Anthony Quayle

John Anthony Quayle was born to a lawyer in Ainsdale (Safton County, England). After high school he entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Since 1932, he played at the London Old Vic Theatre, toured with the troupe in Europe and America, and in the second half of the thirties he became famous as a performer of the roles of Laert and King Henry in Shakespeare’s plays Hamlet and Henry V. During World War II, Quayle served in the Royal Armed Forces with the rank of Artillery Major, and more

John Anthony Quayle was born to a lawyer in Ainsdale (Safton County, England). After high school he entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Since 1932, he played at the London Old Vic Theatre, toured with the troupe in Europe and America, and in the second half of the thirties he became famous as a performer of the roles of Laert and King Henry in Shakespeare’s plays Hamlet and Henry V. During World War II, Quayle served in the Royal Armed Forces with the rank of Artillery Major, and in 1945 returned to active theatrical work. The most famous post-war performance, in which Quayle participated, was “Crime and Punishment” based on the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky, in which such stars of the British theater scene as John Gilgud and Edith Evans were also engaged. He later headed the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratforth-upon-Evon, where from 1948 to 1956 he staged nine plays and played more than twenty roles. In 1948, the actor starred in Laurence Olivier’s film Hamlet as Marcellus, which became his first serious work in cinema (before the war, he only occasionally appeared on the screen in episodic roles). A past school of English classical theater, Quayle was able to fully realize himself on the set, playing in a variety of roles and any genres, without any restrictions. Among the films in which the actor starred, many of which made up the golden fund of world cinema - the crime drama "The Wrong Man" (1956, Alfred Hitchcock), the historical epics "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962, David Lin), "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964, Anthony Mann), "Anna of a Thousand Days" (1969, dir. Charles Jarrett), the classic western "McKenna's Gold" (1969, directed by J. Lee Thompson), the comedy "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex" (1972, but Wereafraid to Ask). Woody Allen).

<br In addition to film work, he continued to perform on stage, performing both at home and abroad, took part in numerous television productions, released several albums with audio versions of Shakespeare's plays, on which he read the roles of Brutus, Macbeth, Falstaff and Mark Antony, and wrote two books - Eight Hours from England and On Such a Night. In 1982, Anthony Quayle founded the Compass Theatre, and three years later, for many years of merit in the field of art, he was made a knight of the British Empire.