Derek Godfrey

Derek Godfrey (3 June 1924 – 18 June 1983) was an English actor born in London who built a distinguished stage career in Britain before appearing on Broadway between 1963 and 1964. He is associated with the Royal Shakespeare Company, with whom he worked from 1960, and also accumulated credits in British film and television across the 1960s and 1970s.

Godfrey began his professional stage work with the Old Vic from 1956, where he took on the roles of Iachimo and Enobarbus. His time with the Royal Shakespeare Company brought him further classical roles, including Orsino, Hector, Petruchio, and Malvolio. He also originated the role of Jack Gurney in Peter Barnes's play The Ruling Class. The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare described him as a loyal company actor whose fine voice and often sardonic appearance revealed an intuitive grasp of the dark characters found in Jacobean drama.

His Broadway appearances comprised two productions: Roar Like a Dove and The Hollow Crown, both staged during his 1963 to 1964 period in New York.

Alongside his theatre work, Godfrey appeared in several films, among them Hands of the Ripper and The Abominable Dr. Phibes. His television credits included the 1960 Danger Man episode "Position of Trust," in which he played a casino manager, as well as the BBC dramas The Pallisers, where he portrayed Robert Kennedy, Warship, in which he played Captain Edward Holt, and the 1977 production of Nicholas Nickleby, where he took the role of Ralph Nickleby.

Godfrey was married to Australian actress Diana Fairfax, and the couple had two daughters.