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Felix Aylmer
Life Time
21 February 1889 - 2 September 1979
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His full name is Felix Edward Aylmer-Jones. Born February 21, 1889 in Corsham, Wiltshire (England). After graduating from Oxford, he studied theater. In 1911 he made his debut at the Coliseum Theatre in London. Two years later he joined the newly formed Birmingham Theatre Company. During the First World War he served as a volunteer in the spare parts of the Royal Navy. After the war, Ailmer continued his theater career, becoming famous primarily as an excellent interpreter of George Bernard Shaw's
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His full name is Felix Edward Aylmer-Jones. Born February 21, 1889 in Corsham, Wiltshire (England). After graduating from Oxford, he studied theater. In 1911 he made his debut at the Coliseum Theatre in London. Two years later he joined the newly formed Birmingham Theatre Company. During the First World War he served as a volunteer in the spare parts of the Royal Navy. After the war, Ailmer continued his theater career, becoming famous primarily as an excellent interpreter of George Bernard Shaw's plays. His first film work was as a tutor in Exodus (1930, Basil Dean). Despite the fact that for Ailmer, as for other actors of his generation, theater continued to be a lifelong affair, he paid quite a lot of attention to cinema, shooting an average of two or three films a year. His cinematic career lasted for almost forty years, and throughout this time Ailmer was known as a magnificent character actor, most often appearing on the screen in the roles of venerable elders, judges, priests and people of high society. Ailmer’s full filmography looks impressive enough, but most of all he is remembered for Lawrence Olivier’s films Henry V (1944), in which he played the Archbishop of Canterbury and Hamlet (1948), where he appeared before the audience in the form of Polonius. Among the other most famous films in which the actor starred are Citadel (1938, dir. King Vidor), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943, dir. Michael Powell and Emerick Pressburger), The Quartet (1946, dir. Ken Annakin and Arthur Crabtree), Becket (1964, dir. Peter Glenville), Behind Separate Tables (1958, dir. Delbert Mann), Kamo Grodeshi? (Quo Va? 1951, dir. In the professional environment, Ailmer enjoyed great authority, and for many years headed the union of actors of Great Britain. His achievements in the field of theatrical and film art were appreciated by the state: in 1965 he was awarded the title of nobility. Despite his advanced age, he continued to act until a very old age - his final work in a big movie was the role of a judge in Ray Milland's 1968 film The Prosecution Witness, and last time he appeared on the screen in 1973 in the comedy television series Oh Father! as a priest, Anselm's father.