Early life

Haggard was born on March 21, 1911, in Guatemala City

Guatemala City

Guatemala City , is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Guatemala and Central America...

, Guatemala

Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

 and was the son of Sir Godfrey Haggard, a British diplomat and his wife Georgianna Ruel Haggard. He was the grandnephew of H. Rider Haggard

H. Rider Haggard

Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform around the British Empire...

, whose sister Virginia Haggard was the companion of the painter Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...

, and the father of the film director Piers Haggard

Piers Haggard

Piers Inigo Haggard is a British film and television director, although he has worked mostly in the latter medium.He is the great grandnephew of H...

. Haggard was educated at Haileybury College

Haileybury and Imperial Service College

Haileybury and Imperial Service College, , is a prestigious British independent school founded in 1862. The school is located at Hertford Heath, near Hertford, from central London, on of parkland occupied until 1858 by the East India College...

, where he became close to the artist-schoolmaster Wilfrid Blunt

Wilfrid Jasper Walter Blunt

Wilfrid Jasper Walter Blunt was an art teacher, author, artist and curator of the Watts Gallery at Compton, Surrey. He taught art at Haileybury College and Eton College and helped to start a revolution in the hand-writing of British school-children, using the 15th c...

.

Training and career

After an initial foray into journalism, and determined to obtain some overseas experience,
Haggard moved to Munich, where he studied for stage at the Munich State Theatres under Frau Magda Lena. He made his stage debut at the Schauspelhaus in October 1930 in the play Das Kluge Kind directed by Max Reinhardt

Max Reinhardt

----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...

. He later appeared as Hamlet

Prince Hamlet

Prince Hamlet is a fictional character, the protagonist in Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. He is the Prince of Denmark, nephew to the usurping Claudius and son of the previous King of Denmark, Old Hamlet. Throughout the play he struggles with whether, and how, to avenge the murder of his father, and...

 at the same theatre.

Returning to the United Kingdom in 1931, Haggard's career path was initially discouraging: he received only small parts in various London plays and worked in repertory in Worthing. He undertook further study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...

. and subsequently received good notices when he played Silvius in Shakespeare's As You Like It

As You Like It

As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...

in London in 1933. He was noticed by the playwright Clemence Dane

Clemence Dane

Clemence Dane was the pseudonym of Winifred Ashton , an English novelist and playwright.-Life and career:...

 and Haggard made his first appearance in New York in 1934 as the poet Thomas Chatterton

Thomas Chatterton

Thomas Chatterton was an English poet and forger of pseudo-medieval poetry. He died of arsenic poisoning, either from a suicide attempt or self-medication for a venereal disease.-Childhood:...

 in her play Come of Age. Returning to Britain, he had successful roles in a number of plays, including Flowers of the Forest

Flowers of the Forest

Flowers of the Forest is an ancient Scottish folk tune. Although the original words are unknown, the melody was recorded in c. 1615-25 in the John Skene of Halyards Manuscript as "Flowres of the Forrest", though it may have been composed earlier....

, a production of Mazo de la Roche

Mazo de la Roche

Mazo de la Roche , born Mazo Louise Roche in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada, was the author of the Jalna novels, one of the most popular series of books of her time.-Early life:...

's Whiteoaks, and appeared as Konstantin in Chekhov

Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...

's The Seagull

The Seagull

The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...

, and was hailed as one of the most promising and handsome classical actor of the era.

Haggard married Morna Gillespie in September 1935, and they had three children, of whom one died young.

In 1938 Haggard returned to New York to reprise his role as Finch in "Whiteoaks", which he also directed. His novel Nya was published in the same year.
He appeared as Mozart in the 1936 film Whom the Gods Love. The film was not a success, in part because Haggard was considered to be inexperienced and unknown. He also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred 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...

's 1939 film Jamaica Inn

Jamaica Inn (film)

Jamaica Inn is a 1939 film made by Alfred Hitchcock adapted from Daphne du Maurier's 1936 novel of the same name, the first of three of du Maurier's works that Hitchcock adapted ....

. He subsequently appeared as Lord Nelson in the 1942 Carol Reed

Carol Reed

Sir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...

 film The Young Mr Pitt

The Young Mr Pitt

The Young Mr Pitt is a 1942 British, black-and-white, biographical film, directed by Carol Reed and starring Robert Donat, Robert Morley and John Mills. It was produced by Edward Black, Maurice Ostrer, Twentieth Century Productions Ltd. and Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation.-Synopsis:The film...

.

Second World War

At the outbreak of the Second World War Haggard joined the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

, serving as a captain in the Intelligence Corps. His wife and two sons went to the United States in 1940, where his father was consul-general in New York. Shortly after their departure, he wrote his sons a letter, subsequently published in the Atlantic Monthly. Haggard was posted to the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

 and worked for the Department of Political Warfare. There he met the author Olivia Manning

Olivia Manning

Olivia Mary Manning CBE was a British novelist, poet, writer and reviewer. Her fiction and non-fiction, frequently detailing journeys and personal odysseys, were principally set in England, Ireland, Europe and the Middle East. She often wrote from her personal experience, though her books also...

 and her husband, the broadcaster R.D. Smith

R.D. Smith

Reginald Donald Smith , was a teacher and lecturer, BBC radio producer, possible communist spy and model for the character of Guy Pringle in the novel sequence Fortunes of War written by his wife, Olivia Manning....

. The latter recruited Haggard to play starring roles in his radio productions of Henry V

Henry V (play)

Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to be written in approximately 1599. Its full titles are The Cronicle History of Henry the Fifth and The Life of Henry the Fifth...

 and Hamlet

Hamlet

The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

on local radio in Jerusalem.
While in the Middle East, Haggard fell in love with a beautiful Egyptian married woman whose husband worked in Palestine. Haggard was overworked and felt that the war had destroyed his acting career. He was on the edge of nervous breakdown when after some months the woman decided to end the relationship. Haggard shot himself on a train between Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

 and Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 on February 25, 1943 at the age of 31. Manning based the character Aidan Sheridan in her Fortunes of War novel sequence on Haggard. The manner of Haggard's death was hushed up, and is not mentioned in the biography of Haggard written by Christopher Hassell and published in 1948. Haggard is buried in Heliopolis

Heliopolis (Cairo Suburb)

Modern Heliopolis is a district in Cairo, Egypt. The city was established in 1905 by the Heliopolis Oasis Company, headed by the Belgian industrialist Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Empain, as well as Boghos Nubar, son of the Egyptian Prime Minister Nubar Pasha.-History:The Baron Empain, a well known...

 War Cemetery, in Cairo, Egypt.

Works

• Haggard, S. (1938). Nya. London: Faber & Faber Limited.
• Haggard, S. (1944). I’ll Go to Bed at Noon: A Soldier’s Letter to His Sons. London, Faber and Faber
• Haggard, S. (1945). The Unpublished Poems of Stephen Haggard Salamander Press
• Athene Seyler
  Athene Seyler
  Athene Seyler, CBE was an English actress.Although better known as a stage actress, she first appeared on the stage in 1909 and made her film debut in 1921, and became known for playing slightly dotty old ladies....
  
   with Stephen Haggard (1946). The Craft of Comedy. New York : Theatre Arts

External links