Richard Johnson (actor)

Richard Johnson
Richard Johnson, c. 2008
Born	(1927-07-30)30 July 1927 Upminster, Essex, England, UK
Died	Chelsea, London, England, UK
Years active	1950-2015
Spouse(s)	Sheila Sweet (2 children) Kim Novak (1965–1966; divorced) Marie-Louise Norlund (1 child) Lynne Gurney (2004-2015; his death)
Partner(s)	Françoise Pascal (1 son)

Richard Keith Johnson (30 July 1927 – 5 June 2015) was a British actor, writer and producer, who starred in several British films of the 1960s and also had TV roles and a distinguished stage career. His last known film appearance was in Radiator (2014).

Early life and acting career

Johnson was born in Upminster, Essex, the son of Frances Louisa Olive (née Tweed) and Keith Holcombe Johnson. Johnson went to Felsted School, then trained at RADA and made his first professional appearances on stage in Manchester with John Gielgud's company in a production of Hamlet in 1944.

He served in the Royal Navy from 1945 to 1948, and made his film debut in 1959, when he appeared in a major co-star role in the MGM film Never So Few, starring Frank Sinatra and Gina Lollobrigida. Subsequently he was contracted by MGM to appear in 1 film per year over 6 years. His biggest successes as a film actor came with The Haunting (1963) also featuring Claire Bloom and Julie Harris, Khartoum (1966) with Charlton Heston and Laurence Olivier, and the spy film Danger Route (1967). Johnson was director Terence Young's preferred choice for the role of James Bond in the first film in the series, but Johnson turned the role down. A few years later, Bulldog Drummond was reimagined as a 007-type hero in Deadlier Than the Male (1967) and its sequel Some Girls Do (1969).

He also appeared in several Italian films, including Lucio Fulci's cult classic, Zombi 2 and Sergio Martino's L'isola degli uomini pesce (aka Island of the Fishmen). At the same time, he was a stage actor, appearing in the title role in Tony Richardson's production of Pericles, Prince of Tyre in 1958. His stage career was extensive and distinguished. His early work in the London theatre attracted the attention of the director of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. He appeared in many important productions at that theatre in the late 1950s and early 1960s, making notable successes as Romeo, Orlando in As You Like It, Pericles and Mark Antony in Julius Caesar.

In 1958 he appeared in Peter Hall's first production at the theatre, Cymbeline, and the following year in Twelfth Night (as Sir Andrew Aguecheek). Hall took over the direction of the company in 1959 - it was renamed the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), and he invited Johnson to be part of the first group of actors to be named an Associate Artist of the RSC, a position he retained until he died. He continued to act with the RSC from time to time, including as Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, which he played on two occasions (in 1971–72, with Janet Suzman, and in 1991–92). He played the role in ITV's production in 1974.

He continued to appear on film and television in the first decade of the 21st century. His films during this period included Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. He also appeared in several TV films: in 2005 he appeared as Stanley Baldwin in Wallis & Edward, in 2007 as Earl Mountbatten in Whatever Love Means, and in 2009 in Lewis. He contributed to British episodic TV, including Spooks, Waking the Dead, twice in Midsomer Murders, and twice in Doc Martin (as Colonel Gilbert Spencer). From 2007, he led the cast of the BBC's radio comedy series Bleak Expectations which ran until 2012.

Other work

Throughout his career Johnson continued to teach young actors and students. He toured American universities and taught summer schools at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). He was appointed to the Council of RADA in 2000, and served as a Council Member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in the 1970s. Johnson wrote the original story for the 1975 thriller, Hennessy.

Johnson founded the British production company United British Artists (UBA) in 1981, and served as the company's CEO until 1990, when he resigned in order to resume his acting career. During his tenure at UBA he produced the films Turtle Diary (starring Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley, with a screenplay commissioned from Harold Pinter), and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. In London, he produced Pinter's Old Times, a revival of Serjeant Musgrave's Dance (Old Vic), and for theatre and television, the docudrama Biko, about the death of Steven Biko.

Johnson wrote travel articles regularly for the London mass-circulation newspaper The Mail on Sunday. He kept a blog and teaching website called The Shakespeare Masterclass.

Personal life

By his first marriage, to Sheila Sweet, Johnson had two children, tabletop games designer Jervis Johnson (b. 1959) and actress Sorel Johnson. His second wife was American actress Kim Novak, with whom he appeared in the film The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965); they had no children. He also had another daughter, Jennifer Johnson, by his third wife, Marie-Louise Norlund, and a fourth child, Nicholas Johnson, by Françoise Pascal. Johnson then married Lynne Gurney on a beach in Goa, India, in 1989, following this with a discreet civil wedding at Kings Road, Chelsea in 2004.

Johnson was the founder of It's a Green Green World, a global listing of environmentally friendly hotels.

Death

Johnson died on 5 June 2015, aged 87, at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea, London.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1951	Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N	Macrae	(uncredited)
1951	Calling Bulldog Drummond	Control Tower Operator	(uncredited)
1953	Saadia	Lt. Girard
1959	Never So Few	Captain Danny De Mortimer
1963	Cairo	Ali
1963	80,000 Suspects	Dr Steven Monks
1963	The Haunting	Dr. John Markway
1964	The Pumpkin Eater	Giles
1965	Operation Crossbow	Duncan Sandys
1965	The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders	Jemmy
1966	Khartoum	Col. John Stewart
1967	Deadlier Than the Male	Hugh Drummond
1967	The Rover	Real
1967	Danger Route	Jonas Wilde
1968	Oedipus the King	Creon
1968	A Twist of Sand	Geoffrey Peace
1968	The Column	Tiberius
1968	Emma Hamilton	Horatio Nelson
1969	The Fifth Day of Peace	Captain John Miller
1969	Some Girls Do	Hugh Drummond
1970	Julius Caesar	Caius Cassius
1974	Beyond the Door	Dimitri
1975	The Cursed Medallion
1975	Hennessy	Inspector Hollis
1976	Take All of Me	Richard Lasky
1976	Aces High	Lyle
1977	The Four Feathers	Abou Fatma
1978	The Comeback	Macauley
1979	Island of the Fishmen
1979	The Great Alligator River	Prophet Jameson
1979	Zombi 2	Dr. Menard	Released as Zombie in USA
1979	A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square	Inspector Watford
1981	The Monster Club	Busotsky's Father
1985	Turtle Diary	Mr Johnson
1985	What Waits Below	Ben Gannon
1986	Lady Jane	The Earl of Arundel
2001	Lara Croft: Tomb Raider	Distinguished Gentleman
2006	Scoop	Mr Quincy
2008	The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas	Grandpa
2014	Radiator	Leonard
2015	The Man Who Knew Infinity

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1952	Pride and Prejudice	Mr Wickham	3 episodes
1953	The Heir of Skipton	John Lord Clifford/Henry Clifford	3 episodes
1973-74	Moses the Lawgiver	Narrator	Voice
1974	Antony and Cleopatra	Mark Antony	TV movie
1975	Churchill's People	Claudius	Episode: The Lost Island
1975	Space: 1999	Lee Russell	Episode: Matter of Life and Death
1977	The Four Feathers	Abou Fatma	TV movie
1988	A Man for All Seasons	Duke of Norfolk	TV movie
2005	The Robinsons	Hector Robinson	6 episodes
2008	Spooks	Bernard Qualtrough	4 episodes, released as MI-5 in USA

External links

• Richard Johnson at the Internet Movie Database