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Ralph Richardson
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Ralph Richardson was one of the foremost stage and screen actors of his generation. Born in Cheltenham in 1902, he moved to the Sussex coast as a child and tried his hand variously at art school, bookbinding and clerical work before a small bequest from his grandmother enabled him to pay local actor-manager Frank Growcott to apprentice him to the stage in 1921. From there he moved on to the Charles Doran company before joining the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, working alongside HK Ayliff and Cedric Hardwicke. He made his London debut as Varwell in Eden Philpotts’ The Yellow Sands (1925) playing opposite his future first wife Muriel Hewitt and Hardwicke. Around this time, Richardson ... met a young repertory actor called Laurence Olivier, who, alongside Hardwicke and Gielgud (whom he first met at the Old Vic in 1930) remained amongst his closest friends and colleagues. Richardson went on to work for Lilian Baylis at the Old Vic, managed the Old Vic alongside Olivier and John Burrell and in the latter years of his life became a member of the National Theatre Company.
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Whether in a classroom, a cockpit, at a bridge table or in the middle of a political campaign, Ralph Richardson was a born teacher. He had so much knowledge and enthusiasm in his soul that it just naturally spilled out, even if the person with whom he was sharing was unaware that he was Ralph’s student. Everyone who knew or loved Ralph was his student and was the better for it.
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The Volunteer carries the Archers' eccentricity to remarkable lengths: Ralph Richardson appears as himself, recalling in flashback how his dresser chose the Fleet Air Arm, as does Richardson himself. The opening backstage sequence has Richardson about to play Othello; a later scene has him at Denham studios, dressed as a Beefeater for some Korda-style historical romp; the film ends aboard an aircraft carrier. Over this short meditation on the dramatic upheavals of war hangs a splendid Pressburger line: “The end of one world and the beginning of another”. To the Archers' surprise, the Fleet Air Arm reported its gratitude - and a rise in recruitment levels!
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In a classic pairing of two of the world's greatest English-speaking actors, Oscar-winner John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson star in theis simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious play, from Booker Prize-winning author David Storey. The play follows the interaction of five patients over the course of a single afternoon in the garden of what one can fairly assume is an English mental hospital. Directed by Oscar-winner Lindsay Anderson (If, O Lucky Man), with music by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (as a member of the Animals), Alan Price.
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Ralph Richardson was born on this day in 1902. An Englishman, knighted in 1947 by King George VI, Richardson split his acting career between stage and screen—earning the highest honors for both. He was nominated twice for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and six times for Best Supporting and Best British Actor at the BAFTA. Richardson was often drawn to Shakespeare, performing in productions (both live and on film) of Richard III, Twelfth Night and more with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The actor ... starred in Anna Karenina, Doctor Zhivago and, most famously, alongside Katharine Hepburn in Sidney Lumet’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
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Ralph Richardson was born in Cheltenham, the son of a teacher at Cheltenham College. From the age of 18, he worked in a Shakespeare repertory company, touring Britain and Ireland. In 1925, he joined the Birmingham repertory company.
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Ralph Richardson