John Reginald Neville CM OBE (2 May 1925 – 19 November 2011) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned more than sixty years. He was renowned for his roles on both stage and screen in genres ranging from classical theatre to fantasy and science fiction.
Neville was one of the young leading lights of the British theatre in the early 1950s, and he and contemporary and friend Richard Burton honed their craft at the Old Vic, where over the course of five years they worked their way through the Shakespearean canon. Based on their performance styles and physicality, it was commented at the time that Burton was seen as the successor to Laurence Olivier, whereas Neville was seen as the natural successor to John Gielgud. Neville was a great champion of young talent throughout his career, as was evident when a 23-year-old Judi Dench made her professional debut as Ophelia opposite his Hamlet in 1957.
Alongside the classical repertoire, Neville also worked on contemporary productions. He originated the titular role of Alfie in Bill Naughton's 1963 play Alfie. It was in that same year that he, along with Frank Dunlop and Peter Ustinov, became artistic directors of the Nottingham Playhouse, with Neville later assuming sole charge. It was under his leadership that he played the leading part in Coriolanus, directed by Tyrone Guthrie, playing opposite a young Ian McKellen in the role of Tullus Aufidius. After leaving Nottingham in 1972, Neville emigrated to Canada, where he enjoyed further theatrical success in Stratford, Ontario at the Stratford Festival Theatre.
Neville enjoyed a resurgence of international attention in the 1980s as a result of his starring role in Terry Gilliam's cult classic The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and latterly in the sci-fi series The X-Files, playing the sinister role of the Well-Manicured Man.
Early life and education John Neville was born on 2 May 1925 in 197 Church Road, in the north London suburb of Willesden, the son of Mabel Lillian (née Fry) and Reginald Daniel Neville, who worked as a mechanic for the local council, Neville also had a younger sister called Joan. He was educated at Willesden and Chiswick County School for Boys. It was here at the age of eleven, that he directed his first play, 'The Lamentable Comedy of Pyramus and Thisby' from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, with the play being performed at the end of term.
Outside of school, Neville was being taken to the Old Vic and Stratford upon Avon by Frank Aubrey Dawson, the churchwarden at St Michael and All Angels Stonebridge Park, the local parish church where Neville sang in the choir. Towards the end of July 1937 the pair went on a holiday for two weeks to Stratford upon Avon. For three years in a row, he was taken along with Dawson's five nieces, one of which included future historian Lorna Arnold, who recalled that "in time he became one of our extended family". With the Blitz raining down on London, Neville and his family moved to Beaconsfield for six months, with his school being evacuated to nearby High Wycombe, it was here that Neville played, his first significant part as, Brutus in Julius Caesar.
Returning for his final terms at school near Wembley, Neville left before he was just 17. With him taking a small time job as a stores clerk in a nearby garage in Neasden. Persuaded to join the St. Michael's youth club from his church, Neville was asked to establish a youth drama group, something he later recalled when interviewed by Richard Ouzounian later in life. It proved tricky to get the local children to get as passionately involved with his drama club as he was, so had to barter with the boxing and table tennis clubs for members. The National Federation of Boys' Clubs was affiliated to the British Drama League, with Neville beginning to attend courses. A female director from the London County Council directed his club in Act I of Hamlet. With St. Michael's winning the first drama festival in Willeden. Audiences were impressed by his voice and the potential it held.
Thanks to Dawson's introduction to the classics, Neville had, by now, seen all of Shakespeare's plays and it was at those trips to the theatre that Neville's passion for acting, and Shakespeare in particular, began to develop. As a result of the interest in his recent performance, he decided that he wished to become an actor. However, with little money, his parents were unable to pay for such a venture. The local Willesden Borough Council suitably impressed informed Neville that they would provide him with a scholarship grant on the proviso that he got in, as would Middlesex County Council who would provide a grant for his living expenses. In 1943, after a successful audition, Neville gained his place at the prestigious drama school, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Shortly afterwards, aged nearly 18, Neville was called up and drafted to serve as a signalman in the Royal Navy during World War II, where he stayed for three years, serving on HMS Scotia, HMS Relentless, HMS Malaya and the RFA Arndale travelling between Australia, the Philippines and Hong Kong. It was only upon being demobbed and being able to claim his Ex-Serviceman's Grant and still being able to live at home in London that he was able to begin studying at RADA in Gower Street and train as an actor in 1946. It was whilst studying at the school, that any remnants of his East End accent were replaced by the Received Pronunciation, which was the fashion at that time within the profession. Fellow students at the time included Barbara Jefford, Robert Shaw, Paul Daneman and Peter Sallis.
In late Spring of 1947, and still a student, Neville made his West End stage debut with the Old Vic company, as a walk on in 'Richard II' with Alec Guinness as the King at the New Theatre, due to the Old Vic Theatre being severely bomb damaged.
Career
Early career: Repertory One of Neville's first jobs upon leaving drama school was in the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, where he had been engaged for a summer season by Robert Atkins, lord of Regent's Park. The season included The Ambassador in King John, the first lord in As You Like It and Lysander in The Merchant of Venice.
In 1948, Neville's agent found him work at the Lowestoft Playhouse working in weekly rep where he stayed for three months. However, it was in January 1949 that he soon moved to the prestigious Birmingham Repertory Company, then located in Station Street, under the pioneering leadership of Sir Barry Jackson. During his time in the city, Neville lived in the leafy town of Sutton Coldfield. Amongst the company of actors were Douglas Campbell, Eric Porter, Donald Pleasence and Caroline Hooper. A holiday to France with Hooper soon developed into a relationship, with Neville proposing to Caroline at the end of September and getting married before Christmas at St Mary's Church, Moseley with Eric Porter as best man. The couple left in 1950, returning to London and buying a home in the Wood Green area.
Neville was then offered the chance by Denis Carey to work at the Bristol Old Vic in their repertory company, where he won acclaim for playing Marlow in She Stoops to Conquer, the Duke in Measure for Measure, the title role in Henry V, Slim in Of Mice and Men, and PC Tom Blenkinsop in the actor's first stage musical, Christmas in King Street. He left the Bristol Old Vic in 1952.
The Old Vic
Fortuitously, soon after Neville arrived in 1953, the Old Vic, under the directorship of Michael Benthall, decided to stage all of Shakespeare's plays in five years. In his first official season, Neville was cast as King Henry V and then not long after, as Fortinbras opposite Richard Burton who was playing Hamlet for the first time. This was soon followed up with Bertram in All's Well That Ends Well and then the Dauphin in King John.
By 1954, having now played Macduff opposite Paul Rogers's Macbeth and Berowne in Love's Labour's Lost, Neville took the lead role of King Richard II in an acclaimed production of Richard II where, on the first night, he received a record of 23 curtain calls, with Virginia McKenna as his Queen Anne. By now, Neville had established himself as a matinee idol and a West End star of the 1950s, later hailed as "one of the most potent classical actors of the Richard Burton–Peter O'Toole generation".Jeremy Lewis, "A Real Class Act", Nottingham Post, 5 March 1999
In a pre-Beatles age, Neville, according to The Times had, "Alongside Richard Burton, achieved a kind of romantic superstardom in Shakespeare unfamiliar since the prewar times of Olivier and (in America) John Barrymore)". In 1956, he and Burton famously alternated the parts of Othello and Iago in Othello. Further parts that season included Troilus (and later Thersites) in Troilus and Cressida directed by Tyrone Guthrie and as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, directed by Robert Helpmann, with his Juliet being played by Claire Bloom. He later reprised the role of Romeo on American television for the anthology series Producers' Showcase).
In the final season of the five-year plan at the Old Vic, Neville played the part of Hamlet, with Judi Dench as his Ophelia, in what was her first professional performance after leaving drama school. This was followed up by Angelo in Measure for Measure and Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night. The productions of Hamlet and Twelfth Night toured Paris, Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, the United States and Canada. The visit to Canada would be Neville's first introduction to the country he would later call home years later.
During his time at the Old Vic, the young Neville was known for his classical good looks and mellifluous voice, and regularly described as John Gielgud's natural successor; this was a comparison Neville later revealed to Gielgud's biographer Jonathan Croall he hated.
In 1959, for a while, Neville took over the leading role of Nestor Le Fripé from Keith Michell in the original West End production of the musical Irma La Douce, with Elizabeth Seal as Irma. He later played the title role in Macbeth at the Nottingham Playhouse, directed by Peter Dews. He returned to the London stage for a brief period in 1963, playing the title role in Alfie by Bill Naughton, but by then his theatrical commitment lay outside London.Hayward, Anthony "John Neville: Shakespearean actor and director who became a theatrical force in Canada ", The Independent, 26 November 2011
Nottingham Playhouse In 1961, with Neville's weekly pay declining from £200 to £50, he joined the Nottingham Playhouse, becoming joint artistic director with Frank Dunlop and Peter Ustinov when the current Playhouse opened in 1963. It became one of Britain's leading regional repertory theatres. Though Dunlop and Ustinov soon left, Neville remained at the theatre until 1967, when he resigned over funding disputes with the local authority and the Arts Council.
Director Richard Eyre once recalled that:
Neville starred as the Duke of Marlborough in the BBC2 serial The First Churchills (1969), a major television role which also maintained his international profile when the show was broadcast as the very first Masterpiece Theatre series in the United States in 1971. He received good reviews in the musical adaptation of Lolita, called Lolita, My Love, which closed in Boston.
Move to Canada