blade (1963)
- Murder Ahoy! (1964)
- First Men in the Moon (1964)
- You Must be Joking! (1965)
- The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966)
- Rocket to the Moon (1967)
- Camelot (1967)
- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
- Eyewitness (1970)
- Royal Flash (1975)
- The Prisoner of Zenda (1979)
- A Chorus of Disapproval (1988)
- Abel's Island (1988)
As writer-director:
- The Railway Children (1970)
- Baxter! (1972)
- The Amazing Mr Blunden (1972)
- Wombling Free (1977)
- The Water Babies (1978)
