Felix Aylmer

Felix Aylmer, born Felix Edward Aylmer Jones on 21 February 1889 in Corsham, Wiltshire, was an English stage actor whose career extended across theatre, film, and television. The second of six children born to Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Edward Aylmer Jones of the Royal Engineers and his wife Lilian, née Cookworthy, Aylmer was educated at King James's Grammar School in Almondbury near Huddersfield, Magdalen College School, and Exeter College, Oxford, where he participated in the Oxford University Dramatic Society. He trained under the Victorian-era actress and director Rosina Filippi before making his first professional appearance at the London Coliseum in 1911.

Aylmer appeared in the world premiere of Eden Phillpotts's The Farmer's Wife at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1917, the same year he began service as a junior officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, a position he held until 1919. He married Cecily Minnie Jane Byrne during the First World War, and the couple had three children. He later resided at Painshill House in Cobham, Surrey.

His Broadway career spanned from 1922 to 1953 and included appearances in Loyalties, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, The Flashing Stream, and The Prescott Proposals. On screen, Aylmer worked alongside Sir Laurence Olivier in Shakespearean productions, portraying Polonius in the 1948 film Hamlet, and took on the role of Merlin in Knights of the Round Table in 1953. He played the Archbishop of Canterbury opposite Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole in the 1964 film adaptation of Becket. He also appeared in films featuring comedians Will Hay and George Formby, and gave elocution lessons to the young Audrey Hepburn.

Aylmer's dignified and learned manner of delivery was frequently imitated by comedians including Peter Sellers and Kenneth Williams. Williams noted that while his impersonation of Aylmer was a regular feature during his time with ENSA, the Armed Forces Entertainment Association, he eventually concluded that few of the troops recognized who was being imitated. Dramatist and barrister John Mortimer observed that the mannerisms Aylmer brought to his roles were replicated by judges in actual courtroom settings.

Aylmer served as President of Equity from 1950 to 1969. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1950 King's Birthday Honours and was knighted in the 1965 Queen's Birthday Honours. At the age of 80, he played a villain in the Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) episode "It's Supposed to be Thicker than Water," and his last major screen role came as the Abbot in the sitcom Oh, Brother!, opposite Derek Nimmo, which ran from 1968 to 1970. In 1972, at the age of 83, he appeared as a doctor in the television series Jason King in the episode "If It's Got To Go, It's Got To Go." He also served as narrator in the original version of Richard Williams's unfinished animated project The Thief and the Cobbler. As an author, Aylmer published Dickens Incognito in 1959 and The Drood Case in 1964. He died on 2 September 1979 in a nursing home in Pyrford at the age of 90.