Raymond Huntley

Horace Raymond Huntley, born on 23 April 1904 in Kings Norton, Worcestershire — now a suburb of Birmingham — was an English actor whose career spanned stage, film, and television from the 1920s through the 1970s. He died on 15 June 1990 at Westminster Hospital, London.

Huntley began his stage career at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre on 1 April 1922, performing in A Woman Killed with Kindness. His London debut came nearly two years later, on 22 February 1924, at the Court Theatre in As Far as Thought can Reach. He subsequently took over the role of Count Dracula from Edmund Blake in Hamilton Deane's touring production of the play, which reached London's Little Theatre on 14 February 1927 before transferring to the Duke of York's Theatre. When the opportunity arose later that year to play the role on Broadway in the Deane/Balderston version — a script streamlined by John L. Balderston — Huntley declined, and the part went to Bela Lugosi. He did, however, participate in a US touring production of the same play along the east coast and midwest between 1928 and 1930. Reflecting on the role decades later, in 1989, he remarked, "I have always considered the role of Count Dracula to have been an indiscretion of my youth."

Huntley made his Broadway debut on 23 February 1931 at the Vanderbilt Theatre in The Venetian Glass Nephew, launching a Broadway presence that extended through 1950. He returned to New York to star opposite Flora Robson in Black Chiffon at the 48th Street Theatre in 1950, and his Broadway credits also include Young Madame Conti. Back in the United Kingdom, his West End work was extensive, encompassing productions such as The Farmer's Wife at the Queen's Theatre in 1932, Cornelius at the Duchess Theatre in 1935, Time and the Conways at the Duchess Theatre in 1937, When We Are Married at St Martin's Theatre in 1938, Rebecca at the Queen's Theatre in 1940 and the Strand Theatre in 1942, and They Came to a City at the Globe Theatre in 1943, among many others continuing into the 1970s.

In British cinema, Huntley appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s through the 1970s, frequently cast as bureaucrats or authority figures. His film credits include The Way Ahead, I See a Dark Stranger, Passport to Pimlico, and The Dam Busters. On television, he became widely recognized for his portrayal of Sir Geoffrey Dillon, the Bellamy family's solicitor, in LWT's period drama Upstairs, Downstairs. He also appeared as Mr. Justice Downes in Granada Television's Crown Court, and had roles in Wodehouse Playhouse and Danger Man.