Flushing Sir Anthony Quayle

I acknowledge off the bat that the title of this post is unfortunate. The intention is to suggest the drawing out of an elusive bird, not for the purposes of shooting him but for getting a better look. And certainly not to send his carcass swirling down the plumbing!

I’ve long deferred adding Sir Anthony Quale (1913-1989) to our Hall of Hams, mostly I guess because he seemed to me (falsely it turns out) a bit of a second stringer by comparison to colleagues like Olivier, Gielgud, Richardson, etc, most of whom I added here a dozen years ago or more. The impression I had was created by the fact that though Quayle appeared in plenty of well known film and television projects, it was usually as a supporting or ensemble player, and he usually doesn’t create much of an impression — sort of a bland, quiet fellow who hits his marks and goes about his business. In reality, he had made his biggest impact in the theatre, which is very hard to assess when all you have to go on is hearsay. I’m revealing a lot about myself I know when I confess that what inspired me to include him today is that he was briefly in a music hall comedy act in 1931. If you played the halls, you’re oke with me.

For my yankee compatriots who may want convincing that they’ve ever seen Anthony Quayle in anything, here is a truncated list of screen credits: Pygmalion (1938), Hamlet (1948), The Wrong Man (1956), Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), MacKenna’s Gold(1969), Anne of a Thousand Days (1969, Oscar nominated for his role as Cardinal Wolsey), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1974), The Tamarind Seed (1974), The Eagle has Landed (1976), and Murder By Decree (1979), along with made-for-tv movies like The Lives of Benjamin Franklin (1974), The Story of David (1976), 21 Hours at Munich (1976), Masada (1981), and The Last Days of Pompeii (1984). Directors he worked with included Leslie Howard, Laurence Olivier, Powell-Pressburger, Alfred Hitchcock,John Guillermin, David Lean, Anthony Mann,Michael Anderson, Terence Young, Woody Allen, Blake Edwards, John Sturges, and Bob Clark.

Quayle is also notable for playing James Tyrone in the UK premier of Eugene O’Neill’sLong Day’s Journey Into Night (1958), and creating the lead role of Andrew Wyke in the original stage production of Anthony Shaffer’sSleuth (1970), which won him a Drama Desk Award. Unfortunately for Quayle, Laurence Olivier played the role in the familiar 1972 movie version.

The son of a Lancashire solicitor, Quayle studied at RADA, and became a company member at the Old Vic in 1932. Tyrone Guthrie has been described as his mentor. From 1935 to 1941 he was married to Hermione Hannen (1913-1983), another Old Vic company member who’d been trained at RADA.

Quayle served in a wide variety of capacities throughout the duration of World War Two, starting out as an artillery gunner for home defense, later fighting in Albania in a secret liaison capacity, then serving as aid to the Governor of Gibraltar. He had risen to the rank of major by the end of the war. The large number of military roles he played on stage and screen is an outgrowth of his ease in such parts based on his wartime experiences. In the wake of his service Quayle authored two novels: Eight Hours from England (1945) and On Such a Night (1947).

In 1947 Quayle married stage star Dorothy Hyson (1914-96), the daughter of Dorothy Dickson and Carl Hyson, whom I wrote about here. She retired from the stage in order to care for their three children.

From 1948 to 1956 Quayle led the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-Upon-Avon, which laid the groundwork for the founding of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1959. His production of the two parts of Henry IV was instrumental in launching the career of Richard Burton. (A tale of two Celts! Burton was Welsh; Quayle was of Manx heritage). Quayle played Falstaff in that production. Other roles included Othello, Lear, Benedick, and Henry VIII.

At the age of 71, Quayle founded a touring troupe called the Compass Theatre Company. His last screen role was in the ensemble of the all-star The King of the Wind (1990) alongside Richard Harris, Jenny Agutter, Glenda Jackson, Nigel Hawthorne, Barry Foster, et al.

Anthony Quayle’s memoir A Time to Speak, was published posthumously in 1990.

For related reading and an explanation as to why I perked up at mention of English music hall and the parents of Anthony Quayle’s second wife, please check out No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.