Max Adrian

Max Adrian, born Guy Thornton Bor on 1 November 1903 in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, Ireland, was an Irish stage, film, and television actor and singer whose Broadway career spanned from 1934 to 1967. The seventh of eight children born to Edward Norman Cavendish Bor, a bank manager, and Mabel Lloyd Thornton, he came from a Church of Ireland family with paternal ancestry tracing back to Dutch settlers who arrived in Ireland with William of Orange in 1689. He was educated at the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, an institution whose alumni also included Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett. A founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, Adrian built a career that encompassed classical drama, musical theatre, revue, one-man shows, and screen work across several decades.

Adrian's earliest professional work began as a chorus boy at a silent moving-picture house, and he made his stage debut in the chorus of Katja the Dancer in 1925, subsequently touring with Lady Be Good and The Blue Train. His West End debut came in The Squall at the Globe Theatre in December 1927. After working with Tod Slaughter's company at Peterborough and taking on approximately forty roles a year in weekly repertory at Northampton, he made further West End appearances including The Best of Both Worlds at the Players' Theatre in 1930 and The Glass Wall at the Embassy Theatre in 1933. His 1934 appearance in First Episode, written by Terence Rattigan and Philip Heimann, at the Comedy Theatre later transferred to Broadway, marking his first appearance on the American stage.

Adrian first attracted widespread critical attention during a nine-month season at the Westminster Theatre beginning in September 1938, where he played Pandarus in a modern-dress production of Troilus and Cressida and Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonnington in The Doctor's Dilemma. He joined the Old Vic company in 1939, playing the Dauphin in Shaw's Saint Joan, and continued classical work with John Gielgud's company at the Haymarket Theatre from 1944 to 1945, appearing as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Osric in Hamlet, and Tattle in William Congreve's Love for Love. In 1943 he played the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz at the Phoenix Theatre.

From 1947, Adrian performed in a long-running series of revues at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith — including Tuppence Coloured, Oranges and Lemons, Penny Plain, Airs on a Shoestring, From Here to There, and Fresh Airs — accumulating more than 2,000 performances. Fellow performers in these productions included Joyce Grenfell, Rose Hill, and Elisabeth Welch, with contributions from Michael Flanders, Donald Swann, and Alan Melville. The producer was Laurier Lister, who became Adrian's lifelong partner.

When revue fell out of fashion in the mid-1950s, Adrian traveled to the United States in 1956 to appear on Broadway in Leonard Bernstein's operetta Candide, playing both Dr. Pangloss and Martin. Though the original production was not a commercial success, its cast recording remained in circulation for decades afterward. He stayed in the United States to work in summer stock, taking on roles including Doolittle in Pygmalion, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, and Sir Peter Teazle in The School for Scandal. He returned to London in 1959 to appear in Noël Coward's Look After Lulu!, a production he also later brought to Broadway. His Broadway credits additionally included The Deadly Game and Mary Stuart, as well as The Piano Lesson and other productions.

In 1960, Adrian joined Peter Hall's newly formed Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, alongside Peggy Ashcroft, Peter O'Toole, and Diana Rigg. His RSC roles included Jaques in As You Like It, Feste in Twelfth Night, Pandarus in Troilus and Cressida, the Cardinal in The Duchess of Malfi, and Father Barré in The Devils. He also appeared in The Hollow Crown, an anthology of prose and verse about the monarchs of England devised by John Barton, alongside Dorothy Tutin, Richard Johnson, and Barton himself, a production that was frequently revived in subsequent years and also featured among his Broadway credits.

Adrian was among the founding members of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company at the Old Vic from 1963, appearing as Polonius in the opening production of Hamlet, in which Peter O'Toole played the title role. His subsequent National Theatre roles included the Inquisitor in Saint Joan, Serebryakov in Uncle Vanya, Balance in The Recruiting Officer, and Brovik in The Master Builder.

In the late 1960s, Adrian toured in the one-man show An Evening with GBS, portraying George Bernard Shaw, a production that played in London, on Broadway, and across Asia, Africa, and Australia. He later performed a one-man show centered on Gilbert and Sullivan. His film work began in 1934, and among his notable screen appearances was the role of the Dauphin in Laurence Olivier's 1944 production of Henry V. He appeared in Dr. Terror's House of Horrors in 1965 as the vampire Dr. Blake and in The Deadly Affair in 1966. He worked with director Ken Russell on several projects, including The Music Lovers in 1970, in which he played Anton Rubinstein, The Boy Friend in 1971, and The Devils in 1971. His most acclaimed screen performance was in Russell's 1968 BBC television film Song of Summer, in which he portrayed the blind and paralyzed composer Frederick Delius. Adrian later remarked that of all the roles he had ever played, he had never had such difficulty ridding himself of involvement in a character as that of Delius.

His additional television work included a 1957 adaptation of A. J. Cronin's Beyond This Place directed by Sidney Lumet, the role of Senator Ludicrus Sextus in the first season of Up Pompeii! with Frankie Howerd in 1969, Fagin in a 1962 dramatization of Oliver Twist, King Priam in the Doctor Who story The Myth Makers, and appearances in The Baron and Adam Adamant Lives!. He also played the Baron de Charlus in the BBC radio series Six Proust Reconstructions by Pamela Hansford Johnson. Originally from Fermanagh, Ireland, according to his Broadway records, Adrian died on 19 January 1973 at the age of 69.