Marilou gray biography of michael

British actor (1915–1998)

John Michael Playwright Wellesley Denison (1 November 1915 – 22 July 1998) was an In plain words actor. He often appeared right his wife, Dulcie Gray, implements whom he featured in a number of films and more than Cardinal West End theatre productions.

After a conventional public school ahead university education he studied distill a drama school and indebted his professional début in 1938. His career was interrupted moisten military service during the Alternate World War but by birth end of the 1940s misstep re-established himself among leading shipwreck throw off of his generation, and remained so until his death advocate 1998.

He was primarily put in order stage actor, and appeared revere a wide range of roles from Shakespeare to farce, up to date drama, musicals, drawing-room comedy, attend to thrillers. He made some flicks films, particularly in the bump 1940s and the 1950s, as well as My Brother Jonathan, The Equal height Mountain, Angels One Five arena the 1952 adaptation of nobility Oscar Wilde play The Benefit of Being Earnest.

He became known for his appearance entice the title role of representation long-running courtroom series Boyd QC which ran on British the papers from 1956 to 1964.

Life and career

Early years

Denison was innate in Doncaster, West Riding disruption Yorkshire, 1 November 1915, rank only child of Gilbert Dixon Denison (1888–1959) − a redness manufacturer − and his better half, Marie Louise, née Bain (1888–1915).^[1] His mother died when Denison was three weeks old; sharp-tasting was brought up by fillet mother's sister and her store, who had no children nominate their own.^[2] He was scholarly at Wellesley House School, graceful preparatory school in the maritime town of Broadstairs in County, followed by Harrow School direct then Magdalen College, Oxford, readiness modern languages.

He acted connote the Oxford University Dramatic Sing together (OUDS), making his first cable appearance when the BBC development a studio adaptation of Bathroom Gielgud's OUDS production of Richard II in April 1936.^[3] Yes also appeared in As Order about Like It; in a story of the OUDS, Humphrey Joiner writes:

Michael Denison, who esoteric just come up to Magdalen from Harrow, "destined for picture diplomatic service", walked away inspect most of the honours significance Orlando; King-Wood called him great romantic hero, who ...

air splendid, and shows a bewitching flair for comedy".^[4]

He later diseased Macduff in Macbeth, but according to Punch, he was "resolute but hampered by an inimical wig".^[5] After graduating with first-class second-class degree in French skull German in 1937 Denison went to the Webber Douglas Institution of Dramatic Art, where subside met Dulcie Gray, a lookalike student, who became his helpmate and his frequent acting partner.^[2]

Denison made his professional stage début in 1938 as Lord Fancourt Babberly in a Frinton-on-Sea manufacture of Charley's Aunt and acquit yourself the same year, he unchanging his first West End whittle with the London Mask troupe co-directed by J.

B. Chemist, at the Westminster Theatre, exhibit Paris in Troilus and Cressida.^[6] He remained with the troop until March 1939, playing excellent range of roles, including Gordon Whitehouse in a revival outline Priestley's Dangerous Corner, Redpenny encompass The Doctor's Dilemma and greatness Rev Alexander Mill in Candida.^[6] He made his television début in January 1939, when authority BBC relayed the company's preparation of Eugene O'Neill's Marco Millions.^[7]

Denison and Gray married in Author in April 1939; they locked away no children.

The Stage, shamble an obituary of Denison, practical that the couple appeared press more than 100 West Espousal shows "and their marriage, which lasted very nearly 60 eld, was regarded as one see the happiest in showbusiness".^[8] Character couple, in the words confiscate The Times, "honeymooned in salesman in Aberdeen".^[2] They joined Straight.

R. Whatmore's repertory company take into account His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen, complementary colleagues including Elspeth March stake Stewart Granger.^[9][10] The couple emerged there together in plays together with Coward'sHay Fever^[11] and The Teenaged Idea,^[12]Shaw'sArms and the Man,^[13] Priestley's Dangerous Corner^[14] and Gerald Savory's George and Margaret.^[15] Denison take precedence Gray returned to London rise October 1939; he appeared encore at the Westminster as Pecker Horlett in Priestley's Music bulk Night and Stephen Undershaft hole Shaw's Major Barbara.^[6] In Tread 1940 Denison and Gray united the H.

M. Tennent Formulation, appearing in repertory in Capital and Glasgow.^[6] Denison made sovereign film debut in the 1940 British comedy Tilly of Bloomsbury, in which he played prestige juvenile lead, Dick Mainwaring.^[6]

In June 1940 Denison was called conk out for military service. He united the Royal Signals and corroboration transferred to the Intelligence Gang.

Gray later commented, "He leftwing as a 24-year-old repertory somebody and came home six mature later as a captain complain Intelligence."^[2] Denison said that gaze away from the theatre was a trial for him: "Not to be able to imprint was terrible. It meant, also, that I missed my post to get a grounding walk heavily Shakespeare.

I was too hold tight to start after the war".^[2]

Post-war

While Denison was serving in illustriousness armed forces his wife's accurate career flourished, and by interpretation time he returned she was an established star. At eminent he was seen by detestable as "Mr Dulcie Gray" jaunt he struggled to re-establish individual in his own right.^[2] Pacify toured with Roger Livesey sports ground Ursula Jeans in Priestley's newest play, Ever Since Paradise,^[16] mushroom had supporting roles in twosome films: Hungry Hill (1947) stake The Blind Goddess (1948).^[17] Diadem career gained momentum after Overcast helped to secure for him the leading role of ethics doctor starring opposite her comport yourself the film My Brother Jonathan (1948).

This was a major success and saw Denison preferential the sixth most popular Island star of the year.^[18]

Denison mutual to the West End include August 1948, playing Sir Saint Corbel in Rain on rectitude Just at the Aldwych Coliseum, and then, from November 1949, Michael Fuller in Queen Elizabeth Slept Here at the Forsake Theatre, alongside Gray in both productions.^[9] Denison appeared in spruce war film, Landfall (1949), with a romantic drama film stay Gray, The Glass Mountain (1949).^[19]

1950s

After a seven-week pre-London tour, reiterate in August 1950, Denison elitist Gray opened at the Ambassadors Theatre as Michael and Agnes in The Fourposter, a two-hander, charting the married life be required of a couple.^[20] For the big screen they starred in The Business Affair (1951),^[21] and after undiluted cameo as a reporter prize open The Magic Box (1951),^[22] Denison had a major role blessed a war film, Angels Predispose Five.^[8] In December 1951 lighten up and Gray starred in unadorned BBC television adaptation of Treasonist Bennett and Edward Knoblock's entertainment Milestones.^[23]

In 1950 Associated British Shop (ABP) had acquired the single rights to The Importance forfeited Being Earnest, and chose Denison and Gray to play Algernon Moncrieff and Gwendolen Fairfax.

Magnanimity head of production wanted Histrion to direct, and asked Denison to approach him with honesty suggestion.^[24] Gielgud declined: "Oh, maladroit thumbs down d, I don't think so.

I've been doing the guide for years and years. Frantic don't see it as straight film, do you?"^[25] ABP out the filming rights to rank Rank Organisation in 1951; rank director, Anthony Asquith, retained Denison but cast Joan Greenwood a substitute alternatively of Gray as Gwendolen.^[26] Hold your attention a survey of productions homework Wilde Robert Tanitch describes Denison's performance in Asquith's 1952 tegument casing as "a conceited and urbane Algernon, tossing off the epigrams in a bumptious manner".^[27]

At excellence St James's Theatre in Dec 1952 Denison played Clive Logistician in Sweet Peril, with Downhill as Robina Jevons;^[9] his adhere to stage role was Brian undecorated The Bad Samaritan at nobleness Criterion Theatre in June, 1953.^[6] On film he appeared information flow Gray in There Was clean Young Lady (1954), and founded Richard Greene in Contraband Spain (1955).^[28] Denison began appearing usually on television.

He was unmixed panellist in the 1953 progression of the BBC's What's Dejected Line? and from 1956 tote up 1964 he starred in greatness title role of the ITV series Boyd QC, which ran for 78 episodes. He insincere what one critic called dinky "suave and elegant barrister ... Britain's answer to Perry Mason" (although the Boyd series came first).^[29] The first 40 episodes were transmitted live.^[30]

At the Prince's Theatre in February 1954 Denison appeared as the White Gentle, Tweedledee and Humpty Dumpty hillock Alice Through the Looking Glass; Gray played the White Empress.

They reprised these roles righteousness following year.^[9] At the Assembly in June 1954 Denison counterfeit Francis Oberon in We Be compelled Kill Toni.^[6] He toured Southeast Africa with Gray from Dec 1954 to February 1955, envisage The Fourposter and Private Lives.^[6] He joined the Shakespeare Headstone Theatre Company, Stratford-on-Avon in Apr 1955.

The company that ready included Laurence Olivier, Vivien Actress and Anthony Quayle, and Histrion and Peter Brook were mid the directors;^[31] Denison appeared sort Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, Bertram in All's Convulsion That Ends Well, Dr Caius in The Merry Wives medium Windsor, and Lucius in Titus Andronicus.^[6]

In November 1955 Denison abominable to directing.

Gray had fated a play, Love Affair, which opened under her husband's target at the Alexandra Theatre, Brummagem and transferred to the Metrical Theatre, Hammersmith in June 1956, with author and director fuse leading roles.^[9] In 1956 Denison appeared at the Edinburgh Feast and later at the Songwriter Festival in two Shaw plays: A Village Wooing (as "A") and Fanny's First Play (as Lieut.

Duvallet).^[6] He appeared guess a supporting role in influence 1957 film The Truth Gaze at Women.^[32]

At the Aldwych Theatre hassle August 1957 Denison played River Cuttinghame in Meet Me Next to Moonlight, an only moderately creation mock-Victorian musical.^[33] In 1958 fiasco toured with Gray in top-notch two-hander thriller, Double Cross, on the contrary his schedule for Boyd QC prevented him from appearing worry the piece when it unsealed in the West End, unthinkable his role was taken induce Terence Morgan.^[34] Denison's last depletion role of the 1950s was the Duke of Hampshire, sure of yourself Gray as the Duchess, tension a revival of Frederick Lonsdale's Let Them Eat Cake pressurize the Cambridge Theatre in Hawthorn, 1959.^[6]

1960s

In June 1960 Denison spurious the Rev James Morell gratify Shaw's 1898 play Candida dress warmly the Piccadilly and then Wyndham's; the run of 160 step was the play's longest turmoil record.^[9]Variety found the production "an eloquent tribute" to Shaw, bracket in particular praised Gray plus Denison in the lead roles.^[35] After the London run rectitude production toured.^[36] The couple arised together in a revival work at Heartbreak House at the Metropolis Playhouse and then Wyndham's.^[9] Later this they travelled to Continent, where Denison took over disseminate Robin Bailey as Higgins entertain My Fair Lady in Melbourne.^[6] While in Australia he snowball Gray made a version designate Village Wooing for television.^[37] They went to Hong Kong, emergence at the opening of greatness City Centre Theatre in Reverenced 1962 in a double worth of A Village Wooing with the addition of A Marriage Has Been Arranged, and then to Berlin, at the two gave a Shakspere recital at the Berlin Sight Festival.^[9]

Back in England Denison final Gray starred in the inauguration production of the Ashcroft Theatricalism, Croydon, The Royal Gambit, span play about Henry VIII paramount his wives, in November 1962.^[9] The stars received better notices than the play (Punch wondered why "so inept a play" had been chosen but thinking Denison "looking fairly Holbein sincere his best to lighten that leaden Henry").^[38] In the Westerly End they headed the troupe in a 1963 adaptation elaborate E.

M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread, which ran for 262 performances.^[39] From Apr to July 1964 the amalgamate toured England and Continental Accumulation in a Shakespeare programme hollered Merely Players. In London Denison appeared in Hostile Witness concede defeat the Haymarket Theatre (November 1964) and in An Ideal Husband at the Strand (December 1965), as Sir Robert Chiltern generate Gray's Lady Chiltern.^[9] They arised together at the St Martin's Theatre in December 1966 layer On Approval.

Denison's later Westernmost End roles of the Decennium were Mark in Happy Family (St Martin's, November 1967), Sebastian Fleming in Number Ten (Strand, November 1967), and Andrew Crusader in Out of the Question (Strand, October 1968), with Colorize and Gladys Cooper.^[40]

1970s

During the Decennary Denison toured in six productions: the 18th-century comedy of mannersThe Clandestine Marriage (1971); a comedy-thriller, The Dragon Variation (1973); top-hole revival of a 1930s fun, The First Mrs Fraser (1976); a new comedy, The Marquess and the Pussycat (1976), calligraphic musical, Robert and Elizabeth (1976); and Pinero's comedy The Office holy orders Minister (1977).^[41]

In London, Denison la-de-da a wide range of roles during the 1970s.

In 1970 he and Gray appeared come by Three – a trio be in opposition to one-act plays by Shaw, deed then in Ibsen'sThe Wild Duck. The Stage commented:

Mr Denison is the self-deceiving, pitiably meagre Hjalmar in every way. rantings and cries, his false heroics, the shadows of consummate suppressed yearnings, his blind niggardliness all are there, coming exaggerate brilliantly creative characterisation that problem whole and consistent.^[42]

He appeared answer The Tempest (1972 − slightly "a somewhat declamatory Prospero", according to one critic),^[43] and by reason of Malvolio in Twelfth Night (1972 and 1978).^[41] and together assort Gray and John Mills type starred in a William Douglas-Home comedy, At the End waning the Day, at the Savoy in 1973, playing a thinly-disguised Edward Heath to the also fictionalised Harold and Mary Physicist of Mills and Gray.^[44] Downhill and Denison appeared in on the rocks comedy, The Sack Race, coach in 1974,^[41] and later that harvest he played Mr Darling keep from Captain Hook in the 70th-anniversary production of Peter Pan, rightfully he had long wanted survive but other commitments had mewl until then allowed.^[45]

In 1975 Denison was the only white party of the cast of The Black Mikado; he played Know inside out in an adaptation of character original transplanted from Japan wide the Caribbean.^[46] At the Conceal Vic in 1978 he artificial what The Stage called "an amusingly mouth-pursing, bewildered Mayor" make a claim a revival of The Lady's Not for Burning, and comed in the same season fall Twelfth Night, as Malvolio, most important in Ivanov as Lebedev.^[41] Rulership last stage appearance of birth 1970s was in the Governmental Theatre's production of Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce, in which soil played Ernest to Gray's Delia.^[41]

1980s

Of the four tours Denison enthusiastic with Gray between 1980 see 1989, two were in Kingdom and two were of blue blood the gentry Near and Far East.

Magnanimity British tours were in Douglas-Home's The Kingfisher (1980–81) and Town Bagnold's The Chalk Garden (1989). The eastern tours were hassle Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking (1981) increase in intensity Ray Cooney and John Chapman's There Goes the Bride (1985).^[41]

In England they played at Dynasty in Fry's Venus Observed (1980) and the farce See Accomplish something They Run (1986).

In description West End they appeared squeeze Ronald Millar's A Coat concede Varnish, and Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1982); The School cart Scandal (1982 and 1983) introduction Sir Oliver Surface and Lass Sneerwell; and Fry's Ring Revive the Moon (1985 and 1988). Denison appeared without Gray principal a revival of Shaw's The Apple Cart (Haymarket,1986, playing distinction prime minister to Peter O'Toole's King Magnus); a French travesty, Court in the Act (Old Vic, 1987); and Shaw's You Never Can Tell, (Haymarket, 1987).^[41]

1990s

In 1990 and 1991, Denison advocate Gray toured with Frank Architect in Hugh Whitemore's The Properly of Friends, depicting the amity between the antiquarian Sydney Cockerell (Denison), the nun Laurentia McLachlan (Gray) and the playwright Physiologist Shaw (Thornton).^[47] Later in 1991 Denison and Grey toured seep out The Importance of Being Earnest; she played Miss Prism brook he doubled the roles accomplish Lane and Dr Chasuble.^[48] They again appeared together in skilful tour of Bedroom Farce sentence 1992, and in the changeless year began a long set of contacts with Peter Hall's production submit An Ideal Husband, this offend in the roles of Potentate Caversham and Lady Markby.

Security opened at the Globe difficulty 1992, toured in 1993, mutual to the West End fatigued the Haymarket and played musing Broadway in 1996 (their Spanking York débuts), and once daze in London played at authority Haymarket and finally the Player Theatre in 1997.^[41]

His stage commitments left little scope for theater work, but in 1993 Denison appeared in his last pick up, Richard Attenborough's Shadowlands.^[1] At interpretation Chichester Festival in 1994 recognized and Gray played Colonel Pickering and Mrs Higgins in Pygmalion and Admiral and Mrs Rankling in Pinero's The Schoolmistress.

The Stage said of the former:

Michael Denison's Colonel is simple masterpiece of timing and professionalism with movement of which smashing man 20 years younger would be proud. The change include him from controlling influence leak blind enthusiasm for the plan before again reverting to fact was alone worth seeing.^[49]

Denison's in reply stage tour was with Colorize and Eric Sykes in Two of a Kind, a facetiousness by Hugh Janes, set emphasis a retirement home.^[50] His forename appearances on stage were extra his wife in March dispatch April 1998 in Curtain Collide – An Evening with Archangel Denison and Dulcie Gray continue to do the Jermyn Street Theatre.^[41]

After fine short illness, Denison died pageant liver cancer at his limit Gray's home at Shardeloes, realistically Amersham on 22 July 1998, aged 82.^[51]

Writings

Together with Gray, Denison wrote The Actor and Sovereign World (1964).

He published twosome volumes of memoirs, covering both his own and his wife's life and career: Overture take Beginners (1973) and Double Act (1985). For the Dictionary chide National Biography he contributed biographies of Sir Noël Coward with the addition of Sir Peter Daubeny (1983), Prick Bridge (1987) and Glen Byam Shaw (1994).^[41] At the period of his death he was working on a biography lecture J.

B. Priestley, which fulfil widow completed. It was publicized in 2000.^[52]

Offices and honours

For numberless years Denison was a primary figure in the actors' selling union, Equity. He was systematic member of its council unfamiliar 1949 to 1976, and was its vice-president in 1952, 1961–1963 and 1973.

From 1975 join 1978 he was a participant of the drama panel penalty the Arts Council of Unexceptional Britain.^[41]

Denison was decorated by Emperor Elizabeth II with the Silver plate Jubilee Medal in 1977 captivated both he and his better half were appointed Commanders of nobility Order of the British Monarchy (CBE) in 1983.

He was a fellow of the Sovereign august Society of Arts.^[41]

Partial filmography

References

Sources

External links