Robert Gillespie

Robert James Gillespie, born on 9 November 1933 in Lille, France, is a British actor, director, and writer. The eldest child of Magdalena Katalin Singer, originally from Budapest, Hungary, and James William Gillespie, of Scottish descent and from Toronto, Canada, he left France with his family in 1940 following Hitler's invasion. He was educated at Sale Grammar School before training as an actor at RADA from 1951 to 1953.

Upon completing his training, Gillespie joined the Old Vic Company in 1953, where Richard Burton and Claire Bloom headed the company. During his two years with the company, from 1953 to 1955, he observed a range of acting styles: Burton's delivery retained traces of a declamatory tradition, while Michael Hordern, playing Polonius, Malvolio, and Parolles, employed a notably modern conversational manner. Gillespie's most substantial role during this period was Adam in As You Like It, and he regards Douglas Seale's productions of Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 as the highlight of both seasons. The second year of his tenure featured Paul Rogers, Ann Todd, Virginia McKenna, and John Neville among the company's leading performers.

Gillespie was subsequently hired by George Devine at the outset of Devine's creation of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre, where he worked from 1956 to 1958. He also joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop company at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, for three productions in 1956, departing by mutual agreement during rehearsals for a fourth. Later stage credits include Keep Out, Love in Progress by Walter Hall at the Basement Theatre, Soho, in 1970, where he took the lead opposite Alex Marshall; David Lan's Paradise at the Royal Court Theatre; John Arden's The Hero Rises Up at the Roundhouse; and Peter Hall's Playhouse Theatre production of Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo, starring Julie Walters. He also played Charlie in Mincemeat with Cardboard Citizens, a company founded by Adrian Jackson MBE and based on homeless actors, and took the role of Luka in The Lower Depths.

From 1994 to 1996, Gillespie spent two and a half years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, a period he has described as actor paradise, citing the high standard of performance, quality of backstage support, and the respect shown to individual artists. It was through the RSC that he earned his Broadway credit, appearing in the 1996 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. During his time with the company he also witnessed Tony Britton as Sir Toby Belch and Desmond Barrit as Malvolio in Ian Judge's production of Twelfth Night.

On television, Gillespie's first major role was as the disciple Matthew in Jesus of Nazareth, directed by Joy Harington. He became a familiar presence in British sitcoms across several decades, with appearances in Dad's Army, in which he played Charles Boyer playing Napoleon Bonaparte, as well as Porridge, Rising Damp, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, The Good Life, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, Butterflies, The Liver Birds, and Terry and June, among many others. His most prominent television role came as Dudley Rush, a harassed cartoonist, in the Brian Cooke situation comedy Keep It in the Family, a part Cooke wrote specifically for him. The series ran for five seasons between 1980 and 1983 and also starred Pauline Yates, Stacy Dorning, Jenny Quayle, and Sabina Franklyn. His television drama credits span series including The Saint, The Avengers, The Sweeney, The Professionals, Secret Army, and Doomwatch, and he later appeared in New Tricks alongside James Bolam and in Jimmy McGovern's Broken opposite Sean Bean.

Gillespie's film work includes The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971), The National Health (1973), Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1974), Force Ten from Navarone (1978), The Thirty Nine Steps (1978), the RSC's 1996 film production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Woody Harrelson's live-action film Lost in London, in which he played a mystic cabbie, and Mike Leigh's Peterloo, concerning the Peterloo Massacre.

In 2017, Gillespie published the first volume of his autobiography, Are You Going to Do That Little Jump?, with the title drawn from a moment in Terence Rattigan's Harlequinade referring to the act of upstaging. A second volume, Are You Going to Do That Little Jump? The Adventure Continues, followed in October 2021. Alongside the second volume's publication, he launched an online archive of his career called Little Jump.