By Richard Tearle
Sir Godfrey Seymour Tearle was a British actor who portrayed the quintessential British gentleman on stage and in both British and US films...
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| Godfrey Tearle as MacBeth with Diana Wynyard.
Photo: Angus McBean used with kind permission
of the Royal Shakespeare Company
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The 'spiritual home' of the
entire Tearle family lies in a little village in Bedfordshire called
Stanbridge. Anyone bearing that name
even today has roots there and so we are all related in one way or another. So
Godfrey Tearle was my relative though I cannot determine exactly how distant a
relationship it would be.
No grand titles or high born family connections for we Tearles:
Agricultural Labourers for the most part, right up to the 20th
Century. Some of them helped build the London and North Western Railway from
Leighton Buzzard to London.
Some were soldiers, like Godfrey
Tearle's grandfather, George, who served in the Crimea War. He was a Stanbridge
man. His son, also George, was born in Plymouth, however, and was immediately
taken by a life on the stage. He changed his name to Osmond Tearle, found
success in America as well as the UK and was famous enough to turn down acting
with Beerbohm Tree – the finest of his generation. That would have repercussions
later, but is another story.
Osmond married Marianne Conway,
herself from an acting family and it was a second marriage for both of them.
Marianne already had a young son from her first marriage to jazz player Jules
Levy. When their first son, Godfrey, was born in 1884, Frederick Levy was his
half-brother. Frederick would later change his name to Conway Tearle and was a
suave silent movie matinee idol.
The family returned to England,
settling in Penrith, near Carlisle where
the boys went to school. Godfrey got a call to stand in for a sick child
playing Prince Richard (the one murdered in the Tower) in the Shakespeare play,
Richard III. He was nine years old.
Osmond was what was known as an actor-manager, in that he not only performed
but had his own company, travelling around and putting on plays. Godfrey joined
his father's company and took over when Osmond died in 1901. In 1908, Godfrey
co-starred with his then wife, Mary Malone, in Romeo and Juliet at the Lyceum Theatre in London. The performance
was filmed, the first such example in England.
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| “Like this?” |
Godfrey, having given up the
company, worked with Beerbohm Tree but the latter made life uncomfortable and
it was not a happy experience for him.
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| Postcard of The Garden of Allah – with camels! |
In 1915, Godfrey joined up with
the Royal Horse Artillery, seeing action at Paschendeale and may have been
wounded. But he came out of the war and resumed his acting career, triumphing
in The Garden of Allah on stage playing the tortured priest who has to
choose between God and the woman he loves. The play was a huge success despite
the fact that on the opening night, the audience were showered with pease which
were being used to simulate a sandstorm. Unfortunately, someone forgot to lower
the specially constructed mesh curtain – the audience took it in good part,
however. The play also featured live camels on stage.
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As Othello
Photo: Angus McBean used with kind permission
of the Royal Shakespeare Company
|
Godfrey's forte was Shakespeare
and he took the lead on three occasions at Stratford, starring in MacBeth,
Othello and Anthony and Cleopatra. This latter he took on tour to
America but without his Stratford leading lady, [Dame] Edith Evans. Katherine
Cornell took that part in the states and one young actor in the cast would find
fame as Charlton Heston. So impressed was Godfrey that he wanted to bring
Heston to Stratford but Equity vetoed it. Godfrey confided that “Cleopatra has to be a bit of a slut and
whatever you say about Edith, a slut she is not...”
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As Anthony with (Dame) Edith Evans as Cleopatra
Photo: Angus McBean used with kind permission
of the Royal Shakespeare Company
|
Godfrey also made many films,
though sadly, he is rather overlooked in this too. He was cast as the evil Professor Jordan in Hitchcock's
original classic, The 39 Steps. He played the rear gunner in the cult
film One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing and was cast as President Roosevelt
in The Beginning of the End, a film about the creation of the atom bomb
used on Hiroshima. He also made a cameo appearance as the steam loving Bishop
Ollie in the wonderful Ealing comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt. This was
his last film as he passed away following a long illness in 1952.
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| Movie poster and... |
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| ... The Titfield Thunderbolt |
He was married three times – to
actresses Mary Malone and Stella Freeman and, following Stella's early death,
to Huntley and Palmer's heiress, Barbara Palmer. That marriage, as with Mary,
ended in divorce and he spent his final years in the company of the young
actress Jill Bennett, whom he met when she was cast in his production of MacBeth at Stratford. He had no
children and confided to Jill that he did not wish any children of his to
suffer the same life as he had led, continuously uprooting their lives to
travel around the country or even further afield. It was another relative of
mine who contacted Jill Bennett and persuaded her to write the book 'Godfrey:
A Special Time Remembered' which, although inaccurate in some areas, is a
wonderful tribute to the man.
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| Cover of Jill Bennett's book of memories of Godfrey |
All in all, he was a wonderful
actor, the possessor of a rich, mellifluous voice and highly respected by his
contemporaries – he was actually nicknamed 'God' by his Stratford colleagues –
and he was universally approved to become the first president of the then newly
formed actor's union, Equity, though he said that he would stand down once they
were admitted to the Trade Union's Council. A man of his word, this he did. It
was for this service that he received his knighthood.
Many years ago I had the honour
and pleasure to speak on the telephone to Sir Donald Sinden, well known for his
stories involving actors, and he told me this lovely tale:
Godfrey and some of his friends
were in their club and one of them was so drunk that he could not possibly be
trusted to find his way home. Godfrey, being sober, offered to drive the chap
home, but Godfrey could not make out what the man was saying when he asked him
his address. Finally he thought he had
it and drove to a place in south London but could not find the road. “Lords”
declared his friend, “I can get home from Lords!” So Godfrey turned the car
around and drove all the way back and then on to Lords Cricket ground (in north
London). Once there he turned to his friend and asked, “How do you get to your
home from Lords?”
Came the reply: “By Tube ….”
Godfrey Seymour Tearle : 12 October 1884 - 9 June 1953 (aged 68)
Partial filmography
The Fool (1913) - Sterndale
The March Hare (1919) - Guy
A Sinless Sinner (1919) - Tom Harvey
Fancy Dress (1919) - Tony Broke
Nobody's Child (1919) - Ernest d'Alvard
Queen's Evidence (1919) - Adam Pascal
Salome of the Tenements (1925) - John Manning
Guy of Warwick (1926, Short) - Guy of Warwick
If Youth But Knew (1926) - Dr. Martin Summer
One Colombo Night (1926) - Jim Farnell
These Charming People (1931) - James Berridge
The Shadow Between (1931) - Paul Haddon
Puppets of Fate (1933) - Richard Sabine
Jade (1934, Short) - The Man
The 39 Steps (1935) - Professor Jordan
The Last Journey (1936) - Sir Wilfred Rhodes
East Meets West (1936) - Sir Henry Mallory
Tomorrow We Live (1936) - Sir Charles Hendra
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) - Sir George Corbett - Rear Gunner in B for Bertie
Tomorrow We Live (1943) - Mayor Pierre Duchesne
Undercover (1943) - Gen. Von Staengel (Military Governor)
The Lamp Still Burns (1943) - Sir Marshall Freyne
Medal for the General (1944) - General Church
The Rake's Progress (1945) - Colonel Robert Kenway
The Beginning or the End (1947) - President Roosevelt
Private Angelo (1949) - Count Piccologrando
White Corridors (1951) - Mr. Groom Sr.
I Believe in You (1952) - Mr. Pyke
Mandy (1952) - Mr. Garland
Decameron Nights (1953) - Ricciardo / Bernabo
The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) - The Bishop (final film role)
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