Ralph Richardson

Ralph Richardson, born on 19 December 1902 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was an English actor who stood alongside John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier as one of the three male performers who dominated the British stage for much of the twentieth century. He died on 10 October 1983 at the age of eighty. The third and youngest son of Arthur Richardson and Lydia Richardson, he was raised by his mother as a Roman Catholic after the couple separated in 1907, with his two elder brothers, Christopher and Ambrose, remaining with their father. Arthur Richardson had served as senior art master at Cheltenham Ladies' College from 1893, and both parents had studied painting in Paris under William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

Richardson's path to the stage was indirect. As a teenager in Brighton he served as an altar boy and was briefly sent to the Xaverian College, a seminary for trainee priests, from which he ran away. At sixteen he took a post as an office boy with the Brighton branch of the Liverpool Victoria insurance company, earning ten shillings a week, before enrolling at the Brighton School of Art following an inheritance of £500 from his paternal grandmother. Concluding that his drawing skills were insufficient, he left the art school in 1920. It was a touring production of Hamlet featuring Sir Frank Benson that resolved his uncertainty about a career, inspiring him to pursue acting.

He paid a local theatrical manager, Frank R. Growcott, ten shillings a week to train him and accept him into his company. Richardson made his stage debut in December 1920 with Growcott's St Nicholas Players at the St Nicholas Hall in Brighton, appearing as a gendarme in an adaptation of Les Misérables. He subsequently took on larger roles with the company, including Banquo in Macbeth and Malvolio in Twelfth Night. His first professional appearance came in August 1921 at the Marina Theatre in Lowestoft, playing Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice for Charles Doran's company at a wage of £3 a week. He remained with Doran for most of the following two years, taking on roles including Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, before leaving in 1923 to tour in Sutton Vane's Outward Bound. In August 1924 he appeared in Nigel Playfair's touring production of The Way of the World, playing Fainall, and during that tour he married Muriel Hewitt, a fellow member of Doran's company. The couple joined Sir Barry Jackson's Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1925, where Richardson absorbed the influence of older contemporaries including Gerald du Maurier, Charles Hawtrey, and Mrs Patrick Campbell through the direction of H. K. Ayliff. His roles there included Lane in The Importance of Being Earnest and Albert Prossor in Hobson's Choice.

Richardson made his London debut in July 1926 and joined the Old Vic in 1931, where he concentrated primarily on Shakespearean roles. He led the Old Vic company the following season, succeeding Gielgud, who had contributed significantly to his development of stage technique. A succession of leading roles in the West End and on Broadway followed his departure from the company. In the 1940s he served as co-director of the Old Vic alongside Olivier and John Burrell, with his most celebrated work during that period including the roles of Peer Gynt and Falstaff. He and Olivier led the company on tours to Europe and Broadway in 1945 and 1946, before both were dismissed from the company in 1947 following resentment from its governing board. During the 1950s Richardson appeared in modern and classic works in the West End and on tour, among them The Heiress, Home at Seven, and Three Sisters.

Richardson's Broadway career extended from 1935 to 1976. His credits included No Man's Land, Home, The School for Scandal, The Waltz of the Toreadors, and The Critic. He received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance in 1971 and the Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience in 1977. In later years he was particularly associated with Peter Hall's National Theatre and with a recurring stage partnership with Gielgud.

His film career began in 1931 as an extra, and over the course of his life he appeared in more than sixty cinema roles. Notable films included Things to Come (1936), The Fallen Idol (1948), Long Day's Journey into Night (1962), and Doctor Zhivago (1965). He received two Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor, the first for The Heiress (1949) and the second, awarded posthumously, for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), his final film. He received nominations and awards for his stage and screen work across the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States from 1948 until his death. Richardson was widely noted for eccentric behavior both on and off stage, and his acting was frequently characterized as poetic. He preferred character parts in old and new plays over the great tragic roles of the classical repertoire.