Rodney Ackland
Encyclopedia
Rodney Ackland was an English playwright
, actor
, theatre director and screenwriter
.
He was educated at Balham
Grammar School in London. In his 16th year he made his first stage appearance at the Gate Theatre Studio
, playing Medvedieff in Gorky's
The Lower Depths
and later studied acting at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art
. He married Mab Lonsdale, daughter of the playwright Frederick Lonsdale
, in 1952; she died in 1972.
in 1933 he played Paul in his own adaptation of Ballerina, which also toured the following year, and at the Criterion
in 1936 he played the role of Oliver Nashwick in his own original play After October which transferred there from the Arts Theatre
.
In 1941, he co-wrote the screenplay for the film Temptation Harbour
starring Robert Newton
and Simone Simon
. Two musical collaborations came in 1942 with his version of Blossom Time starring Richard Tauber
as Franz Schubert
at the Lyric Theatre
, and his London Coliseum production of the musical play, The Belle of New York
. He also wrote and directed The Dark River at the Whitehall Theatre in 1943, starring Peggy Ashcroft
. He joined Robert Newton
as co-authors of Cupid and Mars (1945), and A Multitude of Sins (1951)
The first staging of his large-cast drama, The Pink Room (or The Escapists), in Brighton and then at the Lyric Hammersmith
in London on 18 June 1952, was largely financed by Terence Rattigan
, who liked the play and believed it deserved a London production. But it received a severe critical panning and after that, apart from one further play and an adaptation, it led to a 40-year near-silence from the playwright. According to its director, Frith Banbury
, "When the play failed, Terry never wanted to see Rodney again."
However, following the abolition of the Lord Chamberlain
's licensing and censorship functions in 1968, there was a growing permissiveness about what could be presented on the stage, and in the 1980s, while ailing with leukaemia, Rodney Ackland rewrote aspects of this play, re-titling it Absolute Hell. It was put on in its new form in 1988 to considerable success at the Orange Tree Theatre
, Richmond-upon-Thames, directed by Sam Walters
and John Gardyne, and starring Polly Hemingway and David Rintoul
.
In 1991 it was adapted and directed for BBC Television by Anthony Page
, starring Dame Judi Dench
, and the play was revived by Page at the Royal National Theatre
in 1995, again with Dench in the leading role.
See also Nick Smurthwaite's theatre profile of Ackland for The Stage
, Revival of a Realist, 5 February 2004 http://www.thestage.co.uk/features/feature.php/443/revival-of-a-realist
was as a supporting actor in the 1931 screen version of John Galsworthy
's play The Skin Game
. But a year later Hitchcock recognised his potential as a screenwriter, collaborating with him on the second film adaptation of J Jefferson Farjeon's London fog-bound thriller Number Seventeen starring Leon M Lion.
Ackland co-wrote the popular British film Bank Holiday
(1938
), contributed additional dialogue to Young Man's Fancy
(1940
), and made some uncredited contributions to 1941
's Dangerous Moonlight
and 1944
's Love Story
.
His screenplay for Hatter's Castle
in 1941, from the novel by A.J. Cronin, provided a rampant star role for Robert Newton as the megalomaniac Scottish hatter. In 1942
he shared with Emeric Pressburger
an Academy Award
nomination for the screenplay
of 49th Parallel
, starring Raymond Massey
and Eric Portman
, (released in the United States as The Invaders).
Ackland is credited with discovering British-American actress Sally Ann Howes
, the child of neighbour Bobby Howes
, when he insisted that she audition for his 1943
film Thursday's Child, which he both wrote and directed.
He renewed his association with Pressburger in 1946 with a screenplay for the stagey, now forgotten thriller Wanted for Murder
, mainly as a film vehicle for the talents of Eric Portman playing a man obsessed by his father's role as the publc hangman. In the same year he made the first adaptation of Georges Simenon
's novel Newhaven/Dieppe, directed by Lance Comfort
, with another overwrought performance by Robert Newton, set against swirling studio fog.
He twice collaborated with Rattigan as a movie scriptwriter: in 1942 for Anthony Asquith
's Uncensored
, starring Eric Portman; and again — but neither he nor Rattigan were credited — for the 1948 Associated British production of Bond Street
, four stories in one, about a wedding trousseau
His final work for the cinema was on the screenplay of an adaptation of Alexander Pushkin's The Queen of Spades
. Ackland intended to direct the film, but fell out with the producer Anatole de Grunwald
and star Anton Walbrook
. Thorold Dickinson
took over at short notice and rewrote Ackland's script with the help of de Grunwald.
Assisted by a co-author Elspeth Grant, Ackland wrote his memoirs, The Celluloid Mistress, or The Custard Pie of Dr. Caligari, published by Alan Wingate in London in 1954.
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, theatre director and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
.
He was educated at Balham
Balham
Balham is a district of London, EnglandBalham can also refer to:*Balham, Ardennes, a commune in France*Balham station, railway and tube station in Balham, London*Balaam, a Biblical figure...
Grammar School in London. In his 16th year he made his first stage appearance at the Gate Theatre Studio
Gate Theatre Studio
The history of London's Gate Theatre Studio, often referred to as simply the Gate Theatre, is typical of many small independent theatres of the period....
, playing Medvedieff in Gorky's
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
The Lower Depths
The Lower Depths
The Lower Depths is perhaps Maxim Gorky's best-known play. It was written during the winter of 1901 and the spring of 1902. Subtitled "Scenes from Russian Life," it depicted a group of impoverished Russians living in a shelter near the Volga. Produced by the Moscow Arts Theatre on December 18,...
and later studied acting at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art
Central School of Speech and Drama
The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...
. He married Mab Lonsdale, daughter of the playwright Frederick Lonsdale
Frederick Lonsdale
Frederick Lonsdale was an English dramatist.-Personal life:Lonsdale was born Lionel Frederick Leonard in St Helier, Jersey, the son of Susan and John Henry Leonard, a tobacconist. He began as a private soldier and worked for the London and South Western Railway...
, in 1952; she died in 1972.
Theatre career
In 1929, after performing with various repertory companies, he toured as Young Woodley in the play of that name. At the Gaiety TheatreGaiety Theatre
The Gaiety Theatre is a theatre on South King Street in Dublin, Ireland, off Grafton Street and close to St. Stephen's Green. It specialises in operatic and musical productions, with occasional dramatic shows.-History:Designed by architect C.J...
in 1933 he played Paul in his own adaptation of Ballerina, which also toured the following year, and at the Criterion
Criterion Theatre
The Criterion Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Piccadilly Circus in the City of Westminster, and is a Grade II* listed building. It has an official capacity of 588.-Building the theatre:...
in 1936 he played the role of Oliver Nashwick in his own original play After October which transferred there from the Arts Theatre
Arts Theatre
The Arts Theatre is a theatre in Great Newport Street, in Westminster, Central London. It now operates as the West End's smallest commercial receiving house.-History:...
.
In 1941, he co-wrote the screenplay for the film Temptation Harbour
Temptation Harbour
Temptation Harbour is a British black and white crime/drama film directed by Lance Comfort, released in 1947 based on the novel Newhaven-Dieppe by Georges Simenon. The film was made at Welwyn Film Studios.-Synopsis:...
starring Robert Newton
Robert Newton
Robert Newton was an English stage and film actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the most popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys...
and Simone Simon
Simone Simon
Simone Thérèse Fernande Simon was a French film actress who began her film career in 1931.-Early life:Born in Béthune, Pas-de-Calais France, she was the daughter of Henri Louis Firmin Champmoynat, a French engineer, airplane pilot in World War II, who died in a concentration camp, and Erma Maria...
. Two musical collaborations came in 1942 with his version of Blossom Time starring Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber was an Austrian tenor acclaimed as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. Some critics commented that "his heart felt every word he sang".-Early life:...
as Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
at the Lyric Theatre
Lyric Theatre (London)
The Lyric Theatre is a West End theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster.Designed by architect C. J. Phipps, it was built by producer Henry Leslie with profits from the Alfred Cellier and B. C. Stephenson hit, Dorothy, which he transferred from the Prince of Wales Theatre to open...
, and his London Coliseum production of the musical play, The Belle of New York
The Belle of New York
The Belle of New York is a 1952 Hollywood musical comedy film set in New York circa 1900 and stars Fred Astaire, Vera-Ellen, Alice Pearce, Marjorie Main and Keenan Wynn, with music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Johnny Mercer...
. He also wrote and directed The Dark River at the Whitehall Theatre in 1943, starring 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...
. He joined Robert Newton
Robert Newton
Robert Newton was an English stage and film actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the most popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys...
as co-authors of Cupid and Mars (1945), and A Multitude of Sins (1951)
The first staging of his large-cast drama, The Pink Room (or The Escapists), in Brighton and then at the Lyric Hammersmith
Lyric Hammersmith
The Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on King Street, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which takes pride in its original, "groundbreaking" productions....
in London on 18 June 1952, was largely financed by 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...
, who liked the play and believed it deserved a London production. But it received a severe critical panning and after that, apart from one further play and an adaptation, it led to a 40-year near-silence from the playwright. According to its director, Frith Banbury
Frith Banbury
Frith Banbury, MBE was a British theatre actor and stage director.- Biography :Frith Banbury was born in Plymouth, Devon, on 4 May 1912. He was the son of Rear Admiral Frederick Arthur Frith Banbury and his wife Winifred...
, "When the play failed, Terry never wanted to see Rodney again."
However, following the abolition of the Lord Chamberlain
Lord Chamberlain
The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State....
's licensing and censorship functions in 1968, there was a growing permissiveness about what could be presented on the stage, and in the 1980s, while ailing with leukaemia, Rodney Ackland rewrote aspects of this play, re-titling it Absolute Hell. It was put on in its new form in 1988 to considerable success at the Orange Tree Theatre
Orange Tree Theatre
The Orange Tree Theatre is a 172-seat theatre at 1 Clarence Street, Richmond in south west London, built specifically as a theatre in the round....
, Richmond-upon-Thames, directed by Sam Walters
Sam Walters
Sam Walters MBE is a British theatre director and Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London, specialising in theatre-in-the-round productions...
and John Gardyne, and starring Polly Hemingway and David Rintoul
David Rintoul
David Rintoul is a stage and television actor.Rintoul was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. He studied at Edinburgh University and won a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London....
.
In 1991 it was adapted and directed for BBC Television by Anthony Page
Anthony Page
Anthony Page is a British stage- and film director.-Filmography:*Male of the Species 3-episode TV special that featured Sir Laurence Olivier, Paul Scofield, Sean Connery and Michael Caine. The Scofield episode, Emlyn, won an Emmy Award...
, starring Dame Judi Dench
Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
, and the play was revived by Page at the Royal 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...
in 1995, again with Dench in the leading role.
See also Nick Smurthwaite's theatre profile of Ackland for The Stage
The Stage
The Stage is a weekly British newspaper founded in 1880, available nationally and published on Thursdays. Covering all areas of the entertainment industry but focused primarily on theatre, it contains news, reviews, opinion, features and other items of interest, mainly to those who work within the...
, Revival of a Realist, 5 February 2004 http://www.thestage.co.uk/features/feature.php/443/revival-of-a-realist
Film career
Rodney Ackland's first contact with Alfred HitchcockAlfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
was as a supporting actor in the 1931 screen version of John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy OM was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter...
's play The Skin Game
The Skin Game (play)
The Skin Game is a play by the John Galsworthy. It was first performed at the St Martins Theatre, London in 1920. It has been made into a film twice, in 1921 and in 1931. The latter adapatation was directed by Alfred Hitchcock.-Plot:...
. But a year later Hitchcock recognised his potential as a screenwriter, collaborating with him on the second film adaptation of J Jefferson Farjeon's London fog-bound thriller Number Seventeen starring Leon M Lion.
Ackland co-wrote the popular British film Bank Holiday
Bank Holiday (film)
Bank Holiday is a 1938 British drama film directed by Carol Reed and starring John Lodge, Margaret Lockwood, Hugh Williams and Kathleen Harrison...
(1938
1938 in film
The year 1938 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*January — MGM announces that Judy Garland would be cast in the role of "Dorothy" in the upcoming Wizard of Oz motion picture. Ray Bolger is cast as the "Tinman" and Buddy Ebsen is cast as the "Scarecrow". At Bolger's insistence,...
), contributed additional dialogue to Young Man's Fancy
Young Man's Fancy (film)
Young Man's Fancy is a 77 minute long 1940 British comedy film directed by Robert Stevenson, who also wrote the story, and starring Anna Lee and Griffith Jones. An aristocratic Englishman is unhappily engaged to a brewery heiress but meets a human cannonball during a visit to a circus and falls in...
(1940
1940 in film
The year 1940 in film involved some significant events, including the premieres of the Walt Disney classics Pinocchio and Fantasia.-Events:*February 7 - Walt Disney's animated film Pinocchio is released....
), and made some uncredited contributions to 1941
1941 in film
The year 1941 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Citizen Kane, consistently rated as one of the greatest films of all time, was released in 1941.-Top grossing films :-Academy Awards:...
's Dangerous Moonlight
Dangerous Moonlight
Dangerous Moonlight is a 1941 British film, starring Anton Walbrook, best known for its score written by Richard Addinsell with orchestrations by Roy Douglas, which includes the Warsaw Concerto...
and 1944
1944 in film
The year 1944 in film involved some significant events, including the wholesome, award-winning Going My Way plus popular murder mysteries such as Double Indemnity, Gaslight and Laura.-Events:*July 20 - Since You Went Away is released....
's Love Story
Love Story (1944 film)
Love Story is a 1944 British romance film directed by Leslie Arliss and starring Margaret Lockwood, Stewart Granger and Patricia Roc. It is based on a short story by J.W. Drawbell.-Synopsis:...
.
His screenplay for Hatter's Castle
Hatter's Castle (film)
Hatter's Castle is a 1941 British film adaptation of the 1931 novel by A. J. Cronin, which dramatizes the ruin that befalls a Scottish hatter set on recapturing his imagined lost nobility. The film was made by Paramount British Pictures and stars Robert Newton, Deborah Kerr, James Mason, and Emlyn...
in 1941, from the novel by A.J. Cronin, provided a rampant star role for Robert Newton as the megalomaniac Scottish hatter. In 1942
1942 in film
The year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Casablanca.-Events:...
he shared with Emeric Pressburger
Emeric Pressburger
Emeric Pressburger was a Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is best known for his series of film collaborations with Michael Powell, in a multiple-award-winning partnership known as The Archers and produced a series of classic British films, notably 49th Parallel , The...
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...
nomination for the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
of 49th Parallel
49th Parallel (film)
49th Parallel is the third film made by the British writer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It was released in the United States as The Invaders. Despite the title, no scene in the movie is set at the 49th parallel, which forms much of the U.S.-Canadian border...
, starring Raymond Massey
Raymond Massey
Raymond Hart Massey was a Canadian/American actor.-Early life:Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna , who was born in Illinois, and Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. Massey's family could trace their ancestry back to the American...
and Eric Portman
Eric Portman
Eric Portman was a distinguished English stage and film actor...
, (released in the United States as The Invaders).
Ackland is credited with discovering British-American actress Sally Ann Howes
Sally Ann Howes
Sally Ann Howes is a British actress and singer, who currently holds dual British-American citizenship. Her career on stage, screen and television has spanned over six decades...
, the child of neighbour Bobby Howes
Bobby Howes
Bobby Howes, born as Charles Robert William Howes on 4 August 1895 in Battersea, England. His parents were Robert William Howes and Rose Marie Butler.- Biography :...
, when he insisted that she audition for his 1943
1943 in film
The year 1943 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 3 - 1st missing persons telecast * February 20 - American film studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor films....
film Thursday's Child, which he both wrote and directed.
He renewed his association with Pressburger in 1946 with a screenplay for the stagey, now forgotten thriller Wanted for Murder
Wanted for Murder
Wanted for Murder is the title of a collection of six mystery novellas by Leslie Charteris which was first published in the United States in 1931....
, mainly as a film vehicle for the talents of Eric Portman playing a man obsessed by his father's role as the publc hangman. In the same year he made the first adaptation of Georges Simenon
Georges Simenon
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 200 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known for the creation of the fictional detective Maigret.-Early life and education:...
's novel Newhaven/Dieppe, directed by Lance Comfort
Lance Comfort
Lance Comfort was an English film director and producer born in Harrow, London.With a career spanning over 25 years he became one of the most prolific film directors in Britain though never gained critical attention and remained on the fringes of the film industry creating mostly B movies.Comfort...
, with another overwrought performance by Robert Newton, set against swirling studio fog.
He twice collaborated with Rattigan as a movie scriptwriter: in 1942 for Anthony Asquith
Anthony Asquith
Anthony Asquith was a leading English film director. He collaborated successfully with playwright Terence Rattigan on The Winslow Boy and The Browning Version , among other adaptations...
's Uncensored
Uncensored
Uncensored was an annual professional wrestling pay-per-view from World Championship Wrestling held in the month of March from 1995 through 2000. It was replaced in 2001 by Greed....
, starring Eric Portman; and again — but neither he nor Rattigan were credited — for the 1948 Associated British production of Bond Street
Bond Street
Bond Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London that runs north-south through Mayfair between Oxford Street and Piccadilly. It has been a fashionable shopping street since the 18th century and is currently the home of many high price fashion shops...
, four stories in one, about a wedding trousseau
His final work for the cinema was on the screenplay of an adaptation of Alexander Pushkin's The Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades (1949 film)
The Queen of Spades is a fantasy-horror film based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. It stars Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans and Yvonne Mitchell. A poor Russian officer tries to learn the secret of an aged countess's success at the card table.Despite a limited budget, it was...
. Ackland intended to direct the film, but fell out with the producer Anatole de Grunwald
Anatole de Grunwald
Anatole "Tolly" de Grunwald was a British film producer and screenwriter.Anatole de Grunwald was born in Petrograd , Russia, the son of a diplomat in the service of Tsar Nicholas II. He was seven years old when his father was forced to flee with his family to England during the 1917 Bolshevik...
and star Anton Walbrook
Anton Walbrook
Anton Walbrook, born was an Austrian actor who settled in the United Kingdom.- Life :...
. Thorold Dickinson
Thorold Dickinson
Thorold Barron Dickinson was a British film director, screenwriter, producer, and Britains's first university Professor of Film.-Early life and career:...
took over at short notice and rewrote Ackland's script with the help of de Grunwald.
Assisted by a co-author Elspeth Grant, Ackland wrote his memoirs, The Celluloid Mistress, or The Custard Pie of Dr. Caligari, published by Alan Wingate in London in 1954.
Plays
- Improper People (1929)
- Marion Ella and Dance With No Music (1930)
- Strange Orchestra (1931) http://www.jghonline.co.uk/orangetree/whats_on_archive.asp?ID=93&ArchiveYear=2004
- Ballerina, adapted from Eleanor SmithEleanor SmithLady Eleanor Furneaux Smith was an English writer. The eldest of the politician F. E. Smith's three children, she worked as a society reporter and cinema reviewer for a while, then as a publicist for circus companies...
's novel (1933) - Birthday (1934)
- The Old Ladies, adapted from Hugh WalpoleHugh WalpoleSir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large...
's 1924 novel (1935) - After October and Plot Twenty-One (1936)
- Yes, My Darling Daughter, an English version of the American comedy by Mark Reed (1937)
- The White GuardThe White GuardThe White Guard is a novel by 20th century Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, famed for his critically acclaimed later work The Master and Margarita.-History:...
, adapted from the Russian of Mikhail BulgakovMikhail BulgakovMikhaíl Afanásyevich Bulgákov was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.-Biography:Mikhail Bulgakov was born on...
(1938) - Remembrance of Things Past (1938)
- Sixth Floor, an English version of the play by Alfred Gehri (1939)
- Blossom Time, with music by Franz Schubert (1942)
- The Dark River (1943)
- Crime and Punishment, adapted from Dostoevsky, (1945)
- Before the Party (1949)
- The Pink Room, or The Escapists (1945, first staged in 1952), rewritten as Absolute Hell (1987)
- A Dead Secret (1957)
- Farewell, Farewell Eugene, adapted from John Vari's original play (1959)