Ralph Richardson
Encyclopedia
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, also appeared in several classic films.
Richardson first became known for his work on stage in the 1930s. In the 1940s, together with Laurence Olivier
, he ran the Old Vic
company. He continued on stage and in films into the early 1980s and was especially praised for his comedic roles. In his later years he was celebrated for his theatre work with his old friend John Gielgud
. Among his most famous roles were Peer Gynt
, Falstaff
, John Gabriel Borkman
, and Hirst in Pinter's
No Man's Land
.
, Gloucestershire
, England, the third son and youngest child of Arthur Richardson, a master at the Ladies' College
and his wife Lydia née Russell. When he was a baby, his mother left his father and took him with her to Gloucester
, where he was brought up 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. He was an altar boy in Brighton, and was sent to the Xavierian
College, but he ran away from it.
s a week to be taught about acting. He toured with Charles Doran's company for five seasons, gradually being promoted to larger parts including Macduff in Macbeth
and Mark Antony in Julius Caesar
. In 1925 he joined Sir Barry Jackson's
Birmingham Repertory Company
, where many eminent British actors, from Edith Evans
and Cedric Hardwicke
to Derek Jacobi
, learned their craft, and Richardson under the veteran taskmaster H. K. Ayliff
"absorbed the influence of older contemporaries like Gerald du Maurier
, Charles Hawtrey and Mrs. Patrick Campbell."
Richardson made his London début in July 1926 as the stranger in Oedipus at Colonus
at a small theatre, followed by his West End
début as Arthur Varwell in Yellow Sands which ran for 610 performances and from then to 1929 played in supporting roles in London productions.
After touring in South Africa in 1929, he played two seasons at the Old Vic and two seasons at the Malvern summer theatre. His Old Vic roles included Caliban
to the Prospero
of John Gielgud
, and Prince Hal to Gielgud's Hotspur, beginning a professional association and friendship that lasted for five decades. Richardson's other parts in the Old Vic seasons included Enobarbus
in Antony and Cleopatra
, Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, Bottom
in A Midsummer Night's Dream
, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew
, Henry V, Brutus in Julius Caesar, and Iago in Othello
.
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
. He became an undisputed West End star as Clitterhouse in Barré Lyndon
's comedy melodrama, The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse
which ran for 492 performances from August 1936, and most of all as Johnson in J. B. Priestley
's Johnson Over Jordan directed by Basil Dean
, with music by Benjamin Britten
.
Richardson was engaged to play the role of Mercutio, replacing Orson Welles
, in the 1934 Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet
. This production was produced and directed by the husband and wife team of Katharine Cornell
and Guthrie McClintic
.
he served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander despite being nicknamed "Pranger" Richardson "on account of the large number of planes which seemed to fall to pieces under his control". Richardson and Laurence Olivier
were released from the armed forces in 1944 to run the Old Vic company as a triumvirate with the stage director John Burrell. The Old Vic theatre was out of use because of bomb damage, and the company moved to the New Theatre
in St. Martin's Lane. During this period, Richardson gave some of his most noted performances, including not only "the definitive Falstaff
and Peer Gynt
of the century" but also Bluntschli in Arms and the Man
, the title roles in Cyrano de Bergerac
and Uncle Vanya
and Inspector Goole in An Inspector Calls
. He also directed Alec Guinness
as Richard II
, taking on the role of John of Gaunt in the production when the Old Vic governors insisted that either Richardson or Olivier must act in every production. In 1945 Richardson and Olivier led the company in a tour of Germany, where they were seen by many thousands of servicemen; they also appeared at the Comédie Française in Paris.
The triumphs of Richardson and Olivier (the latter famously as Richard III and Oedipus), described by The Times
as the greatest in the Old Vic's history and by Kenneth Tynan
as "matchless", led the governors of the Old Vic to fear that the two stars overshadowed the company. As The Guardian
put it, the governors "summarily sacked the pair in the interests of a more... mediocre company spirit."
adaptation, The Heiress, in 1949; David Preston in Home at Seven, in 1950; and Vershinin in Three Sisters
in 1951. In 1952 he appeared at the Stratford-upon-Avon
festival at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (forerunner of the Royal Shakespeare Company
) but had mixed reviews: his Prospero in The Tempest was judged too prosaic, and his Macbeth, directed by Gielgud, was thought unconvincingly villainous ("Richardson's playing of Macbeth suggests a fatal disparity between his temperament and the part"). Tynan professed himself "unmoved to the point of paralysis," though blaming Gielgud more than Richardson. Richardson's third Stratford role in the season, Volpone in Ben Jonson
's play, received much better, but not ecstatic, notices.
Back in the West End, Richardson starred in The White Carnation by R. C. Sherriff
in 1953, and in November of the same year he and Gielgud starred together in N. C. Hunter's A Day by the Sea. In 1954 he toured Australia in a company which included his wife, Meriel Forbes, together with Sybil Thorndike
and her husband, Lewis Casson
, playing Terence Rattigan
's plays The Sleeping Prince and Separate Tables
.
Richardson turned down the role of Estragon in Peter Hall's premiere of the English-language version of Waiting for Godot
and later reproached himself for missing the chance to be in "the greatest play of my generation". Richardson's Timon of Athens
in his 1956 return to the Old Vic was well received, as was his Broadway
appearance in The Waltz of the Toreadors
for which he was nominated for a Tony Award
in 1957.
In the 1960s, Richardson appeared successfully as Sir Peter Teazle in Gielgud's production of The School for Scandal
, as the Father in Six Characters in Search of an Author
(1963), a return to Bottom in A Midsummer Night's 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 Ibsen's
John Gabriel Borkman
, with Wendy Hiller
and Peggy Ashcroft. 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
. His last appearance was at the National in the lead role in Eduardo De Filippo
's Inner Voices in June 1983, in which both Punch
and The New York Times
found his performance "mesmerising". After his brief illness and subsequent death his part was taken over by Robert Stephens
.
stories, with Gielgud as Holmes and Orson Welles
as the villainous Professor Moriarty. In the 1960s Richardson 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 his friend Stanley Holloway
as his butler Beach.
Richardson's film appearances include Things to Come
(1936), The Citadel
(1938), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Heiress
(1949; his first nomination for an Academy Award), Richard III
(1955; playing Buckingham to Olivier's Richard), Our Man in Havana
(1959; with Alec Guinness
and Noël Coward
), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Oh! What a Lovely War
(1969). He portrayed Simeon in Jesus of Nazareth (1977). In 1981, he portrayed the Supreme Being in a cameo appearance near the end of the Terry Gilliam
film Time Bandits
. Also that same year, he appeared as Ulrich of Craggenmoor, the aging sorcerer who takes on an ancient dragon in the fantasy epic Dragonslayer
. He played the sixth Earl of Greystoke in the 1984 movie Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, for which he was again nominated for an Academy Award
. His last film appearance was in Give My Regards to Broad Street
(1984), starring Paul McCartney
.
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
, with a cast that included Anthony Quayle as Brutus, John Mills
as Cassius, and Alan Bates
as Antony. Richardson also recorded some English Romantic poetry, such as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
, for the label.
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
.
(encephalitis lethargica) and died in 1942 after a long illness. In 1944 Richardson married the actress Meriel ("Mu") Forbes
, a member of the theatrical Forbes-Robertson family. They had one son, Charles David (1945–1998).
Richardson habitually rode a motorbike, even in his seventies. He rode a Norton
Dominator
and in his later years changed to a BMW.
Richardson died of a stroke, aged 80, and was interred at Highgate Cemetery
.
, who thought that Richardson could not play villains; Agate said of Richardson's Iago
, "he could not hurt a fly, which was very good Richardson, but indifferent Shakespeare". This view persisted in a later critical generation. In 1952, Kenneth Tynan
, blaming the director for a badly-received Macbeth said he "seems to have imagined that Ralph Richardson, with his comic, Robeyesque
cheese face, was equipped to play Macbeth." By contrast, the same critics held Richardson up as peerless in classic comic roles. Tynan judged any Falstaff against Richardson's, which he considered "matchless", and Gielgud judged "definitive". But though later critics did not wholly dissent from this view, they also discerned the mystical vein in Richardson: "he was ideally equipped to make an ordinary character seem extraordinary or an extraordinary one seem ordinary". Peter Hall said of him, "I do not think any other actor could fill Hirst [in No Man's Land] with such a sense of loneliness and creativity as Ralph does." The Guardian judged him "indisputably our most poetic actor". Richardson himself perhaps confirmed this dichotomy in his variously reported comments that acting was "merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing" or, alternatively, "dreaming to order". Caitlin Clarke
, who worked with Richardson in Dragonslayer, stated on interview that he had taught her more on acting than any acting class.
in 1947, the first of his generation of actors to receive the accolade. He was soon followed by Olivier and Gielgud.
In 1963, Richardson 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 (his last being for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes). He also received Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations for The Heiress and Greystoke, as well as New York Film Critics Circle and National Board of Review Awards for "Best Actor" for The Sound Barrier and another NYFCC Award for "Best Supporting Actor" for Greystoke. His Oscar nomination, BAFTA nomination and NYFCC Award for Greystoke were all posthumous.
Richardson 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.
Sir John Gielgud's autobiography, An Actor and His Time is dedicated "To Ralph and Mu Richardson, with gratitude and affection".
Richardson first became known for his work on stage in the 1930s. In the 1940s, together with Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
, he ran the Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
company. He continued on stage and in films into the early 1980s and was especially praised for his comedic roles. In his later years he was celebrated for his theatre work with his old friend John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
. Among his most famous roles were Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt. It is the most widely performed Norwegian play. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones"...
, Falstaff
Falstaff
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. In the two Henry IV plays, he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is...
, John Gabriel Borkman
John Gabriel Borkman
John Gabriel Borkman is the penultimate composition of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, written in 1896.-Plot:The Borkman family fortunes have been brought low by the imprisonment of John Gabriel who used his position as a bank manager to illegally speculate with his investors' money...
, and Hirst in Pinter's
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
No Man's Land
No Man's Land (play)
No Man's Land is a play by Harold Pinter written in 1974 and first produced and published in 1975. Its original production was at the Old Vic Theatre in London by the National Theatre on 23 April 1975, and it later transferred to Wyndhams Theatre, July 1975 - January 1976, the Lyttelton Theatre...
.
Early life
Richardson was born in CheltenhamCheltenham
Cheltenham , also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a large spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds in the South-West region of England. It is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup, the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held...
, Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
, England, the third son and youngest child of Arthur Richardson, a master at the Ladies' College
Cheltenham Ladies' College
The Cheltenham Ladies' College is an independent boarding and day school for girls aged 11 to 18 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England.-History:The school was founded in 1853...
and his wife Lydia née Russell. When he was a baby, his mother left his father and took him with her to Gloucester
Gloucester
Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
, where he was brought up 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. He was an altar boy in Brighton, and was sent to the Xavierian
Xaverian Brothers
The Xaverian Brothers or Congregation of St. Francis Xavier are a religious order founded by Theodore James Ryken in Bruges, Belgium in 1839 and named after Saint Francis Xavier...
College, but he ran away from it.
Early days
After working as an office boy for an insurance company, and later studying art, Richardson opted for a theatrical career. Aided by a small legacy from his grandmother, he paid a local theatrical manager ten shillingShilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s a week to be taught about acting. He toured with Charles Doran's company for five seasons, gradually being promoted to larger parts including Macduff in Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
and Mark Antony in Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar (play)
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...
. In 1925 he joined Sir Barry Jackson's
Barry Vincent Jackson
Sir Barry Vincent Jackson, , was a distinguished theatre director and the founder of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.-Life and career:He was the son of George Jackson of Birmingham and was educated privately....
Birmingham Repertory Company
Birmingham Repertory Theatre
Birmingham Repertory Theatre is a theatre and theatre company based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England...
, where many eminent British actors, from Edith Evans
Edith Evans
Dame Edith Mary Evans, DBE was a British actress. She was known for her work on the British stage. She also appeared in a number of films, for which she received three Academy Award nominations, plus a BAFTA and a Golden Globe award.Evans was particularly effective at portraying haughty...
and Cedric Hardwicke
Cedric Hardwicke
Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke was a noted English stage and film actor whose career spanned nearly fifty years...
to Derek Jacobi
Derek Jacobi
Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE is an English actor and film director.A "forceful, commanding stage presence", Jacobi has enjoyed a highly successful stage career, appearing in such stage productions as Hamlet, Uncle Vanya, and Oedipus the King. He received a Tony Award for his performance in...
, learned their craft, and Richardson under the veteran taskmaster H. K. Ayliff
H. K. Ayliff
H. K. Ayliff was an English theatre director who directed Shakespeare in contemporary dress as early as the 1920s, as well as Yellow Sands on Broadway.H.K...
"absorbed the influence of older contemporaries like Gerald du Maurier
Gerald du Maurier
Sir Gerald Hubert Edward Busson du Maurier was an English actor and manager. He was the son of the writer George du Maurier and brother of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. In 1902, he married the actress Muriel Beaumont with whom he had three daughters: Angela du Maurier , Daphne du Maurier and Jeanne...
, Charles Hawtrey and Mrs. Patrick Campbell."
Richardson made his London début in July 1926 as the stranger in Oedipus at Colonus
Oedipus at Colonus
Oedipus at Colonus is one of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles...
at a small theatre, followed by his West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
début as Arthur Varwell in Yellow Sands which ran for 610 performances and from then to 1929 played in supporting roles in London productions.
After touring in South Africa in 1929, he played two seasons at the Old Vic and two seasons at the Malvern summer theatre. His Old Vic roles included Caliban
Caliban (character)
Caliban is one of the primary antagonists in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.- Character :Caliban is forced into servitude on an island ruled by Prospero. While he is referred to as a calvaluna or mooncalf, a freckled monster, he is the only human inhabitant of the island that is otherwise...
to the Prospero
Prospero
Prospero is the protagonist in The Tempest, a play by William Shakespeare.- The Tempest :Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, who was put to sea on "a rotten carcass of a butt [boat]" to die by his usurping brother, Antonio, twelve years before the play begins. Prospero and Miranda survived,...
of John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
, and Prince Hal to Gielgud's Hotspur, beginning a professional association and friendship that lasted for five decades. Richardson's other parts in the Old Vic seasons included Enobarbus
Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus
Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus was the name of several Roman politicians:*Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus .*Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus , son of the previous.*Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus , son of the previous....
in Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony...
, Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, Bottom
Nick Bottom
Nick Bottom is a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream who provides comic relief throughout the play, and is famously known for getting his head transformed into that of an ass by the elusive Puck within the play.- Overview :...
in A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
, Henry V, Brutus in Julius Caesar, and Iago in Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
.
At Malvern
Malvern, Worcestershire
Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...
in 1932, he played Face in Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
's The Alchemist
The Alchemist (play)
The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature...
. In 1933 he played the title role in W. Somerset Maugham
W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham , CH was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and, reputedly, the highest paid author during the 1930s.-Childhood and education:...
's final play Sheppey
Sheppey (play)
Sheppey was William Somerset Maugham's last play, written at the age of 59 and after he had reached distinction as a novelist and playwright. Maugham dedicated the book to Sir John Gielgud....
at Wyndham's Theatre
Wyndham's Theatre
Wyndham's Theatre is a West End theatre, one of two opened by the actor/manager Charles Wyndham . Located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster, it was designed by W.G.R. Sprague about 1898, the architect of six other London theatres between then and 1916...
. He became an undisputed West End star as Clitterhouse in Barré Lyndon
Barré Lyndon
Barré Lyndon was a British playwright and screenwriter. The pseudonym was presumably taken from the title character of Thackeray's novel....
's comedy melodrama, The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse is a 1938 American crime film starring Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor and Humphrey Bogart. It was directed by Anatole Litvak for Warner Bros. and written by John Wexley and John Huston, based on the first play written by short-story writer Barré Lyndon, which ran for...
which ran for 492 performances from August 1936, and most of all as Johnson in J. B. Priestley
J. B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...
's Johnson Over Jordan directed by Basil Dean
Basil Dean
Basil Herbert Dean CBE was an English actor, writer, film producer/director and theatrical producer/director....
, with music by Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
.
Richardson was engaged to play the role of Mercutio, replacing Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
, in the 1934 Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
. This production was produced and directed by the husband and wife team of Katharine Cornell
Katharine Cornell
Katharine Cornell was an American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer. She was born to American parents and raised in Buffalo, New York.Cornell is known as the greatest American stage actress of the 20th century...
and Guthrie McClintic
Guthrie McClintic
Guthrie McClintic was a successful theatre director, film director and producer based in New York. -Life and career:...
.
The Old Vic
During World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
he served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander despite being nicknamed "Pranger" Richardson "on account of the large number of planes which seemed to fall to pieces under his control". Richardson and Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
were released from the armed forces in 1944 to run the Old Vic company as a triumvirate with the stage director John Burrell. The Old Vic theatre was out of use because of bomb damage, and the company moved to the New Theatre
Noël Coward Theatre
The Noël Coward Theatre, formerly known as the Albery Theatre, is a West End theatre on St. Martin's Lane in the City of Westminster. It opened on 12 March 1903 as the New Theatre and was built by Sir Charles Wyndham behind Wyndham's Theatre which was completed in 1899. The building was designed by...
in St. Martin's Lane. During this period, Richardson gave some of his most noted performances, including not only "the definitive Falstaff
Falstaff
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. In the two Henry IV plays, he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is...
and Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt. It is the most widely performed Norwegian play. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones"...
of the century" but also Bluntschli in Arms and the Man
Arms and the Man
Arms and the Man is a comedy by George Bernard Shaw, whose title comes from the opening words of Virgil's Aeneid in Latin:"Arma virumque cano" ....
, the title roles in Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac
Hercule-Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac was a French dramatist and duelist. He is now best remembered for the works of fiction which have been woven, often very loosely, around his life story, most notably the 1897 play by Edmond Rostand...
and Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....
and Inspector Goole in An Inspector Calls
An Inspector Calls
An Inspector Calls is a play written by English dramatist J. B. Priestley, first performed in 1945 in the Soviet Union and 1946 in the UK. It is considered to be one of Priestley's best known works for the stage and one of the classics of mid-20th century English theatre...
. He also directed Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
as Richard II
Richard II (play)
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
, taking on the role of John of Gaunt in the production when the Old Vic governors insisted that either Richardson or Olivier must act in every production. In 1945 Richardson and Olivier led the company in a tour of Germany, where they were seen by many thousands of servicemen; they also appeared at the Comédie Française in Paris.
The triumphs of Richardson and Olivier (the latter famously as Richard III and Oedipus), described by The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
as the greatest in the Old Vic's history and by Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
as "matchless", led the governors of the Old Vic to fear that the two stars overshadowed the company. As The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
put it, the governors "summarily sacked the pair in the interests of a more... mediocre company spirit."
Later years
After leaving the Old Vic, Richardson appeared in the West End as Dr Sloper in a Henry JamesHenry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
adaptation, The Heiress, in 1949; David Preston in Home at Seven, in 1950; and Vershinin in Three Sisters
Three Sisters (play)
Three Sisters is a play by Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov, perhaps partially inspired by the situation of the three Brontë sisters, but most probably by the three Zimmermann sisters in Perm...
in 1951. In 1952 he appeared at the Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...
festival at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (forerunner of the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
) but had mixed reviews: his Prospero in The Tempest was judged too prosaic, and his Macbeth, directed by Gielgud, was thought unconvincingly villainous ("Richardson's playing of Macbeth suggests a fatal disparity between his temperament and the part"). Tynan professed himself "unmoved to the point of paralysis," though blaming Gielgud more than Richardson. Richardson's third Stratford role in the season, Volpone in Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
's play, received much better, but not ecstatic, notices.
Back in the West End, Richardson starred in The White Carnation by R. C. Sherriff
R. C. Sherriff
-External links:**...
in 1953, and in November of the same year he and Gielgud starred together in N. C. Hunter's A Day by the Sea. In 1954 he toured Australia in a company which included his wife, Meriel Forbes, together with Sybil Thorndike
Sybil Thorndike
Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE was a British actress.-Early life:She was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire to Arthur Thorndike and Agnes Macdonald. Her father was a Canon of Rochester Cathedral...
and her husband, Lewis Casson
Lewis Casson
Sir Lewis Thomas Casson MC was a British actor and theatre director and the husband of Dame Sybil Thorndike.-Early life:...
, playing Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
's plays The Sleeping Prince and Separate Tables
Separate Tables
Separate Tables is the collective name of two one-act plays written by Sir Terence Rattigan, both taking place in the Beauregard Private Hotel, Bournemouth, a seaside town on the south coast of England. The first play, entitled "Table by the Window", focuses on the troubled relationship between a...
.
Richardson turned down the role of Estragon in Peter Hall's premiere of the English-language version of Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
and later reproached himself for missing the chance to be in "the greatest play of my generation". Richardson's Timon of Athens
Timon of Athens
The Life of Timon of Athens is a play by William Shakespeare about the fortunes of an Athenian named Timon , generally regarded as one of his most obscure and difficult works...
in his 1956 return to the Old Vic was well received, as was his Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
appearance in The Waltz of the Toreadors
The Waltz of the Toreadors
The Waltz of the Toreadors [La Valse des toréadors] is a play by Jean Anouilh.Written in 1951, this farce is set in 1910 France and focuses on General Léon Saint-Pé and his infatuation with Ghislaine, a woman with whom he danced at a garrison ball some 17 years earlier. Because of the General's...
for which he was nominated for a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
in 1957.
In the 1960s, Richardson appeared successfully as Sir Peter Teazle in Gielgud's production of The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal is a play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on May 8, 1777.The prologue, written by David Garrick, commends the play, its subject, and its author to the audience...
, as the Father in Six Characters in Search of an Author
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Six Characters in Search of an Author is a play by the Italian writer Luigi Pirandello.The play is a satirical tragicomedy. It was first performed in 1921 at the Teatro Valle in Rome, to a very mixed reception, with shouts from the audience of "Manicomio!" .Subsequently the play enjoyed a much...
(1963), a return to Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1964) and the original production of Joe Orton
Joe Orton
John Kingsley Orton was an English playwright.In a short but prolific career lasting from 1964 until his death, he shocked, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies...
's controversial farce What the Butler Saw
What the Butler Saw (play)
What the Butler Saw is a farce written by English playwright Joe Orton. It premièred at the Queen's Theatre in London on 5 March 1969. It was Orton's final play and the second to be performed after his death, following Funeral Games the year before....
in the West End at the Queen's Theatre in 1969 with Stanley Baxter
Stanley Baxter
Stanley Baxter is a Scottish comic actor and impressionist, best known for his British television shows. He worked in radio, theatre, television and film.-Early life:...
, Coral Browne
Coral Browne
Coral Browne was an Australian-American stage and screen actress.-Career:Coral Edith Brown was the only daughter of a restaurant-owner. She and her two brothers were raised in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, where she studied at the National Gallery Art School...
and Hayward Morse
Hayward Morse
Hayward Morse is a British stage and voice actor. His career began on CBC television and with numerous stage performances in Canada and the United States. He made his USA television debut in 1959 with Ingrid Bergman in the critically acclaimed film The Turn of the Screw...
.
In the 1970s, he appeared in the West End (for example in William Douglas-Home
William Douglas-Home
William Douglas Home was court-martialled in World War II for his refusal to obey orders as a British army officer and later became a successful British dramatist.-Early life:...
's play Lloyd George Knew My Father, with Peggy Ashcroft
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.-Early years:Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
), and with the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
under Peter Hall's direction, where among the classics he played Firs in The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
and the title role in Ibsen's
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
John Gabriel Borkman
John Gabriel Borkman
John Gabriel Borkman is the penultimate composition of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, written in 1896.-Plot:The Borkman family fortunes have been brought low by the imprisonment of John Gabriel who used his position as a bank manager to illegally speculate with his investors' money...
, with Wendy Hiller
Wendy Hiller
Dame Wendy Margaret Hiller DBE was an Academy Award-winning English film and stage actress, who enjoyed a varied acting career that spanned nearly sixty years. The writer Joel Hirschorn, in his 1984 compilation Rating the Movie Stars, described her as "a no-nonsense actress who literally took...
and Peggy Ashcroft. He continued his long stage association with John Gielgud, appearing together in two new works, David Storey
David Storey
David Rhames Storey is an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a former professional rugby league player....
's Home
Home (play)
Home is a play by David Storey. It is set in a mental asylum, although this fact is only revealed gradually as the story progresses.The five characters include seemingly benign Harry, highly opinionated Jack, cynical Marjorie, and flirtatious Kathleen...
and Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
's No Man's Land
No Man's Land (play)
No Man's Land is a play by Harold Pinter written in 1974 and first produced and published in 1975. Its original production was at the Old Vic Theatre in London by the National Theatre on 23 April 1975, and it later transferred to Wyndhams Theatre, July 1975 - January 1976, the Lyttelton Theatre...
. His last appearance was at the National in the lead role in Eduardo De Filippo
Eduardo De Filippo
Eduardo De Filippo was an Italian actor, playwright, screenwriter, author and poet, best known for his Neapolitan works Filumena Marturano and Napoli Milionaria.-Biography:...
's Inner Voices in June 1983, in which both Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
and The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
found his performance "mesmerising". After his brief illness and subsequent death his part was taken over by Robert Stephens
Robert Stephens
Sir Robert Stephens was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre.-Early life and career:...
.
Radio, television, and film
In 1954 and 1955 Richardson played Dr. Watson in an American/BBC radio co-production of Sherlock HolmesSherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
stories, with Gielgud as Holmes and Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as the villainous Professor Moriarty. In the 1960s Richardson played Lord Emsworth
Lord Emsworth
Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth, or Lord Emsworth, is a recurring fictional character in the Blandings stories by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. He is the amiable and somewhat absent-minded head of the large Threepwood family...
on BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television in dramatisations of P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
's Blandings Castle stories, with his real-life wife Meriel Forbes playing his domineering sister Connie, and his friend Stanley Holloway
Stanley Holloway
Stanley Augustus Holloway, OBE was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady...
as his butler Beach.
Richardson's film appearances include Things to Come
Things to Come
Things to Come is a British science fiction film produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. The screenplay was written by H. G. Wells and is a loose adaptation of his own 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come and his 1931 non-fiction work, The Work, Wealth and Happiness...
(1936), The Citadel
The Citadel (film)
The Citadel is a 1938 film based on the novel of the same name by A. J. Cronin, first published in 1937. The film was directed by King Vidor and produced by Victor Saville.-Plot:...
(1938), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Heiress
The Heiress
The Heiress is a 1949 American drama film. It was written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, adapted from their 1947 play of the same title that was based on the 1880 novel Washington Square by Henry James. The film was directed by William Wyler, with starring performances by Olivia de Havilland as...
(1949; his first nomination for an Academy Award), Richard III
Richard III (1955 film)
Richard III is a 1955 British film adaptation of William Shakespeare's historical play of the same name, also incorporating elements from his Henry VI, Part 3. It was directed and produced by Sir Laurence Olivier, who also played the lead role. The cast includes many noted Shakespearean actors,...
(1955; playing Buckingham to Olivier's Richard), Our Man in Havana
Our Man in Havana (film)
Our Man in Havana is a 1959 film directed and produced by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ralph Richardson, Noel Coward and Ernie Kovacs. The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Graham Greene...
(1959; with Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
and Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Oh! What a Lovely War
Oh! What a Lovely War
Oh! What a Lovely War is a musical film based on the stage musical Oh, What a Lovely War! originated by Charles Chilton as a radio play, The Long Long Trail in December 1961, and transferred to stage by Gerry Raffles in partnership with Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop created in 1963,...
(1969). He portrayed Simeon in Jesus of Nazareth (1977). In 1981, he portrayed the Supreme Being in a cameo appearance near the end of the Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...
film Time Bandits
Time Bandits
Time Bandits is a 1981 British fantasy film produced and directed by Terry Gilliam.Terry Gilliam wrote the screenplay with fellow Monty Python alumnus Michael Palin, who appears with Shelley Duvall in the small, recurring roles of Vincent and Pansy. The film is one of the most famous of more than...
. Also that same year, he appeared as Ulrich of Craggenmoor, the aging sorcerer who takes on an ancient dragon in the fantasy epic Dragonslayer
Dragonslayer
Dragonslayer is a 1981 fantasy movie set in a fictional medieval kingdom, following a young wizard who experiences danger and opposition as he attempts to defeat a dragon....
. He played the sixth Earl of Greystoke in the 1984 movie Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, for which he was again nominated for an Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
. His last film appearance was in Give My Regards to Broad Street
Give My Regards to Broad Street (film)
Give My Regards to Broad Street is a 1984 British musical film directed by Peter Webb and starring Paul McCartney, Bryan Brown and Ringo Starr. The film proved to be a financial disaster, but the soundtrack album sold well. It was the last film appearance of classical actor Sir Ralph Richardson....
(1984), starring Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
.
Recordings
Richardson made several spoken wordSpoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
recordings for the Caedmon Audio
Caedmon Audio
HarperCollins Audio is a record label that specializes in audio books and other literary content. Formerly Caedmon Records, the name was changed when the label switched to CD-only production. Its marketing tag-line was Caedmon: a Third Dimension for the Printed Page.Caedmon was formed in 1953 by...
label in the 1960s. He re-created his role as Cyrano de Bergerac opposite Anna Massey
Anna Massey
Anna Raymond Massey, CBE was an English actress. She won a BAFTA Award for the role of Edith Hope in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner’s novel Hotel du Lac.-Early life:...
as Roxane, and played the title role in a complete recording of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar (play)
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...
, with a cast that included Anthony Quayle as Brutus, John Mills
John Mills
Sir John Mills CBE , born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, was an English actor who made more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades.-Life and career:...
as Cassius, and Alan Bates
Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
as Antony. Richardson also recorded some English Romantic poetry, such as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–98 and was published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Modern editions use a later revised version printed in 1817 that featured a gloss...
, for the label.
Richardson recorded the narration for Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
's Peter and the Wolf
Peter and the Wolf
Peter and the Wolf , Op. 67, is a composition written by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936 in the USSR. It is a children's story , spoken by a narrator accompanied by the orchestra....
, and the superscriptions for Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
' Sinfonia antartica - both with the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
, the Prokofiev conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...
and the Vaughan Williams by André Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
.
Personal life
In September 1924, Richardson married the seventeen-year-old student actress Muriel ("Kit") Hewitt (1907–1942); the marriage was childless but devoted. Kit contracted sleeping sicknessEncephalitis lethargica
Encephalitis lethargica or von Economo disease is an atypical form of encephalitis. Also known as "sleepy sickness" , it was first described by the neurologist Constantin von Economo in 1917. The disease attacks the brain, leaving some victims in a statue-like condition, speechless and motionless...
(encephalitis lethargica) and died in 1942 after a long illness. In 1944 Richardson married the actress Meriel ("Mu") Forbes
Meriel Forbes
Meriel Forbes was a British actress. She was married to the actor Ralph Richardson.-Selected filmography:* Girls Please! * The Belles of St. Clements * The Day Will Dawn * The Gentle Sex...
, a member of the theatrical Forbes-Robertson family. They had one son, Charles David (1945–1998).
Richardson habitually rode a motorbike, even in his seventies. He rode a Norton
Norton (motorcycle)
Norton is a British motorcycle marque, originally from Birmingham, founded in 1898 as a manufacturer of "fittings and parts for the two-wheel trade". By 1902, they had begun manufacturing motorcycles with bought-in engines. In 1908, a Norton-built engine was added to the range...
Dominator
Norton Dominator
The Dominator is a twin cylinder motorcycle developed by Norton to compete against the Triumph Speed Twin. The original Dominator was designed in 1947 and 1948 by Bert Hopwood, who had been on the Speed Twin design team at Triumph....
and in his later years changed to a BMW.
Richardson died of a stroke, aged 80, and was interred at Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery is a cemetery located in north London, England. It is designated Grade I on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. It is divided into two parts, named the East and West cemetery....
.
Critical opinion
In his early days at the Old Vic, Richardson was the target of the sometimes waspish reviews of leading critic, James AgateJames Agate
James Evershed Agate was a British diarist and critic. In the period between the wars, he was one of Britain's most influential theatre critics...
, who thought that Richardson could not play villains; Agate said of Richardson's Iago
Iago
Iago is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello . The character's source is traced to Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio's tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi . There, the character is simply "the ensign". Iago is a soldier and Othello's ancient . He is the husband of Emilia,...
, "he could not hurt a fly, which was very good Richardson, but indifferent Shakespeare". This view persisted in a later critical generation. In 1952, Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
, blaming the director for a badly-received Macbeth said he "seems to have imagined that Ralph Richardson, with his comic, Robeyesque
George Robey
Sir George Edward Wade , better known by his stage name, George Robey, was an English music hall comedian and star. He was marketed as the "Prime Minister of Mirth".-Early life:...
cheese face, was equipped to play Macbeth." By contrast, the same critics held Richardson up as peerless in classic comic roles. Tynan judged any Falstaff against Richardson's, which he considered "matchless", and Gielgud judged "definitive". But though later critics did not wholly dissent from this view, they also discerned the mystical vein in Richardson: "he was ideally equipped to make an ordinary character seem extraordinary or an extraordinary one seem ordinary". Peter Hall said of him, "I do not think any other actor could fill Hirst [in No Man's Land] with such a sense of loneliness and creativity as Ralph does." The Guardian judged him "indisputably our most poetic actor". Richardson himself perhaps confirmed this dichotomy in his variously reported comments that acting was "merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing" or, alternatively, "dreaming to order". Caitlin Clarke
Caitlin Clarke
Caitlin Clarke was an American theater and film actress best known for her role as Valerian in the 1981 fantasy film Dragonslayer and for her role as Charlotte Cardoza in the 1998–1999 Broadway musical Titanic....
, who worked with Richardson in Dragonslayer, stated on interview that he had taught her more on acting than any acting class.
Honours
Richardson was knightedKnight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in 1947, the first of his generation of actors to receive the accolade. He was soon followed by Olivier and Gielgud.
In 1963, Richardson won the Best Actor
Best Actor Award (Cannes Film Festival)
The Best Actor Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946.- Award Winners :-External links:* * ....
Award at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
for Long Day's Journey into Night
Long Day's Journey into Night (1962 film)
Long Day's Journey into Night is a 1962 film adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play. It was directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by Ely Landau with Joseph E. Levine and Jack J. Dreyfus, Jr. as executive producers. The screenplay was by Eugene O'Neill, the music score by André Previn and the...
. He won the BAFTA
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
Award for Best British Actor for The Sound Barrier (1952), and was nominated on another three occasions (his last being for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes). He also received Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations for The Heiress and Greystoke, as well as New York Film Critics Circle and National Board of Review Awards for "Best Actor" for The Sound Barrier and another NYFCC Award for "Best Supporting Actor" for Greystoke. His Oscar nomination, BAFTA nomination and NYFCC Award for Greystoke were all posthumous.
Richardson 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.
Sir John Gielgud's autobiography, An Actor and His Time is dedicated "To Ralph and Mu Richardson, with gratitude and affection".
Selected filmography
- The Ghoul (1933)
- Friday the ThirteenthFriday the Thirteenth (1933 film)Friday the Thirteenth is a 1933 British drama film directed by Victor Saville and starring Jessie Matthews, Sonnie Hale and Muriel Aked. The film depicts the lives of several passengers in the hours before they are involved in a bus crash.-Cast:...
(1933) - Thunder in the Air (1934)
- The King of ParisThe King of ParisThe King of Paris is a 1934 British drama film directed by Jack Raymond and starring Cedric Hardwicke, Marie Glory and Ralph Richardson. It is based on a play La Voie Lactee by Alfred Savoir...
(1934) - Java HeadJava Head (1934 film)Java Head is a 1934 British historical drama film directed by Thorold Dickinson and J. Walter Ruben. It starred Anna May Wong, Elizabeth Allan, Ralph Richardson, Herbert Lomas and George Curzon...
(1934) - The Return of Bulldog DrummondThe Return of Bulldog DrummondThe Return of Bulldog Drummond is a 1934 British thriller film directed by Walter Summers and starring Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd and Claud Allister. It was based on the 1932 novel The Return of Bulldog Drummond by H.C. McNeile.-Cast:...
(1934) - Things to ComeThings to ComeThings to Come is a British science fiction film produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. The screenplay was written by H. G. Wells and is a loose adaptation of his own 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come and his 1931 non-fiction work, The Work, Wealth and Happiness...
(1936) - The Man Who Could Work MiraclesThe Man Who Could Work MiraclesThe Man Who Could Work Miracles is a 1936 British fantasy-comedy film. It is a greatly expanded version of H.G. Wells’s story of the same name. It was the final adaptation of one of Wells' works to be produced during his lifetime.-Plot outline:...
(1936) - Thunder in the CityThunder in the CityThunder in the City is a 1937 British drama film directed by Marion Gering and starring Edward G. Robinson, Luli Deste, Nigel Bruce and Ralph Richardson.- Plot summary :...
(1937) - The Divorce of Lady XThe Divorce of Lady XThe Divorce of Lady X is a 1938 British romantic comedy film made by London Films and distributed by United Artists. It was directed by Tim Whelan and produced by Alexander Korda from a screenplay by Ian Dalrymple and Arthur Wimperis, adapted by Lajos Biró from the play Counsel's Opinion by Gilbert...
(1938) - South RidingSouth Riding (film)South Riding is a 1938 British drama film directed by Victor Saville and produced by Alexander Korda, starring Edna Best, Ralph Richardson, Edmund Gwenn and Ann Todd. A squire becomes involved in local politics. It is based on the novel South Riding by Winifred Holtby...
(1938) - The CitadelThe Citadel (film)The Citadel is a 1938 film based on the novel of the same name by A. J. Cronin, first published in 1937. The film was directed by King Vidor and produced by Victor Saville.-Plot:...
(1938) - The Lion Has WingsThe Lion Has WingsThe Lion Has Wings is a 1939 British, black-and-white, documentary-style, propaganda, war film. The film was directed by Adrian Brunel, Brian Desmond Hurst, Alexander Korda and Michael Powell...
(1939) - Q PlanesQ PlanesQ Planes, released in the United States by Columbia Pictures as Clouds Over Europe, is a 1939 British spy film directed by Tim Whelan and Arthur B. Woods, starring Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier and Valerie Hobson. It was produced by Irving Asher with Alexander Korda as executive producer...
(1939) - The Four FeathersThe Four Feathers (1939 film)The Four Feathers is a 1939 adventure film directed by Zoltan Korda, starring John Clements, Ralph Richardson, June Duprez, C. Aubrey Smith. Set in the 1890s during the reign of Queen Victoria, it tells the story of a man accused of cowardice. It is one of a number of adaptations of the 1902 novel...
(1939) - On the Night of the FireOn the Night of the FireOn the Night of the Fire is a 1939 British thriller, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Ralph Richardson and Diana Wynyard. The film is based on the novel of the same name by F. L. Green. It was shot on location in Newcastle upon Tyne and was released shortly after the outbreak of World...
(1939) - The Silver FleetThe Silver FleetThe Silver Fleet was written and directed by British filmmakers Vernon Sewell and Gordon Wellesley and produced by Powell & Pressburger under the banner of The Archers.-Plot:...
(1943) - School for SecretsSchool for SecretsSchool for Secrets is a 1946 British film written and directed by Peter Ustinov and starring David Tomlinson, Ralph Richardson, Raymond Huntley, Richard Attenborough, John Laurie and Michael Hordern...
(1946) - Anna KareninaAnna Karenina (1948 film)Anna Karenina [p] is a 1948 British film based on the 19th century novel, Anna Karenina, by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. The film was directed by Julien Duvivier, and starred Vivien Leigh in the title role...
(1948) - The Fallen Idol (1948)
- The HeiressThe HeiressThe Heiress is a 1949 American drama film. It was written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, adapted from their 1947 play of the same title that was based on the 1880 novel Washington Square by Henry James. The film was directed by William Wyler, with starring performances by Olivia de Havilland as...
(1949) - Cricket (1950) - narrator
- Home at Seven (1952)
- The Sound BarrierThe Sound Barrier (film)The Sound Barrier is a British 1952 film directed by David Lean. It is a fictional story about attempts by aircraft designers and test pilots to break the sound barrier. In the US it was retitled Breaking the Sound Barrier. David Lean's third and final film with his wife Ann Todd was also his first...
(1952) - The Holly and the IvyThe Holly and the Ivy (film)The Holly and the Ivy is a 1952 drama film about an English clergyman whose neglect of his grown offspring, in his zeal to tend to his parishioners, comes to the surface at a Christmas family gathering. It stars Ralph Richardson, Celia Johnson, and Margaret Leighton...
(1952) - Richard IIIRichard III (1955 film)Richard III is a 1955 British film adaptation of William Shakespeare's historical play of the same name, also incorporating elements from his Henry VI, Part 3. It was directed and produced by Sir Laurence Olivier, who also played the lead role. The cast includes many noted Shakespearean actors,...
(1955) - The Passionate StrangerThe Passionate StrangerThe Passionate Stranger is a 1957 British drama film, directed by Muriel Box and starring Margaret Leighton and Ralph Richardson. It uses the film within a film device, with the "real" part of the plot shot in black-and-white and the "fictional" element in colour...
(1957) - Our Man in HavanaOur Man in Havana (film)Our Man in Havana is a 1959 film directed and produced by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ralph Richardson, Noel Coward and Ernie Kovacs. The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Graham Greene...
(1959)
- Oscar WildeOscar Wilde (film)Oscar Wilde is a 1960 biographical film about Oscar Wilde, made by Vantage Films and released by 20th Century Fox.-Production:The film was directed by Gregory Ratoff and produced by William Kirby, from a screenplay by Jo Eisinger, based on the play Oscar Wilde by Leslie Stokes and Sewell Stokes...
(1960) - ExodusExodus (film)Exodus is a 1960 epic war film made by Alpha and Carlyle Productions and distributed by United Artists. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, the film was based on the 1958 novel Exodus, by Leon Uris. The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo, which represented the breaking of the Hollywood...
(1960) - Long Day's Journey Into NightLong Day's Journey into Night (1962 film)Long Day's Journey into Night is a 1962 film adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play. It was directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by Ely Landau with Joseph E. Levine and Jack J. Dreyfus, Jr. as executive producers. The screenplay was by Eugene O'Neill, the music score by André Previn and the...
(1962) - The 300 SpartansThe 300 SpartansThe 300 Spartans is a 1962 Cinemascope film depicting the Battle of Thermopylae. Made with the cooperation of the Greek government, it was shot in the village of Perachora in the Peloponnese...
(1962) - Woman of StrawWoman of StrawWoman of Straw is a 1964 British crime thriller starring Gina Lollobrigida and Sean Connery. It was directed by Basil Dearden and written by Robert Muller and Stanley Mann, adapted from the 1964 novel by Catherine Arley.- Plot :...
(1964) - Doctor Zhivago (1965)
- The Wrong BoxThe Wrong BoxThe Wrong Box is a British comedy film made by Salamander Film Productions and distributed by Columbia Pictures. It was produced and directed by Bryan Forbes from a screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove, based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne.The cast includes a...
(1966) - KhartoumKhartoum (film)Khartoum is a 1966 film written by Robert Ardrey and directed by Basil Dearden. It stars Charlton Heston as General Gordon and Laurence Olivier as the Mahdi and is based on Gordon's defence of the Sudanese city of Khartoum from the forces of the Mahdist army during the Siege of Khartoum.Khartoum...
(1966) - Midas RunMidas RunMidas Run is a 1969 comedy film directed by Alf Kjellin and starring Richard Crenna.-Cast:* Richard Crenna - Mike Warden* Anne Heywood - Sylvia Giroux* Ralph Richardson - Lord Henshaw* Cesar Romero - Carlo Dodero...
(1969) - Oh! What a Lovely WarOh! What a Lovely WarOh! What a Lovely War is a musical film based on the stage musical Oh, What a Lovely War! originated by Charles Chilton as a radio play, The Long Long Trail in December 1961, and transferred to stage by Gerry Raffles in partnership with Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop created in 1963,...
(1969) - Battle of BritainBattle of Britain (film)Battle of Britain is a 1969 Technicolor film directed by Guy Hamilton, and produced by Harry Saltzman and S. Benjamin Fisz. The film broadly relates the events of the Battle of Britain...
(1969) - The Bed-Sitting RoomThe Bed-Sitting Room (film)The Bed-Sitting Room is a 1969 British comedy film directed by Richard Lester and based on the play of the same name. It was entered into the 19th Berlin International Film Festival.-Plot:...
(1969) - Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? is a 1971 British horror-thriller film directed by Curtis Harrington and starring Ralph Richardson, Shelley Winters and Mark Lester...
(1971) - Eagle in a CageEagle in a CageEagle in a Cage is a 1972 American and British historical drama film directed by Fielder Cook. Napoleon is played by Kenneth Haigh.An earlier version of the story had been made in 1965, when an episode of the television series Hallmark Hall of Fame depicted the events starring Trevor Howard as...
(1972) - Lady Caroline LambLady Caroline Lamb (film)Lady Caroline Lamb is a 1972 film based on the life of the notorious Lady Caroline Lamb, lover of Lord Byron and wife of Prime MinisterViscount Melbourne...
(1972) - Tales from the CryptTales from the Crypt (film)Tales from the Crypt is a British horror movie, made in 1972 by Amicus Productions. It is an anthology film consisting of five separate segments, based on stories from EC Comics. Only two of the stories, however, are actually from EC's Tales from the Crypt...
(1972) - Alice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972 film)Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a 1972 British musical film based on the Lewis Carroll novel of the same name. It had an all star cast, and John Barry composed the score....
(1972) - A Doll's HouseA Doll's House (1973 Garland film)A Doll's House is a 1973 British film, directed by Patrick Garland. It is based on Henrik Ibsen's 1879 play A Doll's House.-Cast:* Claire Bloom - Nora Helmer* Anthony Hopkins - Torvald Helmer* Ralph Richardson - Dr...
(1973) - O Lucky Man!O Lucky Man!O Lucky Man! is a 1973 British comedy-drama fantasy film, intended as an allegory on life in a capitalist society. Directed by Lindsay Anderson, it stars Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis, whom McDowell had first played as a disaffected public schoolboy in his first film performance in Anderson's...
(1973) - RollerballRollerball (1975 film)Rollerball is a 1975 American dystopian fiction film directed by Norman Jewison from a screenplay by William Harrison, who adapted his own short story "Roller Ball Murder", which first appeared in 1973 in Esquire magazine.-The Game:...
(1975) - The Man in the Iron MaskThe Man in the Iron Mask (1977 film)The Man in the Iron Mask is a 1977 television film loosely adapted from The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas and presenting several plot similarities with the 1939 film version...
(1977) - Jesus of NazarethJesus of Nazareth (film)Jesus of Nazareth is a 1977 Anglo-Italian television mini-series dramatising the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus based on the accounts in the four New Testament Gospels....
(1977) - Watership DownWatership Down (film)Watership Down is a 1978 English adventure drama animated film written, produced and directed by Martin Rosen and based on the book by Richard Adams. It was financed by a consortium of British financial institutions...
(1978) (voice) - DragonslayerDragonslayerDragonslayer is a 1981 fantasy movie set in a fictional medieval kingdom, following a young wizard who experiences danger and opposition as he attempts to defeat a dragon....
(1981) - Time BanditsTime BanditsTime Bandits is a 1981 British fantasy film produced and directed by Terry Gilliam.Terry Gilliam wrote the screenplay with fellow Monty Python alumnus Michael Palin, who appears with Shelley Duvall in the small, recurring roles of Vincent and Pansy. The film is one of the most famous of more than...
(1981) - Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)
- Give My Regards to Broad StreetGive My Regards to Broad Street (film)Give My Regards to Broad Street is a 1984 British musical film directed by Peter Webb and starring Paul McCartney, Bryan Brown and Ringo Starr. The film proved to be a financial disaster, but the soundtrack album sold well. It was the last film appearance of classical actor Sir Ralph Richardson....
(1984)