Henry Ainley

Henry Hinchliffe Ainley (21 August 1879 – 31 October 1945) was an English stage and film actor born in Morley, near Leeds, the only son of Richard Ainley, a textile worker, and his wife Ada, née Hinchliffe. He was educated at the church school of St Peter's in Morley before working as a bank clerk in Sheffield, where he first engaged in amateur dramatics. His introduction to professional theatre came in 1899, when he obtained permission from actor-manager George Alexander to appear as a non-speaking extra during Alexander's touring production of H. A. Jones's The Masqueraders. Ainley subsequently made his professional début with F. R. Benson's company, playing a messenger in Macbeth, and remained with Benson for two years. His London début came at the Lyceum Theatre, where he played the Duke of Gloster to Benson's king in Henry V, alongside Constance Benson, Leslie Faber, Harcourt Williams, Charles Doran, and Oscar Asche.

The turning point in Ainley's career came in 1902, when Alexander saw him in Benson's production of The Merchant of Venice and cast him in the juvenile lead role of Paolo in Stephen Phillips's Paolo and Francesca at the St James's Theatre. That performance propelled him to stardom. He subsequently returned to Leeds to perform at the Grand Theatre and went on to take on a wide range of classical roles, including Oliver Cromwell, Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, and Macbeth. He played Malvolio in 1912 and portrayed Leontes under the direction of Granville-Barker. Ainley performed Hamlet on multiple occasions, and a 1930 production of the play was selected for a Royal Command Performance.

In 1903, Ainley appeared on Broadway in The Pretty Sister of Jose, bringing his work to American audiences. His stage career also encompassed numerous notable London productions across several decades. In 1906 he played Robert Waring in The Shulamite at the Savoy Theatre, and in 1915 he took the role of Joseph Quinney in Quinneys, a part he later reprised for the 1919 film adaptation. He created the role of John Beal in the original 1921 production of Lord Dunsany's If at the Ambassadors Theatre, and that same year appeared in A. A. Milne's The Dover Road opposite Athene Seyler. He also played the Bishop of Chelsea in Bernard Shaw's Getting Married at the Haymarket Theatre. In 1929, Ainley portrayed James Fraser in St. John Ervine's The First Mrs. Fraser, a role he returned to for the 1932 film version. He additionally appeared in stage and radio productions of James Elroy Flecker's Hassan.

John Gielgud held Ainley in high regard and fulfilled a longstanding ambition to work alongside him when he played Iago opposite Ainley's Othello in a 1932 BBC Radio broadcast. Gielgud later described Ainley's Prospero as "disastrous" in a 1996 piece in the Sunday Times. Ainley also made recordings for the Gramophone Company using the acoustic method, and later recorded for the same company under the His Master's Voice label, including a 1915 recording of Carillon, a poem by Emile Cammaerts set to orchestral music composed by Edward Elgar.

Beyond performance, Ainley contributed to the institutional life of British theatre. He joined the council of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1921 and served as its president from 1931 to 1933. In 1932, he was involved in efforts to rescue the debt-laden Sadler's Wells theatre. A report in The Times dated 15 March 1932 noted that Ainley regarded Samuel Phelps as the greatest actor of all time and Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson as the greatest Hamlet.

Ainley was married three times, to Susanne Sheldon, Elaine Fearon, and the novelist Bettina Riddle, known as the Baroness von Hutten zum Stolzenberg. His children include the actors Henry T. Ainley, Richard Ainley, Anthony Ainley, and Patsy Ainley, as well as Henrietta Riddle, who was briefly engaged to Alistair Cooke in 1932. Fifteen letters in the possession of Laurence Olivier's widow Joan Plowright have been cited by Olivier's biographer Terry Coleman as suggesting an infatuation on Ainley's part toward the younger actor in the late 1930s, though members of Olivier's family, including his son Tarquin Olivier, have maintained the feeling was not reciprocated. Henry Ainley died on 31 October 1945.