Kenneth Haigh

Kenneth William Michael Haigh (25 March 1931 – 4 February 2018) was an English actor born in Mexborough, West Riding of Yorkshire. He trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, which was then housed at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and went on to a career spanning stage, film, and television across several decades. His Broadway appearances ran from 1957 to 1980 and included productions of Look Back in Anger, Caligula, California Suite, and Clothes for a Summer Hotel.

Haigh first attracted widespread attention in 1956 when he originated the role of Jimmy Porter in John Osborne's Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court Theatre, appearing opposite Mary Ure. The performance established him as a defining interpreter of the post-Second World War English dramatic working-class anti-hero. His 1958 Broadway staging of the same play generated its own notable moment when an audience member, so affected by his portrayal, climbed onto the stage and struck him during a live performance. When the 1959 film adaptation was produced, Haigh was passed over for the role in favor of Richard Burton. In a coincidental turn, he later portrayed the explorer Richard Francis Burton in the BBC production The Search for the Nile.

Beyond Look Back in Anger, Haigh took on a range of historical and dramatic roles. He played Brutus in Cleopatra and starred as Napoleon in Eagle in a Cage. On Broadway he also appeared in Caligula and California Suite, and starred in Clothes for a Summer Hotel. He made a brief uncredited appearance in the Beatles' 1964 film A Hard Day's Night. On American television, he portrayed time-travelling Flight Lieutenant William Terrence Decker in the Twilight Zone episode "The Last Flight" in 1960, a role that became one of his more recognized screen appearances. He had previously played a pilot in the film High Flight and also portrayed Pat Casey in Lionel Bart's Maggie May.

In British television, Haigh took on the recurring role of Joe Lampton, a character originating in John Braine's novel Room at the Top, in the series Man at the Top, which ran from 1970 to 1972, and reprised the character in the spin-off film of the same name in 1973. That same year he released an LP titled How to Handle a Woman. In 1974 he married West Indies model Myrna Stephens; the couple divorced in 1985 but maintained a close friendship, and Stephens cared for him during his final years of declining health.

In 2003, Haigh accidentally swallowed a bone at a restaurant in Soho, and the resulting oxygen deprivation caused brain damage. He spent his remaining years in a nursing home and died on 4 February 2018 at the age of 86.