Basil Sydney


Basil Sydney was an English stage and screen actor.

Career

Sydney made his name in 1915 in the London stage hit Romance by Edward Sheldon, with Broadway star Doris Keane, and he costarred with Keane in the 1920 silent film of the play. The couple married in 1918, and when Keane revived Romance in New York City in 1921, Sydney made his Broadway debut in the parts. He stayed in New York for over a decade playing a variety of roles such as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Domin in R.U.R., Richard Dudgeon in The Devil's Disciple, the title role in Hamlet, Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part I, and Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew. In 1937 he starred in the murder mystery Blondie White in the West End.
File:Basil Sydney Ivanhoe trailer.jpg|thumb|right|Trailer for Ivanhoe
He made over 50 screen appearances, most memorably as Claudius in Laurence Olivier's 1948 film of Hamlet. He also appeared in classic films like Treasure Island, Ivanhoe, and Around the World in Eighty Days, but the focus of his career was the stage on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 1946 he starred with Flora Robson in A Man About the House at the Piccadilly Theatre.

Personal life

Sydney divorced Keane in 1925. In 1929, he married actress Mary Ellis, and the couple moved to England. There he concentrated more on film than on theatre work. In the 1940s, he married English film actress Joyce Howard; they had three children.
A heavy smoker, Sydney died from pleurisy in 1968, aged 73.

Filmography

  • Romance as Armstrong
  • Red Hot Romance as Rowland Stone
  • The Midshipmaid as Cmdr. Fosberry
  • The Third Clue as Reinhardt Conway
  • Dirty Work as Hugh Stafford
  • The Riverside Murder as Inspector Philip Winton
  • The White Lilac as Ian Mackie
  • The Tunnel as Mostyn
  • The Amateur Gentleman as Louis Chichester
  • Rhodes of Africa as Dr. Jim Jameson
  • Blind Man's Bluff as Dr. Peter Fairfax
  • Crime Over London as 'Joker' Finnigan
  • Talk of the Devil as Stephen Rindlay
  • Accused as Eugene Roget
  • The Four Just Men as Frank Snell
  • Shadowed Eyes as Dr. Zander
  • Spring Meeting as James
  • The Farmer's Wife as Samuel Sweetland
  • The Black Sheep of Whitehall as Costello
  • Ships with Wings as Capt. Fairfax
  • The Big Blockade as Bit Part
  • The Next of Kin as Naval captain
  • Went the Day Well? as Major Ortler
  • Caesar and Cleopatra as Rufio
  • Meet Me at Dawn as Georges Vermorel
  • The Man Within as Sir Henry Merriman
  • Jassy as Nick Helmar
  • Hamlet as Claudius - The King
  • The Angel with the Trumpet as Francis Alt
  • Treasure Island as Captain Smollett
  • The Magic Box as William Fox-Talbot
  • Ivanhoe as Waldemar Fitzurse
  • Salome as Pontius Pilate
  • Hell Below Zero as Bland
  • Star of India as King Louis XIV
  • Three's Company as Dr. Graham
  • Simba as Mr. Crawford
  • The Dam Busters as Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris
  • Around the World in 80 Days as Reform Club Member #2
  • Sea Wife as Bulldog
  • Island in the Sun as Julian Fleury
  • A Question of Adultery as Sir John Loring
  • John Paul Jones as Sir William Young
  • The Devil's Disciple as Lawyer Hawkins
  • The 3 Worlds of Gulliver as Emperor of Lilliput
  • The Hands of Orlac as Maurice Seidelman
  • A Story of David as King Saul