Stringer Davis

James Buckley Stringer Davis was born on 4 June 1899 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, the son of George William Davis, a Bank of England clerk, and Ethel, daughter of J. Buckley Deakin of Prince's Park, Liverpool. The name Stringer derived from a paternal great-grandfather, Miles Stringer of Effingham Hill, Surrey, whose daughter Adelaide married William Davis of Well Close, Brockworth, Gloucestershire, where the Davis family were landed gentry. Among his relatives was Admiral Sir William Davis, who served as Vice Chief of the Naval Staff from 1954 to 1957. Davis was educated at Uppingham School, an independent institution where he also received military basic training. In August 1918 he volunteered for service in the First World War, reaching the front as a lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment, and was discharged in September 1919, roughly ten months after the war's end. Following his parents' separation shortly after his return, Davis lived near his mother's house in Reading, Berkshire, in a boathouse on the River Thames.

Davis pursued two distinct careers across his lifetime: one in the military and one in acting. He began his theatrical work as both an actor and director with the Oxford Repertory Company. In 1930 he met Margaret Rutherford for the first time, when she was still largely unknown. His screen debut came in 1938 in the BBC television live drama Charles and Mary, in which he played George Dyer. When the Second World War began, the forty-year-old Davis set aside his acting work to volunteer once more, serving as a lieutenant in the East Yorkshire Regiment and later as part of the British Expeditionary Force in France. He took part in the Battle of Dunkirk and was among the soldiers evacuated on 4 June 1940, subsequently completing tours of duty in North Africa and Northwest Europe before leaving the army near the war's conclusion.

Davis returned to acting after the war and appeared on Broadway from 1947 to 1960, with credits including Farewell, Farewell Eugene and The Importance of Being Oscar. In 1948 he received a Tony Award for Outstanding Foreign Company. His film career resumed with Miranda in 1948, a production that also featured Rutherford, and over the course of his career he appeared in more than twenty films alongside her. In later years Rutherford made it a contractual condition that Davis be given a role in any film in which she was cast. This arrangement led to his recurring role as the mild-mannered librarian Mr. Stringer in the four Agatha Christie adaptations featuring Rutherford as Miss Marple in the early 1960s, beginning with Murder She Said in 1961 and continuing through Murder at the Gallop, Murder Most Foul, and Murder Ahoy, all released between 1963 and 1964. The character earned favorable notices. Among his other film appearances were The Happiest Days of Your Life, Curtain Up, Reach for the Sky, I'm All Right Jack, and The V.I.P.s, in which he played a hotel waiter.

Davis and Rutherford married in 1945 after a courtship of fifteen years, she being 53 and he 46 at the time. His mother's strong opposition to the match had been the principal reason for the lengthy engagement, and the couple wed only after her death. Throughout their marriage Davis remained a constant presence whenever Rutherford was working, and he cared for her during the long illness that followed her diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease. Rutherford died on 22 May 1972 at the age of 80. Davis died peacefully in his sleep in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, in August 1973, fifteen months after his wife. Both are interred in the graveyard of St James Church, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire.